Rendell feels that major changes are needed in almost everything in the economy and that Roosevelt’s big failure was when he backed off his big plans in his second term.

ian, why are we allowing this any play?

Interesting question about the politics of the Specter seat. Who will dems run? Does that person have a better chance against Specter or against a more conservative gooper?

Don’t know the answers, but it would SEEM that dems are better off if Specter gets his ass handed to him in the primary. They would then be running against a gooper with less name recognition and perhaps less support fromo moderates.

Well it seems to be the truth for one thing. Roosevelt got nervous about the deficit and backed off on spending that led to the increase in unemployment in ‘37. You can see the effect on the charts that are available many places.

Would love to know what the oil company lobbyists are up to currently…lower prices may have their knickers in a wad. They need more demand to boost prices- and more hybrids are BAD for business. Follow the fuckin money!

think progress addresses that very point;

The Columbus Dispatch then notes, “Most historians date the beginning of the Great Depression at or shortly after the stock-market crash of 1929; Roosevelt took office in 1933.” As Dean Baker has explained, “Roosevelt’s New Deal Agenda lowered the unemployment rate from 25 percent in 1933 to 10 percent in 1937.” The economy turned bad again when the “Blue Dogs of the Roosevelt era won sway and got Roosevelt to cut spending and raise taxes.”

that’s the exact framing that needs to be made clear

however I do want taxes to be raised for those who had it lowered under bush and ray gun

Roosevelt got nervous about the deficit and backed off on spending that led to the increase in unemployment in ‘37.

I keep wondering what will happen when the problems of the Alt A and Option ARM loans start raising their heads in 2010 and forward! Has the administration accounted for this?

Woah! How did someone with a brain get to Congress? We need more brains and guts in our government and less shit and shinola.

Who’s Ed Randell? Linky:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Rendell

You mean Rendell? He’s a governor!

Actually most congresscritters are plenty bright enough- they quickly learn that sounding stupid plays better

A question for Rendell. So what if the House bill is better than the Senate bill and the Senate bill is better than nothing if none of them keep us out of depression?

And aren’t we all just a little bit tired of that lame ass argument that every time something really useless and pathetic is done it is justified as better than nothing? We could say the same thing about salmonella laced peanut butter. Hey, it’s better than nothing. If it doesn’t kill you, it might even be nourishing.

Sounding stupid is ok for them so long as righteousness is included.

Great framing of the question–

This is deferred maintenance. You let the gutters on your house go too long, you risk the roof. Same deal.

My prayers are for competent Dems to help Obama explain the stimulus bill.

Infrastructure spending is not the best short term stimulus but it is good for the longer term but even there you have to ask what kind of infrastructure. Building more superhighways and airports that feed off of a carbon based economy are probably not so good, whereas high speed mass transit and national low cost very broad bandwidth internet are.

interestingly, in the last two weeks at work I’ve seen a large ream vast Chinese domestic infrastructure tenders come across my desk (some projects require foreign technical input/consulting services), all identified as “stimulus projects” under their plan approved in December ‘08. These are really big projects, focused largely in impoverished regions, rural and western-central areas, including lots and lots of major rail projects, several new cities of up to half a million people (!), a vast rural school building/rebuilding program, industrial plant modernization, water projects, renewable energy projects, and, yes, more money for their version of our Futuregen hoax. I guess they’re taking the stimulus pretty seriously.. not surprising since they consider it a political stability issue.

Japan, Korea, and Australia have also approved vast infrastructure stimulus programs. Other people will be acting to plug their own infrastructure decifits, and many of them will do so much more aggressively than we will, especially after our greater wealth is taken into account.

Last comment: Why do the 3 Republican Senators need to be kept onboard? The country is facing an existential crisis. The Republicans back in the day threatened the nuclear option on the filibuster over a handful of judicial nominees. Wouldn’t this be a far more worthy time for threatening and if necessary exercising the nuclear option?

What I see is a kind of set up for excuses. The Democrats would have liked a better bill but they couldn’t because of those pesky Republicans.

Alternately, it is my understanding that emergency legislation can’t be filibustered. Why was the stimulus not introduce, or be re-introduced, as emergency legislation?

I mean instead of finding ways to act it seems to me that Democrats are looking for ways to justify not acting.

Firepup Freedom Fighters:

The larger states in the North and West are on the verge of bankruptcy, not only will this force MASSIVE layoffs of teachers and public safety personnel but state retirement funds will vanish…this “spiraling dowmnward cascade” will not be stopped once it starts and California may already be toast. So unless Obama has a magic wand, the compromise recovery bill will be the end of economic recovery in the system we have known up to this point in our history.

