The Pelosi Problem

Conor Lamb's recent victory in Pennsylvania's 18th CD has added to talk about replacing Nancy Pelosi as Democratic leader in the House, but the talk is nothing new.  While some on the left see Pelosi as too "establishment," likely to impede an aggressive progressive agenda if Democrats regain control of the House, the main objection to Pelosi's leadership is more practical: she is seen as a drag on the party's electoral prospects because Republicans have falsely branded her as wildly radical; an "enemy of traditional American values."

Using thirty-second spots like this one, Pelosi has been demonized.  The thrust of the campaign is that she is a "San Francisco liberal" — and while young people may think of San Francisco as the home of tech billionaires, much of America still associates San Francisco with hippies, the Haight, and free love.  More important, though, is that Pelosi is a Person With A Vagina — a tough, aggressive PWAV of the variety that makes more conservative voters very uncomfortable.  A male member of Congress willing to "take orders" from such a woman, it is understood, must be less than a man.

Tough and aggressive, Pelosi is a very effective leader: if getting a bill though Congress were the criterion, Obamacare more properly would be called Pelosicare.  Republicans fear Pelosi (in much the same way the Russians feared Hillary Clinton.)  If the Democrats regain control of Congress, and Pelosi becomes Speaker again, she will be no less effective than she was in the past.

There are many good reasons to end the Washington gerontocracy, but the leading candidates to replace Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Joseph Crowley, are just as old.  If Democrats replace Pelosi, they will be knuckling under to the Republican defamation campaign— not acting out of any sense of "principle."  She was ready to retire had Hillary Clinton become President, and she will be no less willing if the Democrats can regain the White House in 2020.  In the meanwhile, she is a better leader than anybody likely to replace her.

Representative Government?

The sock puppet you see here is Lee Zeldin, a Republican from New York's 1st Congressional District, the east end of Long Island.  I live there.

Zeldin was elected in our Tr*mp-leaning district by a collection of xenophobes afraid of our Latino immigrants, religious bigots afraid of our homosexuals, and rich people who just don't want any of their money spent on anybody who isn't them.  Based on his voting record in the House, he needn't worry about being "primaried" from the right. 

One might say Zeldin's supporters got what they wanted, but they're about to get something they won't like at all.  Long Islanders pay seriously high state and local taxes, and Zeldin soon will vote to make those taxes non-deductible.  Why?  Because Zeldin's party loyalty is absolute.  The people he "represents" don't matter.

Ours is a swing district, so if Democrats mount a competent campaign,  Zeldin's vote on taxes ought to cost him his seat in 2018.  Most congressional districts, though, are not swing districts: they are heavily gerrymandered "safe" districts whose "representatives" can safely ignore the needs of their voters.  Only the deep-pocketed donors who dictate party policy positions must be satisfied.

Voters in very different districts have very different needs.  If legislators were truly representative of those who send them to Washington, far more legislation would be the product of bargains, trade-offs, and compromise.  Today's extreme partisanship is a clear indicator that our democracy is broken.

House Divided

 The Freedom Caucus, by making the thoroughly odious the enemy of the merely malevolent, is said to have nailed shut the coffin of Ryancare.  Impressively, the renegade Republicans stayed ideologically pure, resisting the temptation to give the rich a major tax cut and screw over millions of poorer folk who benefit from the expansion of Medicaid.  One wonders if the Koch brothers and Grover Norquist regret financing Tea Party primary challenges against more "moderate" Republicans.  (John Boehner, deposed by those same ideologues, must be smirking pretty hard today.)

In truth, though, the Ryan bill would have had a hard time even without the Republican schism.  It was pure Reaganomics, and despite compulsory genuflection at the shrine of Saint Ronnie, there are Republicans who understand it's not the 1980s anymore — and everyone can see that Donald is a far cry from Ronald.

Well, on to tax reform!  Sadly for Ryan, he was counting on the tax cuts from the failed health bill to make the numbers look vaguely reasonable in his tax package.  There's also quite a bit of division among his party's corporate contributors over those ideas for boosting exports and making imports more expensive.  There could be more chaos on the Hill forthwith.

The Farm Bill

Some people are just evil, and a lot of those evil people "serve" in the House of Representatives.

The radical effort by right-wing Republicans to separate SNAP (food stamps) from farm subsidies turns my stomach.  Clearly, their intent is to secure the benefits corporate agriculture is accustomed to while setting up an opportunity to "compromise" on severe cuts to SNAP.  Apparently, they think the best approach to dealing with poverty is to let the poor starve.

Isn't it time for Our President to get out there and say he will veto any Farm Bill that does not include SNAP, maintained at least at its current level?  It won't happen.  (As you may have noticed, I have absolutely no confidence in Obama.  Maybe, someday, we'll get a president who really is black, or a Latino who isn't a son of the Cuban plutocracy from the Batista era.  Okay, I'm not holding my breath.)

It's just evil.  If the right-wing Republican Old Testament god were real, and not a piece of shit like his admirers, he'd be striking them down with boils and toads and the Angel of Death.  If Jesus is out there watching, he's most likely puking his guts.

Like me.

New Rules

The House of Representatives has adopted a new set of rules that require any spending increases to be offset by spending cuts elsewhere. Tax cuts, on the other hand, need not be offset by tax increases elsewhere.

After thirty years of trying, one would think even the dullest witted Republican would have figured out that tax cuts do not increase government revenues. Even Arthur Laffer, creator of the famed Laffer curve that was used to justify Reaganomics, has come to that conclusion. Frankly, I don't believe even Reagan believed in the magical efficacy of tax cuts for raising revenues — he and his crew were more interested in the "starve the beast" school of reducing the size of government, especially those programs introduced as part of Roosevelt's New Deal.

That leaves Democrats, both in the Senate and the White House, in an uncomfortable position. If they are in any way serious about deficit reduction, they will have to reject every tax cut the House sends their way — and since the Republican answer to every problem is a tax cut, you can be sure the House will be sending them. Naturally, that would allow the Republicans to accuse Democrats of sabotaging economic recovery by stifling economic growth.

Actually, given the small Democratic majority in the Senate, including the remnants of the Blue Dog caucus and some who will do just about anything to keep their seats in the 2012 election, it may actually be necessary for other Democrats to filibuster tax cut bills to keep them from being enacted — or just pass them along to the President for a veto.

Does Obama have the balls to do that? Not from any of the evidence we've seen to date.