The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Thank you, Patti Murray

    By Flavius on Tue, 11/22/2011 - 1:00am |

    And maybe the whole Supercommittee was a clever TeamObama plan.

    That's contrary to Occam's razor but hey who says Occam's so great?

    The outcome of the whole affair is that Obama holds a slightly better hand today because the Republicans can't abide the idea of a $400Bn DOD cut. 

    Not because of patriotism, forget that. But because DOD cuts means a loss of jobs. And you can believe there'll be jobs in every  key district. Because as presumably nearly every one here  knows, that's how Govt procurement works.

    Been there, done that. (One of the advantages of being fired a lot was that I was exposed to the business practices of lots of different industries.) When you get a chance to sit with the buyer you take the opportunity of saying, "And we'll have major subcontractors in 35 (or whatever) states. And he smiles warmly and encourages you to spell it out a little more.

    I remember when we were competing against Cessna (in Kansas) and Senator Dole was majority leader. That didn't last very long. 

    Guess what? If Sam Congressman has to choose between the marginal tax rate of a Wall St contributor or 1000 jobs at the Evendale plant, Evendale's gonna win every time.

    Be interesting to see how this plays out in the next round.

     

    Comments

    There will be NO significant cuts in defense spending. 

    Who wants to be seen as weak on defense, in this dangerous world?

    Anybody who thought this Super-committee could do anything but perform theater is a sucker.

    Just in time for the elections,  Obama will use his veto pen;.....  he'd better put it down before he injures himself further.   

    "Walk softly, carry a big stick"  has been transformed into "Talk big, because you have no stick" 


    by Resistance on Tue, 11/22/2011 - 2:00pm

    I've always thought of Patty Murray as an exemplary politician and public servant. Haven't seen anything to disabuse me of that opinion yet. That is all. wink


    by artappraiser on Tue, 11/22/2011 - 2:48pm

     

    Guess what? If Sam Congressman has to choose between the marginal tax rate of a Wall St contributor or 1000 jobs at the Evendale plant, Evendale's gonna win every time.

    Guess what? Sam Congressman has enabled Mega-Poly-Security, Inc., to move tens of thousands of jobs from Evendale to Shenzhen over the past thirty years, and he'll let them move plenty more. The argument will be made over Evendale's jobs but the real issue is Maga-Poly-Security's profits and Sam's future on K Street. Which means the budget has to stay, too bad the jobs have to go.

    Evendale doesn't stand a chance.


    by Red Planet on Tue, 11/22/2011 - 3:36pm

    Ahhh. You just are not thinking like a proper New Democrat. Obviously, the situation you describe *IS* an example of  Evandale winning. Imagine what would have happened if Evandale had elected REPUBLICANS!

    Turns out, putting a "D" in front makes any policy great. Fuck the people, there are elections to win ... and that takes MONEY. And who has all the money? What, you going to throw it all away by butt-kissing a bunch of broke-ass morons from Evandale?


    by Lazy KGB (not verified) on Wed, 11/23/2011 - 3:07pm

    This just in.

    Wall Street reacts to tragic Supercommittee failure by...................................doing nothing. Nasdaq up some, Dow down some.. Yawn. What does the Market know that the Media doesn't seem to?

    ...............................................................................................................................

    Otherwise. ,,,Sure the DOD  budget and foreign trade will go on as before. . Sadly.  But for some other things there's going to have to be change , you can believe in. ...And we're not talking 2013.

    The  metal cut or wires wrapped on new DOD procurements in 2013 depends on contracts signed......now...............Or at the least by next spring.That's what you call lead time.

    If Sam Congressman wants to campaign before  smiling  faces at the Evendale gates in 2013 the DOD's  gonna need relief from the Sequestration Act...right now. Sam's  got a need , Obama's got a pen.  They should talk.

     


    by Flavius on Tue, 11/22/2011 - 4:07pm

    So wait ... you are arguing in *favor* of a shitton of pointless military spending?

    There seems a credible argument that 7 out of every 8 dollars of discretionary government spending goes to the military. On the one hand, sure that means a lot of folks are now beholden to this for their income ... on the other, it sure seems an obvious explanation why everything else appears to be crumbling around our ears.

    Wouldn't we technically be "cutting metal and wrapping wires" come 2013 on *ANY* procurements we choose to pursue today? If so, isn't retreating and adopting a position that we should keep pouring all of our resources down this dry well - instead of the investments that would position us for real opportunity and job growth -  kind of asinine if what we want is a better future?

    If I'm understanding you, this feels like an assertion that the way to fix national problems caused by "GOP" priorities ... is by embracing these priorities and enabling them. Or am I misunderstanding what you are advocating here?


    by Lazy KGB (not verified) on Wed, 11/23/2011 - 3:45pm

    Grover Norquist has published a drama queen op-ed on the situation, at, of all places, "Comment is Free" at Guardian.co.uk:

    This tax battle is for the soul of America:
    The supercommittee failed, so the people will decide in 2012: do they want a European welfare state or a return to true America

     


    by artappraiser on Tue, 11/22/2011 - 7:36pm

    The Guardian article is illustrated by a photo of  some of the committee people, with Kerry prominent. Providing a poignant counterpoint.  Someone who had patriotically volunteered , bravely fought, and then bravely opposed the war in which he fought.

