No, but his next one will probably pay much better.
Here's a summary of the deal announced on the Senate floor. The bill would:• Reopen government and fund it through 15 January 2014.• Push the debt ceiling deadline back to 7 February 2014.• Appoint members of a budget conference committee to join the House in trying to pass a budget and end the cycle of standoffs.• Institute an anti-fraud provision in Obamacare requiring government to confirm financial need of the recipients of health subsidies.Abject surrender?
All the way through the 15th of January! Debt ceiling back to the 7th of Feb! Can't wait to do all this again!
2: Has Boehner actually agreed to put this to a vote?
2, 3: That's the question isn't it. Do we now just have to accept that a debt ceiling/government shutdown crisis every 3 months is the new normal?
If so, we're going to have to officially declare the U.S. a failed state.
2: The anti-fraud provision means that the Republicans can at least claim to have extracted concessions. Hopefully, it's minimal enough to not motivate them powerfully to keep on doing this the next time. But I don't have much confidence in that.
does Boehner keep his job?
Would anybody else even take it?
6.last: The office responsible for that class of official declarations has been furloughed.
If so, we're going to have to officially declare the U.S. a failed state
Oh, I did that years ago. I guess some people might not consider a thought in my head an official declaration, but who cares about those people anyway?
requiring government to confirm financial need
I don't quite understand what this is. Is it not just determined by the previous year's tax return?
Boehner keeps his job because the crazies are a minority of the House GOP. Also some of them will vote for him because he gave them what they really wanted, which was a chance to grandstand against Obamacare, knowing full well they can't repeal it.
But he's already gone back on his word once, for the original clean CR at Republican levels deal. So I'm not going to believe it until I see it.
Has anyone written a good article about the logistics of removing a speaker? I'm really confused about it. Is there an automatic speaker election at the beginning of next year? How can you force a new election?
8: Well, there's me. Also every single member of the House of Representatives. I could use the extra money -- they're all just crazed power-hungry fools.
11: It's going to be a meaningless extra layer of harassment.
7: Hopefully, it's minimal enough to not motivate them powerfully to keep on doing this the next time.
I'm not sure it's fruitful to game out what will motivate or demotivate the GOP. They're going for all of it, all of the time. It's one of the few things you can really count on nowadays.
I keep hoping having a job where I might be furloughed or have funds cut abruptly every few months is going to be fantastic preparation for industry, where layoffs might happen every three months. It's so depressing that it's hard to get excited about Dems' not managing to lose while holding a winning hand.
Except they aren't going for much of anything right now. They really seem to have thrown in the towel on this fight.
Migrating from the other thread, von Wafer raised these questions.
You know, I'm not even sure this was entirely about Boehner wanting to keep his speakership -- though I think he will now. Apparently during the 1995 Gingrich-led shutdown, Boehner was a nay-sayer.
Anyway, yeah, the question where the money men stand is important. Where's Ted Cruz's money and backing coming from? His wife is teh rich, no?
Heritage Action's disposition: there was something not long ago about Heritage being disinvited from some Republican/conservative forum. I'm not recalling the circumstances: something to do with Republicans being pissed off that Heritage was in the habit of strongly advocating for or against this or that, then taking the opposite position when it came to "grading" Republicans on their votes.
Um, FreedomWorks (Dick Armey's one-time outfit) is apparently on the verge of bankruptcy. Karl Rove is against the current embodiment of Tea Partiers. Grover Norquist, of all people, is disgusted. So as far as I've noticed, all the monied backing is coming from Heritage Action and the Koch Brothers (Americans for Prosperity, but I think that's not all) are it.
"They are a majority party that wants to be a minority party," the Senate Republican aide said of the House GOP. "This is not how a majority party acts. [...] They showed they would rather be in the minority than have to deal with a Democratic majority in the Senate and a Democratic president."
12 He didn't just give them a chance to strut and posture about O-care, but something much much more valuable: being sold out by the RINOs.
If Cruz was really as pure as he wants the nuts to think he is, though, he'd be withholding consent to shorten debate.
Can we get 'sold out by Cruz' into the mainstream of whackjob thought?
11: Is it not just determined by the previous year's tax return?
We had a brief discussion about this in the last few days, but I'm not finding which thread it was in. The income you provide for calculation of your ACA subsidy eligibility is supposed to be your 2014 projected income, which for many people is an educated guess based on previous years' income/tax returns. As I recall, Stormcrow provided a link to something specific on what income verification (or confirming eligibility, or confirming financial need, however you want to put it) probably means. Charley Carp said he'd received a letter from HHS asking for some clarification on the figure he'd provided. I can't find the thread at the moment.
requiring government to confirm financial need of the recipients of health subsidies
This is a good long-term strategy to make beneficiaries hate Obamacare. One of welfare's longtime vulnerabilities was the resentment of clients having to continuously prove poverty.
I don't quite understand what this is. Is it not just determined by the previous year's tax return?
Parsimon is right in 22, but the real concession has nothing to do with the actual income verification for the subsidies. It's that the IRS will be required to devote a significant amount of additional effort to this work, without being given additional resources with which to do that work, so they'll have even fewer resources to go after any genuine tax fraud. (And they already have far too few.) That's the "concession" the Republicans won.
Is there a rule saying the Speaker has to be a member of the majority?
If the Democrats were in a similar situation, we'd probably have heard about the possibility by now.
Well, 23 is probably right as well. So it's win-win for the Republicans. In exchange, the Democrats get... public anger at the Republicans for intransigence lifted before it becomes too painfully acute? Maybe a win-win-win for Republicans. What did Democrats get again? (Don't say avoiding financial catastrophe. We agreed we weren't bargaining over that.)
25: The Speaker doesn't even have to be a member of the House of Representatives. They could elect Pauly Shore if they wanted.
This is a good long-term strategy to make beneficiaries hate Obamacare.
Depends how they implement it. Wouldn't be hard to render it innocuous if they want to.
26 is a completely baffling way to describe the flailing of the nincompoops currently winding down. Did you think the 2012 election was largely a win for republicans, too?
30: I've been impressed at how quickly various progressive bloggers started crafting a narrative in which this whole debacle is somehow a win for the Republicans.
I know that progressives are addicted to gloom and doom, but honestly...
30: I think the bills to extend the debt ceiling and to fund the government should have been clean bills, with no concessions to Republican extremists. It doesn't matter that they were (relatively) minor concessions. Did Democrats get anything in exchange for those concessions? Anything at all?
33: It's certainly not a win for progressives or Democrats.
33.1: Post-traumatic political loss disorder.
33: That the whole debacle was a win for the Republicans? No, it's been a disaster for them. Who says otherwise?
23, 24, 28: I'd had the impression that income verification (which means nothing, realize, since it is unpossible to verify income which hasn't yet been earned) could only be on a random selection model, just as the IRS doesn't audit every single person, but sort of randomly selects those who fit certain patterns. You'd just want to avoid matching certain patterns, I imagine, in order to avoid HHS audit, just as you do with IRS.
But 23 and 24 are right: this is to force HHS to expend additional efforts toward something they're not funded for, which is to hamstring HHS and make more citizens hate Obamacare.
"The United States is in danger of becoming a failed state."
-- Peter Temin, The Rise and Fall of Economic History at MIT.
Who says otherwise?
Not Lindsey Graham:
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said this had "been the best two weeks for the Democratic Party in recent times". "When we evaluate the last couple of weeks it should be entitled the time of great lost opportunity. If we had been focused on the roll-out of Obamacare and its confusion, public support would have diminished. Instead, our numbers have gone down, Obamacare has mysteriously gone up and other than that this has been great."
Yggles is with Urple on this. And I find myself worrying that they're right.
34: Did Democrats get anything in exchange for those concessions? Anything at all?
An agreement to argue negotiate over the way the sequester continues to roll out in its second year, in 2014.
I don't think it's a "win" for anyone except in the very short term but I don't think it will inflict her significant damage on the Republicans in the 2014 election.
