1937?

I understand the politics of this, but, man, nearly my adult life I've been hearing this song.

WASHINGTON — President Obama will call for a three-year freeze in spending on many domestic programs, and for increases no greater than inflation after that, an initiative intended to signal his seriousness about cutting the budget deficit, administration officials said Monday.

The officials said the proposal would be a major component both of Mr. Obama’s State of the Union address on Wednesday and of the budget he will send to Congress on Monday for the fiscal year that begins in October.

The freeze would cover the agencies and programs for which Congress allocates specific budgets each year, including air traffic control, farm subsidies, education, nutrition and national parks.

But it would exempt security-related budgets for the Pentagon, foreign aid, the Veterans Administration and homeland security, as well as the entitlement programs that make up the biggest and fastest-growing part of the federal budget: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Isn't nearly every dollar of Pentagon spending labeled under the category of "security-related?"

And I realize that much of the stimulus is either spent or is already committed to infrastructure projects that won't start until this year, but we are still perilously teetering on the precipice of another recessionary dip, aren't we?

Further, the failure of the administration to make clear (and take a stand) that health care reform remains a priority that will create jobs and reduce the deficit is increasingly egregious.

Finally, there is the actual process of determining what is frozen, what is cut, and what continues to get funded. It won't be pretty, or progressive, of that I'm pretty sure. As Ezra Klein writes,

Then comes the collision between the budget and Congress. And here things get dicier. Congress can stick to the administration's freeze but throws out the administration's proposed cuts. The way this works is simple: The administration will target worthless programs, like agricultural subsidies, in order to preserve good programs. But the reason worthless programs live in budget after budget is they have powerful backers. And those backers will rush to Congress to protect their profits. You think Blanche Lincoln, who chairs the Senate Agricultural Committee and is behind in the polls for her 2010 reelection, is going to let her state's subsidies get gored?

Now you've removed some of the cuts, but you still want to hit the overall target. So the cuts could get reapportioned to hit programs that lack powerful constituencies. Many of those programs help the poor.

We were, just a few weeks ago, on the verge of a massive shift towards providing a real safety net to the poor and, yes, the middle class.

Sigh.

UPDATE: Jared Bernstein, progressive economist and Joe Biden's economic policy advisor, responds in a lengthy, informative interview on Rachel Maddow's show last night: "There's going to be no stupid Hooverism around here."

Dumb and dumber

Rep. Manzullo thinks AIG sells insurance on 401ks...or something.



It's not easy to flap the normally unflappable Ben Bernanke.

Rep. Bachman, after demanding to know where in the Constitution is the authority to bail out Bear Sterns then goes on to express her fears that we're abandoning the dollar in favor of some global currency, because someplace called "Kazikhistan" demands it.



Apparently some of our lawmakers do not understand what is being done in response to the collapse of the global economy, nor do they care to.

Against it before they were for it

This would be funny, if...

Mr. McConnell and his fellow Republicans are playing such tight defense, blocking nearly every bill proposed by the slim Democratic majority that they are increasingly able to dictate what they want, much to the dismay of the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, and frustrated Democrats in the House.

In fact, the Senate Republicans are so accustomed to blocking measures that when the Democrats finally agreed last week to their demands on a bill to repair the alternative minimum tax, the Republicans still objected, briefly blocking the version of the bill that they wanted before scrambling to approve it later.

It's interesting. Under the direction of Eddie "the chins" Gillespie, Bush has taken to petulantly referencing "lazy Congress," rather than denigrating the "Democrat Party." It's a curious strategy to be sure and even has some incumbents in his own party sounding worried.

“I am not seeing much common ground, meeting in the center,” said Senator Gordon H. Smith of Oregon, a Republican who is seeking a third term. “And if we don’t find that, the Senate will fail in its governing responsibilities.

“The thing that’s important to remember is that the Senate was structured to govern from the center, to find the common sense. There is little sense about this place right now.”

Bush and McConnell don't seem to care all that much about that.

