I just wrote about Sumner's facile criticism of Democrats-including the NYTimes who I admit prefers the Democrats; so what? The WSJ prefers the Republicans and both papers are actually worth reading-of the tremendous crime of 'inconsitency.'
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/11/scott-sumner-weighs-in-on-end-of.html
However, Mr. Sumner misses the point. What he as most conservatives do is forget that learning requires that one not adhere to any foolish consistency of mind but rather do as Keynes did: 'When the fact changes I change my mind, what do you do sir?'
He imagines that Harry Reid and the Dems are purely cynical here. What he never considers is that the Dems have actually changed their minds. Harry Reid-who in case it's not clear I love as much as I can ever love another man-has stated clearly that he was wrong back in 2005. When he fought against changing the filibuster he sincerely believed this.
When the Democrats took the Senate new progressive Senators like Tom Udall and Jeff Merkeley were demanding filibuster reform and Reid said no. He really was opposed to it which he saw as a terrible violation of Senate traditions.
"When Harry Reid came in through a side door to the Mansfield Room Thursday afternoon, the majority leader was met with a raucous standing ovation from a crowd of activists, mere steps from the Senate floor where he had just successfully led a change of Senate rules to reform the filibuster."
"We do know how the Senate came to change its rules today, a vote that represented the biggest victory for the left since the election of President Barack Obama. That process started in the first weeks of 2009, after a Democratic landslide mighty enough to sweep even Al Franken into the upper house. The Republicans, who’d held 55 seats during the 2005 “nuclear option” fight, were down to 41. A new class of Democrats, including Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley and New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall, buckled in for action."
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/11/scott-sumner-weighs-in-on-end-of.html
However, Mr. Sumner misses the point. What he as most conservatives do is forget that learning requires that one not adhere to any foolish consistency of mind but rather do as Keynes did: 'When the fact changes I change my mind, what do you do sir?'
He imagines that Harry Reid and the Dems are purely cynical here. What he never considers is that the Dems have actually changed their minds. Harry Reid-who in case it's not clear I love as much as I can ever love another man-has stated clearly that he was wrong back in 2005. When he fought against changing the filibuster he sincerely believed this.
When the Democrats took the Senate new progressive Senators like Tom Udall and Jeff Merkeley were demanding filibuster reform and Reid said no. He really was opposed to it which he saw as a terrible violation of Senate traditions.
"When Harry Reid came in through a side door to the Mansfield Room Thursday afternoon, the majority leader was met with a raucous standing ovation from a crowd of activists, mere steps from the Senate floor where he had just successfully led a change of Senate rules to reform the filibuster."
"When he took the podium, the crowd rose again, giving a reception that would have been unthinkable a decade ago, when Reid was considered by many progressives to be a weak-kneed centrist. His journey to filibuster reform has been just as long. A longtime, strident defender of Senate tradition, Reid worked in the last Congress against the efforts of Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) to change the rules and reform the filibuster. It earned him his fair share of unfavorable coverage in the pages of this outlet and elsewhere. "I was the one who always had to tell Senator Reid The Huffington Post was banging him up for not pulling the trigger," recalled Jim Manley, Reid's former communications director, after the trigger was finally pulled."
"Reid told the crowd in the Mansfield Room, named for former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, that he always knew the reformers had been right in pushing for a rules change, but he didn't want to admit it to himself. And, he added, he didn't have the votes to do it."
It wasnt only Harry Reid, I too, as a Democratic voter thought that you couldn't thikn oif doing this.
“The progressive media started pounding on Reid very early in the process—I’m talking post-2008—to engage or to execute the so-called nuclear option,” remembers Reid’s then chief of staff Jim Manley. “I’d be getting phone calls from the Huffington Post once in a while about it. We did roundtables with progressive media where it was raised. Sen. Reid held regular meetings with the freshmen to get their input and ideas on Senate matters, and this was always at the top of their agenda.”
"Reid, who joined the Senate in 1987, was cold to the idea. He really did believe what he said in 2005, when he claimed the filibuster “encourag[ed] moderation and consensus,” and begged Republicans to keep it. Merkley had met with Reid on filibuster reform even before his election, but according to Democratic Senate aides, only 20 or so senators initially agreed with him. In 2011, when he made his first real charge at rules reform, Merkley had only 46 Democrats on board (out of 53), and some of that support was soft."
So Reid wasn't cynical, he changed his mind. You know, Scott what you would never do regarding the monetary offset idea.