38: Wait, is the income verification to be performed by the IRS or by HHS? I'd read IRS.
Yggles asks a dumb question.
And the reality will be that the strategy of sticking with the majority-of-the-majority principle until the eleventh hour and then passing bills with mostly Democratic votes is securing policy concessions from Democrats. So why not do it all over again?
Because the Republican Party is significantly less popular today than it was a month ago?
On the verification, I do not know that it is more than reversing in law a rule change announced in July to use a statistical sampling for verification (I thought after the fact, but could be wrong) just like is done with income taxes via audits, to "verification" for everyone. But some of that is from Amanda Carpenter (now on Cruz's staff!) is claiming (she is bemoaning that the "concession" is basically making Obama enforce the existing law). So that is probably 180 degrees wrong.
So, yeah, just an attempt at ratfuck, and we will have many Issa-esque hearings from now through 2016 on how "they" are giving away your hard-earned tax dollars to "them."
42 cont'd: Paul Ryan's going to take over for the House Republicans now.
45: That's why I'm worrying rather than definitely agreeing. I see what you mean, but has doing things that make Republicans generally unpopular slowed them down in the past?
Can we get 'sold out by Cruz' into the mainstream of whackjob thought?
Let's not, please. The more Ted Cruz is perceived by everyone, including the whackjobs, as the standard bearer for the GOP, the better.
I don't think it will inflict her significant damage on the Republicans in the 2014 election
Me either. America has the attention span of an ADD toddler with a corn syrup IV drip. They will all be screaming about the newest Benghazi/IRS/Syria-style bullshit.
48: I have no idea, but if this can do anything to shift gubernatorial races in Ohio and Wisconsin, I'll be happy. PA is, I think, nearly certain to flip back.
If they didn't want to at least preserve the option of going down this road again in the near future, they'd have extended the deadlines beyond early 2014.
46: "verification" for everyone
Oh please. How is that possible?
urple: Is it HHS or IRS? I don't know. Is it important?
has doing things that make Republicans generally unpopular slowed them down in the past?
Yes?
So the reinsurance thing was not in the final?
Anyhow, the biggest reason for possible optimism (as opposed to just relief that the world economy didn't blow up) is that the Democratic caucus stayed unified and got at least some success from a "not putting up with bullshit" strategy. The biggest reason for pessimism is that somehow the lesson becomes "you can cut a deal with Susan Collins and purportedly moderate Republicans" which then leads to the great entitlement-cutting spending-cutting bargain of 2014.
51: Sure looks that way. If it doesn't, I'll ritually consume some headgear.
41: God, Yglesias is annoying.
the upshot here is that Republicans put the country through a lot of drama and suffered a lot of public opprobrium and bad poll numbers in order to extract an extremely minor concession
The country "went through a lot of drama"? Is that all it was? Nobody lost a significant amount of income? This was basically just drama? Bleh Yglesias.
I'd maintain that Democrats have made inroads toward the "fuck you, being held hostage is a no-go, you asshole" perspective. It may take another round or two of holding a similar line, another round or two of Republicans making dreadful, petulant faces, but I do think this has to be put to an end, and this was a start.
has doing things that make Republicans generally unpopular slowed them down in the past?
Prop 187 made them so unpopular in California that they won't recover for the foreseeable future.
You know, we were all agreeing that California was a failed state four years ago. But three years of supermajority Democratic government seems to be fixing a whole lot of that.
I don't watch the Daily Show much anymore, but a friend linked to this on Facebook and I thought it was hilarious. It captures my mood on this rather well.
56: Yes, the only semi-wobbly Senator I recall was Manchin form time to time, and then there were the 7 House Dems who voted for the potentially shutdown-enabling House rules change (not clear if it ever became a real factor).
Were I a senior ranking member of the Democratic caucus charged with heading up the next stage of negotiations (not saying I am, not saying I'm not) I would come to the Republicans and say "okay, our starting position is we roll back the sequester completely and maybe add some transportation funding", because what are they going to do, shut the government down again? Good luck with that, numbnuts.
Now, I'm not saying this will happen, but saying that the democrats will fail to take advantage of the extraordinarily massive leverage boost they have just gained by means of letting the republicans shoot themselves in the face for a couple of weeks is not the same as saying that leverage boost is nonexistent, which is the frankly totally baffling tack that I wonder if I'm mistaken to impute to various people in this thread because really?
59.3: Is it? I haven't heard much about what the Democratic supermajority has achieved. (Probably because the lack of political crisis has made California fall out of the news.)
62: Leverage for something that will happen three months from now is very much too intangible for me to consider it a victory.
the great entitlement-cutting spending-cutting bargain of 2014
This was always already the worry. The current bullshit hasn't made a Grand Bargain more likely. Quite the opposite, actually, though I still fret, when I'm alone in the dark of night, that Obama wants such a bargain to be his legacy. But fortunately such worries either are or aren't founded in reality! And I have no power regardless! Hurrah for powerlessness!
Raised taxes, expanding abortion access, revised CEQA to promote infill, doing a good job on implementing Obamacare. That's off the top of my head.
I gotta go, but it is pretty pleasant to read the news these days.
It won't happen three months from now. It will allegedly be done by three months from now.
Also, 59 is completely right. The list of improvements is pretty remarkable, including more funding for education, expanded abortion access*, a serious ACA ground game, etc.
* A totally underreported story.
And I'm pwned. Whatever. I have to go perform an abortion.
67: So far, all this has done is get back to the deal Boehner said he was willing to make last month.
67: Sifu, you're a parent now, so you should understand. Those wacky kids won't start working on it until the night before it's due.
70: he said he was willing, but that was bullshit.
||
I'm proctoring my first exam. Sure is nicer than having to take it.
|>
70 -- Yes, and when the *baseline* is "let's get back to the funding levels we had before we shot ourselves in the foot with the sequester" it's hard to cheer too much. I mean, I'm not saying don't cheer at all, and I certainly agree that this hasn't made grand bargain 2014 more likely -- if the lessons learned are "Democrats stick together" and "no more bullshit" grand bargain 2014 is less likely. It's just that it's hard to be super thrilled about being on a reasonably shitty course as opposed to an insanely shitty one.
Again, as I've said before, the GOP is in such a state of complete disarray that I can't imagine how anyone can predict what might happen next week, much less in a few months' time. Maybe new and effective leadership will emerge! Maybe not! But the fact that McConnell has to run against a lunatic in KY; Cruz, Paul, and Ryan all have serious presidential ambitions; and Boehner is a broken man being propped up by who knows whom doesn't bode well for the party or anyone's predictions.
72.1: Right, which is another thing I'm worried about. This current "win" hasn't even passed yet.
72.2: Be sure to wear gloves.
I think the baseline is the funding levels *after* the bullet-footed sequester, isn't it?
76 -- you're right, that will be the actual realistic starting position. I was thinking of Tweety's "opening bid" in 62, where the best one could hope for was to undo the moronic self-inflicted sacrifice that the Dems made.
After seeing the crowds against Obamacare and the polls about it, at least I feel better about fucking over old people.
Okay, rewrite 62 where the opening bid is funding of social programs at inflation-adjusted 1971 levels plus a constitutional amendment fully funding all rail transportation projects, outlawing fracking, and mandating pies in the face for the Koch brothers. The point is the leverage, not the mythical negotiating position I was starting with.
I still find 78 more reassuring the 79.
62.1 sounds right to me. The Democrats start with a rollback of the sequester, then a modified rollback, then a bunch of bargaining *to importantly include* revenue increases in exchange for various changes in the nature of the sequester. Back where we started two-some years ago, but that's alright, because as things have stood in the last couple of months, renegotiating the sequester had been off the table.
I see on preview that people are questioning this opening bid on the part of Democrats, but I don't know: I was honestly quite surprised that Dems reintroduced sequester funding levels as an issue in the last few days. Good.
3 months is *way* not enough time to iron this out, unfortunately.
