In The Blogs

The Party of No

| Thu Apr. 30, 2009 7:52 AM PDT

Mark Schmitt thinks that Barack Obama's bipartisan tone has worked pretty well, defining the landscape and marginalizing a Republican Party that's gotten steadily crazier in opposition. Matt Yglesias isn't so sure:

To take just one example, climate change. The administration and the congressional leadership have ruled out the use of the reconciliation process to pass their energy/climate agenda. Since it’s completely inconceivable that you could get 60 votes in the Senate for the sort of cap-and-trade proposal that Barack Obama outlined during the campaign, this means they’ve preemptively surrendered on an agenda that they ran and won on during the course of a two-year presidential campaign.

....So you can say that congressional obstruction has succeeded in derailing Obama’s efforts on the most important short-term issue that congress has jurisdiction over, and also derailing his efforts on the most important long-term issue that he’s facing. That’s pretty impressive for a small and unpopular minority!

I'd sort of agree with this except for one thing: Obama never really campaigned on cap-and-trade in the first place. Sure, it was part of his energy proposal if you dug down into his website and looked for it, but during the debates, on TV ads, and in speeches, he barely even mentioned it. It was all windmills and blue skies and green jobs. He did virtually nothing to build any public support for the tougher parts of his energy plan.

Now, maybe that was the right thing to do. Presidential campaigns aren't notable for going out of their way to highlight tough choices for the electorate. Still, the result is that there's essentially no organic public support for cap-and-trade right now, which means it's wide open to demagoging by Republicans. This in turn makes it scarier to on-the-fence Dems, which is why a really solid cap-and-trade bill not only can't get 60 votes in the Senate, it might not even be able to get 50. Partisan gridlock may be responsible for some of that, but Obama's unwillingness to risk selling it during the campaign deserves some of the blame too.

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Kevin Drum is a political blogger for Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here.

Comments

I think I'll start a Kevin

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Apr. 30, 2009 8:45 AM PDT.

I think I'll start a Kevin Drum dictionary so normal people can understand him. "Demagoging" v. intr. - constructing persuasive arguments against a proposal.

you left off this part...

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Apr. 30, 2009 8:51 AM PDT.

"... on behalf of the big business that pays you to do their bidding at the expense of long term worldwide public interest."

effect of no legislation

Submitted by njwilson on Thu Apr. 30, 2009 9:05 AM PDT.

I think everyone needs to remember that if you can't get the required 50 or 60 votes for any specific piece of legislation it means that you have 50 or 40 votes in favor of the status quo over the specific legislation. The Bush Tax Bill is the best example I can think of. If you don't get people to change the law then weird things happen in 2010 and 2011 because of the stupid sunset provisions. If you can't get people for a specific cap and trade or carbon tax then you implicitly have the majority wanting no action at all. Why can't Obama and Reid figure out a number that would satisfy 60 senators? I might prefer a $40 a ton but if Ben Nelson is the 60th vote and will only accept $18 a ton then my choice would be $18 or nothing. I know it ain't that simple but the perfect is the enemy of the good.

What Matt is Missing

Submitted by Wagster on Thu Apr. 30, 2009 10:22 AM PDT.

What Matt is missing is the EPA decision to regulate global warming gases. It effectively means that the administration has a huge hammer -- that unless Congress passes an energy bill, the EPA will be allowed to make decisions unilaterally in a way that industry might dislike even more than cap-and-trade. What that means effectively is that reconciliation isn't necessary. 51 votes will rule, because the choice isn't between the energy bill or nothing, it's between energy bill and whatever the EPA wants to do.

I failed Schoolhouse Rock on

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Apr. 30, 2009 11:04 AM PDT.

I failed Schoolhouse Rock on how a bill is made, but I thought reconciliation was for budget proposals. Whether it's cap and trade or carbon tax, the purpose of each of these is not to balance our budget but to reduce global warming. How is either cap and trade or carbon tax a budget proposal? How specifically is cap and trade a budget proposal if it is, ahem, not a tax paid to the Feds? Is there any sort of danger at all of forcing things to be budget proposals?

Thinking Big

Submitted by Keith G on Thu Apr. 30, 2009 3:31 PM PDT.

MY takes a single policy issue and uses it to generalize about Pres Obama’s overall strategy. Not bright. Obama’s actions are designed for the long haul. I am not certain an evaluation now is logical.

I think that Obama has been

Submitted by Rick B on Thu Apr. 30, 2009 8:23 PM PDT.

I think that Obama has been prioritizing what he will spend big effort on. It's sort of masked by the large number fo projects he has taken on, but for most of them he is providing broad guidance and then letting Congress run with them as long as they meet his guidelines. But everything that really needs Presidential power right now seems geared towards getting universal health care passed and keeping the economy on track out of the ditch. Even the finance/economic stuff seems to be largely farmed out the Geithner and Treasury. Once health care is done, we are going to see his next priority. But he doesn't give his priorities away publicly. We need to infer them from what he does. It doesn't hurt any that the Republicans have been committing political suicide since the election and that the wheels seem to have come off of the alliance between the movement conservatives and the evangelicals.

Whether it's cap and trade

Submitted by louis vuitton replica (not verified) on Mon Aug. 3, 2009 2:22 AM PDT.

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How is either cap and trade or carbon tax a budget proposal? How specifically is cap and trade a budget proposal if it is, ahem, not a tax paid to the Feds?