"Why are you better than Bush?"

Mario Cuomo asks difficult questions.

The Yankees in August

The Yankees are in the midst of a return to playing +.500 teams after an enjoyable July best exemplified by the 100 some odd runs they scored in 10 games against Baltimore, ChiSox, and KC. They now play Toronto (winning a 5-4 nail biter yesterday), followed by Cleveland, a surprisingly tough Baltimore, Detroit, arch-nemesis Angels, more Detroit, finally finishing up the month against Boston.

This is the month that will test whether the resurgent Yankees are for real. If they can win the majority of those series, they should be poised to lead the Wild Card standings going into September. And, lately, there have been very few negatives coming from Yankeeland.

After striking out in his first two at-bats, Canó doubled to left-center on a curveball from the left-handed reliever Scott Downs. The Yankees had been trailing by a run, but Canó ’s hit gave them a 4-3 lead. When Cabrera singled him home, it was his third hit of the game.

Jason Giambi is about to rejoin the Yankees, which could nudge an outfielder like Johnny Damon or Hideki Matsui out of the designated hitter role. But Cabrera is not losing his starting job in center. He has a 12-game hitting streak, with a .412 average in those games.

“I’m not saying we won’t give him a day off here and there,” Manager Joe Torre said, “but it would really be tough to replace what he does for us.”

Part of what makes Cabrera tough to replace is that he gives the Yankees a switch-hitter with pop at the bottom of the order and a strong arm on defense that runners rarely challenge. Another part is intangible, but possibly as important.

“You’ll see guys sort of dragging, and they see them bouncing around and say, ‘Shoot, I can do that, too,’ ” said the third-base coach Larry Bowa, referring to Canó and Cabrera.

“There’s no question it helps. They’re still going to make some mistakes, but what they bring to the table outnumbers what they do wrong.”

Canó said he and Cabrera only talked baseball after losses, so they can find ways to improve. After a game in Chicago in June, when the Yankees were well under .500, Canó and Cabrera resolved to get on base more often. Canó said they decided to be realistic about what the team needed.

“We’re not here to hit home runs,” Canó said. “We’re not going to prove that we’re Babe Ruth or anything. Just go out there, get on base for A-Rod and Posada and Matsui, let them hit the home runs. Just swing at pitches we can drive, not like we were at the beginning, when we were swinging at everything and trying to hit the ball out of the park.”

Canó is batting .456 (41 for 90) in his last 23 games, coming on strong in the second half the way he did last season. He and Cabrera are playing with the boundless energy of teenagers, Alex Rodriguez said, as they compete against each other and the opposition.

The good news even extends to manager Joe Torre. A man not known for shaking up the establishment in seasons' past, he's begun to think different.

Fortunately, the solution just may be on his way. Peter Abraham reports that Joba Chamberlain has been sent to Toronto and will likely be activated for today's game. Word is that Jeff Karstens will be demoted to make room for him. That supports what Joe Torre said prior to yesterdays game about no longer trying to force lefty-on-lefty matchups now that Myers is gone. Karstens continued presence would have suggested that Torre intended to rely on him as a long man while using Villone as a matchup lefty, but without Karstens, Villone remains the long man, and Chamberlain and Vizcaino become the final pieces of this team's long awaited Big Three without a lefty in the picture to muck things up. I like it. Now if they'd only swap out Brower and Farnsworth for Ramirez and Britton (and dump Miguel Cairo when activating Jason Giambi, who is due to arrive in Toronto today as well).

And guess what, the Drama Queen lost last night.

This fellow is looking for advice in all the wrong places.

And the Pinstriped guy bids farewell to the Loogy, then goes off.

