The Path Becomes Clearer

by: Matt Singer

Tue Sep 01, 2009 at 10:01:31 AM MST

The strange thing about all of this negotiating has always been, for me, that the rules of the Senate actually allow for far better (and more progressive) reform with fewer votes, although you may end up having to lose some good ideas along the way. The reconciliation process, for example, actually requires a stronger public option over a weaker one, in order to get the cost savings that can justify using the reconciliation process.

In other words, the main thing the teabaggers and GOP leadership are gaining by forcing people like Grassley out of the process is a good chance that whatever passes will be even more progressive.

That also means that people like Lieberman who have threatened to oppose any bill with a public option may have some incentive now to agree to vote against a filibuster to support a bill that could include health insurance exchanges, meaningful insurance regulation, etc., as well as a weaker public option, in favor of ending up with a bill lacking exchanges but containing a Medicare-like public option.

If you're not at the table, you're on the menu. The right-wing has apparently opted for being on the menu.

Leg Fiscal Analyst Terry Johnson in Fishy Water?

by: Junior

Wed Jul 29, 2009 at 15:19:39 PM MST

Then I heard it from another and another what happened, but I didn't realize who it was until I read the story about Montana's budget surplus.  I now know exactly who all three people that told me this story were talking about -- one of the highest ranking Legislative employee's, Terry Johnson.

As told, the Forest Service Ranger approached an unattended camp fire.  So, like any good Ranger concerned with fire safety he stopped and came upon two men, one Terry Johnson and his brother who were fishing near the fire.  Upon further inquiry the Ranger ask both Johnson and his brother for fishing licenses, neither had a valid MT fishing license.  Which cost's a total of $26 for a resident Montana fishing license.

Now if that weren't enough I heard that between Terry and his brother they had somewhere around 50 trout.  What kind of penalty does that carry?

Has anybody else heard this story?

The Behavioral Economist at OMB

by: Matt Singer

Sun Apr 26, 2009 at 12:36:09 PM MST

Understanding Orszag seems key to understanding our current President. His inclusion (along with Cass Sunstein, among others) in the leadership of the Administration make me optimistic that we may see some interesting components in health care reform besides the changing of incentives around treatment reimbursement and comparative effectiveness. Might we also see default enrollment instead of penalties for failure to enroll?

Dems Keep Reconciliation Available, Options Open -- Good News on Health Care Reform

by: Matt Singer

Sat Apr 25, 2009 at 15:30:59 PM MST

The aggressive approach reflects the big political claim that President Obama is staking on health care, and with it his willingness to face Republican wrath in order to guarantee that the Democrats, with their substantial majority in the Senate, could not be thwarted by minority tactics.

While some Democratic senators were reluctant to embrace the arrangement, Mr. Obama made clear at a White House session on Thursday afternoon that he favored it, people with knowledge of the session said.

That said, taking reconciliation off the table would be absolutely foolish. Former President Clinton said it was his biggest mistake. And taking reconciliation off the table leaves Republicans able to kill any reform bill simply by holding strong -- and they have every political incentive to kill reform.

Here's what our senior Senator had to say (in the NYT article linked above)

Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee, said Friday that he would prefer not to pursue health legislation through the reconciliation process.

"I think it gets in the way," Mr. Baucus said, explaining that his goal was to produce a health care bill that could "get significantly more than 60 votes."

"If we jam something down somebody's throat, it's not sustainable," he said.

It is important that Republicans not be allowed to run amok on health care, especially considering their treatment of Kathleen Sebelius, the moderate Governor of Kansas nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services. The fact that Republican Senators are proposing filibustering Sebelius is another sign of how crazy the modern GOP has become. Sebelius only got two Republican votes on the Finance Committee -- a Senator from her home state of Kansas (where Sebelius is quite popular) and Olympia Snowe, the Senate Republicans' only true moderate.

