The Silence of the Dems

So a deal has been done and boy is it a bad one.  In a truly breathtaking feat of negotiating the Democrats have managed to give the Republican's more than they initially asked for.  John Boehner and the Republicans started out asking for $32 billion in cuts. Then the tea party said that was not enough and up the ante to $61 billion.  Rather than holding him to his original position the Dems managed to negotiate their way all the way up to 38 billion, $6.5 billion more than the Republicans originally asked for. Pretty impressive.

The real problem is that Democrats have no coherent argument, not because there aren't any, but because they, and more specifically President Obama, have essentially given them away.

They could argue that now is not the time to cut the budget because, while the deficit is a long term problem, the immediate problem is the economy and cutting the budget will depress the economy and cause job losses. Unfortunately, as I've discussed before, Obama has already accepted the Republican framing that deficit reduction is an immediate need making it difficult for him, and thus for other Democrats, to make this argument.

They could argue that cutting the budget is not the only way to address the deficit. We could also raise taxes, particularly on the rich who have an ever growing portion of the nation's wealth and on corporations that pay little or no taxes under the current convoluted system. They could attack the Republicans for protecting subsidies for oil companies even as gas tops $4 a gallon and oil company profits soar. And maybe they could point out that the argument that tax cuts stimulate the economy argument does not seem to be working out to well. Unfortunately Obama's horrible tax deal with the Republican's also makes that argument far more difficult for him and other Democrats to make.

In fairness their are those who are speaking out. Bernie Sanders (video), not a Democrat, though he caucuses with them, continues to make the argument that we need to protect the poor and middle class and that the rich need to pay their fair share. Both Sanders and Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky of Illinois have proposed tax increases on the rich and Schakowsky put out an entire alternative budget proposal. (Updated: The Progressive Caucus in the House has also release a budget proposal that looks good at first glance.)  Of course we hear nothing like this from the White House.

Indeed when Chuck Schumer suggested broadening the budget debate, to include areas of the budget beyond the tiny discretionary budget that was being discussed and to include tax increases the White House immediately shut him down.

Now Paul Ryan may have given the Dems a gift with his grotesque, absurd, and thoroughly dishonest plan to destroy medicare and other programs that support the poor and middle class while cutting taxes for the rich. Max Baucus, the Senate Finance Chair, has said the plan is DOA in the Senate. Nancy Pelosi says that it has to be "snuffed out." Even Republicans don't seem too keen on it. And President Obama. So far his response, has been pretty mild. Now maybe he will get out there and fight but given the ground he has already ceded, he will be fighting on the Repulbicans terms unless he moves to drastically reframe the debate, and soon. Unfortunately, it appears that Obama is running away from Democrats, not toward them.

[Related posts:  Loss Leaders, Paul Ryan's Pitch, Economics For Dummies]