It's pretty obvious that progressives and the public are being totally shut out of the Senate, and that they are allowing the war to go on - Matt

If anyone still thinks Democrats are even mildly close to respecting the mandate of the 2006 election and close to getting "serious" on the Iraq War, please see this:

"Democrats are considering cutting President Bush's $142 billion budget request for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan next year by $20 billion, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad said Thursday." - AP, morning of 3/1/07

VERSUS

"Just hours after floating the idea of cutting $20 billion from President Bush's $142 billion request for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan next year, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad was overruled by fellow Democrats Thursday. 'Our caucus feels strongly that we should go with the president's numbers' on 2008 war costs, Conrad said." - AP, afternoon of 3/1/07

I repeat my earlier assertion that Democrats are not serious about ending the war, or even trying to slow it down. The only thing they seem to be serious about doing is undermining the serious people like Jack Murtha in their midst, and doing a "kabuki dance" with the progressive movement whereby they pretend to be serious only to keep the progressive movement's resources flowing their way. In the process, they are very grossly embarrassing themselves and the people who worked so hard to deliver them a majority.

Update: The latest poll--from Fox no less--shows that a plurality of Americans are in favor of cutting off funding to end the war. Remarkable how such a politically suicidal position is also the most popular position in the country on Iraq.

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Earlier this week we found out that the White House was unhappy that the incoming Democratic Appropriations Chairmen in the House and the Senate, David Obey and Robert Byrd, did not fall into the trap laid by the outgoing Republican Congress; instead of wasting many of the early hours of the 110th Congress trying to pass appropriations bills that the 109th Congress intentionally failed to pass, the Democrats decided to carry forward spending at levels authorized the previous year. Certainly there are downsides to this, most notably that it will cause a number of programs and agencies to be underfunded (which can certainly be changed later on during the session). Yet this quandry was predominantly a result of Republican games rather than Democratic decisions.

Tucked into a front page article in today's Washington Post by Jonathan Weisman and Lori Montgomery that seems to spread blame more evenly among parties than I believe is warranted, is an extremely important fact: Not once during the 12 years of Republican rule over Congress were GOP appropriators able to complete every one of the required funding bills on schedule. Not once.

It has been nearly 20 years since congressional failures left the government to be financed under spending guidelines and formulas rather than line-by-line policymaking. But to federal budget experts, this year's breakdown was hardly surprising. Not since 1994, the last year of Democratic control, has Congress actually passed all of its spending bills. Republican leaders almost ensured logjams by populating the House Budget Committee with conservative spending hawks whose views on the size of government were fundamentally different from many of the appropriators who would have to flesh out the committee's budget blueprints. Ultimately, compromises in those conservative principles have been laid at the feet of the Clinton White House, the demands of the post-Sept. 11 government, or a Democratic-controlled Senate, said Scott Lilly, a former Democratic staff director of the House Appropriations Committee.

Given the unsurprisingly terrible track record of the GOP Congress during the last two decades, Democrats will have ample opportunity to show voters that they are more able to make government function efficiently than Republicans. It is certainly true that good governance is not a sexy issue, nor is it the most salent issue for voters. But if the Democrats can get government working functioning properly again in short order -- a tough task, no doubt, but one I'm confident they can succeed at -- then they will have at least one accomplishment to run on that the Republicans never had.

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After their monumental loss in the November midterms, Republicans decided to disrupt the incoming Democratic majorities by passing off the responsibility for enacting fiscal year 2007 spending bills to the next Congress rather than completing them during the lame duck session, as would be customary when they were not yet finished at that point. In effect, by dumping this responsibility on the Democrats -- a responsibility that would take countless man-hours in Congress -- Republicans could make it near impossible for the Democrats to move forward with their agenda at the rapid pace they prefer.

In response, Democratic appropriations chairmen from both chambers -- Robert Byrd in the Senate, David Obey in the House -- came together with a plan to make sure that the government was funded through September 30 (the end of the current fiscal year) so that they could prepare fresh appropriations bills for the next fiscal year and still have time to pass key portions of the party platform, most notably those contained in the "100 Hours" agenda. To make the plan even more politically beneficial for the Democrats, Byrd and Obey declared that the continuing resolution would be devoid of earmarks, a move that will no doubt play well to the ears of good government types and budget hawks alike.