So, despite being furloughed, I spent the past two weeks working on a paper, and now it's submitted (yay!), and I'm exhausted (ugh!), and while I think it's a great idea to not default on the US government's debt, I could actually use a few more days of government shutdown. I'd settle for some youtube videos of Tea Party Congressmen getting punched in the groin, though.
Also, since I'm trying to follow the money, the ThinkProgress live blog shares that FreedomWorks has joined the Club for Growth (along with Heritage Action) in opposing passage of the Senate bill. ThinkProgress might not be the only people reporting this, but I like their live blog.
It's good to know who the other guys are. Basically all libertarians, right?
Not really. Heritage is Jim DeMint. That's just straight-up tea party/conservative.
What drives me nuts about the sequester is that as I understood the purpose of the deal initially, both sides were supposed to regard it as a fate worse than death -- it was supposed to hit Republican priorities as hard as Democratic ones. Now, it seems to be just exactly what the Republicans wanted all along. Was the Administration suckered, or are the Republicans wincing in pain but saying "I meant to do that", or did their preferences change unpredictably, or what?
I assume the answer is that the Administration was suckered, but I haven't seen much discussion on that point.
I think the answer is that, insofar as the administration believed that the GOP cared about anything (other than power and transferring ever more money to the party's paymasters), it got suckered, yes.
Depends on the Republican. Some of them genuinely want defense spending cut along with everything else. Also, as we wind down two large overseas wars, it just isn't that painful to reduce military spending from its current sky-high level. If that's the price to screw over the poors and the coloreds, that's a fantastic bargain.
My lunch meeting may be standing me up, which would be a windfall of time. When can I leave? 15 mins? Or do I have to wait longer than that?
88: Is this the woman you're performing the abortion on? In that case at least a 1/2 hour.
87 gets it right. The republicans who are voting for the deal in the house don't like the sequester, and the ones who have been pushing this whole mess are happy with the sequester.
Anyone want to predict how many republicans will end up voting yes in the house tonight? I wouldn't be surprised by it being extremely close, no one wants to get primaried.
And if it was to have been a more traditional working lunch? In that case how long do I have to wait?
92: Five minutes for an assistant professor, ten minutes for an associate, 15 for a full professor, and 20 minutes for a dean.
66, 69: Also the minimum wage is going to go up to $9 next year and $10 in 2016.
Is John Boehner a Genius for Preventing a Debt Default? -- headline in Slate, of course.
That may be the silliest use of the word, "genius", since my mom called me a genius for pooping in the toilet.
This is my favorite "the sequester is stupid" story so far:
These days, the Federal Public Defender's Office in Tucson, Ariz., has lots of space. Since the federal budget cuts known as sequestration began, the office has lost a quarter of its staff to layoffs or furloughs.
Under the Constitution, clients still need legal representation, so judges have to appoint private attorneys to replace the public defenders.
The sequester was supposed to save money. But in this case, the sequester is costing federal dollars.
In Arizona, using private attorneys costs the government about 25 percent more than using public defenders -- that's about $6 million a year. In other places around the country, the difference can be even greater.
To the OP and the discussion over in the meetup- thread:
House Democrats reached out to Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) about two weeks ago to tell him they'd give him cover from a potential tea party uprising if he helped pass a deal to avoid a debt crisis and keep the government open, according to a report by David Corn of Mother Jones.But so far does not look like he will need it. Recall that rule #1 of any hostage situation--don;t believe anything anyone says during it.
Cruz is spinning it as a "remarkable victory*" until spineless Senate Repubs caved. Also $1.2M in Ted Cruz PAC money for someone nominally not running for re-election until 2012.
And that was a remarkable victory, to see the House engage in a profile in courage.
87: Right, but I must say I don't understand why there was, at some point, a Republican rider (in House, in Senate? don't recall) to any bill to reopen the damn gov't and approve a debt ceiling increase that insisted that sequester-level spending could not be creatively apportioned. The rider said that sequester spending cuts MUST be across the board. Why would someone insist on that?
The Republican moderates will get primaried, says Tim Conway, appearing in "Dorf On Congress."
85 - That's unfair to the Republicans, who have evinced a deep commitment to keeping the tax burden on the rich unconscionably low and limiting women's reproductive choices.
Where's the $1.2M in Ted Cruz PAC money coming from, JP?
You might be able to tell that I haven't been reading the news today
Let's not overlook the possibility that Obama engineered this crisis to distract people from the ACA rollout bugs.
103: From lots of people, small to mid-size donations--the speech was the apparently the big draw. Your man in Washington (with a gold-plated Goldmann-Sachs health plan through his wife) standing up to the Man to protect you from having any of your tax money going to help black people either have or not have babies.
The Democrats also won insofar as the roll-out gaffes of ACA did not dominate the news cycle for the past two weeks. It's kind of mind-boggling that the Republicans squandered that so decisively, out of sheer ACA hatred.
Changing directions slightly: when you increasingly impoverish the people, when you make the lower 50% fight over crumbs, when you control the food and resources and make it seem as though resource allocation is a zero-sum game, you are not only going to get, but you have deliberately engineered, this kind of endgaming.
David Frum, a conservative disaffected from the Republican party, recently spoke to this.
Why are American politicians playing so rough? We have moved into an era of scarcity. Once it seemed possible to have the spending Democrats wanted, financed at the tax rates the Republicans wanted, while paying for sufficient national security and running bearable deficits. That sense of expansiveness is gone. The trade-offs between Obamacare and Medicare, between spending and taxes, suddenly seem acute, imminent, and zero sum. These disputes are not merely economic. As the United States becomes more ethnically diverse, debates over fiscal priorities inescapably become conflicts between ethnicities and cultures.
I do not agree with Frum's concluding statements, specifically these: "when the pace of demographic change slows so that economic disagreement does not also become ethnic conflict; when the tax burden is more broadly shared so that high earners don't feel that all society's costs fall to them--then things will quiet down." It's as though he hasn't noticed that painting this as a zero-sum game in the first place is the problem.
The point, though: when you immiserate the people and control the food and other resources, yes, you're going to engineer a populace at war amongst itself.
(1) Some of the popular orators say that offices should be assigned by lot, but their opinion is not the best. (2) Suppose someone should question the man who says this as follows: Why don't you assign your household slaves their tasks by lot, so that if the teamster drew the office of cook, he would do the cooking and the cook would drive the team, and so with the rest? (3) And why don't we get together the smiths and cobblers, and the carpenters and goldsmiths, and have them draw lots, and force each one to engage in whatever trade he happens to draw and not the one he understands? (4) The same thing could also be done in musical contests: have the contestants draw lots and have each one compete in the contest he draws; thus the flute-player will play the lyre if that falls to his lot, and the lyre-player the flute. And in battle it may turn out that archers and hoplites will ride horseback and the cavalry-man will use the bow, with the result that everyone will do what he does not understand and is incapable of doing. (5) And they say that this procedure is also not only good but exceptionally democratic, whereas I think that democratic is the last thing it is. Because there are in cities men hostile to the demos, and if the lot falls to them, they will destroy the demos. (6) But the demos itself ought to keep its eyes open and elect all those who are well-disposed towards it, and ought to choose suitable people to be in command of the army and others to be the law-officers, and so on.
107:That will come on strong now (the back-end issues are in fact important and going to take some time to get through), and it will be the techno-liberal weenies who will be the enablers on that one*.
*And yes, in a world where you would be allowed to have a sensible roll out, you probably would have staged it very differently in terms of browsing and learning before registering and enrolling etc. (or do pilot states first, or various different schemes). But any attempt at that would have been "yet another delay." Why we can't have nice things #2,364.
It would help me cope with the current dismal state of things if the GOP would start pushing some really awesomely insane space policy, like blowing up the moon or Christianizing Mars.
110: And some are "rightly" pointing out that some of the issues are structural and due to complexity baked in, and "I told you so", and "why can't we have single-payer", and "wah, wah, wah". To which I say, maybe shut up for a bit; everyone trying to help get something better than the current system knows this.