GOP Legislator: Keith Bales/Republican Leadership are Wrong

by: Matt Singer

Sat Apr 25, 2009 at 11:59:59 AM MST

The one Republican who voted with the Democrats was Rep. Bill Glaser, R-Huntley. Glaser caught fire from some conservative Republicans in 2007 for working with Gov. Brian Schweitzer to pass a budget in special session. He said his Republican colleagues are risking another session with no budget passed by standing firm on the education and insurance debates. "Mr. Bales is wrong. Mr. Bales thinks he can go against 70 percent of the voters. Mr. Bales thinks he can destroy schools in two years. ... I don't agree with that," Glaser said.

Disbanding the committee forces them to work in consensus rather than compromise. I like consensus," he said.

The good news for the state is that there is at least one Republican embracing common sense and working across the aisle to support education and children's health insurance. The bad news is that the history of the modern GOP in Montana means that his colleagues will clobber him for doing so.

If you see Rep. Glaser, tell him thanks for his courage.

What about mule trading?

by: Matt Singer

Thu Apr 23, 2009 at 15:01:24 PM MST

I think it is utterly ridiculous the lines that Bob Story and other Senate Republicans are taking -- especially given that the Democratic Governor will veto any lousy budget and that Democrats actually won more votes in legislative races (also true of the Montana Senate over the past two cycles) than Republicans. There simply is not a mandate in this state for the sort of tea party policies that the Republicans are imposing.

All that said, the idea of being forced into a special session during tight times is just utterly ludicrous. I'm not sure where the negotiating points are, but there should be some.

And the trick for progressives is not to figure out how to stand firm right now, but to elect majorities next time.

Note -- those majorities won't make everything magical. As federal politics are showing us right now, large partisan majorities still mean a lot of headaches. But it is better to have those majorities.

The Need for Reconciliation: Contact Jon Tester

by: Matt Singer

Thu Apr 23, 2009 at 09:48:33 AM MST

If healthcare reform passes, Democrats will likely be heroes. If it fails, President Obama will have failed on one of his biggest promises. That means that Republicans are looking for, as Rush Limbaugh would say, failure.

The good news is that there is a process, albeit not an ideal one, to prevent obstruction. It is called budget reconciliation and even just keeping it on the table will go a long way toward changing the incentives. If Democrats don't need Republican votes to pass healthcare reform, Republicans will have more incentive to try to be involved instead of just filibustering.

I just talked to Jon Tester's office and he has not taken a position on reconciliation, so consider this my effort to encourage people to contact Senator Tester and encourage him to support the reconciliation process.

Passing the Federal Budget

by: Matt Singer

Tue Apr 21, 2009 at 10:24:10 AM MST

The federal budget is more than numbers. It is a statement of values and priorities. The values here are decidedly progressive and the priorities are to reform our nation's most profound challenges: health care, energy, and education.

The good news for Montanans is that Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester have been supportive of the budget. The bad news is that our Congressman has been a pretty stalwart opponent of change.

Forward Montana is joining a national call-in day today to encourage Congress to get this budget passed. Join us and call Congressman Rehberg - 1-888-299-1447 - and encourage him to support the budget, ask his staff how he will vote for it, and request an update on his views on the budget via email.

I just called and was told that his staff wasn't sure where he was coming down on the budget. This call just takes a couple minutes. Budget negotiations can be seen as awfully inside-the-beltway, but here's the bottom-line -- if we don't get this budget passed, the rest of the agenda so many of us have worked for now for years doesn't stand a chance:

1-888-299-1447

Legislative Fiscal Division Revises Revenue Estimates UPWARD $17 Million

by: Matt Singer

Wed Apr 15, 2009 at 15:30:37 PM MST

Perhaps just by chance, this is roughly the amount of money it will require to fully fund Healthy Montana Kids. So another set of GOP excuses for not funding is weakened.

There's a rally in Helena tomorrow -- Rm 303 in the Capitol -- at noon to support full funding of the Healthy Montana Kids initiative.

