The Next Right

OR-1: David Wu won’t read bills or answer questions about them

David Wu melted down at a townhall in Oregon when asked why he won’t read the health care bill or the cap and trade bill. Watch it here:

Congressman Wu meets Samurai Mom from WashCoGOP Oregon on Vimeo.

Wu managed no coherent response. That isn’t totally unusual for him. I was in the House chambers for the Medicare vote, when I worked for Nick Smith. There were many strange things that night. But one of the weirdest was Wu’s behavior. David Broder reported (pdf) that a fellow member of the House described him as "almost catatonic."

But hey, why be able to read or explain a bill that he thinks is one of the most important ever, right?

H/T NWDigest.

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By Soren Dayton, ago

PA-GOV: Fumo’s corruption creates opportunities for GOP

In March, I wrote about the GOP opportunities that follow from the conviction of South Philly machine Democratic State Senator Vincent Fumo. The recent news of Democratic corruption out of New Jersey (mayors, rabbis, and body-parts, oh my!) and the emerging consensus that this fundamentally damages Jon Corzine’s already difficult re-election, when combined with outrage at farcically light sentencing creates real opportunities for Republicans.

Let’s go over the facts and see how much this helps Pennsylvania Republicans in 2010:

1. Pat Meehan, one of the Republican candidates for Governor got the initial indictments against Fumo. Tom Corbett, the other one, has his own story to tell about indicting Fumo and his operation. If Chris Christie ends up winning in New Jersey, there will be a ready-made media narrative comparing New Jersey to Pennsylvania.

2. That narrative will be a little emphasized because southern New Jersey is almost entirely in the Philadelphia media market. It will be non-national political news relevant to both parts of the the Philly media market.

3. Corruption is the sort of thing that suppresses Democrat-leaning independent turnout in formerly Republican suburbs in Bucks and Montgomery countes, and, to a lesser extent, in Chester and Delaware counties. And the South Philly turnout operation that Fumo was so effective at selling is probably somewhat reduced in effectiveness. Democrats can’t win statewide without huge margins out of southeast Pennsylvania. You couldn’t build a better script for reducing those margins.

Grab the popcorn. This will be fun to watch.

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By Soren Dayton, ago

Obama’s new rule: When the math doesn’t work, reject math and shoot the messenger

We now have a pattern on our hands. When the math behind Barack Obama’s health care plans doesn’t work, Obama attacks math. Now, he doesn’t do it directly. He gets Peter Orzsag to debase his intellect for Obama’s political ends. First, he did it with the IMF score. Then this week he pressured the CBO scorers early this week after their math provided defeat after defeat to his healthcare dreams. And then this weekend, Orzsag has attacked Doug Elmendorf, the CBO director.

Case 1: The IMF. At a G-20 meeting earlier this year, Barack Obama came away empty-handed. The only success was to send money to the IMF. $100b. This wasn’t going to pass on its own, so they attached it to the Supplemental that paid for our troops. And claimed that $100b leaving the treasury costs nothing. According to the Politico, Orzsag had a totally unprecedented meeting with the OMB scorers putting political pressure on them to cook the books. Only a little comment at the time. Oh … and no one bought Orzsag’s nonsense, and the amount became a focus of attention as a bailout of European banks.

Case 2: CBO Whitehouse meeting. Earlier this week, the President meant with the Director of the CBO. According to Jake Tapper, there was a lot of pushback against the unprecedented nature of the meeting:

Said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky: "I noticed that the CBO director was sort of called down to the White House yesterday. It strikes me as somewhat akin as the owner of the team asking the umpires to come up to the owner’s box."

McConnell said that "if the CBO is to have credibility, they’re the umpire. They’re not players in this game."

CBO is tasked with providing “objective, nonpartisan, and timely analyses to aid in economic and budgetary decisions on the wide array of programs covered by the federal budget.”

