So, because Mitch McConnell and his Republican buddies wanted UAW workers to accept wages equal to what Toyota workers get, forgetting that those "wages" include retiree benefits that Toyota workers don’t have to pay for, no deal on an auto bridge loan and the US can suck up a Depression, because screwing union workers is more important than saving the economy for everyone.
Let’s assume that the Republicans are serious about this, because lord knows, the last 8 years have proved that ideology trumps common sense. Where do we go from here? I see three possibilities.
1) Obama starts bending arms. A lot of those Republicans are going to be in the Senate with him. Budgets are done under reconciliation, which means you can’t filibuster them. There’s no reason why any Republican has to get anything through in the budget he or she wants, and no reason why Obama and Dems can’t just put everything but the kitchen sink they want into the budget. Explain to them kindly that what comes around, goes around. If they threaten to filibuster judicial appointments, in further retaliation, remind them of the so-called nuclear option.
2) As Stirling Newberry has suggested, have the Treasury secretary presumptive (Geithner) pay a visit to the major money center banks. Let them know that if 15 billion dollars in loans make it to the big 2 1/2, the Treasury under Obama will make it good if anything goes bad.
3) Have a nice chat with Bernanke. Strictly speaking the Fed is independent, but as a practical matter if Obama asks Bernanke to step down publicly, he’ll pretty much have to. Suggest to Bernanke that he makes sure the auto companies get the money they need to get through the next few months. If he doesn’t do that, well, Obama will lose confidence in his ability to manage the economy, since he was willing to let 3 million jobs go away during an economic crisis, and will seek to have him replaced immediately upon assuming office.
There are still options. They are, however, now all up to Obama. There are ways he can make sure Republican union hatred doesn’t turn this recession into a depression, he just has to choose one of them.
Related posts:
- Auto Retirees were Promised Health Care; GM Deal Breaks the Promise
- FDL Book Salon Welcomes Michael Huttner and Jason Salzman, 50 Ways You Can Help Obama Change America
- Jobless Rate Hits 26-Year High: Does Obama Have an Economic Team? Where’s Their Jobs Program?
- Tanker Contract: Corporate Serfdom or Quality Jobs?
- Bob Corker, After Begging for Auto Bankruptcy, Wants Dealers Exempted
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Abolish The Federal Reserve.
Regarding Option #1, you’re forgetting the Paper Tiger named Harry Reid. He’s got the power now to do a lot of things that he doesn’t do. He seems to be more concerned with the collegiate nature of the Senate than exercising the power of the majority party.
What will the votes look like in the “new” Senate? I know we can’t wait that long, but just out of curiosity, how many of the recalcitrant & petulant Southerners will be out on their collective asses?
And what happened with Tester & Baucus? I seem to recall that each of them voted AGAINST cloture on that last vote?
I’m holding my breath waiting for W or O to do something.
Phew. Gingrich is finally off my TV.
Thanks Ian.
digg
Interesting question. I haven’t studied the roll-call vote on the auto bailout bill all that closely, but I did notice in passing that Snow (R ME) voted yea. Of course, there were quite a few Dems who voted nay.
So the real question is will Obama have more courage to do what is right for the United States than the current Democratic leaders in the U.S. House and Senate. I certainly hope Obama has more courage than the craven, spineless Democratic leaders we have–and apparently will be afflicted with for the foreseeable future. These, after all, are the same people who acquiesced in the Bush regime’s torture and flaunting of international law, and who cave every time a Republican says boo. I hope Obama and Rahm will use the President-elect’s political capital to save this country’s bacon, but only time will tell, I guess. Meanwhile, it’s up to the rest of us to get a better class of Democratic leaders chosen, people who are willing to actually stand up for what is not only legal, but what is the right thing to do.
Me too.
eCAHN, I do think that Bush is going to stick his hand into the TARP bag and pull out the money because … he really DOES care about his legacy and does NOT want to be written up as the president who sent the US economy down the sewer…and took the rest of the world with it. He’s already said he’d do it and I think now he will.
I just caught Corker lying about the UAW on CNBC. SOB was sweating like a stuck pig.
You meant to reply to Mauimon.