What the Budget Numbers Mean -- and Why We Need to Invest

by: Matt Singer

Fri Mar 20, 2009 at 13:03:46 PM MST

The question we now face is what Congress is going to do with the budget. And a lot of this is a question of whether we're going to be penny-wise and pound-foolish or smart.

Ezra Klein looks at what Sen. Kent Conrad, the Democratic budget hawk (and chair of the Senate Budget Committee) from North Dakota has to say and notes that there is nothing wrong with some skeptical looks at the budget, but that we'd be stupid if we decided to stop the President's major initiatives on energy and health care over fiscal concerns:

But the big new initiatives in Obama's budget don't necessarily affect the deficit at all. They're entirely paid for. There may be a political impact in which the size of the deficit saps political will for new initiatives and gives Ben Nelson a preening opportunity he can't pass on, but there's no debt-related reason that these numbers should affect those priorities. Indeed, quite the opposite: Cap and trade would raise revenue and health reform will cut the long-term deficit by about $3 trillion. It's only in the weird world that is Washington that budget projections showing the current fiscal path is unsustainable would be used to argue against policy changes that better the long-term outlook.

Orszag observes that differences between OMB and CBO projections are normal, observes that CBO's growth estimate is not only lower than OMB's, but also lower than the Fed's and lower than the blue chip forecast.

The reality, though, is that CBO's rating alone is neither cause for major concern nor a good reason to scrap an ambitious agenda to rebuild our economy. In fact, it is all the more reason to pursue such an agenda.

Alright -- I'm out, probably for the rest of the weekend. Don't trash the place.

Sales on the sidelines

by: Jay Stevens

Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 06:48:09 AM MST

So it's good to see Sales get shut out of this session, even by his own party:

Sales, long one of the chamber's most outspoken fiscal conservatives, tried every way he could to hack some dough out of House Bill 2 on Monday, during the day-long debate on the measure.

He targeted agencies from big to small, including the governor's office, the Revenue Department, the Justice Department, the State Prison, the Public Defenders Office and the university system. His amendments ranged from the $1,300 per-diem to $4.7 million in student loans and scholarships.

Sales also tried everything from humor -- he called an amendment to cut Gov. Brian Schweitzer's airplane a "green amendment" that would reduce the governor's carbon footprint -- to hectoring, scolding colleagues about spending more money in the midst of a recession.

"No one's had a reduction in their budget at all," he said. "This baby's growing by at least 4.6 percent over the biennium. I don't know of one department that is taking a cut. In fact, all I see is growth. I dare say that we have government out of control here."

...in the end, Sales couldn't rustle up a single Democratic vote in the 50-50 House for any of his amendments, let alone hold his own party behind him.

"This is your last chance to register a vote for the taxpayer ... and say that we take our job seriously," he said on amendment No. 21. It failed on a 31-68 vote.

For one, our nation's leaders currently subscribe to Keynes -- spending during a recession is exactly what we're trying to do to keep the economy from sinking. Is Sales unaware? Does he have a rational explanation for his desire to slash the budget? (And rational arguments against government spending during this recession do exist, although I suspect Sales would be against nationalizing banks.) Does Sales even have a coherent vision of the economy?

That no Democrat seems willing to work with Sales is hardly a surprise, given the Speaker's behavior in 2007. That a dozen or so Republicans are willing to work with Democrats is somewhat of a surprise: is this a rejection of their leader's dutiful and antiquated obeisance to 1990s Gingrich rhetoric? A rejection of Sales' leadership? Or simply a desire to get things done?

Still, you've got to wonder what this session would have been like with a clear Republican majority in the House.  

White House Looks to Save Students, Taxpayer Money; Republican Freaks Out

by: Matt Singer

Sun Mar 01, 2009 at 17:46:36 PM MST

Student loans is one area where that happened. Many loans currently processed are federally guaranteed, but handled through for-profit companies like Sallie Mae. The fact that the loans are backed by the feds means that taxpayers shoulder all the risk, but private companies rake in fees for, well, not much.