AND IN THE REAL WORLD...
This latest capitulation by the so-called opposition in Congress is spectacularly frustrating. If the loyal opposition cannot defy a president who is arguably the least-popular in history, what is their purpose? One can comfort one's self with the fact that the key presidential candidates voted against the provision, but it's cold comfort when the Constitution is being shredded. There is no putting the genie back in that bottle. Our system has become so debauched as to become unfixable. In any case, the opposition has demonstrated that the fear of defending itself that has afflicted it ever since it was charged with "losing" China in the 1940s still holds sway. We went into Vietnam because of that fear, and we invaded Iraq because of it as well. Could we please turn the page already? Joe McCarthy is dead, and so is Owen Lattimore, and LBJ. I eagerly await the politician brave enough to face down the propagandists and say, "I'm smart enough and brave enough to fight the bad guys without eviscerating the Bill of Rights or plowing under our own sons and daughters. In my administration, in my party, we'll keep America safe, but we'll respect those things that make us Americans in the first place-our open society with its respect for individual freedoms -- and we'll do it while purchasing far fewer body bags."

I don't really care what party that guy comes from, so long as he arrives. Is there a rock somewhere with a sword sticking out of it? It seems like it might take that level of miracle for it to happen.

Had to get that off my chest.

Glad you did.

Appeasement

George W. Bush is the most unpopular president in more than a generation and yet, at each and every turn, Democrats -- for fear of looking "weak" on terraism or "obstructionist" when bad judicial nominees are named -- give him the political equivalent of "Czechoslovakia" whenever he "demands" it.

As usual, Greenwald gets it exactly right.

The intense rush to amend this legislation means that most of them have no idea what they are actually enacting -- even less of an idea than they typically have. But what they know is that George Bush and Fox News and the Beltway establishment have told them that they would be irresponsible and weak and unserious if they failed to comply with George Bush's instructions, and hence, they comply. In the American political landscape, there have been profound changes in public opinion since September of 2001. But in the Beltway, among our political and media establishment, virtually nothing has changed.

I don't have time this morning to dissect the various excesses and dangers of the new FISA amendments, though Marty Lederman and Steve Benen both do a typically thorough job in that regard. Suffice to say, craven fear, as usual, is the author of this debacle.

There are many mythologies about what are the defining beliefs and motivations of bloggers and their readers and the attendees at Yearly Kos. One of the principal myths is that it is all driven by a familiar and easily defined ideological agenda and/or a partisan attachment to the Democratic Party. That is all false.

The common, defining political principle here -- what resonates far more powerfully than any other idea -- is a fervent and passionate belief in our country's constitutional framework, the core liberties it secures, and the checks and balances it offers as a safeguard against tyrannical power. Those who fail to defend that framework, or worse, those who are passively or actively complicit in its further erosion, are all equally culpable. With each day that passes, the radicalism and extremism originally spawned in secret by the Bush presidency becomes less and less his fault and more and more the fault of those who -- having discovered what they have been doing and having been given the power to stop it -- instead acquiesce to it and, worse, enable and endorse it.

Senator Webb, who one would have expected to reasonably voting against the amendments, gives a statement.

Has all of Washington has been told that a massive attack is coming this month? Otherwise, how else to explain that Congress just gave Alberto Gonzalez -- the AG who has thoroughly politicized the Justice Dept. -- freedom from accountability?

The new law, which is intended as a stopgap and expires in six months, also represents a power shift in terms of the oversight and regulation of government surveillance.

The new law gives the attorney general and the director of national intelligence the power to approve the international surveillance, rather than the special intelligence court. The court’s only role will be to review and approve the procedures used by the government in the surveillance after it has been conducted. It will not scrutinize the cases of the individuals being monitored.

The law also gave the administration greater power to force telecommunications companies to cooperate with such spying operations. The companies can now be compelled to cooperate by orders from the attorney general and the director of national intelligence.

Democratic Congressional aides said Sunday that some telecommunications company officials had told Congressional leaders that they were unhappy with that provision in the bill and might challenge the new law in court. The aides said the telecommunications companies had told lawmakers that they would rather have a court-approved warrant ordering them to comply.

To think that the telecommunications behemoths are more concerned (albeit for their own self-interest) about the Constitution than are members of the House of Representatives.