    And then, decades later,  with the Presidency at stake was  "swift boated ". . Arguably with the tacit cooperation of a substantial segment of the media.

    Happened to make the ferry trip from Nantucket to the Cape a couple of years ago with him aboard. While he'd stood 20 minutes in line the locals provided him with privacy, or attempted to. But a couple of  tourists , understandably ,didn't. Which he handled with tact, sitting with them on the trip answering their questions. . Mostly they were interested in having the Kennedy compound pointed out. Which he did.

    He's stiff of course. A "doofus"  and general source of amusement to much of the media few of whom perhaps had rescued , under fire, an about- to- drown compatriot. But  in his company ,oddly ,that just seems natural. What you see is what you get..

    By some process I then found myself contrasting  him with Norquist  and  unfairly but inevitably thinking: and what has he ever done for this country?


    by Flavius on Tue, 11/22/2011 - 9:21pm

    maybe the whole Supercommittee was a clever TeamObama plan

    Jon Taplin seems to think so:

    The Great Rope a Dope trick
    By Jon Taplin, TPMCafe, Nov. 22, 2011

    ....Last summer during the debt ceiling hostage crisis, Obama appeared to be the loser, but yesterday Republicans woke up to the reality that they lost Big Time--that we were going to get $1.2 trillion in deficit reductions, with 50% of the cuts coming from the military and none of the cuts from Social Security and Medicare. The Congressional water carriers for the Military Industrial Complex are in a panic.

    Republican lawmakers moved quickly Monday to protect the Pentagon from automatic budget cuts that will be triggered by the supercommittee's failure, with the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee saying he'll soon introduce legislation to repeal them.

    President Obama immediately threatened to veto any attempt to undo the spending cuts. That means that Republicans would have to get a 2/3 rds majority to undo the first meaningful cutback in the Military budget in 60 years. In addition, if Obama also threatens to veto any attempt to restore the Bush Tax cuts in 2012 (they expire automatically on January 1, 2013), progressives will have totally changed the inequality dynamic, without having to pass a single piece of legislation.

    So why aren't progressives celebrating this morning? Got me. As long time readers know, it has been my contention that the key to revival of our democracy and our economy lies in radically reordering where we spend our collective resources.  That more than 60% of our discretionary budget flows to the Military Industrial Complex is just the most egregious example of Crony Capitalism. If you had suggested to me last spring that a Republican House would pass a bill cutting $600 billion from the Pentagon budget over ten years, I would have called you crazy....

    Whether it's the case of not that it's going according to a Team Obama plan, if it works out like he says, it certainly will be a "win" for the left side of the aisle. Without the Dems having a majority in the House, that's the interesting part--if it works, it will be one for future political gamebooks.


    by artappraiser on Wed, 11/23/2011 - 11:13am

    Yglesias (@ his new gig) says:

    GOP Intransigence Could Hand The Left A Huge Budget Win
    By Matthew Yglesias, Moneybox @ Slate, Nov. 23, 2011


    by artappraiser on Wed, 11/23/2011 - 11:46am

    Pigs get fat but hogs get slaughtered


    by Flavius on Wed, 11/23/2011 - 3:11pm

    Sounds more like Ross Perot than you. cheeky

    I shoulda pointed out that Yglesias doesn't think it was Rope-a-dope by Team Obama;  he says so in his concluding paragraph, where he also makes another really important point that agrees with another point of Taplin's:

    Team Obama really, really, really wanted a bipartisan deficit deal which they believed (wrongly, I think, but that's another story) would have boosted their re-election campaign and they were willing to make major substantive concessions to get it. Republicans weren't interested. If they win big again in 2012, their approach will be vindicated. But if Obama gets re-elected, they'll have fumbled the policy substance in a catastrophic way and put in place a budget framework that's much more left-wing than the one Obama was begging them to agree to a few months ago.


    by artappraiser on Wed, 11/23/2011 - 8:54pm

    How do you know that Flavius isn't Ross Perot?

    I agree with Y's last para except where I don't.

    I think T.O. wanted the deal. But subtract a couple of "reallys". They wanted it......... enough. But in their own black hearts they also knew that a failure would have the effect that great minds like Y's and F's and your's are now going on and on about.

    It was a helluva risk unless you could be really sure of the dem appointees. IMHO you couldn't sit down with any one of them and walk them through this possible outcome They needed deniability.. About the best you could do was to stare at the ceiling and say "and of course we have to make a sincere effort to reach an agreement............don't we!.........Don't we?." .

    Since in advance  like Y I believed Obama, foolishly, wanted a deal I was astonished and pleased when Senator Murray was appointed. But still terrified one of the troops would come all over  patriotic and provide the one vote needed by the forces of darkness. Which fortunately didn't happen 

    Now that this is the outcome there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Obama knows exactly the cards in his hand.

    I'm going to continue on the DOD  procurement cycle in a separate post.


    by Flavius on Wed, 11/23/2011 - 11:27pm