AZ BlueMeanie

The Blue Meanie is an Arizona citizen who wishes, for professional reasons, to remain anonymous when blogging about politics. Armed with a deep knowledge of the law, politics and public policy, as well as pen filled with all the colors stolen from Pepperland, the Blue Meanie’s mission is to pursue and prosecute the hypocrites, liars, and fools of politics and the media – which, in practical terms, is nearly all of them. Don’t even try to unmask him or he’ll seal you in a music-proof bubble and rendition you to Pepperland for a good face-stomping.

Pima Dems Applaud Ninth Circuit Decision Declaring SB 1070 Unconstitutional

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Press release from the Pima County Democratic Party: Pima Dems Applaud Ninth Circuit Decision Declaring SB 1070 Unconstitutional Pima County Democratic Party Chair Jeff Rogers issued the following statement today: “The Pima County Democratic Party applauds the Federal Appeals Court ruling that Arizona's reckless immigration law, SB 1070, is unconstitutional. It's the … Read more

The Congressional Progressive Caucus on The ‘People’s Budget’

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie: I was surprised, to say the least, to see this guest opinion in the conservative Arizona Republic this morning from Reps. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellision (D-MN), co-chairmen of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Why not in the Arizona Daily Star as well? Ellison and Grijalva: GOP's budget should be called 'Roadmap to … Read more

Steve Benen on the budget compromise and the Tea-Publican hostage strategy

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

As regular readers know, I tend to agree with the opinions of Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly. His analyses are well-reasoned and well-written. So let's take a look at the question of what Friday night's "midnight hour" 2011 budget compromise really means for the future.

The first question is whether the 2011 budget compromise does anything to create jobs and to grow the economy. It does not. A Raw Deal:

There was arguably no way this budget fight was going to end well. In November, Americans elected the most conservative House majority in modern political history, and in December, Senate Republicans derailed an omnibus that would have funded the government through the end of the fiscal year.

Those two developments ensured a few things: (1) we'd see an ugly battle that could lead to a shutdown; (2) President Obama was going to have to compromise; and (3) the end result wouldn't be pretty.

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Consider it this way: on Feb. 3, just nine weeks ago, the House Republican leadership unveiled their spending-cut plan, which would have cut $32 billion for the remainder of the fiscal year.

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What's more, the $32 billion offered by the GOP leadership two months ago was their opening bid. They expected to compromise from there, and their plan included no policy riders at all.

It seems ridiculous now, but if Democrats had, on that very day, accepted the House Republican leadership's spending cuts right there on the spot, it would have been a better deal than the one we ended up with last night.

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I realize Dems were left in an untenable position: allow a shutdown that would hurt the economy or accept spending cuts that would hurt the economy. Republicans, and the voters who mistakenly gave Republicans considerable power and influence, came up with the misguided agenda and relied on a hostage strategy that tends to work for them.

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But I still can't defend the deal on the merits.

Ezra Klein offers this tale of the tape.

The final compromise was $38.5 billion below 2010's funding levels. That's $78.5 billion below President Obama's original budget proposal, which would've added $40 billion to 2010's funding levels, and $6.5 billion below John Boehner's original counteroffer, which would've subtracted $32 billion from 2010's budget totals. In the end, the real negotiation was not between the Republicans and the Democrats, or even the Republicans and the White House. It was between John Boehner and the conservative wing of his party. And once that became clear, it turned out that Boehner's original offer wasn't even in the middle. It was slightly center-left.

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At a more fundamental level, the question that mattered most — with a weak economy and high unemployment, whose bright idea was it to scrap public investment and take billions out of the economy? — was never even asked. Because Dems flubbed the debate from the outset, the entire discussion ignored job creation, leading to a fight that boiled down to "a lot of cuts vs. a whole lot of cuts."

Keep in mind that what was agreed upon is a stop-gap continuing resolution (CR) to later in the week, when another vote on the actual 2011 budget compromise must be voted upon.