Shorter 99: Ted Cruz cannot fail, he can only be failed.
To which I say, maybe shut up for a bit
It's worth reminding people there are better, saner options out there, and saying "I told you so" is one of the few joys this world offers progressives.
I mean, I can't say "I told you so". Of all the problems I expected the ACA to have, 404 was not one.
I didn't quite catch this the first time around, but this is interesting:
The surrender terms negotiated by Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell have an interesting provision, which would change the way Congress votes on the next debt-limit increase:
The plan includes a proposal offered by McConnell in the 2011 debt ceiling crisis that allows Congress to disapprove of the debt ceiling increase, which means lawmakers will formally vote on whether to reject a debt ceiling increase until Feb. 7. Obama can veto that legislation if it passes. If Congress fails as expected to gather a two-thirds majority to override the veto, the debt ceiling would be raised.
If that's confusing, the gist is that it changes the mechanics of the vote to make failure nearly impossible. Instead of needing Congress to approve a debt-ceiling increase, Congress has to override an Obama veto in order to prevent it. So now it would take a two-thirds vote to trigger the kind of terrifying failure that before could have been triggered by a 50 percent-plus-one vote.
That mechanism would utterly defang the debt ceiling, returning it to its historical place as an opportunity for ineffectual posturing rather than extortion. Alas, it only applies to the next debt-ceiling vote. But Democrats hope that using this method this time will set a precedent that eases the way for Congress to make it a permanent procedure. It seems unlikely to happen anytime soon, but the groundwork is being laid to one day lock up dangerous weaponry lying around the American political system and prevent future crises.
115: It's worth reminding people there are better, saner options out there
Oh, is it? Holy fuck shit, anyone who is going to interpret that message the way you want is already goddamn massively aware that this compromised system is a stinking piece of shit. But a far better piece of shit than the current piece of shit and anything that you or billmon are liable to be able to get in place anytime in the next decade. But, gee yeah, thanks for reminding us. Pretty helpful. We might have all forgotten and fallen in love with it.
I had sex with Obamacare and I really regret it.
118 -- that is super interesting, and if it's true, I feel happier regarding this as a totally unambiguous victory.
118: I didn't notice that either. That's better than I thought.
118: If that's real and I'm understanding it correctly, go, Harry, go!
115, 119: What the hell is going on in this dialogue? This new yet compromised system is less than optimal, but it's a hell of a lot better than the current system. If Eggplant's "I told you so" is supposed to be an exercise in the perfect being the enemy of the good, well yeah, we know some of you feel that way.
118.last: Wow, yes, I missed that too. That is potentially pretty big. What a changed dynamic for the next increase which should a treated as just a footnote unless the Cruzoids try to make thing of it. But to which everyone can and should legitimately say, "Yeah? What're you going to do about it?"
Also, for your amusement, this just appeared in my Facebook feed:
"Well it looks like I'm leaving the Republican party. The whole point of the shutdown was to defund Obamacare not worry over the debt ceiling. now the Senate has taken the power of the purse away from the House, in violation of the Constitution, and made a compromise that gives away everything the House was fighting for. I'm done."
1st comment: "The GOP has been dead for a long time. The puppet corpse of the elephant has served one purpose and one purpose only... to be the scapegoat for the progressive, eugenic authoritarians. The people fighting this the most, have been marginalized and ridiculed by the very people their policies would save. The dependent class believes they have achieved their Utopia and now the EBT and entitlement programs are being defunded. Welcome to the Night of Long Knives."
2nd comment: "The GOP has been scared of a fight since Reagan left office. The last govt shutdown let the gain seat in the Senate. Isn't it obvious that the base wants people who will fight? I'm kinda starting to believe in an Illuminati."
127.1: Is that a confused reference to the idea that revenue bills have to start in the House?
Which is possibly the most trivial question anybody ever could have pulled from that feed, but never mind that.
129: I could spend all day copying and pasting the confused references to budgetary procedures that my high school acquaintances have bandied about over the past few weeks.
If I compiled it into a book, it would be a goddamn shame that the title Confederacy of Dunces is already taken.
Yea. I'm thinking my self-imposed FB exile should last another week or more.
Ohhhh. My. I don't see that kind of commentary often. It's good to be reminded that people are operating in that spectrum.
If Eggplant's "I told you so" is supposed to be an exercise in the perfect being the enemy of the good
Its not.
I hope JP stops by to let me know when it's safe to defend socialized medicine again.
121: Oh, am I coming off a bit over the top? Wait until I get some time tonight for the other thread....
Actually I've successfully navigated the first 50%+ of the big, significant self-inflicted clusterfuck as of this Monday in a way that makes the course of action I am on irreversible; but need to finesse a couple of other points that can still unravel the full thing if someone had it in for me. I'm leaning heavily on personal relationships and hard-won organizational credibility gained over the years, and stretching from Perth to Samara to Quebec to Sao Paulo. It's the charm that gets them.
133: Oh, I'm pretty amused by watching the exploding heads right now. It's kinda like the utter and genuine shock they all expressed when Obama was re-elected (except better because they don't have the consolation prize of the NC Democratic Party being annihilated), because Pauline Kael et cetera.
The ONLY argument I have heard from any Republicans defending the people they voted for is the "power of the purse" argument. If you consume Republican media, you believe that everything the Republicans do is perfectly fine, probably better than fine, and if it is slightly questionable then at least we know the Dems do it all the time and the MSM never complains when the Dems do it.
In this case, the MSM is making a big stink over the basic principle of the "power of the purse", under which Congress gets to decide what things the government does, and then Congress gets to allot how much money is spent on anything, and the executive and judicial branches have no say in anything. This is the way the government has always worked, and only now are Obama and Harry Reid trying to mess things up by this unprecedented attempt to unilaterally change the rules and refuse to negotiate.
136.last: It's stimulating! But so utterly stupid and unnecessary! "Procrastination Man" sung to the tune of "Danger/Secret Agent Man."
139: I love those moments when I do some virtuoso lawyering under intense pressure, and am momentarily feeling good about myself, and then recall that I wouldn't have had to do anything difficult at all if I hadn't dug myself into a hole for no reason to begin with. Same sort of thing?
138: Yes, this line must be getting pounded on Fox News because holy cow am I reading it over and over again.
I was reading the first half of 136.2 as being about signing up for Obamacare, until I got to I'm leaning heavily on personal relationships, at which point this seemed a bit overwrought and handwringy if it was about signing up for health insurance.
Calling Obamacare 'self-inflicted' would be a little grandiose as well, no?
The origination clause has been ineffective nearly since the beginning, no? The Senate takes an inconsequential revenue bill from the House and "amends" it into something completely different.
131: The dipshittiest things on FB I read today about the debt ceiling were from a now law professor college friend and his (famous, bloggy, glibertarian) law professor friends. YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO YANK CHAINS, GUYS! NOT GET HIGH ON YOUR OWN SUPPLY.
Oudemia is FOAF with Gl-nn R-ynolds???
The one thing the internet has unquestionably --unquestionably -- taught us is that there are a lot of law professors who are utter idiots.
147: Some of us were clearly paying more attention in law school than others.
A realization like that deserves an exclamation point.
More 11 dimensional: Obama allowed just enough of a bone for Republicans (income verification) that they'll go through this again and again without ever actually getting anything substantial or breaching the limit but they'll eventually drive their own approval to single digits.
Plane just landed. Looks like good news?
140: Same sort of thing?
A little bit--I certainly have that with a lot of things where I can do most of the work myself. The part that makes this one difficult is that it involves communication with dozens of people which I am now doing in semi-stealth mode one at a time because otherwise I would publicly reveal how far behind I am, and in fact I have now basically acted on their behalf and so am currently getting them to agree with me to do what I have already done, and needing to execute semi-complicated contingency plans for the few who don't agree. Although doing this one the "right" way would almost certainly have ended up with a worst result for the overall organization and wasted even more of mine and everybody's time in boring back and forths. It was the thought of that which led me not to do it at the time (although was also legitimately busy) plus internet and stupid Republicans and baseball.