Unsurprisingly, the President is unhappy the Democrats didn't fall for the Republican trip, as CQ's midday update email reports.

The White House has reacted warily to the Democrats' proposal for finishing off the fiscal 2007 spending bills with a long-term continuing resolution that would wipe out earmarks.

The GOP-led Congress cleared only two of the 11 annual spending bills, frustrating Democrats who wanted to begin the new session with a clean slate. The incoming Appropriations Committee chairmen, Rep. David R. Obey, D-Wis., and Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., announced Monday that they would move a continuing resolution (CR) for the balance of the 2007 fiscal year, one that would contain no earmarks.

Unlike the three stopgap spending measures that Congress has already cleared, the next one will not set funding at the lowest of the House-passed, Senate-passed or fiscal 2006 spending levels. Instead it will make "limited adjustments" allowing appropriators to provide more money for priorities such as health, education and veterans' medical care.

Rob Portman, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, called the long-term CR "disappointing" in a statement issued late yesterday. But he said the White House "will certainly work with the agencies and the Congress to ensure there are no major disruptions to essential government services."

The only thing disappointing about this move for the White House is that the Democrats weren't stupid enough to fall for their tricks. This was clearly a shrewd move by the Democrats, who are already using their experience and understanding of parliamentary tactics to run circles around the Republicans -- even before they have taken over the reins of Congress.

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• Dow Jones reports that lobbyists for the financial industry are trying to use the lame-duck session to water down legislation that is meant to reduce the debt burden for military families. The debt problems of servicemen and women is a growing problem, according to DJ. "This summer, Defense Department officials released a report alleging that many lenders stationed around military bases attempted to hook servicemembers into predatory short-term loans with high interest rates that would be difficult if not impossible to repay. Defaulting on such loans has a devastating impact on servicemembers, including the loss of security clearance. In fact, the Associated Press reported last week that there has been a ninefold increase from 2002 to 2005 in the number of military servicemembers who have lost their security clearance because of debt problems, with security clearance stripped from 2,654 Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force personnel last year." For more info on the fight around this bill, read Ed Mierzwinski's blog here.
• The Indian press is reporting that a lobbying group called the The Coalition for Partnership with India has been formed to lobby Congress for approval of the India nuclear deal. "Success will require a Senate vote early in the lame-duck session in order to permit time for reconciliation of differences with the House version and final approval in both chambers," the CPI has said in a statement. "The first step is to secure a unanimous consent resolution (UC) defining the number of amendments to be considered and the amount of time for debate. Republicans and Democrats do not appear to be that far apart on either issue. The coalition asks its supporters to urge each side to talk to the other, to compromise, and to reach an agreement so that the bill can be taken up immediately in the lame duck session," it said. But even before talking of priorities of the lame duck session it is being pointed out that the civilian nuclear deal runs into major problem if the Democrats win either the House of Representatives or the Senate or both. The point made is that in spite of all that talk of strong bipartisan support for the deal, the Democrats will be unwilling to give anything to the President George W Bush and that too on his terms." Reuters also reports on this story, here.
• OMB Watch is trying to rally opposition to the shoddy procedure surrounding the confirmation hearing of a key White House regulatory appointee Susan Dudley, which the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs plans to conduct with only one witness: Susan Dudley. The Committee plans to have its hearing on November 13 (the first day of the lame duck) at 2:30 pm.
• Taxpayers for Common Sense is predicting that Congress could go wild on earmarks during the lame-duck session as a result of inadequate reform legislation earlier this year.
  
• New York's The Daily Star reports that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will be asking outgoing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to renew in the lame duck the College Tuition Tax Deduction for middle-class families, which is expiring this year.

There's an essential beast in politics which is the bastard child of scapegoat and smokescreen. (Please don't overthink!)

Where it's absolutely necessary for a pol to admit having made a mistake - and, let's face it, it comes about as easily as saying sorry did to the Fonz - they'll choose something (or someone) small to blame, something severable, which, post-chop, which, with any luck, will leave the main body politic (not to mention their own!) clean of all taint.

They will use extravagant gestures over this relatively minor matter both as displacement activity and as misdirection: they'll occupy the minds of pols, media and public with the scapegoat, in order to stop their attention wandering to more serious, radical, intractable, dangerous matters.

Such is it with earmarks.

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