Case 3: Keith Hennessey puts it nicely, "CBO Kills the President’s Medicare Comission Proposal". You see, the CBO found that Obama’s great plan to limit costs was to create a commission only saved $2b. One half of one percent of the total cost. So what happens? Orzsag goes after Elmendorff in all but name:

A final note is worth underscoring. As a former CBO director, I can attest that CBO is sometimes accused of a bias toward exaggerating costs and underestimating savings. Unfortunately, parts of today’s analysis from CBO could feed that perception. For example, and without specifying precisely how the various modifications would work, CBO somehow concluded that the council could "eventually achieve annual savings equal to several percent of Medicare spending…[which] would amount to tens of billions of dollars per year after 2019." Such savings are welcome (and rare!), but it is also the case that (for good reason) CBO has restricted itself to qualitative, not quantitative, analyses of long-term effects from legislative proposals.  In providing a quantitative estimate of long-term effects without any analytical basis for doing so, CBO seems to have overstepped.

What is going on is crystal clear. The CBO is not caving to extended political pressure. After weeks of Pelosi "scolding" and Baucus aides "expressing frustration" it has come to open attacks on the CBO, its director, and the institution’s integrity.

Well. I have to say, finally Barack Obama is bringing change I can believe in. Chicago-style change.

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By Soren Dayton, ago

ID-01: Not all McCain staffers hated Sarah Palin

Much has been written about the fights between Sarah Palin and John McCain’s campaign staffers. Apparently not all of them.

Palin’s mother-in-law and father-in-law both gave to Vaughn Ward, a candidate for the first district of Idaho.

Now, Vaughn would have had a lot of contact with Palin. He was the McCain state director in Nevada, a swing state where Palin spent a bunch of time. And Palin grew up in Idaho, so she might have seen a little bit of herself in him. Or maybe like her son. He is an Iraq vet and a Major in the Marine Corps Reserve.

This could also be a preview of what Sarah PAC looks like.

Just a thought.

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By Soren Dayton, ago

Indiana budget in surplus

Most state budgets are in crisis. The Big Picture’s Barry Ritholtz notes that state tax revenue has fallen sharply the last two quarters. The left wing Center for Budget and Policy Priorities notes that "[a]t least 48 states addressed or are facing shortfalls in their budgets for the upcoming year."

Not Indiana. Under Mitch Daniels’ leadership the state reported a $1.3b surplus. The State Auditor Tim Berry noted that they even raised school funding:

Berry stood in front of charts Friday that show Indiana increased school funding, avoided a tax hike, and maintained a surplus of about 10%. […]

"Measures that were taken early on by Governor Mitch Daniels to restrain spending have amounted for a large amount of these fiscal reserves," Berry said.

The Louisville paper notes that tax revenue was even down $1.2b below projections:

The state had $1.33 billion in its main checking account and reserves when the fiscal year ended June 30. That’s roughly the same as one year ago, even though state taxes brought in $1.2 billion less than originally projected.

How’s that for successful governance? No wonder there is a draft movement for Mitch Daniels for President.

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By Soren Dayton, ago

One measure of Mitch Daniel’s successful Republican governance

Last weekend, I was in Indiana for the Young Republican National Convention. I had heard a little bit about Mitch Daniels, the Republican governor who was re-elected wtih over 60% of the vote in 2008, even though Barack Obama won the state. In Indianapolis, he even got over 20% of the African American vote.

So I started digging around on his governing record. I was pretty astonished by this one. Daniels has actually been shrinking government. They have a little over 30,000 public employees right now. That’s the lowest number since 1983.

You might notice the sharp decline that started in 2004 when he took over.

Rich Lowry recently noted what a bad hand he was dealt, and how he has turned it around.

When Daniels took office, Indiana had an $800 million deficit. He turned it into a $1.3 billion surplus (although it will be eaten into in the current downturn). Since 2005, he’s saved roughly $450 million in the state’s budget and reduced the state’s rate of spending growth from 5.9 percent to 2.8 percent. "I tell you with certainty," Daniels told his Washington audience, "concern about the debt and deficit has not gone out of style."

No wonder people are talking about this guy for President. He has actually run something successfully.

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By Soren Dayton, ago

How Obama failed on cap-and-trade and consequences for health care

Early coverage of the Cap and Trade bill has focused on the successes of Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, although I noted that it was also a success for conservative movement groups.

