Storm cloud Saturday opinion and wonkery.
NY Times:
Democrats’ sense of vulnerability has increased since Congress broke for August, after a month of reports tracking weakness in both the economy and their polls. One result is that they now split more deeply than ever on the issue that in recent elections had been a rallying cry: ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of taxpayers. Democratic leaders are imploring Mr. Obama to come off the sidelines and lead the fight.
Heckuva job, guys. How about doing the right thing instead of letting the Blue Dogs lead you to defeat?
WaPo:
Fearing midterm wipeout, party hopefuls embrace budget cuts with the zeal of Reagan Republicans.
Oy. If you're serious about deficit reduction, let the tax cuts on the wealthy expire.
Gail Collins:
{AZ Gov.] Brewer began by blanking out during her introductory statement — there was this horrible 16-second interval where she went silent, stared down at her notes and giggled. The evening ended when she stomped away from reporters who were yelling: "Governor, please answer the question about the headless bodies."
Everyone knows you never want to finish a big campaign night on a headless-body note.
See first item. It's so bad for Democrats out there that the public is willing to vote for Republicans like Brewer.
David Frum:
Democrats did not bother with any kind of party platform in 2006, the year they recaptured both Houses of Congress. Now in 2010, the GOP has seized a huge lead in the polls without anything like an updated contract.
Guess nobody needs them, right?
Wrong. Republicans badly need a platform this year — not for campaigning, but for governing.
Who said Republicans were interested in governance? Not me. More:
Boehner is signaling, apparently, that the Republican congressional majority will arrive pre-exhausted, without ideas, ready to do business with K Street from Day 1. This is not good news. It's also unfortunately not surprising news. For 24 months, an emotionally intense opposition to the president has been unsupported by anything like a Republican policy agenda. The party is agreed on holding a vote on the repeal of Obamacare. Beyond that — it's all a big void.
Buyer's remorse is cold comfort.
Charles Blow:
A Gallup report issued on Tuesday underscored just how out of line we are. Gallup surveyed people in more than 100 countries in 2009 and found that religiosity was highly correlated to poverty. Richer countries in general are less religious.
But that doesn’t hold true for the United States.
Fox News poll:
Finally, an issue both Democrats and Republicans agree on: term limits. Nearly 8 in 10 American voters like the idea of imposing fixed time limits in office for all members of Congress -- including their own senators and representatives.
A Fox News poll released Friday found that 78 percent of voters favor establishing term limits for Congress. That’s nearly five times as many as oppose limiting the number of terms members can serve (16 percent).
Large majorities of Republicans (84 percent), Democrats (74 percent) and independents (74 percent) favor the idea.
They should have asked about abolishing it. In any case, don't count on this passing anytime soon. People who run on it change their mind the moment they get there.
Dana Milbank with the Villager's version of the catfood commission:
In a larger sense, the outrage only confirmed that Simpson's simile was spot on. If the commission does its job right, it will recommend cuts across the government -- the Pentagon, social programs, entitlements, veterans' benefits -- as well as tax increases. That's the only way to solve the debt mess. Special-interest groups on the left and right, the real sucklings at the public teat, don't want this to happen -- so they derailed the effort in Congress to name a commission and now want to discredit Obama's version.
It isn't because he said the word "tit", it's that he wants to cut Social Security. This non-story story is why you don't want DC reporters covering Congress. P.S. When did the American public become a "special interest group"?