Unanimous Consent-- If Not Courageous

Keith took that oath-thing seriously

Yesterday everyone was upset that the Senate had passed-- by voice vote (so no record of who voted for and against it) and by unanimous consent-- a work-around for the sequester for the FAA. TPM pointed out that Eric Cantor was crowing how the craven Democrats had backed down. Cantor's Memo:

As a CQ / Roll Call reporter tweeted last night, "Make no mistake, this FAA fix is a complete, utter cave by Senate Democrats and, if signed, by the White House." This is a sentiment expressed in other press reports over the last 12 hours, including, Politico: "Democrats blink first on aviation” and Chicago Tribune: “White House Scrambles For Damage Control."

Consider that the Democrats opening position was they would only replace the sequester with tax increases. By the first of this week Senator Reid proposed replacing the whole sequester with phony war savings. And by last night, Senate Democrats were adopting our targeted “cut this, not that” approach. This victory is in large part a result of our standing together under the banner of #Obamaflightdelays.

Ezra Klein came right out and said in the Washington Post that The Democrats have lost on sequestration. "The original theory," wrote Klein, "was that the specter of sequestration would be so threatening that Republicans and Democrats would agree to a budget deal rather than permit it to happen. That theory was wrong. The follow-up theory was that the actual pain caused by sequestration would be so great that it would, in a matter of months, push the two sides to agree to a deal. But Democrats just proved that theory wrong, too."

In effect, what Democrats said Friday was that in any case where the political pain caused by sequestration becomes unbearable, they will agree to cancel that particular piece of the bill while leaving the rest of the law untouched. The result is that sequestration is no longer particularly politically threatening, but it’s even more unbalanced: Cuts to programs used by the politically powerful will be addressed, but cuts to programs that affects the politically powerless will persist. It’s worth saying this clearly: The pain of sequestration will be concentrated on those who lack political power.

...It is worth noting how different the Democrats’ approach to sequestration has been to the GOP’s approach to, well, everything. Over the past five years, Republicans have repeatedly accepted short-term political pain for long-term policy gain. That’s the governing political principle behind their threats to shut down the government, breach the debt ceiling, and, for that matter, accept sequestration. Today, Democrats showed they’re not willing to accept even a bit of short-term pain for long-term policy gain. They played a game of chicken with the Republicans, and they lost. Badly.

In the House Friday, the bill passed 361-41, a dozen Boehner-hating Republicans joining just 29 Democrats willing to stand up for principle. I was shocked to see Hoyer was one of the Democrats taking a principled position along with people like Donna Edwards, Barbara Lee, Keith Ellison, John Conyers, Mark Pocan, Rick Nolan, Chellie Pingree, who we usually expect this kind of courageousness from.

You see, what's at stake here is that, of course there should be no sequester on the FAA air traffic controllers. We've come a long way since Reagan. But by signaling to the Republicans that they'll fold on each individual sequester matter, it puts the Republicans-- most of whom don't give a shit about public opinion-- to pick and choose. That means things like Head Start will never get dealt with-- just destroyed. That's what Obama will be remembered for, just or not. And that takes us back to the Senate vote Thursday night.

The unanimous voice vote came around 8pm and only had two participants, Harry Reid and Susan Collins. They were unanimous. Now, to be fair, Reid had requested-- in writing-- that any Democrat who didn't agree to the unanimous consent agreement speak up. Not ONE SPOKE UP... until the next day. Who can argue with what Bernie Sanders said on the Ed Schultz Show Friday after the House vote?

What we have to understand is that clearly there was a serious problem. We're seeing air traffic delays all over the country and that's something that has to be addressed. The problem is that when it's Members of Congress who are flying-- and they do a lot of flying-- when it is business people, upper class people who fly, we respond. But what my worry is, you've got 70 thousand kids that are going to lose slots in Head Start [and] I don't think our Republican friends are going to be quite so quick to respond to the serious crisis and what it means to working families. When you've got folks not getting the public health that they need, I don't think our Republican friends are going to be there. When teachers are going to be laid off, I don't think our Republican friends are going to be there. Clearly the answer is we need to end sequestration but do it in a way that makes sense, which is to have more revenue coming in, primarily, in my view, by ending these outrageous loopholes, such that one out of four corporations in America pays nothing in taxes. But not just cut, cut, cut.

I asked another very progressive congressman, a House Member, why he voted for the bill today. "Because the world is better with it than without it," he told me, "even though it’s a stupid way to accomplish that." We went back and forth a little and I mentioned that the Republicans would get their way on everything about the sequester they had manipulated Obama and the foolish Democrats into to begin with. "It’s worse than that," he told me. "What we voted on doesn’t end the sequester for air traffic control. All it does is give the White House the authority to move a certain amount of FAA money from certain other accounts to the air traffic control account. The FAA still is subject to the sequester cut, in full. It’s just a device to shift blame from the Republicans to the White House if anything goes wrong. Notwithstanding that, it’s better than the status quo, and I’ve got the world’s 23rd largest airport to think about."

Jerry Nadler (D-NY), a senior member on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, voted for it as well, pointing to over 3,500 flight delays reported since Sunday "as a result of the indiscriminate budget cuts which were mandated by the so-called sequester." His statement:

“While this bill is not nearly good enough, I nevertheless support its effort to help the FAA deal with the effects of severe and misguided budget cuts. Indiscriminate, across-the-board budget cuts were never a good idea, and their effects on things like air travel were all too predictable. So while this bill may help the FAA to better handle such draconian budget cuts, it unfortunately does nothing to prevent equally damaging cuts to other critical public sector programs. It does nothing for the 70,000 children who will be forced off of Head Start, or for the millions of Americans who will have to wait longer for new prescription drugs to reach the market, or for the 600,000 women, infants, and children who will be left hungry after being dropped from the supplemental nutrition program. Only by repealing the sequester outright can we avoid these severe budget cuts and prevent their crippling effects on vital public services.