If I remember correctly, there was always a question about whether the goopers could actually pull off the nuclear option- didn’t it depend on a certain rules interpretation? Dems should certainly explore it- but once the filibuster is gone- it’s gone for everyone- including the dems the next time the goopers control…I’m not sure that it’s a good idea to give it up. Bet the goopers are damned glad they didn’t throw it away a few years ago.

Every single one of your sentences deserves a BINGO!

Another very BIG BINGO!!!

First, the Republicans got votes on most of their judicial nominees so the threat worked.

Second, the filibuster can be modified rather than done away with. The threshold can be made 55 not 60 for example.

Third, there may not be much of a country left in a few years unless something serious is done to address the mess we are in now so it might not matter whether there is a filibuster or not left for anyone.

Fourth, as I pointed out, there are other alternatives like emergency legislation.

All good ideas, but Hapless Harry is still the leader so it’s unlikely anything will happen.

Ed Rendell for prez!!!!!!

All good ideas, but Hapless Harry is still the leader so it’s unlikely anything will happen.

Which brings me back to my original point that maybe the Democrats really want this bill because they aren’t doing much to get a better one.

Well if we’re talking about THREATENING to go nuclear like the goops, that’s a different question than actually doing it.

We are certainly in a serious situation. What sort of bill would the dems come up with if they DIDN’T have to worry about the goops? Probably something like the HOUSE bill who actually DIDN’T have to get any gooper votes.

So then the issue becomes:

Is the difference between the house bill and the senate bill valuable enough to give up the filibuster for?

Maybe- but not obviously so.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

Link to interesting piece by Nate at 538.

Bottom line is “Obama’s whole future depends on this thing working, so you can count on him WANTING to do what works not what is politically helpful in the short run..

Sounds right- Obaman means what he says- the bill isn’t perfect but it will work and it’s the best option he can get right now.

GIVE UP THE FILLIBUSTER MAKE EVERYONE ACCOUNTABLE!!!

Can’t believe people are asking, “Who’s Ed Rendell?” Holy cow. Rendell (NOT Randell) is governor of Pennsylvania and former head of the Democratic National Committee (predating Dr. Howard Dean). Honestly, people!
I believe he talked Bob Casey Jr. into running against Rick Sanctimonious, thereby redeeming Keystoners from groaning nearly daily for six more years. I know he’ll come up with someone credible to run against Specter.

Maybe Specter should turn Independant. He laready said the GOP screwed him in the last “Primary”.

The republican stock channel put out there to everyone (in banking) during the crisis that green loans would be difficult to get. Let’s watch and see if that is the case.

Crooks set cyber traps on Digg: security firm

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – PandaLabs, a computer security firm, is reporting that cyber-crooks are setting traps on popular news-sharing website Digg.

Criminals pose as legitimate Digg members and then entice readers with bogus links to scintillating online video in comments posted in forums related to celebrity news, according to the Spain-based firm.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/….._0211.html

Rendell is right in that the government needs to take some serious action to make alternative energy work in order to address global climate change. 1. We need to remove the uncertainty in the market by making clean energy tax cuts permanent as well as implement some kind of purchase guaranty from the government. 2. We also need to reverse the backward subsidies that increase our dependence on foreign oil and dirty fuels.

Austen
Power Shift 2009

Suspicion mounts about ‘burrowing’ Bush appointees
Some liberals are beginning to suspect Bush loyalists in career government positions are doing their best to try to deflate and hinder President Obama’s agenda.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/….._0210.html

It’s more like is the filibuster worth giving up or modifying for a bill which does what’s needed and which the Republicans would surely filibuster. My answer is yes, it is. The filibuster is not worth the cost of depression.

Besides being off-topic, sunshine, you’re falling for a classic trick. An obscure security firm, trying to promote itself, comes up with a bogus but exciting security threat and gets people to write about it, featuring the name of the firm prominently. And they even arranged it so the firm’s name is the first word in the article!

If you’re worried about ignorant Digg users the way to discuss the story is on Digg, not here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster

Link to Wiki article on filibuster.

highlights:

It takes a 2/3 majority to change senate rules

The goop’s “nuclear option” was to have Cheney announce that the filibuster couldn’t be used on judicial nominations- with little or no justification- and then to simply act as if Cheney was right. It’s not clear that it would have worked or that Gooepers would actually have done it.

The majority party can usually end a filibuster by refusing to put up any other legislation until debate is finished on the current bill.