You heard the man, essear. Get to St. Louis.
135: Feel free to defend socialized medicine, my man. I'm all for it. But if right now you do it in a way that endangers the current baby steps (I know some disagree that it is even that) in that direction I will criticize with harsh words. And please feel free to harshly criticize back. We're all friends plus Halford here.
I don't know if I'll catch up with the thread, so I'll just say now that I don't quite understand the more leverage for Democrats talk earlier in the thread. The Democrats have more leverage if there's a shutdown threat, but the Republicans still have the House and still can filibuster and still can kill lots of things short of shutting down the government. I'm not saying the Democrats will squander things; I don't think there's much that's being gained aside from opening the government again for a while. I don't see big changes unless there's Democratic gains in 2014.
Somehow I feel like in the theoretical single-payer system, there might also be a government website developed by bloated government contractor companies, which a large number of people would have to sign up for.
British Columbia's health insurance website was pretty clunky. But there was barely any reason to use it once in the system.
One of the most worrying things to me was when I read that they are using Oracle identity management.
And of course Oracle is not deflecting one bit: "Our software is running properly," said Deborah Hellinger, Oracle's vice president for corporate communications. The identical software has been widely used in complex systems, she said. (Most of which involved massively slipped deadlines and months/years of stabilization she forgot to add. Holy Mother of God, what a choice for something like this.) and I suspect Oracle Fusion Middleware is stinking it up in there somewhere as well.
159: Not really in the same way. It's not like you have to sign up for the NHS.
OK, the UK is the parallel universe where things changed 60 years ago, not today. So we have he original sin of starting out with employer-based insurance which means the entire system will never be scrapped and reorganized.
But this same problem certainly would be happening if we had The Robust Public Option.
I actually think this might be all we get to talk about in the news for the next few weeks. And of course late/troubled software projects are always greatly improved by management attention. Folks like Jay Rosen (who I generally like) piling on to prove their tough.
The Robust Public Option is almost a world-class pseud.
No votes in Senate:
Coburn
Cornyn
Crapo
Cruz
Enzi
Grassley
Heller
Johnson-WI
Lee
Paul
Risch
Roberts
Rubio
Scott
Sessions
Shelby
Toomey
Vitter
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.healthcare.gov">
<html>
<head>
<title>Single Payer</title>
</head>
<body>
Yes, you're covered.
</body>
</html>
I think Felix Salmon has the right take:
The Tea Party doesn't take legislative defeat as a signal that it's doing something wrong: it takes it as a signal that nothing has really changed in Washington and that they therefore need to redouble their nihilistic efforts. Take it from me: come February, or March, or whenever we end up having to have this idiotic debt-ceiling fight all over again, the Tea Party will still be there, and will still be as crazy as ever.
Until they lose at the polls (or become convinced that they will), they're not going to repent. I don't get the sense that the general feeling on the far right today is that the GOP should never have tried this gambit. The general feeling is that they shouldn't have caved.
Actually, my one kid ran through the basics (down several what-if branches) and got all the right responses and pretty good response times.He will stay end up staying on his current COBRA plan.
There was a link in that comment. I guess html ate it.
This problem is magnified because all people who comment on the internet think that how a fucking website works is the biggest fucking thing in the universe. I mean yes they should have done a better job but I think many people are more into HAVING THE ABILITY TO BUY HEALTH INSURANCE AT ALL than they are mad at an annoying website problem. It's not a "failure of Obamacare rollout" it's a problem with a website.
With that said sure basic convenience details of how people interact with the government are important, but maybe not that important.
Let the record show I did 171 on my phone while petting a cat.
I agree with 166. I just want to push back against what seems to be the idea that one should hold off criticism from the left when there are real problems in evidence and there is criticism coming from the right.
Another significant concession that the democrats won: DC will be fully funded in the event of a shutdown next time.
172 is probably right. On the other hand, the Tea Party people are really, really pissed at the lamestreamstablishment RINOpublican traitors (and vice versa), and the Democrats should be huddling up right now and figuring out what issues would spark the nastiest fights inside the GOP caucus.
176.1: Is this the sex kitten or a preexisting cat?
Right, 172, which is probably true, isn't necessarily a defeat, especially if 118 is true. But it can be a defeat if Democrats want it to be.
I'll keep saying it: the GOP is as badly divided as a major political party has been in this country since the Dems blew to pieces over desegregation. Will they stay this divided? Who knows! Is there a huge opportunity for the Dems while the Republicans are this divided? Abso-fucking-lutely. (Have I spent my entire adult life watching Democrats piss away political opportunities? *sobs*)
I realize this has gotten me in trouble before, but 171 is, like, pretty stupid, you know?
176.22: Sure, but Halford has it right in 175, so much of it is done out of context. And in particular, this is the kind of thing if people were trying to make work you would be adjusting (in the private sector or public)--can't get all the way int through the web in time, at least register intent and there will be a catch-up period; waive the actual penalty year one if things persit, implement a paper back-up system (can you just print the forms?). Whatever--the kinds of things people do to make things work when . Instead we have seditionists in the actual legislative (and judicial branches).
179: Preexisting. If I adopt any more animals I'm pretty sure I'd need a new diagnosis.
Moreover, Ted Cruz isn't going anywhere. And neither is Rand Paul. This debacle didn't destroy the Tea Party All Stars. I mean, it hurt them with the party establishment but made heroes out of them with the rank and file 27% lunatics. They're going to become more aggressive, which is fantastic news for the Dems, particularly if it pushes them further to the left.
I'm intrigued by the CT thread but worry it will be all, "I could name that tuneprogram that web site in 7 seconds.
Someone at the GOP is doing some pretty sophisticated if reprehensible* structural analysis of federal, state, and local political systems to find the absolute minimum cohesion needed to still fuck things up without really moderating their policy views. I hope they can't hold out that way for much longer, but it could still be years.
*That whole two-tier state/federal voting thing, for example.
It was actually billmon in his pretentious jerk mode who blew me sky high on this topic earlier today. Taking false equivalence to places it has never gone before, he manged to tweet "You're slipping into the same partisan refusal to face reality that undid the GOP during Iraq occupation" during a discussion of the website launch.
I like the whole thing where government IT contracts are perfectly easy to manage well. Remember when the IRS spent 15 years trying to upgrade their internal systems and then eventually just scrapped the whole thing because it never worked?
Or the other thing where rollouts in rich blue states where the project had a ton of support generally went well, which is evidence of GRAVE DYSFUNCTION.
189: Exacerbated by coming so soon after Columbus Day, which is always a tough day for people who have heavy exposure to sanctimonious leftists.
Every year on Columbus Day, Twitter reminds me of the bewilderingly oblivious film critics who get outraged when "Enter the Void" or "Martha Marcy May Marlene" doesn't get any Oscar nominations. "What? Columbus Day still exists? Seriously? I'm madder than ever!"
190-191: Didn't NYC also have a HORRIBLE thing with some payroll software development that totally got fubarred?
for people who have heavy exposure to sanctimonious leftists. Che-lation therapy.
191: Right, the ones where you don't have to interface with the crappy systems of a bunch of late-declaring, basically uncooperative states*.
*For instance Missouri:
It has refused to create an insurance exchange [in fact they passed a law prohibiting an exchange -JPS], leaving the job to the federal government. It has forbidden state and local government officials to cooperate with the federal exchange.
Yeah, the number of people at all levels of government who were trying to actively sabotage this IT project... Ugh. Those poor bastards. And it sort of works and is improving! They should get medals.
Tweety, dude, if you're associating me with those views because of 171, it was just a dumb joke, as should've been made clear when I agreed with CN. If you're saying it wasn't funny, well, probably true. If you're going to continue being a prick, be clear about it. That's all I ask.
