Matt Yglesias

If It’s Good Enough for Boucher…

Evan Bayh’s not always the left’s favorite senator and stuff like this about how a climate and energy bill that’s been watered-down enough to make Rich Boucher (D-VA) happy may be too strong for Bayh is part of the reason:

Another senior aide said Waxman’s “pragmatic approach … will be appreciated in the Senate” but cautioned that the deal is unlikely to fully satisfy Senate moderates who are looking to temper the bill even more.

“Rick Boucher does not equal Evan Bayh does not equal Debbie Stabenow,” the senior Senate Democratic aide said of the Democratic Senators from Indiana and Michigan, respectively. Bayh and Stabenow have expressed reservations about cap-and-trade provisions, which would cap emissions and allow industries to trade for pollution permits.

Now that’s not Bayh speaking. And maybe the aide being quoted here doesn’t really speak for Bayh. I hope so. Representative Boucher isn’t anyone’s idea of a great progressive environmental hero. And it’s easy to understand why. He represents a coal-heavy Appalachian district that went 59 percent for John McCain. If the current version of the Waxman-Markey bill is a limb boucher can stand on, it’s a limb a Senator from a state Barack Obama carried can stand on. And of course if soi-disant “centrist” senators abandon what’s already a very centrist very moderate bill, then that cuts the limb out from under House Democrats like Boucher who’ve taken a stand in favor of doing something helpful to address the climate crisis.

Evan Bayh is Gripped by Irrational Fear of Frank Luntz

One thing you often hear is that members of congress don’t like it when you question their “good faith” or “motives.” So it’s good to see Evan Bayh clarify that his approach to health care is dominated by cowering in fear for political reasons rather than any policy considerations:

Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, said many Democrats felt “unease that we did not have a strategy” to answer the criticism coming from Republican members of Congress and Republican consultants like Frank I. Luntz, an expert on the language of politics.

One question to ask is why Bayh feels it’s helpful to share this sentiment with The New York Times. Suppose, instead, that he had this thought and kept it to himself. Would any of Indiana’s citizens have been worse off? Any of America’s? Any of the six billion people on the planet? Who, exactly, is helped by Senators engaging in public hand-wringing about health care politics?

Meanwhile, another thought here is that in the United States of America we hold regular elections in which the popularity of different ideas is put to the test. Barack Obama ran for election on a platform of ambitious health care reform. His opponents mounted arguments against him. And he mounted counterarguments. He won the election. He won the election in Indiana. And his copartisans picked up seats in New Hampshire and Virginia and Colorado and North Carolina and all across the country. Yuval Levin at the Corner recently posted some data from conservative-friendly pollster Scott Rasmussen purporting to show that the GOP’s political problems aren’t severe as some people say. This polling data—the data that says Republicans are in good shape—shows that 53 percent of Americans prefer the Democrats’ approach to health care whereas just 35 percent prefer the GOP approach. That’s a gap of eighteen points, a much larger gap than Obama enjoyed overall against McCain.

Back in November, of Indianians who told exit pollsters they were most interested in health care 68 percent voted for Obama. I don’t see any reason to be terrified of Frank Luntz.

WSJ Says Bayh Wants to Shake Up Status Quo By Protecting Business Interests

Here’s a curious report from The Wall Street Journal’s Naftali Bendavid and Greg Hitt:

Mr. Bayh and his group are well positioned to force changes in the president’s budget and on other contentious issues such as health care and climate change. Their stated goal is to rein in deficits and to protect business interests.

Without their votes, Mr. Obama and Democratic leaders don’t have a majority in the Senate, let alone the 60 votes needed to break Republican filibusters. That gives Mr. Bayh and his group an opportunity to assert themselves.

“We really do need to change business as usual,” Mr. Bayh said in an interview Monday. “People want results.”

The presumption here being that over the past eight years, the political powerhouses in Washington were insufficiently solicitous of business interests, so now we need to change things up by—at last!—paying attention to what executives want? That seems like a strange idea to me. But the Journal has on-the-record quotes from Bayh calling for “change” and “results” whereas the thing about business interests is just the reporter’s characterization. So perhaps Bendavid and Hitt have this wrong, and Bayh doesn’t actually think that the change we need is greater protection for business. Meanwhile, Bayh tells Politico that progressives have nothing to worry about:

“We literally have no agenda,” Bayh shot back. “How can they be threatened by a group that has taken no policy positions?”

