Capitolism

The Week Ahead

By Christopher Hayes

Correspondent Greg Kaufmann writes in with a look at the week ahead on the Hill:

Here's the big stuff everyone will cover: The $825 billion recovery package will be taken up by the House while the Senate version makes its way through the Finance and Appropriations committees. The Senate will also probably pass its SCHIP bill and confirm Tim "Taxes, What Taxes?" Geithner as Treasury Secretary. The House will vote on the Senate version of the Lilly Ledbetter bill (reverses the awful Supreme Court anti-equal pay decision but doesn't include House provisions allowing victims to sue for more money). CongressDaily writes that Ledbetter will be the first bill President Obama signs into law. Bush holdover Robert Gates will appear before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees to discuss Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and other Defense matters (hopefully Senate Chair Carl Levin will finally realize that the current plan calls for sending 20,000-30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan, not 10,000.) Finally, Al Gore will brief the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on climate change efforts leading up to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December.

A little less sexy: The House will take up Congressman Barney Frank's TARP Reform and Accountability Act -- an attempt to force the Treasury to pursue foreclosure mitigation. More on foreclosures -- Senate Democrats will not include language in the stimulus bill allowing bankruptcy judges to reduce the principal of home mortgages. that makes Congressman John Conyers' Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy Act of 2009 all the more significant. The House Judiciary Committee will take it up on Tuesday.

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January 26, 2009

The First Hundred Days

By Christopher Hayes

Starting in this week's magazine, I'll be writing a weekly column chronicling the Obama administration's first 100 days. What I'm interested in is the mechanics of changes, that is where the various choke-points are in DC that thwart needed reform, and how successful Obama, Democrats, progressives and others are in opening them. (In a similar vein, Sirota's got a smart column out today about the difference between hope and change.)

My first column, on the inauguration is here. The opening grafs:

Three hours before Barack Hussein Obama took the oath of office to become the nation's first African-American president, the crowd already looked impossible. Gazing west from the Capitol, you could see them: an incomprehensible mass of peaceful citizens, overwhelming every monument, impediment and security banner that had been put up to contain them. The sight was so arresting that when the senators marched out onto the rostrum, Patrick Leahy and Orrin Hatch stopped to snap photos.

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January 23, 2009

Harry Reid on EFCA

By Christopher Hayes

Yesterday, Senate Democrats convened the third annual Senate Progressive Summit, a day-long series of panels with the senators and various progressive media folks, Mother Jones, The Nation, Air America producers and hosts and number of bloggers. Greg Kaufmann was there and passes along these nuggets:

Sen. Harry Reid said he would like the Senate to take up EFCA this summer. An aide later said that might be optimistic -- that it wouldn't be brought up until Dems are confident they have the 60 votes needed to stop a GOP filibuster….

Reid also said he was increasing the funding for Sen. Carl Levin's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations so that Levin could look into the Bush Administration's record on torture and other matters….

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January 22, 2009

Connecting the Dots on Torture

By Christopher Hayes

It's a been a while since I was a practicing logician in college, but let me see if I can lay this out.

1) Yesterday, AG designee Eric Holder said, without hesitation that water-boarding is torture.

2) Dick Cheney has admitted authorizing water-boarding.

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January 16, 2009

Outside In

By Christopher Hayes

One of the first things I noticed when I moved to DC was that while there were a lot amazing progressives working in the city at various non-profits and think tanks, there weren't a ton on Capitol Hill. Of course there are some amazing, heroic lefties on the Hill, but they're definitely in the minority. The culture of the hill, particularly on the Democratic side, tends to be hostile to "ideologues." This really struck me when I was at a party and a staffer for a Democratic senator derisively referred to Ted Kennedy as a "socialist."

OpenLeft's Matt Stoller called this the "rootsgap" in a smart post he put up on OpenLeft the other day. This culture really needs to change, and in order for it to change more movement progressives have to go work on the hill. It just so happens, Stoller's doing exactly that, working as Senior Policy Advisor to freshman congressman Alan Grayson (FL-8).

The other day, Matt posted, under his own name, amazingly, some video of Grayson grilling the Fed's Vice Chair. It gives you a sense of what Capitol Hill might look like if we could close this "rootsgap."

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January 15, 2009

Why Republicans Won't Oppose the Stimulus

By Christopher Hayes

Oh sure, they'll oppose it. They'll say it's too expensive, that it won't work, that it will be wasteful. Some will vote against it, though given the popularity of both Obama and the stimulus itself, less than you might think.