I couldn’t watch it. Was reduced to switching to Crossing Jordan for awhile.
maybe these republicans represent interests that are massively short the stock market/dollar so it’s in their benefit to oppose the measure. Greed,it’s the american way. You kind of expect this from republicans because they lack humanity but that Harry Reid he is so slimey with his sleazy fakely reassuring soft spokeness,what a dick
That’s what happens when you’re hopping back and forth between two threads, I guess. Sorry ’bout that.
No problem.
Correct prescription, wrong doctor
We don’t quite have an elected dictatorship, yet, and I’ld like to at least keep the dictatorship incomplete, if not reverse the concentration of power in the president’s hands.
So, yes, let’s have some nut-cutting, but let’s have the Constitutionally prescribed doctors wield the scalpel. The power of the purse, which is the force behind what you prescribe, belongs to Congress. Even threatening Bernanke’s job involves, ultimately, if you actually need to force him out, cutting off the funding for his position.
But, oh my God, if we want forceful action, we need to be able to look to One Leader, right? No committee, like Congress, could act decisively enough, right? Well, Congress, with no executive branch in existence, managed the crisis of the Revolution, and defeated the world’s only superpower of that time, well enough. And it’s not as if you need folks the stature of the Founders if all you need to do is frighten some numb-nuts Republican Senators into line. All you need is a Sam Rayburn or a Lyndon Johnson. But the later history of the latter warns us that it’s not safe to have even such lesser talents succeed to a presidency that we have let grow into an elected dictatorship.
Seems like Bank of America can buy Merrill but can’t help GM.
I’ve never heard “three” described as “quite a few”:
Tester
Lincoln
Baucus
(Note: Reid also voted “no,” but strictly as a procedural matter — it allows him to move to reconsider the vote. This is a very common tool used by party leaders on both sides of the aisle, when a vote goes against them.)
Ian, I’m sort of wondering if these latter stages are being designed so that Bush gets to take the heat for doing the thing that’s necessary but unpopular with the Republican base (i.e., what he should have done from the start and simply coughed up $25 billion from the TARP funds that Paulson and Bernanke still have lying around) while the Republican Senators get to have a consequence-free “no” vote on the bailout bill.
The fact that Bush had told the GOP senate caucus that he would be forced to go to the TARP if they didn’t back a bill sure sounds to me as if he was telling them “go ahead, have your ‘no’ vote, I’ll take care of it”. (This is actually a rather common strategy, except that it’s usually the House that does the crazily-irresponsible but politically-useful votes and the Senate that serves as the backstop.)
MSNBC reports: White House says it’s willing to look at using TARP funds for auto bailout.
The nuclear option should be used to end the stranglehold the south has
had on american politics through the senate rules. It is time to reduce the
south to it’s proper weight in national affairs by invoking the nuclear
option. A second reconstruction should follow on this, they must be made to
pay for what they have done.
I wish there some way to make Shellface and Corkhead hand carry the dough to GM and Chrysler.
I thought so. Bush takes the flak from The Base for saving Detroit, GOP legislators get to be able to say that they voted against Evil Unions without paying the consequences that this would entail if Bush didn’t use the TARP funds as he should have done weeks ago.
A bit of a tangent, but I worry about this. Precedence is precedence. If power has been successfully assumed through behavior that goes unpunished, what’s to prevent a future president from re-assuming those same powers? Once the genie’s out of the bottle, how do you stuff it back in?
Option # 1 is very doable. There are 57 yes votes [52 + Reid, Biden, Kennedy, Kerry and Wyden]. Three Democrats voted no [Baucus, Lincoln and Tester]. Obama should be able to bring them round. In addition, Hagel, who seemingly wants a job in the new administration, did not vote. Obama should have considerable influence on him.
No bailout for NASCAR. Kick their balls.
Yes. They even sent out Cheney and Bolton with no success. Bush doesn’t want the crumbling of the American car industry on his record along with everything else.
Obama should just smoke a cigarette and watch the circus.
Make Dinocrats
An Extinct Species
Great Ideas Ian we should throw in an every state should pay their share for Bush’s war based on population and wealth.
A lot of Red States get more money from the Federal Government than they pay in taxes.
Those low tax rates steal business from the north and midwest since the south won’t help us we can stop helping them.
The GOP can say whatever they like. The reality of their stance is out there for all to see. There are a lot of folks connected to the auto industry one way or another who won’t forget. Nor will members of other unions.
Fair enough.
IIRC, GMAC, which finances most GM dealers, has to make some moves TODAY to qualify as a bank to get more TARP money.