The Obama Administration proposed moving the federal student loan system to one entirely handled through direct loans, which cut out the middle-man. Here's the Republican response:

But there's already been pushback from Republicans. Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (Calif.), ranking Republican on the House Education Committee, lashed out against the proposed shift, calling it a "government takeover of the private-sector-based student loan program, taking away options and benefits from students while adding tens of billions" of dollars to the deficit.

Rehberg Sees This Issue From All Sides

by: Matt Singer

Sun Mar 01, 2009 at 16:31:30 PM MST

Dennis Rehberg is so that kid.

Congressman Rehberg held himself a waffle party in Missoula this past Friday.  Montana's lone Congressman attended a news conference at the Poverello Center to claim credit for securing a $285,000 appropriation for the Pov in the FY09 Approps bill.

In a statement, Rehberg said: "I'm happy I was able to secure federal assistance for the Poverello Center."
 
But here's the funny thing, Rehberg voted against the 2009 Appropriations Bill that contained said "federal assistance." Rehberg is not keeping his no vote a secret. His reasoning is spelled out clearly: "Congress is spending too much and racking up a huge debt."
 
If that's the case, why is the Congressman traveling the state bragging about the money he just secured? And since when do politicians vote against projects they claim credit for?

Earlier this month, Rehberg also voted against the recovery/jobs bill.  A few days later, Rehberg tried to justify his no vote while bragging about the bill's benefits to a Montana Rural Water Systems conference in Great Falls.
 
Look, we know he's got a big state to represent, but that doesn't mean he has to talk and vote out of both sides of his mouth, he could just put on his big boy pants and say, "I voted against the jobs bill and the budget for next year -- and against all the spending for those Montana projects -- because I think it is a waste of money."

I mean, his hypocrisy is bad enough that John McCain labeled one Rehberg's earmarks -- $300,000 for the Montana World Trade Center -- as the 7th porkiest item in the approps bill.

Have I missed it? Has a member of the Montana press corps already asked Rehberg about this stuff -- especially John McCain peeing on his shoes?

Max to go after tax havens?

by: Jay Stevens

Fri Feb 27, 2009 at 14:41:35 PM MST

Now if any of this sounds familiar, it should. Way back when the bill was first routed to Baucus' committee, I noted the legislation would go a long way to fulfilling Baucus' own rhetoric on closing the tax gap. Later, in the context of Chuck Rangel's bald attempt to protect campaign donors from IRS scrutiny into Virgin Islands acounts, I noted the Levin/Obama bill seemingly had died in Baucus' committee; the Senator's office responded by saying that he was working on legislation "to help curb the use of tax havens."

Well, Roth this week received a detailed reply from a Tax and Finance committee aide that included a list of committee accomplishments in fighting offshore tax havens:

The Finance Committee actively fights offshore tax havens - in the JOBS bill with inversions policy, tax shelter penalties, and increased transparency with regard to tax shelter promoters; in last year's military bill, with provisions to stop US companies with Federal contracts from setting up entities in tax havens to run employees through in order to avoid employment taxes. FOGEI/FORI in the energy bill tightened up a bit the way oil and gas pay US tax on foreign-earned income. Other proposals have been made public as well, particularly with regard to Bermuda reinsurance. The Committee also sent the GAO to Ugland House in the Cayman Islands to investigate one of the most notorious suspected tax havens in the world. And the Committee will take this issue up again at a hearing in March.

Now, the Senate moves slow, and I'm not accusing Max Baucus of purposefully dragging his feet on this issue. After all, in 2007 the political environment in the Senate was night compared to February 27th's day. And when Franken is finally seated, attaining cloture on important votes will be all the easier. And that's not to mention the co-sponsor of S681 is sitting in the White House. H *ll, Obama is banking on the closure of tax havens in his budget to reduce the deficit.

Which is a long way of saying that I, too, will be eagerly awaiting the hearings on tax haven legislation in March.

He Actually Secured the $42.5 Million Before He Voted Against It

by: Matt Singer

Wed Feb 25, 2009 at 14:40:09 PM MST

The latest example? A string of press releases crowing about his "securing" of funding for Montana projects in the Omnibus appropriations bill that he just voted against.

