Capitolism

Just Say: "I Screwed Up"

By Christopher Hayes

In my column, Never Say You're Sorry, I wrote about Gary Gensler, the Obama administration's nominee to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Yesterday the Senate Agricultural Committee held hearings on the nominee, and Laura Dean was there. She sends this dispatch:

"I will stand up and say I made a mistake," declared Rep. Kent Conrad, with a hard look toward Gary Gensler. "All of us need to ‘fess up." Conrad was referring to the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (of which Gensler was a vocal advocate) that mandated that credit default swaps remain unregulated and led in part to the current economic crisis.

Rep. Tom Harkin had tried a different tack earlier in the afternoon when he quoted Gensler's own testimony from May 18th 1999, "I positively unambiguously agree" with Larry Summers in opposing this regulation.

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February 26, 2009

The Draft Sirota Campaign Begins

By Christopher Hayes

There's been some pretty awesome grassroots mobilization around MSNBC's 10pm time slot, with Facebook groups devoted both to Sam Seder and Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks. Today Chris Bowers unveils the Case for David Sirota.

TV is an absurdly powerful medium. I've been seeing this first-hand for the last few months and still can't get over its reach. Having progressives on TV is really good for the nation's politics, and my friend David would totally tear it up.

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February 25, 2009

Update on DC Voting Rights

By Christopher Hayes

Greg Kaufmann, who's been following developments closely writes:

Don't count your 60 Senate votes before they hatch… Look, it definitely looks good. However, there are a couple things we still gotta watch out for: 1) poison pill amendments -- especially gun amendments which we don't necessarily have the votes to shoot down (no pun intended); 2) needing cloture to end the debate. Since we had 62 votes yesterday, odds are we could get 60 again. But here are three votes to watch: Republican Lisa Murkowski supported cloture yesterday but opposes the bill; Republican Thad Cochran voted against cloture last session and for it yesterday; and, finally -- a disappointment -- Democratic Senator Kay Hagan. She voted for cloture to bring the bill to the floor for debate, but her staff confirmed that she hasn't made up her mind on cloture to end debate in the event that it's necessary; nor has she decided whether to support the bill. Now is a great time for her to hear from her constituents -- tell her you appreciated her vote yesterday and you look forward to her supporting the bill's final passage.

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February 25, 2009

Voting Rights for DC!

By Christopher Hayes

Maybe. It looks like I might finally have a congressperson who can, you know, actually vote. The DC Voting Rights Act just passed cloture in the senate, 62-34. It would temporarily increase the size of the House of Representatives by two members, one for DC and one for reliably Republican Utah. (After the next census, the number reverts to 435, but DC is guaranteed one of those seats)

It just has to clear a senate vote this afternoon. Nothing's definite yet, but things look good. should be he law of the land fairly soon. Since the president is one record supporting it, would be signed into law shortly thereafter. This has been an incredibly long time coming and would be a very sweet victory for the residents of DC.

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February 24, 2009

This Week On The Hill

By Christopher Hayes

From Greg Kaufmann:

As a native Washingtonian, and one of the city's 600,000 current residents, for me this week is all about DC Voting Rights. We know that passing the bill that would finally give us a voting Representative in the House comes down to this: can we get 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a GOP filibuster? On Tuesday we'll find out. Sen. Harry Reid will attempt to bring the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2009 to a vote. Tell your Senators to support this bill which fell just three votes shy in the last session. One Democrat on the fence is freshman North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan. We need her constituents to tell her to get on the right side of history -- end taxation without representation for DC citizens.

Another huge happening in the Senate on Tuesday afternoon -- the confirmation vote on Rep. Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor. She's also going to need 60 votes to overcome the delaying, filibustering, fearful GOP which is terrified that she will support the Employee Free Choice Act.

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February 23, 2009

The Good News On the Stimulus

By adamh

So the stimulus is law. Whatever its shortcomings, there is a lot of good stuff in the bill. As just one example: my parents were visiting this weekend and the whole time my dad, who works in public health in poor neighborhoods, was receiving promising updates on  his blackberry about just how much potential funding there would be for some of their programs.

On the politics side of the ledger, Ben Smith notes Obama's emphasis on the tax cuts in the bill. I'm not necessarily a fan, though politically it's true that every single Republican member of congress can now be accused of "Voting against the biggest tax cut in history" come next election." Clearly, this hasn't escaped the White House's notice.

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February 17, 2009

About Those F-22s

By Christopher Hayes

Matt Yglesias, Matt Duss, and Robert Farley have all done a great job of critiquing this embarrassing crush note to the F-22 in the latest Atlantic.

But since I did some reporting on this for last week's column (behind the sub-wall), I figured I'd point out something that hasn't attracted the requisite amount of attention:

The first concrete test of the strength of the military lobby and its allies in Congress is the battle over the fate of the F-22 Raptor fighter jet. Military experts agree that the F-22 is outdated and unnecessary. As Gates has noted, not a single F-22 mission had been flown in either of the current wars.

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February 17, 2009

A Recap of Last Week's Action on the Hill

By Christopher Hayes

Courtesy of Greg Kaufmann:

"There are three Republicans in the Senate who are writing this policy," Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio complained about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. "They are more powerful than the president of the United States and the Congress combined."

The bill finally passed in the Senate on Friday night when Sen. Sherrod Brown flew in after his mother's memorial service to cast the needed 60th vote. So what exactly did Sen. Collins deign to allow in it?

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February 16, 2009

Stimulus Deal Reached

By Christopher Hayes

So it looks like the House and Senate have struck a deal on the stimulus package. The final figure is $789 billion, which, as many economists have argued is almost certainly too little.

Somewhat surprisingly, the number is smaller than both the House and Senate bills, and details are still a bit unclear about what was cut and/or put back in. From what I'm hearing some of the school construction money and a bit of the state fiscal aid made it back in, while the obscene $15,000 per person new home purchase tax credit was scaled back as were some of the Obama tax cuts.

I'm very curious to see if the House negotiators managed to get the green renovation of federal buildings put back in because that was one of the single most sensible items in the whole bill and Obama himself made a spirited and convincing case for keeping it in at his press conference on Monday night.

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February 11, 2009

Big Week Ahead on Capitol Hill

By Christopher Hayes

Crunch time on Capitol hill this week. Greg Kaufmann provides the low-down:

Recovery and TARP -- those are the cable news networks go-to issues this week….Dems want the recovery bill on the President's desk on Friday before a 10-day recess. But they have a tough road ahead after the Senate approves its version on Tuesday. Then come negotiations with the House -- and with the Senate providing $40 billion less in aid to cash-strapped states, $20 billion less in school infrastructure spending, and $100 billion more in tax cuts -- a fight looms. The Washington Post reports that President Obama "is interested in restoring support" for the education and state aid items. He's got a prime-time 8 PM news conference tonight -- maybe he'll reveal the non-flatearther Republicans that make him think he can restore those vital investments and still get 60 votes.

Timothy "Taxes" Geithner will explain the new TARP plan for the next $350B on Tuesday. Supposedly $50 to $100 billion will go towards helping homeowners, but according to the Post Administration sources say that part of the plan is "highly fluid" -- which is highly disconcerting. Geithner is also expected to ask for MORE money to get the banks lending more, but on Meet the Press Congressman Barney Frank said, "If they haven't been able to get the banks to lend more, restrict excessive compensation and help deal with foreclosure in a reasonable way, they're not going to get [more money]."

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February 9, 2009