There's no question that this is a big victory for liberals-certainly any kind of progressive agenda. Sumner suggests that this will bring us back to: The Carter years.
Never mind that the Carter years were much better than the years we've been living through over the last 12 years-dating roughly to the start of the George W. Bush years. A lot more jobs were created during the Carter years than the W years-we actually saw an increase in jobs beyond population growth.
Think of how much smoother things would have run if we had this reform back in 2009:
"No one can agree how the Judicial Wars started. Most pundits sigh deeply and start with the defeat of Robert Bork, who wasn’t actually filibustered—only 42 senators voted for his 1987 nomination. Others pick up the story in the 1990s, when Republicans ran the Senate and stymied Bill Clinton. One can, as most Republicans prefer to do, remember what happened in 2005, when Republicans wanted to end filibusters on judicial nominees and every Democrat—including our current president—predicted nuclear fallout, brimstone, and exploding skull
"They got a slog. An economic stimulus package, once expected to get up to 80 votes, got over the 60-vote cloture line only with huge concessions to three Republicans. A simple omnibus parks funding bill took weeks to pass. Then, in May, just enough Republicans held together to filibuster the president’s nominee for deputy secretary of the Interior. To Majority Leader Harry Reid’s surprise, the Democratic left honed in quickly on the filibuster, demanding that he change it."
This is a game changer on so many levels. Just on getting these nominations done. Now Obama can appoint who he wants to the Fed and the FHFA without worrying about making a selection that can pick off at least 3 or 4 GOP Senators.
"Thursday’s rules change also has immediate consequences for executive-level appointments. Earlier this month, Republicans blocked Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) from getting a vote to lead the Federal Housing Finance Agency -- the first sitting member of Congress to be filibustered since the 1840s, Reid noted. Watt will now cruise to confirmation."
"And Janet Yellen, Federal Reserve vice chairman and Obama’s nominee to replace Ben Bernanke atop the Federal Reserve, is now all but guaranteed confirmation after moving through the Senate Banking Committee on a 14-8 vote Thursday. At least one Republican had threatened to delay her confirmation."
"Though largely unknown to most Americans, once confirmed, Watt and Yellen will be among the nation’s most important policymakers, affecting pocketbook issues ranging from the price of home mortgages to households’ ability to refinance their loans to the value of their retirement accounts."
"In the eyes of many Washington analysts, Watt and Yellen are likely to continue current policies, or enact new policies, that will hew closely to White House preferences."
"The FHFA has broad authority over the housing market because it oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage financiers that own or guarantee nearly half of all outstanding home loans. Watt, the nominee to lead the agency, is seen as more of an advocate for borrower-friendly policies than the current FHFA chief Edward DeMarco. In the past, Watt advocated for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to reduce distressed borrowers’ loan balances -- a move DeMarco has resisted."
"In an indication of the importance of these positions, traders immediately reacted to the Senate’s move on Thursday, sending prices of securities backed by home loans with relatively high interest rates significantly lower, due to investors’ concerns that a Watt-led FHFA would make it easier for the borrowers with those loans to refinance. (Allowing borrowers to refinance into a cheaper mortgage deprives the investors who own those loans of additional income.)
"I feel great," said Merkley, who has been a champion of both Yellen and filibuster reform. "Since I came here in 2009 I've been absolutely appalled by the dysfunction of this body," Merkley said, arguing the reform is "about clearing the decks of the Senate so we can actually spend time on legislation, we can actually address the cost of college, actually have job-creation bills on the floor, that we can address issues related to retirement security."
"Yellen is likely to continue Bernanke’s easy-money policies at the Fed, and may even allow interest rates to stay low for a longer period of time due to perceptions that she’s more sympathetic to the plight of unemployed and under-employed workers."
"The filibuster fix also opens the door for Obama to fill what will soon be three openings on the Fed’s seven-person Board of Governors, the central bank’s powerful policy-making body. In the past Republicans thwarted Obama when he nominated Peter Diamond, a Nobel Prize-winning economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, over concerns Diamond would not pay attention to inflation issues. Now the president is free to nominate governors who are likely to place a premium on joblessness rather than fears of rising prices."
I just notice something: Peter Diamond's nomination shows that Sumner's oft claimed that Obama made no attempt to shape the Fed is dead wrong. it wasn't that he hasn't tried but that the GOP has obstructed him at every turn. Now this constraint is gone. Maybe Diamond can come back for nomination? Or someone like him one hopes. So Sumner is wrong again.
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