This is a pretty good question.

Sens. Bayh, Carper, Lincoln Commit Themselves to Obama

A lot of progressives were alarmed when they heard Evan Bayh was launching a bloc of self-described moderate Democratic Senators as it seemed the only purpose of such a group could be to water down the president’s agenda. But the administration and the congressional leadership seemed pretty sanguine. And now here comes a Washington Post op-ed by Bayh, Blanche Lincoln, and Tom Carper saying that’s not the right way to look at it. They say they “feel compelled to set the record straight” and “believe that President Obama is correct when he says that we cannot afford to wait any longer to fix health care and transition to a clean-energy economy.”

The issue, as they see it, is that “on nearly all important votes, a supermajority of 60 senators will be needed to pass legislation” which means that “without Democratic moderates working to find common ground with reasonable Republicans, the president’s agenda could well be filibustered into oblivion.” I’ll stop here to note that there actually is an alternative here, albeit one that nobody in the Senate seems inclined to pursue, namely filibuster reform. Previous eras of substantive progressive reform have usually gone hand-in-hand with procedural reform. But that’s not on the table, so their alternative is working to find common ground with reasonable Republicans. It’s a good idea, I think. They themselves write, however, that when it comes to solving America’s big problems “Unfortunately, the Republican leadership has basically decided to stay on the sidelines to let the Democrats carry the load of reform alone.”

Who are the Republicans they’re going to work with? Arlen Specter who’s running scared of a primary challenge from the right and flip-flopping as fast as he can to base-friendly territory?

Judd Gregg’s Reconciliation Hypocrisy

Jon Cohn notes that Judd Gregg, recently seen whining that passing bills by majority vote is dictatorial, was all for the Bush administration’s efforts to use the reconciliation process to open the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to exploitation by oil companies.

Of course, there’s only so outraged one can get about Gregg’s fake outrage. I argued back during the “nuclear option” fight that Democrats should try to use the moment to abolish the filibuster altogether. But it’s normal for partisans to flip-flop on the merits of minoritarian obstructionism when control of the Senate switches hands. Gregg is being a hypocrite and deserves to be called on it; media outlets who quote him complaining without noting that he’s a hypocrite are being irresponsible. But I save my personal outrage for the members of the majority party who are already hard at work finding ways to block a popular new president’s progressive agenda.

Some Members of Evan Bayh’s New Anti-Progressive Caucus Too Frightened to Admit Membership

It’s been known for a while now that Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) has been planning to form a caucus of “moderate” Senate Democrats hoping to soak up special interest cash in exchange for blocking the progressive agenda. I’m told he more formally announced the formation of this group this morning, on Morning Joe, to acclaim from Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan. It’s nice to see that Bayh isn’t even pretending that what he’s advancing is some alternative vision of progressive change—it’s something he expects, rightly, die-hard rightwingers to find pleasant. The hilarious catch, however, is that when Bayh was asked to name the members of his new Obstruction Caucus he couldn’t name them all. Apparently “three or four” members of the group are part of a Chickenshit Subcaucus who want to block the change America needs but don’t want to be publicly identified as belonging to the group! After all, Barack Obama is popular! And his agenda is popular! So if you choose to oppose it, you might face political problems. So better to keep the sabotage secret.

It’s nice work if you can get it.

For special bonus ax-grinding, note that Bayh is, along with some other members of the Obstruction Caucus, an “honorary co-chair” of Third Way which is, as we all know, a valuable partner in pushing for progressive values.

Are Obama’s Budget Proposals Too Reasonable?

Thinking about the fine whine Ben Nelson, Even Bayh, and others are currently enjoying over the dastardly idea of returning the marginal tax rate on the richest two percent of the population to where it was back when Bill Clinton was destroying the economy, I’m growing concerned that the Obama administration may have made a mistake by putting forward such a reasonable budget proposal.

