Good news?

The debate to raise the federal government's debt ceiling has exposed, or shone a spotlight on what was already obvious, namely, the incompetence and ideological intransigence of Democrats, Republicans and the President. No one looks good, and the bad of it is that we the people are the ones suffering; these jerks get to keep their jobs – for now, at least. One idea that died quicker than ethics do in Washington was a grand bargain.


After all, who really wants a deal struck by one of the most inept bargainers-in-chief ever to live in the White House and a Republican leadership trapped by the ideological intransigence of right-wing extremists?

Obama looks awful. He would have a difficult time convincing a baseball player to spit. The Republican dog is wagged by the right-wing tail.

We don’t need a grand bargain — not now, or six months from now, or ever. What we need are responsible politicians who understand a little bit about economics and who are willing to work in the public interest day after day, year after year. Even a short-term debt-ceiling reprieve that kicks the can down the road would be preferable to an ill-advised grand bargain that locks in harmful spending cuts for a decade.

Obama has caved in to the right wing. The Republican party has caved in to the right wing. So we have the nation's politics dominated by a hundred right wing nuts who actually believe that it is better to have the nation lose its credit rating than to compromise.

any spectacle that sees McConnell and Reid emerge as the heroes is a sorry one, indeed. 

Indeed. Those two have to be some of the most mediocre politicians in modern US history. Where is Roman Hukstra when we need him?

it’s important to have no illusions going into an election year. Obama, as noted, has confirmed his reputation for ineptitude. Voters may choose to return him to office, but they will have to adjust their expectations downward.

What a disappointment, too. So much promise, so much hope, and so little done.

House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor, meanwhile, can continue their internecine warfare, and congressional Republicans can bicker their way out of majority control of the House.

That used to seem exciting, but what would be the alternative? Democrats in control? They're as bad.

It would be sad if the Republicans, who have shown themselves willing to sacrifice the welfare of the American people in order to sabotage the Obama presidency, succeeded in their plan.

They will do everything to sabotage Obama, including screwing the country, arrogant in their belief they will get into power and fix things.

But Obama, who suffers from the hubris of thinking always he’s the smartest guy in the room, walked right into their trap in accepting the debt-ceiling debate on their terms instead of exercising leadership and keeping the focus on unemployment.

His idea of leadership is to wait, wait some more, and see what happens.

It would be a long shot for Bloomberg or anyone else to step up as a third-party candidate and a much longer shot for such a candidate to capture the White House. It’s never happened since our two-party system became the norm, but then the U.S. has never defaulted before, either. 

Bloomberg? I just don't see him appealing to enough voters. I think he's arrogant, self-centered, aloof, and convinced he is about as smart and effective a leader as is possible. But, hey, who knows?

It depends in the end on how severe the political backlash to this debacle will be. At present, regardless of the actual outcome of this nauseating debate, it looks like the public frustration and disgust with Washington that has been simmering for some years is ready to boil over.

It would be nice if there was some public anger, but it ain't gonna happen.

Washington swaps magic show for vaudeville

The Gang of Six, breathless reporters told us this week, has found a solution that tons of senators in both parties are willing to go along with. It will cut $3.7 trillion from the deficit over the next 10 years while lowering taxes. Wow! How did this group of Democratic and Republican senators do it? Well, for starters they’re going to save $500 billion just by changing the way inflation is calculated. And the rest will be put out to committee — you know, with six-month deadlines and specific targets and such.

Lower the deficit and cut taxes? Perfect. Except for the details: accounting sleight of hand generates half a trillion dollars, and the other three trillion? Figure that out later, of course.

The Gang of Six plan has now replaced the one proposed last week by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to simply abdicate responsibility for the debt ceiling as the favored way for Republicans to get out of the corner they’d painted themselves into.

I considered that proposal unconstitutional: it would give the president the right to change the debt limit, a congressional constitutional duty, so the Congress could avoid having to vote on it. Why not just get rid of the debt limit? Why, that would take away the opportunity for congressional posturing and media performance.

We all know how important it is to keep cutting taxes, so that we have more of our own money to spend on the resulting higher costs for health care, education, personal security and all those other needs that most countries take care of by, well, paying taxes.

But, we couldn't do that ... that's, that's ... socialism, that's what that is.

A pot of money

Could something other than Rick Perry’s business-friendly policies be keeping the Texas economy buzzing?

Governor Perry and his spin machine, while not openly declaring his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, are extolling his record of jobs creation in Texas as proof of his economic acumen, one of the many purported qualities that make him presidential timber. Is he really that good?

Texas is a jobs monster. Over the past two years, 37 percent of the net new jobs in the country were created in the state, a track record that governor and maybe GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry is quick to tout. He credits his conservative, pro-business policies; skeptics say it’s mainly owed to immigration and the high prices the state is getting for its oil. But there’s another possible contributor to Texas’s growth that no one is talking about: the drug trade.

How so? Well, money pours across the US-Mexico border, proceeds of drugs sales in the US going back to Mexican cartels. Does the money then stay in Mexico?

Jack Schumacher, a recently retired Texas-based DEA agent, says that at least half the drug shipments coming from Mexico stop and offload in Texas. The product is repackaged in small units and resold at a considerable markup, with a share of the gross staying in the state. Even some of the money that gets expatriated to Mexico winds up back in Texas, laundered through Mexican currency exchanges. The state’s relative security is the draw. “If you have a few million,” says Schumacher, “would you invest in a war zone or a bank in San Antonio?” The DEA warns that traffickers are cleaning up their proceeds by buying businesses in South Texas. They also spend on guns, warehouses, security guards—and on luxury cars and houses.

Yet there is more, and the rest is not as intuitive as this example.

Mexicans in Texas are hardly new, but in recent years it’s middle- and ­upper-class families in Mexico’s north who have also made the exodus, bringing their savings and businesses with them. While most seem to be fleeing the kidnapping and extortion back home, one observer has a different take: “Some people, including me, suspect that some of these people come with funds from the drug trade,” says Michael Lauderdale, a professor of criminal justice at the ­University of Texas.

Can Obama Pull a 'Clinton' on the GOP?

Professor Reich is the most outspoken, highest profile liberal in American politics today. He is unabashedly liberal. Thank goodness.

It's no accident that President Obama appears to be following the Clinton script. After all, it worked. Despite a 1994 midterm election that delivered Congress to the GOP and was widely seen as a repudiation of his presidency, President Clinton went on to win re-election.

Clinton triangulated, pitting himself  in the middle of the liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans.


Republicans have obligingly been playing their parts this time. In the fall of 1995, Speaker Newt Gingrich was the firebrand, making budget demands that the public interpreted as causing two government shutdowns—while President Clinton appeared to be the great compromiser. This time it's House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and his Republican allies who appear unwilling to bend and risk defaulting on the nation's bills—while President Obama offers to cut Social Security and reduce $3 of spending for every dollar of tax increase.

And the Newt is still convinced he can win the presidency.

Standoff, or stalemate?

President Obama will not promise that Social Security checks will go out on August 3 unless a deficit-reduction deal is struck. "I cannot guarantee that those checks go out … There may simply not be enough money in the coffers to do it,” he told Scott Pelley of CBS News on Tuesday. “This is not just a matter of Social Security checks,” he explained. "These are veterans’ checks, these are folks on disability and their checks. There are about 70 million checks that go out.” Meanwhile, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said that he does not think a significant reduction deal can be reached as long as Obama is in power. He said, “After years of discussions and months of negotiations, I have little question that as long as this president is in the Oval Office, a real solution is probably unattainable.”

The president probably has the upper hand in this matter, but both sides smell pretty bad.