However, focus is beginning to shift. Maybe they didn’t get what they wanted? The New York Times’ John Broder notes that various groups lobbied the hell out of it. He focuses on the utilities:

The biggest concessions went to utilities, which wanted assurances that they could continue to operate and build coal-burning power plants without shouldering new costs. The utilities received not only tens of billions of dollars worth of free pollution permits, but also billions for work on technology to capture carbon-dioxide emissions from coal combustion to help meet future pollution targets.

By not auctioning these permits, Obama lost a huge amount of money for his earlier proposals. Donald Marron notes that this totals about $600b in revenue that this bill didn’t create.

Now think about what Joe Lieberman said yesterday about the health care bill…

Lieberman cited the cost of a public plan as his primary beef with the plan.

"Part of my concern is that, and this goes to the…growing national debt, that inevitably if we create a public option, the public is going to end up pay for it and that’s a cost we can’t take on," he said.

If Obama had come out of this cap and trade debate with an extra $600b, the healthcare debate would look a lot — A LOT — different.

As the scope of the deficit becomes clearer and the political salience of it rises, the cap and trade bill may look like an increasingly poor deal for America, but also the rest of the Obama agenda.

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By Soren Dayton, ago

The successes of the anti-cap-and-trade movement

I was struck on Thursday and Friday of last week by the extent to which activists on the right were deeply engaged on the Cap and Trade bill that narrowly passed the house last Friday.

The thing is, the media has not played this issue up. The same week that the House voted on the bill, President Barack Obama held a prime-time townhall on healthcare. Even the conservative media was mostly engaged primarily with the healthcare debate. Obama and the Democrats played and won the media cycle war.

But the conservative groups, especially Americans for Prosperity, and conservative blogs like Redstate and others kicked in. From both Republicans and Democrats, we heard about enormous call volume coming into the House. This provided a robust whip-like mechanism.

Activists understood that they were the difference between this bill passing and not.

Now the fight moves to the Senate. Already, we see Obama caving on key provisions of the deal that kept protectionist Democrats together. It is hard to see how the Democrats find the votes, especially when they need full support from the Midwest to keep their caucus together.

And next time, it is hard to see how the issue is kept under the radar. The American people will be much, much more deeply engaged.

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By Soren Dayton, ago

Iran: Being on the side of the people

I am watching MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Joe Scarborough is going off the rails by mischaracterizing John McCain’s statement to the Huffington Post. McCain said:

"I know what side I’m on," McCain cut in. "I’m on the side of the people. I’m not on Ahmadinejad’s side or Mousavi. I’m on the side of the Iranian people and I’m on the right side of history. And I’m not going to walk on the other side of the street while people are being killed and beaten in the streets of Iran."

This seems clearly the right answer. There is plenty of evidence that Mousavi is a thug. It is clear that Ahmadinajad is … bad.

But you can be on the side of a process that empowers the people with honest elections.

McCain’s point is that President Barack Obama called people getting beaten up and killed in the streets an "robust" "debate".  Obama has no instinctual interest in defending human rights. This fundamental problem for Obama and much of the left was nicely characterized by EJ Dionne earlier this week in the Post.

That’s something to be outraged about. Both sides are going off the rails on this issue.

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By Soren Dayton, ago

Where are the stories of tax fights?

The left-leaning Center for Budget and Policy Priorities released a report discussing tax increases. (H/T Derek Thompson at the Atlantic)  They found that 36 states either have or are considering tax increases. Here’s the picture:

Several observations on the list.

California and Florida budget fights have gotten national attention. For California, it was a bunch of ballot initiatives failing. In Florida, Governor Charlie Crist broke tax pledge by signing a number of tax increases, and this has become a rallying cry in the Senate primary. 

Six states with Republican governors who are looking at their future are on the list of states that have done nothing. In Minnesota, Governor Tim Pawlenty is clearly looking at running for President. As are South Carolina’s Mark Sanford and Alaska’s Sarah Palin. Indiana’s Mitch Daniels has been put out there and is being considered by some. And Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal and Texas’s Rick Perry (looking at a primary)

But what I want to know about is the state legislators that are fighting this stuff. Who are the articulate state legislators who are going on the radio and local TV, rallying against these tax increases. Those leaders are redefining the Republican party. They are rebranding the Republican Party by their actions. And they may be winning some of these fights.

Let’s hear about them.

 

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By Soren Dayton, ago