(in a politically pleasant way)
Bush also has nothing to lose. He can do things that the GOP Base will see as A Huuuuge Betrayal, and the GOP Congresscritters get to have their base-pleasing “no” votes — but if they could con Reid into giving away the store, a “yes” vote might have been OK too. Wonder how long it took Harry Reid to figure this out?
Does that include being tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail?
at risk, it does sound pleasant to me. /s
GM and Ford go under Bush will be called worse than Hoover during his Presidency.
Chicago School Economics will get the blame and we might have enough political capital to arrest Senators for taking money from campaign contributions to put Americans out of work.
I’m sure treason and bribery charges will work and in an America without GM and Ford he public will be looking for someone to blame.
Ah, but their audience is limited to that small but vocal portion of the population known as “Republican primary voters”. As the sane folks leave the GOP, the power of the crazies is strengthened.
This is why Mitch McConnell probably hasn’t bothered to court either Snowe or Collins to keep them from taking any offers by Obama to join his Cabinet. He wants that 41-vote firewall, but not enough to be nice to moderate Republican senators from a state with a Democratic governor.
The Reverse Hundred Days: Depressionism Grips America
Stirling’s up
From what I’ve read, it looks as though GMAC is not going to be able to come up with sufficient capital to become a bank-holding company and is on bankruptcy’s doorstep. Bloomberg had a piece yesterday that talked about the potential fallout from this: GM May Lose 40% of U.S. Dealers in GMAC Bankruptcy.
Goldman Sachs loves shorting stocks to the tune of billions. That has been the predominant money-making play since 2000.
All our retirement funds – buy and hold stocks like dumbasses, while Goldman, and the other Investment Banks have been killing our investments.
What was caller reaction to him?
That had to be the most miserable line-up on CV-Span today of any I’ve ever seen.
And I read a piece this morning (NYT?) stating that GS was advising its clients to buy credit default swaps (betting on value declines) on the same municipal bonds GS sponsored in the first place. What a country.
Interesting ideas, Ian.
Somewhat OT: I don’t disagree, but you might want to read Bruce Chadwick, George Washington’s War. It argues that most executive branch powers were exercised by Washington during the Revolution and instructed the Constitutional Convention.
My $0.02 is Obama should use this to play the Repubs against each other – to set them up for 2010 and 2012.
William Greider has an interesting article in The Nation citing the history of the filibuster, its use by Southern Democrats to block civil rights legislation, and the work of folks like Walter Mondale to change the vote required to cut off a filibuster from 67 to the current 60.
Current “events” make it clear that it’s time for another rule change in the “old boys’ club.”
http://www.thenation.com/doc/2…..eaccordian
Thank you for this post, Ian. A ray of hope on an otherwise dark day in our history.
My mind is reeling at the level of greed and power lust among supposedly competent republicans in the Senate and elsewhere.
Public service is an alien concept to republican leaders. They should hang their heads in shame for what they have done to this once proud nation and to the world in eight short years.
Thanks for the link, the senate was designed as the third leg to support
slavery, the other two being the 3/5 clause and the electorial college. It
is time to break their little playhouse up.
Great ideas. Play hardball. I like it. Does Obama have the intestinal fortitude to do it? I know Emanuel does, but will Obama let him do his thing?
Again, why wasn’t Harry Reid replaced?
Ian, I’m no pro at all this, but why choose one option? Why not immediately put all 3 actions you suggest into gear?
1) Could Chuck Hagel pass the news on to the senate repubs as to what they can expect?
2) Beitner to the bands as you state.
3) Rahm Emanuel to Bernanke, without gloves.
If Obama is going to have a prayer of turning this mess around he has got to quit slip slidin’ around.
Fire away, pups!
Geitner to the banks… Sorry.
Thank god that Pelosi bill went down, it guaranteed the end of GM and the UAW, Gettlefinger was just on TV explaining the difference in pay scales of the foreign automakers and the UAW members while he was calling out Shelby, Corker, Demint, and the rest of the sleazy gang of five.
In responce to Plunger’s first comment: federalise the Fed. Also, we’re already on the hook for most of the legacy debt through the PBGC. The the only way to possibly avoid assuming that burden is to print another $30 billion on top of the trillions we hosed onto Wall Street. Unctious Harry doesn’t get political theater. It ought to be an easy sell.