This reminds me a bit of his claim to have been a leader for the State Children's Health Insurance Program around the same time he called it "extremist political ideology."

Or maybe it reminds me of how Rehberg voted against retroactive accountability for TARP and then said he wants the bums thrown in jail. Although, to be fair, this may just fit within a larger view regarding Habeas Corpus and executive privilege. Maybe he thinks President Obama already has the authority to just lock up bank CEOs. I don't really know.

Obama unveils his agenda

by: Jay Stevens

Wed Feb 25, 2009 at 08:32:30 AM MST

Some other reactions:

Obsidian Wings' publius: "And it's hard to translate into words how refreshing - how deeply satisfying - it was to see a President stand up and openly embrace such a progressive platform. Having watched the defensiveness of Clinton, Daschle, and John Kerry over the years, it's just cathartic to see it on a national stage."

Michael Tomsky: "US politics has been defined by bashing poor people (or at best ignoring them) since Ronald Reagan's time. Now, it's rich people who are on the carpet.

"But not only rich people. Everybody who isn't helping is part of the problem. Probably the best line of the speech was directed at people at the bottom of society - high-school dropouts. When you quit school, Obama said, "it's not just quitting on yourself. It's quitting on your country." That's a Kennedyesque call that signals to everyone listening that Obama is holding everyone to a standard of behaviour."

Ezra Klein: "Obama doesn't talk to us like we're stupid. This wasn't an inspiring speech. And it wasn't a terrorizing speech. It was an explanation. The president told us what he was planning to do. And the speech was written as if he believed that we could understand him. He didn't wrap his agenda in a lot of rhetoric about America's mettle or hide it behind stories and icons. He just sort of said it."

Steve Benen: "It was an implicit acknowledgement of the ways in which the political discourse can stray from the factual path. The president had the bully pulpit, and he was determined to use it to set the record straight -- before it got corrupted by those less interested in 'honest debate.'"

Ed Morrisey: "...SOTU speeches usually are nothing more than legislative wish lists. Presidents tell Congress what they want, and Congress applauds when they agree. If you like Barack Obama's populist wish list, you probably liked the speech, and if not, you probably hated it. But it's no different than hearing one of his campaign speeches in that regard - and no different than any other president's SOTU speech. Given that Obama won a national election using essentially the agenda he had last night, I'd say he did himself a lot of good, and will get a temporary bump in the polling from it."

I liked this bit:

The fact is, our economy did not fall into decline overnight. Nor did all of our problems begin when the housing market collapsed or the stock market sank. We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before. The cost of healthcare eats up more and more of our savings each year, yet we keep delaying reform. Our children will compete for jobs in a global economy that too many of our schools do not prepare them for. And though all these challenges went unsolved, we still managed to spend more money and pile up more debt, both as individuals and through our government, than ever before.

In other words, we have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election. A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn't afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.

Well, that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here.

It's a recognition that our economic crisis is the result of systemic problems, not merely a run on bad loans.

Besides promoting the recent stimulus package and his housing plan, the president went on to outline some upcoming plans for an ambitious agenda: energy efficiency, producing renewable energy, energy infrastructure, a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, aid for the auto industry, health care reform, education reform, tax reform, Social Security and Medicare reform, budgetary transparency, and an end to the Iraq War.

Wow.

So, it begins. Tommorrow, the president is expected to unveil his budget; in it will be a plan to reduce the federal deficit in half by 2012. On Friday, Obama is to announce "that he will remove all US combat troops from Iraq by August 2010." Then there'll be the institution of a carbon cap-and-trade system. Of course, there's still the matter of the banks, which may require another handout, and there's always wasteful Pentagon spending to deal with, like Bush's helicopter program and the F-22.

I wonder what next week will bring.