I can see why they did it. The key administration players—Larry Summers, Peter Orszag, Tim Geithner, Jason Furman, etc.—are nothing if not reasonable, moderate people. But the key legislative players aren’t reasonable, moderate people they’re “reasonable” “Senate moderates.” A “Senate moderate” is someone who takes his party’s proposals, objects to them, waters them down a bit, and then congratulates himself on a job well done. Which is great if his party’s proposals are unduly immoderate. But it’s big-time trouble if his party puts a reasonable, moderate agenda on the table.

After all, you don’t maintain the painstakingly achieved Nelson/Bayh “Senate moderate” brand by clapping politely. You need to bitch and moan and be quoted in inside-baseball only media outlets that none of your constituents pay attention to, and hold conferences and have meetings at the White House where people hold your hands. You need to be praised by the opposition party, and extract your pound of flesh from the proposal. Then when it looks like it might go down to defeat, you can vote for the somewhat-watered-down version and be the hero who saved the day and nobody will mention that you saved the day from yourself.

But you really do need to do that stuff. You can’t just say “well, this is a reasonable proposal so I’ll back it.” Then your moderate license gets taken away.

But I think that means that proposals need to deliberately overshoot the mark. Say Obama had proposed a top marginal tax rate of 43 percent. Well Evan Bayh couldn’t stand for that! He might propose some reasonable alternative like letting the Bush tax cuts expire so that post-recession rates will be back where they were in the 1990s. How reasonable! How moderate! How judicious!

Evan Bayh & Ben Nelson Join Overclass Revolt Against Obama’s Tax Plans

Are you one of the 95 percent of Americans whose taxes would be cut under Barack Obama’s budget? Does the thought of that tax cut being paid for by tax increases on the wealthiest 2 percent of the population strike terror into your heart? If so, you’re in look, because it’s not just Republicans who are eager to spare you from this nightmare moderate Democrats such as Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson want to keep the rich as rich as possible too:

As for the tax increases on high-income earners called for in Obama’s plan, [Evan] Bayh said, “I do think that before we raise revenue, we first should look to see if there are ways we can cut back on spending.” [...] “I have major concerns about trying to raise taxes in the midst of a downturn of the economy,” said [Ben] Nelson, the conservative Nebraska Democrat. “On the one hand, you’re trying to stimulate the economy. On the other hand, you’re trying to keep money from going into taxpayers’ pockets. It’s very difficult to make that logic work.”

It’s particularly depressing here that Nelson seems to have gotten 100 percent of his information about Obama’s tax plans from Fox News and zero percent from participating in the extensive on- and off-the-record briefings for members of congress, congressional staff, and media that the administration has organized. But once again, nobody is raising taxes in the midst of a downturn.

Meanwhile, the median household income in Indiana is $42,000 a year. Families making that much would not see tax increases under Obama’s plan. Families making double the Indiana median household income would not see tax increases under Obama’s plan. Families making double that would not see tax increases under Obama’s plan. Only families making almost six times the median household income of Indiana would see increases; increases that would essentially take us back to the rates that prevailed during the more prosperous 1990s. But never fear, if you’re dramatically richer than most Indianans and sociopathically unconcerned with the well-being of your fellow citizens, then Evan Bayh is fighting for you.

Today’s Joe Lieberman Fact

Donny Shaw at OpenCongress has a blog post of insights gleaned from CQ’s analysis of voting records in the 110th congress. As everyone knows, bloggers are obsessed with Joe Lieberman, so:

Joe Lieberman (I-CT) votes with Bush as often as the least loyal Senate Democrat, Mary Landrieu (D-LA). But he votes with Democrats more often than at least six Democratic Senators.

Evan Bayh, meanwhile, has the lowest party unity score of any Democrat. I think that in years past, people would be inclined to give Bayh a pass on just about anything on the theory that Indiana seemed like such a hopelessly red state (see also Ben Nelson) but with Obama carrying the state back in November I can only assume the White House will be taking the view that strong support for the president’s agenda is consistent with electoral victory in Indiana.

Evan Bayh Organizing Senate Version of “Blue Dog” Caucus

This seems like a good idea to me. With Republicans out of power, the GOP can’t really block progressive change in exchange for large sums of special interest money. That creates an important market niche for Democrats willing to do the work. It was a good racket for the House Blue Dogs in 2007-2008 and there’s no reason it couldn’t work for Senate analogues over the next couple of years.