Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) yesterday delivered this speech on the Senate floor against the budget commission proposed by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Budget Committee Ranking Republican Judd Gregg (R-NH). Although it was couched in the polite language typically used on the Senate floor, this absolutely was the Washington equivalent of "Yo mama."
Here's the money quote:
If the Chairman and Ranking Republican Member of the Budget Committee are in such broad agreement on their goals, why don’t they just skip the commission and go straight to their recommendation? That is exactly why Congress created the budget resolution and the reconciliation bill.
In other words, Baucus was saying to his colleagues that, as the senior members of the budget committee, they already have the power to propose changes that will reduce the deficit. Therefore, if you feel so strongly about this, never mind a commission, just go ahead and do it. It's your job.
On the one hand, Baucus' opposition isn't at all surprising. In many ways the Conrad-Gregg commission would be an end run around his committee and, like almost all committee chairs do, he was vigorously defending his jurisdiction.
On the other hand, its hard to imagine that Democrats want to be seen as the reason a deficit reduction commission doesn't move forward.
Baucus' argument is obviously
Baucus' argument is obviously incredibly stupid, and I mean "incredibly" literally, as in it is not believable that Baucus actually thinks his argument is legitimate.
As should be obvious to anyone and everyone, most of all to "Washington insiders", the political calculus is very unfavorable to any individual members of Congress who stick their respective necks out on any specific, realistic, meaningful solution to (or very substantial mitigation of) our long-term fiscal imbalance problem (meaning he/she would become substantially more likely to lose the next election, something Bruce concedes http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/1288/real-fiscal-con...), and the main purpose of a commission would be to provide much-needed political cover. As commission co-sponsor Kent Conrad says, “The only way you do this is if everyone joins hands and jumps off the cliff together” http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14903024 And of course it's not just Conrad emphatically stating this view, but prominent "Washington insider" think tanks and advocacy groups focused on fiscal responsibility across much of the political spectrum -- See a quick & dirty list of quotes at http://brooksstuff.blogspot.com/2009/12/support-for-safe-commission-or.html
More disingenuous idiocy from
More disingenuous idiocy from Baucus (from his speech):
For if the commission were merely a farce, then we could be satisfied with merely ridiculing it. But this commission and its new fast track process are truly dangerous. If we were to cede all of our responsibilities to this commission, and we were to tie our hands so that we could not amend its recommendations, then we would risk setting in motion some truly terrible policy.
First, it's worth noting that if Baucus were as confident as Stan and Bruce are that the commission's recommendation would fail to pass (or more broadly that the commission would have no significant influence, directly or indirectly), I suppose he wouldn't be so worked up about it. If anything, he would see it as a mere diversion providing another year or so of greater freedom to pursue whatever fiscally irresponsible policies he wishes.
Second, his alarmist rhetoric -- "would risk setting in motion some truly terrible policy" -- sounds more like War of the Worlds "reporting" than a Senator referring to legislation on which Congress would vote and the president must sign. I personally favor a version of the SAFE Commission that would allow amendments that were scored as equivalent in terms of fiscal balance, but Baucus really needs to get a hold of himself. The worst case scenario is that legislation passes that Baucus doesn't consider optimal (politically or in terms of policy), but is much more fiscally responsible than our current course and versus what would happen otherwise, and which Congress and the president consider better than our current course and likely action otherwise.
And here's the kicker: Baucus thinks a commission is unnecessary because...wait for it...he thinks Congress is already solving the long-term fiscal imbalance problem! He thinks Congress, via it's regular process, is already making huge strides toward solving this problem, proving that they will get the job done via the regular process. He writes:
Advocates of the task force say that the regular order is not working. They say that we need a new process to address our long‐term fiscal challenges. But they’re wrong. The regular order is working. We are enacting health care reform. And serious people know that controlling the costs of health care is the central path to addressing our long‐term budget challenges. The lion’s share of the reason why deficits are projected to grow so much in the long‐run is the enormous increase in the costs of health care. We are doing something about it.
Um, is Baucus including himself in the set of "serious people"?
Stan,
1. Do you agree with Baucus that the regular process is working, that Congress seems to be tackling our long-term fiscal imbalance problem?
2. Do you not see the absurdity of his primary argument -- your "money quote"?
3. How do you reconcile your apparent certainty that the commission would accomplish nothing with Baucus' ruffled feathers and melodramatic catastrophizing over it?
Just to be clear on one of my
Just to be clear on one of my points above, even if Baucus believed that a commission would have zero impact, directly or indirectly, he still probably wouldn't see it as enabling another year of fiscal irresponsibility that wouldn't have occurred anyway. It's highly doubtful that some greater fiscal responsibility would occur over a year without any such commission that wouldn't occur with one. I point this out because it relates to the negligible opportunity cost of establishing a SAFE Commission.
I see I'm the only commenter
I see I'm the only commenter on this thread. Hopefully my comments on this thread are not the rhetorical equivalent of a tree falling in the middle of the woods, but anyway...
Today's Washington Post editorial expressed a favorable view toward even the imperfect version of a commission per the latest version from Conrad and Gregg. Excerpt from the editorial, supportive of both that commission and the proposal by the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform to set a course for specified debt-to-GDP targets:
Last week Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) introduced a new version of their proposal to create a "fiscal task force" to recommend a package of tax and spending changes. Marrying the notion of enforceable debt levels to a commission that could come up with ways to achieve these goals would be an interesting, and potentially productive, union. Both concepts are premised on the notion, sadly correct, that the fiscal picture is too daunting and too politically sensitive to be addressed under the regular order. As the Peterson-Pew report grimly underscores, time is running out to come to grips with that unpleasant fact.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/13/AR200912...