Good Column

by: Matt Singer

Sun Feb 15, 2009 at 09:51:01 AM MST

Montana's Budget Situation and Krugman Talks State Finances

by: Matt Singer

Mon Dec 29, 2008 at 09:44:58 AM MST

Meanwhile, Paul Krugman looks at why states always have to "batten down the hatches" during bad economic times -- and why it is bad to fund so much stuff through state government as a result.

Krugman also makes the smart point that public investment actually gets much cheaper during recessions -- when both labor and loans are cheaper -- than during growth periods, when the private sector is running up the costs of resources. More good reason for the government to spend now and rein it in when times are good.

The Belts Get Tighter

by: Matt Singer

Wed Dec 10, 2008 at 09:59:55 AM MST

The feds are talking about state and local aid as part of a stimulus package. Clearly, that's going to be pretty necessary if we're going to both keep this recession from having an even bigger impact on some of our worse-off neighbors.

The new figures mean that overall tax collections for the upcoming two years will be significantly less than the current two-year budget cycle. The analysts noted that makes it more difficult to draft a sustainable budget.

Clayton Schenck, legislative fiscal analyst, said the analysis is difficult to make because national economic projects continue to fluctuate. He said a full report, expected after Christmas, is likely to find that the drop in revenue is greater than $50 million

Speaker-designate Bergren calls for belt tightening:

Schweitzer has said he will oppose any tax increases. Bergren echoed those sentiments.

"I think we will just have to tighten belts, that's what I support," Bergren said. "I think we'll just have to live within our means."

Now would also be a good time for the state to identify projects that could be part of a federal stimulus package. A few criteria that would be ideal:

• Can Start Soon. This means ideally we're looking first for projects without massive worker re-education or environmental impact. We need to find projects we can start soon.
• One Time Projects. Identifying capital improvements as opposed to new long-term expenditures is the right way to go -- also hitting deferred maintenance. Get work done now -- don't make more work for the long-term.
• Invest Today, Save Tomorrow. Both deferred maintenance and work to promote energy efficiency (in government buildings and in the private sector) could do a lot to provide jobs and investment in the short term while triggering some long-term savings. That's what we call win-win-win.

Finally -- now isn't the time to pay it down, but folks need to remember that when the state is talking about running short-term surpluses, we're all ignoring the outstanding obligations of both deferred maintenance and underfunded pension obligations. That's GM style management. The 2007 legislature wisely helped fill in some of that money -- after the Governor made it a priority in his budget. But we can't defer these costs indefinitely. If we can't fill in during lean times, we need to start putting away more during times of plenty.

Rep. John Sinrud: Let Firefighters Eat Tax Cuts

by: Matt Singer

Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 16:16:08 PM MST

Well, Sinrud played his game, even asking recently during an Audit Committee hearing, "Where is it that we have to protect those structures? Why not just let them burn?" Now, I'm sure this was nothing more than an attempt to flesh out first principles using the always popular Socratic method, but it does beg some awfully good questions, including "Where is that we have to enforce laws? Why not just let them be broken?" and "Where is it that we need to prevent violence? Why not just let people be assaulted?" Oh, wait, I already forgot, beating up on people is free speech in Sinrud bizarro universe.

Now, hilariously, Republicans have been attacking the Governor for vetoing a tax credit for firefighters, even as their own party's leadership gutted a proposal to fund those firefighters' paychecks. Given how expensive this firefighting season was, it'll probably require a second special session, meaning that Montana Republicans just may hold the dubious honor of turning 2007 into the first year in Montana history that the legislature had to convene three times because they kept f***ing up (someone may want to look into that, 'cause I think there's got to be a special place in history for Sales, Lange, and Sinrud, the men to whom we owe our gratitude for this situation).

Anyways, let's just keep in mind that Sinrud's response to big fire costs was to Monday Morning QB and suggest that the state should have just let the fires burn down people's houses.

All of this, of course, comes about a year after their last banner carrier, Conrad Burns, called firefighters lazy (hmm, maybe they already are letting these structures burn, they're just getting paid for it).

And the big Republican solution? Whine about tax cuts.

Brilliant.