“Unfortunately, instead of addressing these problems and working to create jobs, Republicans in Congress have spent their time pursuing a single-minded obsession with cutting government spending. Meanwhile, the deficit has been shrinking at the fastest rate since the demobilization after WWII. In this fiscal year alone we have seen deficit estimates fall 15% on the strength of our growing economy. The deficit was originally projected to be $900 billion. Earlier this year, the Congressional Budget Office revised it down to $850 billion. And just last week it was revised down again to $775 billion. That is a $125 billion savings. It is enough already. With these savings alone, we could cancel the sequester without increasing the deficit by a penny.

“We are already reducing the deficit by more than we planned, and the results of these cutbacks are being felt across the nation in ways that slow our economy, hurt the elderly, take food out of the mouths of women and children, and undermine our students as they try to prepare for their futures. We can no longer afford Republican attempts to pursue such a contractionary fiscal policy during a period of high unemployment and stagnant middle class wages.

“In order to build on our economic recovery, we need to stop all of the severe budget cuts-- not just those affecting air travelers. It is time to cancel sequestration and start pursuing policies that will actually help Americans get back to work.”

So... what I would ask Nadler and Sanders and our other progressive friends whose hearts I know are in the right place, where do we go from here? Is there a strategy? We seem to have unilaterally disarmed. Is all that's left starting petitions and wringing our hands? By the way, Keith Ellison, one of the few strategic thinks among the Democrats, voted NO. He explained exactly why to Minneapolis voters:

“I oppose the harmful furloughs for air traffic controllers, which create unnecessary flight delays, and impact our hardworking pilots, flight attendants, and airport workers. Air traffic controllers keep our families safe and support an economy that relies heavily on air travel to function. But avoiding these cuts should not come at the expense of millions of teachers, researchers, and American families who are also feeling the devastating impacts of the sequester. By maintaining cuts to students on Head Start, women and children on nutrition assistance, and funding for cancer research, we are neglecting the communities who can least afford it.

“This bill does not address the 8,000 fewer students who will receive primary and secondary education assistance in Minnesota or the 100 teachers and aides who may lose their jobs because of it. It does not help the more than 2,000 civilian Department of Defense employees in Minnesota who will be furloughed-- losing $12.5 million to support their families. And it does not help the more than 3,000 Minnesotans who will not be tested for HIV because the Minnesota Department of Health will lose about $127,000 in funding.

“The flight delays this week are only one example of what will happen if Republicans in Washington get the huge budget cuts they are demanding. Instead of only addressing the most visible impacts of these harmful cuts, we should fully repeal the sequester and adopt a balanced approach that asks wealthy corporations and individuals to pay their fair share. It’s time to stop pushing broken ideas and start investing in America’s working families.”

My cowardly congressman, Adam Schiff, a New Dem, happily voted to give the Republicans their way. The word courageousness is not part of his vocabulary. Thank God there are a few like Ellison around. In fact... you can find Keith here if you want to let him know you support what he did Friday.

I've pretty much given up on Obama altogether. I voted for a protest candidate in November. But he's still the president and there's nothing but worse on the political horizon. This morning, though, he used his weekly address to talk about dumping Sequestration altogether and replacing it with a Grand Bargain.

Two months ago, Congress allowed a series of automatic budget cuts to fall across the federal government that would do the opposite. In Washington-speak, these cuts were called the “sequester.” It was a bad idea then. And as the country saw this week, it’s a bad idea now.

Because of these reckless cuts, there are parents whose kids just got kicked out of Head Start programs scrambling for a solution. There are seniors who depend on programs like Meals on Wheels to live independently looking for help. There are military communities-- families that have already sacrificed enough-- coping under new strains. All because of these cuts.

This week, the sequester hurt travelers, who were stuck for hours in airports and on planes, and rightly frustrated by it. And, maybe because they fly home each weekend, the Members of Congress who insisted these cuts take hold finally realized that they actually apply to them too.

Republicans claimed victory when the sequester first took effect, and now they’ve decided it was a bad idea all along. Well, first, they should look at their own budget. If the cuts they propose were applied across the board, the FAA would suffer cuts three times deeper.

So Congress passed a temporary fix. A Band-Aid. But these cuts are scheduled to keep falling across other parts of the government that provide vital services for the American people. And we can’t just keep putting Band-Aids on every cut.  It’s not a responsible way to govern. There is only one way to truly fix the sequester: by replacing it before it causes further damage.

A couple weeks ago, I put forward a budget that replaces the next several years of these dumb cuts with smarter cuts; reforms our tax code to close wasteful special interest loopholes; and invests in things like education, research, and manufacturing that will create new jobs right now.

So I hope Members of Congress will find the same sense of urgency and bipartisan cooperation to help the families still in the crosshairs of these cuts. They may not feel the pain felt by kids kicked off Head Start, or the 750,000 Americans projected to lose their jobs because of these cuts, or the long-term unemployed who will be further hurt by them. But that pain is real.

The American people worked too hard, for too long, rebuilding from one economic crisis just to see your elected officials keep causing more. Our economy is growing. Our deficits are shrinking.  We’re creating jobs on a consistent basis. But we need to do more to help middle-class families get ahead, and give more folks a chance to earn their way into the middle class.  And we can, if we work together. That’s what you expect. That’s what I’m going to work every single day to help deliver.

But don't expect him to veto it. He won't. He's not FDR... and never will be. We've seen what he is.

Bingo!