193: Pennsylvania just had a massive one with IBM on an unemployment compensation system: At the time of cancellation, the project was 42 months behind schedule, with a $60 million cost overrun, based on an original budget of $106.9 million.
I don't know them from Adam but I bet the DoD has some truly spectacular ITfails.
I cannot even imagine being the poor team responsible for those bids and contracts to create the site. Writing project requirements is bad enough, but wading through total charlatans and nonexistent companies that couldn't possibly deliver as specified while still taking low bidders is a nightmare. Plus, everything would be subject to awful scrutiny about their ethics and adherence to procurement rules.
I knew I'd get in trouble. Anyhow, no, redirect 182 to whoever had the dopey idea that rolling out single payer in this country would somehow be easier than building healthcare.gov was. Dumb HTML jokes I of course self-interestedly support
188: I bore even myself on the topic, but I really think having right wing hate radio and Fox News "normalize" within our media system is one of the key problems. Rampant and unflinching demagoguery bringing out the worst in susceptible demographics. I do not mean to "excuse" any of the individuals, but I often invoke our experience with my father. In early retirement with newly found time on his hands he began drifting into the Fox orbit; there were things that seemed to resonate with his Depression-era Wisconsin farm country followed by WWII service sensibilities. Not a great thing for sure--underlying bigotry for sure (and I clearly have some of that) that probably felt "natural", but we were able to mock him out of it (and got a 2008 Dem, and probable 2012 Dem vote to boot).
If we can establish a broad sense of shame and revulsion about folks lazily buying into that , I think you can knock them back to a much smaller audience and somewhat ameliorate their affect on the rest of the media.
So many old farts in that TV room alone with Bill O or Sean Hannity waiting to be rescued.
Here's a fun one: the software that manages maintenance and logistics for the F-35. Complicated, heterogenous, has to handle sensitive information, and it's shared (!) between the air forces of several different countries.
Was it the F16 that originally had a bug where it would flip over every time it crossed the equator?
203 rambling on: I realized only in retrospect that my father's father (there should be a term for that) really was a pretty reprehensible red-baiting bigot. And he was a very nice guy and pillar in his tiny community* who helped keep a lot of people above water. But that world was a constrained non-diverse one and he was hugely xenophobic; I'm sure he was a big supporter of Joseph McCarthy** for instance.
*And once again, many who grew up or lived in those environments evolved very different political views, not trying to make excuses. But I do struggle to come up with ways for older people to hold on to the "good parts" of their upbringings while jettisoning the bigotry (of course they think they *are* holding onto the good parts).
**Whom Ted Cruz bears an unseemly resemblance to along several dimensions.
The software developer inside me says "that's what fucking happens when software release dates get determined by politics."
Also 171 is stupid... its not even using HTML5.
Old farts also have an incentive to believe we are living in the End Times as prophecies by John of Patmos. Not much to lose!
I don't know them from Adam but I bet the DoD has some truly spectacular ITfails.
I don't know Eve either, but the ongoing (twelve year+) DoD efforts to make its electronic health records portable to the VA system...
I wrote "prophecied" twice and it changed it to "prophecies" both times. Usually it learns. In this case it should have learned that I really meant the D and instead it should have changed the C to an S.
206.1.last: many have noticed.
The F-22 Raptor got bit by the international dateline bug. The pilots were very lucky.
God, does the butthurt whining ever stop?
A single payer system in the US would use SGML. If we don't have our own DTD then the communitarians will have won!
213: That seems less whining and more straight-up racism.* Obama may be President of the US, but they have to make sure he also knows his proper place.
*Yeah, not really mutually exclusive.
205: Huh, I hadn't heard of that one, but apparently there was such a problem with an F-16 simulator.
Presumably the Brits have some existing single payer software that we could port.
Somehow software (pseudo-)design has become part of my job. It would be great if we had some more participation from the programmers who are, supposedly, going to build what we're trying to design.
What! I was told that the vote would be 10:30, and it's only 10:20. I demand some respect!
213: I'm quite certain that Obama did that intentionally, that he was saying, in effect, that they don't merit respect at the moment. Plus, he wanted to be on in prime time, which those whinging dickweeds know full well. God, somebody put the entire House GOP caucus (and Chuck Todd) to the flame and save this nation from ruin.
213: I guessed what that was before I even clicked. Tweeted by Chuck Todd showing why he gets the big bucks. One form earlier tonight: Surprised haven't heard anyone today, from either party, offer the country an apology or specifically, furloughed workers.
Remember kids; Both Sides Do It!
In much more interesting news, Cory Booker is now a US senator. And I find myself filled with sadness that a better candidate won't fill that seat. Oh well.
Was anyone watching the House. Is this accurate? House stenographer seized a mic on Speaker's rostrum and began yelling about God. Maybe she should start a PAC or an exploratory committee.
Let's fly to DC and kick Chuck Todd's ass, JP. Field trip!
224: 4th African-American Senator ever, racist.
House stenographer seized a mic on Speaker's rostrum and began yelling about God.
Sounds like Hunter Thompson's reportage.
I'm sure he will enrage on his coverage of the website rollout.
And remember; Both Sides Do It!
226: How long does it take you to recover from a flight that long given your amply chronicled anxieties? And can you even walk much less kick?
227: huh, I thought I was a misogynist for supporting Obama over Clinton. That said, I deprecate Booker for his pro-Wall Street, anti-labor, techno-triumphalist bullshit. He and Gavin Newsome are too peas in a rotten pod.
Pelosi is an historically good House leader.
are too
See, now you're just begging for someone to say "are not".
JP, watching Pelosi block Social Security privatization from even getting through the House back in 2004-2005, right after Bush's re-election, made me believe in the Democratic Party again.
234: that is not one of my usual mistakes. It's good to know that even at my advanced age and decrepitude, I can still expand my repertoire.
We need bob in this thread. Nobody else here is willing to think about how revolutionaries work, and therefore people are largely unable to understand how the Tea Party types continue to outsmart everybody.
Let's start out with the fact that the Tea Party is working in a democracy, and that its positions are fantastically unpopular. (What percentage of the American population is really in favor of crashing the economy out of spite? No more than 27%.
But they made a serious run at it, and as a result of their failure, they were forced to ... accept an income-check on Obamacare recipients.
It's true that they may take a political hit, but they may not - and when you've only got the crazy quarter of the electorate on your side, the game isn't really about opinion polls. It's about maximising your leverage.
And it's about rolling the dice. Youngsters won't remember this, but at one time, impeaching the president on transparently ludicrous grounds was unthinkable. Now, admit it, you find yourself wondering how Obama has escaped impeachment.
John Boehner - that fucking crazy right-wing asshole - is now a moderate. The boundaries of acceptable public behavior have moved.
When you are Ted Cruz or Osama bin Laden, you are dealing from a position of weakness, and so you've got to do things that carry a lot of risk. On the whole, I think bin Laden is pretty pleased with the geopolitical results of his terrorism - even if the personal consequences were severe. Whether Cruz will do as well remains to be seen.
And he was a very nice guy and pillar in his tiny community* who helped keep a lot of people above water. But that world was a constrained non-diverse one and he was hugely xenophobic;
Some of the older people where I work are like this. Well-meaning guys, but they have never gotten used to the fact that scientists and engineers aren't all white, male and American any more, and can be quite annoying this way. But sometimes I need to remind myself to look past that and see the other nicer aspects of their personalities. Lest I turn into a bitter curmudgeon (of whom there are also quite a few at work).
241: The trouble is their votes generally reflect their bad parts.
But sometimes I need to remind myself to look past that and see the other nicer aspects of their personalities.
Nooooo shun them.
Unfortunately my strategy of avoiding and generally being really rude to the racist, sexist guy I work with isn't really paying off because he's too oblivious.
244: Shunning them was my default response for a while, but I don't see how it's ever going to change anything. I think I need a better strategy.
Shunning really only works if you are otherwise an outgoing and effervescent person. If you barely talk to anyone for more than a minute a day, nobody will notice when you shun them. They will just think you're even more sullen than you are.