But their heart won't be in it.

Here's my sense of their long-term strategy. This isn't based on anything other than observation and chatting around the Capitol. I think they'll let the stimulus pass and, indeed will be quite fine with it being very big. Much bigger than it is now: a trillion dollars or more. Because once the stimulus passes, Republicans are going to say: OK. We're done. Meaning: no more money. They'll point to the $700 billion for the TARP, plus the $1 trillion for the stimulus, and they'll say: we've spent all the money there is to be spent. There's no money for healthcare. There's no money for anything, really except the Pentagon. They'll run against deficits, waste and bailout nation.

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January 14, 2009

Some Things Never Change

By Christopher Hayes

From Eric Rauchway's highly digestible "The Great Depression and the New Deal, A Very Short Introduction."

As to whether the government should take any action, [Hoover] allowed it might cut the tax on capital gains, which would permit investors to keep more of their profits from trading.

Hmmm.

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January 14, 2009

What's New With Change Congress?

By Christopher Hayes

I have a small items in the magazine about the latest updates on Larry Lessig's Change Congress. (Which I profiled here last year.) Since it's behind the paywall, I'm just gonna pirate myself and post it below:

GIVE-NOTHING DEMOCRACY: In the summer of 2007 free-culture guru Lawrence Lessig announced he'd be undertaking a project focusing his academic work and activism on understanding and fighting corruption. He founded Change-Congress.org to help create an online grassroots constituency for the kinds of pro-democracy reforms that would reduce the influence of big money on legislative outcomes (see "Mr. Lessig Goes to Washington," June 16, 2008). But while Change Congress slowly built an e-mail list and raised money, its first year was relatively low-key, at least partly because of an amorphous mission and an overly broad set of objectives.

But in preparation for the 111th Congress, the group has doubled its staff from two to four, bringing in Stephanie Taylor and Adam Green, two veterans of MoveOn.org. It has also focused its operation on bipartisan clean elections bills that will be reintroduced in the House and Senate this term. The Senate version, co-sponsored by Dick Durbin and Arlen Specter, would provide public funding for Congressional elections, paid for by a broadcasting fee.

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January 14, 2009

What's TARP II Supposed to Do?

By Christopher Hayes

Huffington Post's new congressional correspondent Ryan Grim had a good scoop yesterday. Joe Lieberman told him that in the off-the-record meeting with Democratic Senators, Obama told them he would veto any bill passed by congress that held up the funds. Since there's no way there are two-thirds majorities in both houses to over-ride that veto, this means that the money's basically guaranteed. (Let me take this occasion to note that if Congress had been serious about oversight, they would have designed the disbursal the other way around: make it so that the default, if congress does nothing, is that the money isn't disbursed, but allow for some fast-tracked resolution to disburse the second half. But, of course, that wouldn't have soother the markets, so instead we've gotten this kabuki.)

Now that we know the money's coming, how do we make sure it's used well ? Barney Frank's original idea was to pass legislation that would put statutory constraints on how the money was used (requiring a certain amount to go towards foreclosure mitigation, for example). But by the time that legislation would wind itself through the legislative process, the money would have already been authorized. So, instead, congressional Democrats have decided to more or less just trust the new president.

In other words, the Obama administration is going to have a check for $350 billion to do with more or less as they please on the first day they take office. I can't blame them for pushing for this. If someone knocked on your door and asked you to choose between having $350 billion to spend as you see fit, or not have $350 bn, you wouldn't have to think long and hard about it.

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January 13, 2009

Some Sanity on Gaza

By Christopher Hayes

One of the most interesting things about the way the war on Gaza has been playing out politically, is that American mainstream, establishment voices have been far more critical of Israel's actions than usual. The public is split about 50/50 on its support for Israel's actions, and yet if you read the congressional record or listened to elected American politicians you'd never know it. Al Franken and Norm Coleman put aside their differences to jointly attend a pro-Israel rally. (Nothing wrong with a pro-Israel rally of course, but in this case it's unmistakably a pro Gaza war rally). And in the US House, as my colleague John Nichols noted, politicians overwhelmingly voted for a resolution that more or less endorsed Israel's actions.

So it's against this backdrop, that Rep. David Price of North Carolina's recent op-ed, despite its shortcomings, bears reading. It's one of only a few thoughtful treatments of the matter emanating from Capitol Hill. (See also Keith Ellison's floor statement, quoted in Nichols' post.)

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January 13, 2009