Hooray For Budget Reconciliation And "Budget Reconciliation"!

A while ago, Ezra had a post encouraging people to find a better name for budget reconciliation. I know where he's coming from, but as I watch Republicans complain about it, I'm really starting to warm to the boringness of the name. When you incorporate the words "budget reconciliation" into some political attack you're making, its emotional appeal drops by about 70%. And if you're using the word "reconciliation" alone, well, that's a six-syllable word for what two people do when they want to start being nice to each other. Convincing a non-tuned-in swing voter that he should dislike Democrats or universal health care because of reconciliation is going to be a comically difficult task.

Where Jim Bunning Comes From

Jim Bunning has finally ended the ridiculous stalling tactics that were holding up people's unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies. It's kind of ridiculous that anything like this could actually begin in the first place. In any normal workplace or organization, if you're thinking about doing something this bonkers, your co-workers are going to step up and say, "No, dude, don't do that." And you won't.

But if you were a Senate Republican, and you knew that Jim Bunning was going to do something like this, would you have any incentive to pre-emptively stop him? I really don't see how. Nobody is going to hold it against James Inhofe or Jon Kyl that Bunning did his crazy thing. Bunning is retiring, so it's not like you need him to win re-election so you can be in the majority again. And worst of all, ordinary people in your state who are affected may not have any idea that Jim Bunning is the asshole responsible for all this shit. Ordinary people don't know who all the Senators are or what they're doing. When they go into the voting booth, the effect of Bunning's stunt may just be to make them think, "Well, the first two years of Obama have been awful" and vote against the president's party.

Of course, you can't let Bunning keep doing this forever, or it becomes a really big spectacle that hurts you. And there are opportunities for Olympia Snowe or whoever to score moderate points by publicly dissing Bunning (which is no reason for them to privately stop him beforehand). But I really don't see that Republicans lost anything by letting him get started.

More nakedly partisan use of the presidential megaphone, with forceful attacks on the Republican Party when they allow this kind of garbage, would probably be better for Democrats. It'd hurt Obama himself, too, and Obama's desire to keep his hands clean, stay above the fray, and refrain from blaming even the blameworthy may be part of why he's got a positive net approval rating even with the economy in bad shape. But two-party electoral competition is a zero-sum game, and we might be doing better in a bunch of House and Senate races if people understood that the Republicans in Congress are ridiculously horrible people who obstruct your unemployment benefits and then complain about how they've worked so hard at doing so that they didn't get to watch a basketball game.

And if you haven't been following this closely -- yes, I'm serious. Bunning said: "I have missed the Kentucky-South Carolina game that had started at 9 o'clock, and it's the only redeeming chance we had to beat South Carolina since they're the only team that has beaten Kentucky this year."

The Straight Line Projection Is For Suckers

This is a pipe, but it's also a straight line.

The WSJ points to the latest Quinnipiac poll, which puts Arlen Specter modestly ahead of Pat Toomey in the general election. Across the pond, Labour appears to be close enough to the Conservatives that they might squeak out a plurality and form a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, despite earlier predictions of a Tory landslide.

All of which is a fancy way of saying that there's never, ever, any reason to assume that the today's polling will persist until election day, and that forecasting outcomes years on months in advance based on current poll numbers is a sucker's bet. It's entirely plausible that the public may sober up a bit and reject GOP rule as we get closer to election day. It's also plausible that the unemployment rate might drop to 9% and give some people confidence that things are getting better. It's also plausible that some terrible scandal will engulf Democrats. Many things are plausible. That's what makes the future so exciting--we don't know what's going to happen in it! The best way forward is for Democrats to put their heads down and get to work, so that economic circumstances are on the up-and-up and they can put themselves in a situation where they can hold more seats.

There Can Be Only One?

With the release of Warren Buffett's latest letter to shareholders (PDF), the Oracle of Omaha is in the news. Which brings up what strikes me as a huge oddities in American business: why is there only one Warren Buffet? There is no rocket science involved in Buffet's investment strategy, and in the aggregate his portfolio does significantly better than the S&P. Doesn't this point to a gigantic market inefficiency? Shouldn't other investors be able to engage in strategies similar to those adopted by Warren Buffett and reap long term returns while being significantly shielded from risk?

Microreconciliation

There's a certain amount of freakout occurring over this quote from Kent Conrad (D-ND):

"Reconciliation cannot be used to pass comprehensive health care reform," said Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. "The major package would not be done through reconciliation"

But as Congress Matters helpfully points out, that's just fine; it has never been the official plan A to pass health reform through reconciliation. Indeed, even in the current situation, reconciliation would only be used to pass modifications to the bill. The bill has already passed the Senate and is waiting to be passed by the House under regular order in traditional Schoolhouse Rock fashion; one chamber passes a bill, and then the other chamber decides it's good enough that they'll pass it too.

To review, reconciliation has been used to pass the Bush tax cuts; the 1993 Deficit Reduction Act; a number of other bills such as the original CHIP, COBRA insurance continuation, and two budgets under President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich; and welfare reform. All of these bills represent substantially more significant bills than the sidecar modifications to health reform. Meanwhile, thanks to de facto gerrymandering in the Senate, the 55 or so Senators who vote for the reconciliation sidecar will end up representing about 63% of the population. There's no cause to freak out about some sort of abuse of power here. None.