It's like how boycotting rarely does anything
You mean 4th directly elected, I guess?
247: Hmm. I believed someone on twitter...
House stenographer seized a mic on Speaker's rostrum and began yelling about God.
Updated: It's even less of a sop than that. On "income verification," the Senate deal requires only that the Secretary of HHS report to Congress by Jan. 1 on the "procedures" in place to verify eligibility for the subsidies, and by next July 1 report on their effectiveness.
I wonder if Corey Booker hates anyone as much as be hates Barack Obama. I sort of imagine him going to bed every night thinking "it was supposed to be ME"
251: That's kind of great in a "If it were happening in somebody else's country" sort of way.
254: The Senate wants to see you prove it. Or explain how you might prove it.
Sucker! They only want to know that procedures are in place that are going to allow them to make me prove it. While they dither, I'm taking this free health care on a joyride to Mexico!
While they dither, I'm taking this free health care on a joyride to Mexico!
There was a guy who used to park by my office with a bumper sticker reading "Gracias for the free health care Senor Obama." Maybe not exactly those words, but it was in Spanish, for the racism, and English, for the comprehension of the racists.
and began yelling about God.and began yelling about God.and began yelling about God.and began yelling about God.
God, and Freemasons! Wow.
That stenographer lady must have been high as a kite. The shear incoherence of it all was impressive.
Obama has signed the bill. The government reopens tomorrow.
The provision mentioned in 118 is a good sign, but it seems to apply to this debt ceiling increase, not the next one. That is, Congress gets a chance to voice its disapproval of the debt ceiling portion of the deal, which Obama can veto if it passes. (The quote in 118 is somewhat ambiguous about this, but TPM has the actual text of the deal and it seems pretty clear there.)
Why is the stenographer lady more frightening when you hear her voice than she would be if she had simply put it on an FB feed - is this a measure of our desensitisation to the crazy quotient of online?
Probably more a matter of the difference between perceptions of written and spoken communication, if anything.
Inability to hit deadlines is a common problem even for successful computer companies.
I think almost every version of Windows shipped years late. They added the 2000 to the name of Windows 2000 because the project was already 3 years late and they wanted to commit themselves to not being any later.
Apple spent years trying to develop a replacement for the original MacOS, until they gave up and bought NeXT.
265: but I can remember when crazy people online were shocking, too - in the age of dialup, before AOL, or however you want to measure these things.
I'm not sure I'd describe it as more frightening, but there's a significant difference between ranting on your private feed and ranting in the most public way possible when it might cost you your job.
The latter shows a disregard for social expectations and consequences that make me think she's in worse shape than the typical online nut.
I hope she's signed up for Obamacare, because she's certainly unemployed today, and I feel she might benefit from a medical intervention.
While singing "Amazing Grace" during legislative deliberations helps immunize you against a primary challenge if you are a Republican House member.
Ron Fournier goes full beltway:
Not quite so obvious is Obama's response. Faced now with the choice between partisan politics and a risky high ground, the president has an opportunity to leverage this "victory" for a long-term budget deal that raises taxes and tames entitlements. Obama won. Now can he lead?
They are really all just parodies of themselves at this point. Given the data, a motivated group of 10th graders could come up with the "entitlement/long term debt" solutions before lunch. Raise/eliminate the income cap on FICA tax, and move towards single-payer for health (there is a legitimate debate on whether ACA is an actual move in that direction).
But not enough SACRIFICE in the solutions in 273 to satisfy the ghouls in the political elite and the courtier press. They are mankind's enemies.
I fear that teo is right in 263. The language seems to allow the opportunity for symbolic votes against the current limit, but does not really protect the Feb. 7th one.
Not to be sexist, but WTF was the stenographer wearing? From this fuzzy picture it kind of looks like she was dressed like Madonna?
Or Mick Jagger at the Hyde Park concert, when he released the butterflies for Brian Jones.
276: From this video, that looks like a white shirt under a gray suit that just caught the light for a moment.
Whereas Jagger was wearing a grey shirt under a white suit, IIRC.
Everybody wants to be Jeremiah. Nobody wants to get thrown down the well.
263, 275 -- it's definitely ossible I'm missing something in either the statute or how the debt ceiling works but that's no how I'd read it on a glance; it looks to me like Chait is right. 1002(b)(1) extends the debt ceiling for obligations incurred as of, basically, now; 1002(b)(2) extends it after February 2014 to cover obligations incurred through 2014; there's also a disapproval process where Congress can disapprove both extensions, at which point they cut off (but the President can veto such a disapproval). I'd guess that Chait is right and that the default-extension unless overridden by Congress applies to the next round. But only for the next round -- for obligations incurred after Feb 2014 we're back to the old system where Congress has to approve an increase in the debt ceiling to fund obligations incurred after that date.
"Incurred through Feb 2014." Stupid phone.
I love the stenographer's rant. Depending on where she's from she could end up being the primary challenger to one of the Republicans who voted for the bill. The 28% eat that kind of thing up.
Is there anything preventing treasury from selling extra bonds while the ceiling is "suspended" (which I take to mean there's no limit until Feb) to provide a cushion of cash in the event of more Republican BS?
285 -- yes, i think so, debt issued can only cover existing obligations
I'm intrigued by the CT thread but worry it will be all, "I could name that tuneprogram that web site in 7 seconds.
FWIW, I thought the CT thread was interesting, and not notably obnoxious.
This whole thing also makes me feel much better about my own work.
282: What version are you reading? From the Senate site, I think this is the version as passed, and in it 1002(b) doesn't have any subheadings. (c)(1) seems to make the debt limit inapplicable through Feb. 7, and (c)(2) raises the debt limit to include all obligations outstanding as of Feb. 8. Then there's a "disapproval process" under which Congress can vote to halt the debt limit early, which rewrites (c). No reference to the fiscal year or to September 30th.
287: Yeah, I eventually read it, and found it uneven but quite interesting (with Alex being quite the cogent commenter).
Also, was it here that I say the best description ever of late software project?
||
"There are three kinds of people who claim to be centrists in this country today. There are embarrassed Republicans. There are lazy people. And there are liars. There is no fourth alternative."
|>
Different version, same result, I think. Ceiling suspended through Feb 2014. For obligations incurred between now and Feb 2014, the President can issue debt after Feb 2014 to cover those obligations unless Congress overrides a veto, which won't happen. So we only hit the ceiling once we've incurred obligations after Feb 2014 and no longer have enough cash to pay those obligations, so we wouldnt hit the ceiling and conceivably have to default in the "next" round but in the round after that. I may be missing something.
291 seems unfair, unless maybe I'm just misunderstanding its point. I would describe many moderate Democrats as "centrists". (The rest are more properly described as "conservative Democrats".)
292: Right, but since the debt ceiling is raised only as needed for obligations through February 7th, not thereafter, we would then need to breach the ceiling, juggle, or default for obligations incurred thereafter; this bill would do nothing to smooth that process.
I think when Chait said "applies only to the next debt-ceiling vote" he was looking at the vote sometime in the next few weeks that could, but won't, fix the debt ceiling in place, and thinking it was talking about the February vote.
The Politico paragraph quoted seems to have been edited to:
The legislation also includes a McConnell-written proposal that would allow Congress to disapprove of the debt-ceiling increase. Lawmakers will formally vote on rejecting the bump of the borrowing limit - if it passed, it could be vetoed by Obama.
Back to the OP, this may already have been covered, but it looks like Boehner will keep his job:
As House Speaker John Boehner prepares to take up a measure Wednesday night that is expected to pass with a majority of Democratic support, conservatives who have opposed him in the past say his job isn't in jeopardy.
"I've actually been really proud of Speaker Boehner in the last 2½ weeks," said Rep. Raul Labrador, who voted with several others in a failed attempt to overthrow the Republican leader in January. "I don't think Speaker Boehner has anything to worry about right now."
Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the former chair of the Republican Study Committee, said there is "absolutely no talk" of kicking Boehner out of his job....
In fact, the Kansas lawmaker defended Boehner somewhat by criticizing moderates in the conference: "It's pretty hard when he has a circle of 20 people who stand up every day and say, 'Can we surrender today, Mr. Speaker? Can we just go away? Can we make it easy?' Whine and whine. I wouldn't say a surrender caucus, it's a whiner caucus. All they do is whine about the battle as if they thought being elected to Washington was going to be an easy job."More ominously:
Those members conceded that the establishment wing of their party has won this battle, but promised to continue the fight against the health care law when the next budget deadline arrives. By then, "the Obamacare experience will be even more stark for the American people," Florida Rep. Ron DeSantis asserted.
Just an empty threat? I guess we'll wait and see.
I may be missing something, but I thought that the way government worked was that debt financing wasn't simultaneous with the incurring of obligations. That is, the government incurs various obligations, which come due at different times, and uses debt financing to ensure that it has cash on hand to pay those obligations as they come due. The current deal allows Obama to (a) suspend the debt "ceiling" as to all obligations incurred before now, meaning that we won't default on current obligations; (b) to raise enough debt to cover all obligations incurred between now and February 7, 2013. After February 7, 2013, the government can then keep paying the obligations it has with the cash it has on hand, and resort to the same measures it has used to keep paying its various creditors as its bills become due. It would have some cash on hand to do this for a while. At some point, though, it will hit a point where there isn't sufficient cash on hand to pay obligations without incurring additional debt. That's the deadline we were almost at now -- the October 17 deadline was not the day on which total funds appropriated exceeded total debt issued (which happened months ago) but was rather the day we stopped being able to pay cash obligations as they came due, and thus would have to default because of a lack of current cash on hand.
Under the new deal, if we can raise debt sufficient to cover (a) all obligations appropriated through now and (b) all obligations appropriated through February 7, we won't be defaulting on obligations on February 7. February 7 would not be the new October 17. Instead, at some point after February 7, maybe a few months later, we'll hit a time when the various incurred obligations have all come due and current cash is no longer sufficient to cover current obligations, and will thus be in risk of default again. That, future, date will be the new October 17. But unless I'm missing something the current deal is set up such that February 7 is not the new October 17, because the President can issue debt sufficient to cover all current obligations as of February 7.
By "next round" I thought that people meant the February 7 deadline. It looks to me like this measure pushes the crisis moment of default until sometime a few months after February 7, or the "next next" round.
It's totally possible that I'm missing something, I have no real familiarity or expertise with these issues.
Oh, okay, I see what you mean now. Yeah, we technically hit the debt ceiling months ago, but the Treasury was able to juggle around until 10/17. So if no action is taken in February, it will be some more time until the ceiling urgently needs to be raised, and hopefully by then the election will be close enough that the Republicans will quietly go along.
291: I'm cool with that as long as "lazy" refers to something broader than "don't pay attention to the news." There are plenty of people who don't like unions or ideological leftists , only want to spend government money on "things that work" (which includes putting lots of people in prison), are fine with environmentalism that doesn't mean changing their lifestyle, are not religious and want the ability to have abortions (but aren't particularly worried about this or that restriction), are pretty socially comfortable with different ethnicities but don't want to feel bad about making generalizations or offensive jokes, etc.
That is, I'd love to see a rerun of this just before the next election. If I thought it would break the GOP, I'd be tempted to hope they default. It would probably cause another financial meltdown and a downgrade in wages, employment, and living standards, but I think such an event is inevitable in the near future and it would be nice to have it clearly associated, once again, with Republicans.
Nate Silver thinks that the shutdown won't do any particular long-term damage to Republican electability.
http://www.grantland.com/fivethirtyeight/story/_/id/9802433/nate-silver-us-government-shutdown
Well, yeah. That's why I'm hoping for well timed, short term damage.
as long as "lazy" refers to something broader than "don't pay attention to the news."
My interpretation of that "lazy" is hand-wavey "both sides do it" sentiment.
My hope, which will obviously remain unfulfilled, is that fucking nothing like this happens again, because it sure does cause chaos when the government shuts down.
305 may or may not be influenced about the continuing uncertainty about when we can submit this $##@!$@#$ grant application.
Stupid Quora. Insists I gice them my Facebook deets if I just want to lurk. I refuse on general principal.
Both Sides Do It should be the sequel to Everyone Poops.
301 -- I think he's ignoring Tip O'Neill's dictum. Yes, Rep. Daines is still the frontrunner to replace Sen Baucus, but he's certainly going to have to answer for his conduct in this thing.
An important question is whether students and Natives can be induced to turn out in an off-year. And people fucked over by our legislature's refusal to expand Medicaid. I'm not saying it's a done-deal, but if we can get a good candidate, the shutdown will be part of a very pointed narrative.
309: Indeed, because I don't feel up to explaining fistulae to my kids without some accompanying text.
310: do you think the cattle die-off aftermath debacle will play in Montana at all?
I don't know how many MT ranchers were really affected. It'll be bipartisan anyway: Baucus is from a ranching family (and has fundraisers at the [vast] family ranch); Tester's a grain farmer, but obviously ranching isn't alien to him; and Daines is an opportunist.
Just in terms of real-world effects of the shutdown, I meant.
Activists in non-expansion states should be identifying people who've been turned down for assistance (like outside of federal exchange offices?) and getting the word out: "The legislature/governor says you make too little money to get health care."
Stupid Quora. Insists I gice them my Facebook deets if I just want to lurk. I refuse on general principal.
I just assumed that other people knew a workaround for that, but I remember getting their via a link that allowed me to read it without logging in. Let me check . . .
Ah, it looks like a direct link to the answer works better.
What frustrates me is that Quroa gets no penalty in Google searches for this bad behavior. Its basically no different than what Expert-Sexchange used to do, although it took a long time for Google to go after them.
That quiz isn't really fair, since so many of the answers in the one category were explicitly written to mimic the style of the answers in the other category.
I do think a good musical could be made out of this.
"I Could Have Talked All Night" -- Ted Cruz
"Ain't We Got Fun" -- Beltway Media
"Oh, Why Oh, Why Oh Why O, Did I Ever Leave Ohio?" -- John Boehner
"If We Only Had A Brain" -- House Tea Party Caucus
"Fame" -- Ted Cruz
"Park Ranger Krupke" -- Randy Neugebauer
"Somewhere over the Rainbow"-- American Public
"You've Got To Pick a Pocket or Two" -- Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, Mike Lee
"Don't Cry for Me, Mainstream Pundits" --John Boehner
"Tonight" --Senate, House, Obama
"Time Warp" -- All, 3 months later
Intro and outro: "Tears of a Clown"
315 -- Yeah, the problem hear is that it failed by one vote because a freshman Dem accidentally pushed the wrong button. I had thought that because this was just a procedural vote, it wouldn't have made any difference, but people much better plugged in than me tell me that i we'd won the procedural vote, there was a real shot at getting the thing done. We're going to have a ballot initiative on this in 2014, I think, which may well help fire up the people affected.
314 -- Tourist-serving businesses next to Yellowstone and Glacier got hit pretty hard. Those are staunch Republicans, but not generally of the fundie persuasion. The FS stalled on cancelling logging contracts -- they were supposed to order the companies to stop logging, and eventually did, but with time to comply -- so I'm not sure the feared shortage of timber in the mills will materialize. I suppose some Native programs were affected, though. And maybe if the good guys win this, we'll have a better electorate.
Also in today's issue of our weekly, this story about an upside of the shutdown.
Which is actually a pretty good idea in other red states that declined the expansion.
An old acquaintance on Facebook, whose normal output is prayers, motorcycles, support-our-troops, and the occasional pseudo-political misinformation about Congressional compensation, has just shared an Atlantic article naming and shaming the "32 Republicans who caused the government shutdown" and said he hopes this is remembered at election time. I take that as a good sign.
