No change at the White House - Rove

Karl Rove is in charge of economic policy. As the NYT puts it, "Mr. Bush's Treasury secretaries ... have not had their own voices on economic policy and have been effectively subordinate to Karl Rove." (NYT, 4.5.06) And as former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill put it, "It's all about sound bites, deluding the people, pandering to the lowest common denominator."

Rove's reassignment was window dressing. "Strategic planning" undoubtedly means "continue to spin and dissemble." At most it means the day-to-day happy face news format has been running long enough for to continue on its own. Rove is going nowhere, barring indictment. Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld are not expendible. They are George Bush.

O'Neill and Lawrence Lindsey were let go back when the first wave of Bush economic promises fell through, those surrounding the stimulus value of tax cuts for the rich. This was after the excuse "it's all because of 9-11" had been milked dry. The bad news demanded sacrifice. So they sacrificed these two, blood on the altar of public opinion, so as not to have to change policies.

It was O'Neill who noted the influx of immigrants demanded an aggressive jobs program. His estimate was that 100,000 to 125,000 jobs per month are needed just to absorb new entrants into the work pool. It remains a miracle of modern statistical science that, for example, employment rose less than a million between 2002 and 2004, yet employment dropped 0.3 percent. A bare minimum of two million would have been needed just to stay even. We've talked about this before.

Now O'Neill's successor, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow is making noises about leaving. Like as not, he wants out before the economic stuff hits the economic fan, so as to avoid the inevitable sacrifice of the scapegoat. Snow will be remembered as one so bereft of principle that after staking his reputation on the need for balanced budgets, he held the coats of the men who exacted a trillion more dollars of red stuff from the future of the country. Adriana Huffington had this to say at the time of his appointment

It is a bit surprising Snow did not take advantage of Josh Bolten's "If you're thinking of leaving in the next few months, do it now." Snow leaked explicitly his plan to leave in the next few months. Possibly he has taken some hope from Rove's reassignment and imagines he might move up the ladder into a position of actual influence. Futile dream. It is more likely that Bolten, even though he once worked at Goldman Sachs, can't find anybody else interested in the job.

Payback for Arctic Refuge filibuster?

Ted Stevens, I'm coming to your state on this one. The minute they could no longer use it as a bargaining chip, Republicans in Congress cut badly needed help for low-income households to heat their homes this winter. The director of CBPP Robert Greenstein called it:

"Even though there is bipartisan support in Congress for providing LIHEAP [Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program] funds, congressional leaders stripped those funds out of the defense bill the minute they could no longer use them to help get ANWR enacted."

While a small piece of the LIHEAP money was attached to Arctic drilling, $2 billion was not. Both were stripped.

The Republican leadership may be delivering payback. They sure lined up to blow smoke over cutting vital assistance just before Christmas. Senator Rick Santorum's office said, "Democrats stripped out the $2 billion in LIHEAP money because it would have been funded by revenues from oil drilling in ANWR." Does this guy have any credibility left?

Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa)was quoted as saying ANWR drilling was the source of funds for the entire utility assistance. Senator Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said the only way Congress could have found extra money was through a new revenue source. What is it called when people who know better make statements that are not true?

A spokesman for Dennis Hastert attacked Senate Democrats for delaying passage of a separate piece of legislation — the budget reconciliation bill that would cut Medicaid, student loans, child support enforcement, and other programs — by procedural means which forces another vote in the House. The Hastert spokesman, Ron Bonjean, said this action would delay the provision of money to help low-income families pay their heating bills. Bogus. The only money for heating assistance contained in the budget reconciliation bill is funding for 2007.

The Republicans blocked LIHEAP from other bills, preferring to use it as a sweetener, first for the budget reconciliation bill then, when that passed the House floor, moving the money to the defense appropriation bill with ANWR. Two weeks ago Bush & Co. rejected attempts to update food stamp benefits to reflect higher heating bills and hence less money for food, claiming the adjustment was unnecessary because more LIHEAP funds were on the way. Sure, George.

Now Congress has left town with no action. Worse, because of the 1% across-the-board cut in discretionary funding, there will actually be LESS MONEY IN THE LIHEAP FUND, PRECISELY WHEN HEATING BILLS ARE SPIKING.

These people are running the country!

See the whole sick thing at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Budgetary "martial law" means we still don't know how bad it is

Oil drilling in ANWR is only the most obvious threat from the budget bills rammed through by House Republican leadership early this morning, but it may not be the worst. Because the passage of the defense appropriations and budget-cut reconciliation bill was done under the "martial law rule," much of the fine print has yet to be read. This rule allows the leadership to force a vote without waiting until the next legislative day. The one-day procedure is designed for legislators to have an opportunity to look at what they are voting on. Didn't happen this time.

The martial law rule was invoked just before midnight Sunday. At 1:12 a.m. the 774-page conference report was filed in the House. At 5:43 a.m., after less than 40 minutes of debate, the House began its vote. Consequently we really don't know what was passed.

Major media accounts focused on the ANWR drilling in the defense appropriations bill. Was it proper to attach this unrelated and controversial measure to a defense bill in time of war? [Insert your answer here.]

It may be the phrase "unnoticed at the time of its passage" that will end up hurting most, because those words may apply to land mines packaged in the secrecy of the Republican caucus.

What we do know of the reconciliation bill is Scrooge-like cuts at the low end contrast with some Santa-sized giveaways to corporations at the upper end. Look for increases in Medicaid co-payments and premiums along with simultaneous reductions in some benefits. Watch the Senate-proposed increases in rebates from pharmaceutical companies disappear. (The Senate expected $10.5 billion in increased rebates from the drug manufacturers so beloved of Republican campaign finance managers. The "compromise" was $720 million.)

Other measures trumpeted as "fiscal discipline and limited government" by Mike Pence, R-Ind., include cuts in child support enforcement, new costs on student loans, slower SSI payouts, major cost increases to states for child care, and reductions in foster care benefits to some grandparents.

The fiscal discipline in continuing the enormous budget deficits and in granting ridiculous tax bonuses to the rich in time of war is similar to the personal discipline of a drunk in Las Vegas. We only wonder what the Republicans forgot to mention as they delivered their little present in the middle of the night.

Congratulations to Rep. Brian Baird for pegging it correctly, in part:

“The people’s elected representatives deserve time to read and debate legislation that will have such an enormous impact on our national defense and domestic programs,” said Congressman Baird. “It is a shame, a disgrace, and an embarrassment that these critically important bills were brought up in the dead of the night, laden with unrelated provisions, and passed by sheep-like Members who had but the slightest idea what was in them.”


Also see the CBPP discussion.