Well that would only be true if one assumes that the dems would create such a bill

I’m guessing the Specter replacement would come in with big funds.

Except his bill creates less than half the jobs that will be lost or would have been created under normal circumstances and now will not be. So it will not be a success.

The logical fallacy is that Obama will do what needs to be done because his own success depends upon it. We have the last nearly 50 years of Presidential history where again and again this has been proved untrue. Presidents do what they believe will enhance their success but such beliefs are often widely at variance with reality.

The wiki article linked above reminds that it takes a 2/3 vote to change the senate rules.

Goopers thought that they could ram through an option just on judicial nominees for some reason or other and get around that requirement. Their (piss poor) argument regarding nominess wouldn’t apply to getting rid of the filibuster altogether or even to modifying the cloture rules.

You might want to pass that by selise sometime she is here. If a 2/3 vote were necessary than no one would have taken Bill Frist’s threats seriously.

And re your #36, this brings us around to the question of not will there be a depression but when will it begin.

I’d be happy to have her view- but read the wiki article. It’s totally consistent with my recollection from the discussion of the nuclear option when the goops were considering it.

I would say that the depression has begun. The issue becomes “when will it end and how deep will it be”?

I’ll guess that we’ll get a bit north of 10% unemployment and stay there for 12 to 18 months.

All through the Bush admministration, Goopers were willing to falsely assert that they had the power to do certain things and then boldly DO them with the knowledge that no one else had a ability to stop em.

The nuclear option was one of those bald power assertion moves.

I wouldn’t advocate having the dems take a page out of that playbook.

I have been reading in Riddick’s Senate Procedure (pp. 1219 and following)

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/riddick/1217-1228.pdf

and it does indeed appear as if a 2/3 vote is needed. This make me wonder what was going on back with Frist.

“The Nuclear Option is used in response to a filibuster or other dilatory tactic. A senator makes a point of order calling for an immediate vote on the measure before the body, outlining what circumstances allow for this. The presiding officer of the Senate, usually the vice president of the United States or the president pro tempore, makes a parliamentary ruling upholding the senator’s point of order. The Constitution is cited at this point, since otherwise the presiding officer is bound by precedent. A supporter of the filibuster may challenge the ruling by asking, “Is the decision of the Chair to stand as the judgment of the Senate?” This is referred to as “appealing from the Chair.” An opponent of the filibuster will then move to table the appeal. As tabling is non-debatable, a vote is held immediately. A simple majority decides the issue. If the appeal is successfully tabled, then the presiding officer’s ruling that the filibuster is unconstitutional is thereby upheld. Thus a simple majority is able to cut off debate, and the Senate moves to a vote on the substantive issue under consideration. The effect of the nuclear option is not limited to the single question under consideration, as it would be in a cloture vote. Rather, the nuclear option effects a change in the operational rules of the Senate, so that the filibuster or dilatory tactic would thereafter be barred by the new precedent.”

(from wiki article on “nuclear option”.)

Thanks, very interesting.

Ian,

Any dialogue on the National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank?

It appears to have big stimulus potential.

Surely Rendell could take Spector?

I keep wondering what will happen when the problems of the Alt A and Option ARM loans start raising their heads in 2010 and forward! Has the administration accounted for this?

The entire mortgage industry is already a serious problem and Treas. Sec. Geithner’s plan is aimed at getting bad ones out of the financial system. A second step after that has to be taken to refinance or fix bad mortgages to bring us back to a healthy state. Then finally, a third step has to be taken to properly regulate the mortgage industry and how it is involved in the financial industry. This will naturally take quite a bit of time since they’re rather involved in some other huge issues. How much Congress can handle at one time is up to them to decide.

you have to ask what kind of infrastructure. Building more superhighways and airports that feed off of a carbon based economy are probably not so good, whereas high speed mass transit and national low cost very broad bandwidth internet are.

I think most Republicans were ticked off that Liberals were getting to do a lot of the spending they’d been wanting for a long time, so they argued that anything which had long-term impact wasn’t really “stimulus”. Of course they’re making nonsensical arguments as usual. It’s actually some of the best since you put money in the system, employ people and end up with a product which has lasting utility.

Are we still waiting for the ‘peace dividend’?

I would dearly love low-cost broadband Internet access.

Rendell is right in that the government needs to take some serious action to make alternative energy work

I think Sen. Boxer said the agenda is health care reform and then energy. I’d expect some of Gov. Rendell’s ideas might be embodied in that energy bill. Whether a cap & trade should be addressed at that time isn’t clear yet. It probably depends upon how well the economy responds to the stimulus.