Anthony Weiner: One Colossal...Distraction

I am sorry for my long absence, and grateful for those who have inquired about it.  I've been busy elsewhere, with less to say than during the midterm elections and their immediate aftermath.

After all: How does one top the Arab Spring?  The answer, it seems, is with tasteless Congressional tweets.

This list got my blood boiling again.  How did we miss scandals of this magnitude?  It's easy: we mire ourselves in trailer-park tweets.

The things we give a free pass to every time we give one more crap about Anthony Weiner's appalling sex life.  You can't blame the media if you click through to the stories.  Really, are our priorities that much better than his?

The Night Before Christmas: Centrist Version

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and in the Beltway

Lame ducks were a-stirring, turning night into day.

With compromise showing, and gridlock abating,

Congress hoped it could rise from its all-time low rating.

A clean swap of tax cuts for unemployed hope

Gave goodies to those at both ends of their rope.

Eight GOP stalwarts killed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,”

While several Nast donkeys voted earmarks to Hell.

The President reached out to business, for once,

Making effort to stave off the hat of the dunce.

Independent Republicans backed down on START,

Putting right over party, at least for their part.

But expansionist government awfully clatters.

Both parties must try to remember what matters.

At the polls in November did clearly appear

A half-mandate, born of Obamacare fear.

“Now Boehner!  Now Cantor!  McCarthy and Ryan!

That judge in Virginia has got the Dems cryin’!

A new IRS form for each little chore?

Pelosi and Reid: it isn’t paid for!”

“The problems we face are plain indelectable.

We just want solutions that verge on acceptable!

We don’t want you selling us pie in the skies.

But we surely expect you to all compromise.”

“There are battles ahead, some would say by the slew;

Just ask new/old budget boss Jacob J. Lew!

His appointment at building consensus is hintin’,

As anything would that reminds us of Clinton.”

“Please start with the budget commissioners’ finding

(as the last resolution, come March, won’t be binding).

And muster the votes – nay, muster the nerve –

To fulfill the DREAM of those willing to serve.”

Will the pols heed their word?  Are they starting to see?

That common sense reigns, outside of D.C.?

While Washington dollars continues to hemorrhage,

The U.S. consumer’s begun to deleverage.

State lawmakers, too, are making tough choices;

They’ve started to hear their constituents’ voices.

New Jersey – not much known for giving a hoot –

Has even come up with a train substitute!

The Census has told us the seats states will get;

The FCC’s pledged to neutrality of ‘net.

New FDA powers should help us avoid

Any more poison spinach, and maybe typhoid.

Now why can’t the Congress show the same unction?

The whole of the Earth sorely needs you to function!

No promising everything; please, no tit for tat –

But the judgment to say, “we want this – don’t need that.”

The voters have said: “Neither side has a rout;

You must work together to find a way out.

We don’t expect discourse like Calhoun and Clay,

But insist that this chance you don’t fritter away!”

Daylight

All of a sudden, it's rough going for a Chief Frustration Officer.  Things haven't looked this good in ages.

The coming-out party for No Labels got some brutal spitballing on twitter (and dismissals running 3:2 against excitement on WaPo).  But there's a serious group behind it; despite Bloomberg's visible participation, it's too decentralized to function as a star vehicle for a single candidate.  They're organized, staffed, and focused as much on the soft goal of civil discourse as on the hard concrete of political action.

This is real-world confirmation of the fake-news blowout that Stewart and Colbert staged on the Mall Halloween weekend.  Give them time.

There is also evidence that said civil discourse may yet produce beneficial political action.  Already, the tone is changing.  We are likely to have stability in the tax code for two years, reflecting the short-term stimulus that is desirable to shore up the recovery.  And while the most extreme candidates failed at the polls, and earmarks are enjoying a predictable last gasp, the best impulse of the Tea Party -- to rein in long-term obligations -- is joining with the deficit commissions to create new pressure to adjust entitlements.

The ugly process of adjusting political reality to financial reality has begun, but it will take time.  Let's give it all it needs.

Meanwhile, the President is reaching out to American business for the first time.  Within the beltway, a redux of the 1986 tax reforms is even plausible, for the first time since...1986.  As with entitlements, to which its fate is bound, let's give tax overhaul time.

Critically, the economy is now a support, not a distraction, to political efforts.  Inflation is muted, industrial production is picking up, and the consumer -- shell-shocked for the past two years into pure deleveraging mode -- has more recently struck a striking posture between reasonable saving and growth-sustaining spending.  In a macro sense, this is a far more balanced -- and thus better and more sustainable -- a recovery than we had reason to expect.

That is the daylight.  Here is the darkness.

Economic security is ebbing back unevenly.  The coasts are better off than the middle, as are the college-educated.  In the U.S. as (even more so) in the U.K., overdue state retrenchment means public sector employees are losing out -- and they're finding it hard to adapt to the private sector.  Along with the building trades, this entire column of our society has been essentially excluded from the workforce.

A narrow band of workers now bears the brunt of the economic risks that remain.  How we address their condition, a question thoughtfully posed by our friend from San Diego, will say a great deal about where a politically realigned nation addresses questions not only of fundamental equity but of market economics, secondary education, and global competitive posture.  Watch this space.

Finally: with housing still bottoming, even those with in-demand skills find it difficult to pick up and move to where the puck will be.  And so we find that the first of our economic constraints remains the last to erode.

Hey, there's a reason why renting is the new flipping.  And why multifamily is the first of the commercial real estate sectors to recover.  But that's a blog of a different color.

Tax Deal: Room to Breathe

This isn't a plan.  It's a punt.


As the kindred spirits over at Rise of the Center smartly point out: "Neither side compromised here, this is a straight up horse trade." Obama keeps unemployment benefits and payroll deductions, and the Republicans keep the tax rates that have been in effect for a decade.


In short: the big winner is the status quo. And in terms of certainty for businesses, financial markets, and the consumer who relies on both, this is more than acceptable.


Best of all is the agreed term. Two years is enough to shore up the recovery, and brief enough to limit the budget fallout from failing to fund these provisions. And it is plenty of time to put lawmakers' feet to the fire to create the kind of long-term "grand compromise" outlined by Simpson and Bowles (and Rivlin and Domenici).


The current agreement suggests that such a compromise will be possible. Consider the deal on the estate tax, which finally suspends the 55% Euthanasia Incentive Credit currently in effect.  Are a 35% rate and $5 million exclusion arbitrary?  They're debatable, but they smell right to me.

Any student artist will tell you that getting proportions right is hard.  To me, a 2% bump in the top rate strikes the right balance between incremental revenue and sustained entrepreneurial incentives.  To me, a continued extension of unemployment benefits should be joined by a reduction in total benefits paid, perhaps to 75% of current levels.  To me, all this should be in the context of a simpler code that "broadens the base, lowers the rates."

But others will disagree.  Sussing out the best ideas -- and the true measure of political possibility -- takes time.  Thanks to this crude horse-trade, we've got it.

Compromise This

Well, here's an offer you can't refuse: John Boehner and Mitch McConnell's victory-lap-as-olive-branch op-ed in today's WaPo.  It is a tired assemblage of haughty cliche, rhetorical feints and faux overtures.  They use the word "together" five times, without mentioning a single Democratic priority they'd be willing to consider.


My favorite paragraph:

Democrats in Congress are working feverishly to move legislation on everything except stopping the tax hikes and lowering spending. Their focus for the brief post-election "lame duck" session is on controversial items such as immigration, a repeal of "don't ask, don't tell," more spending and environmental regulations.

The weird thing?  Half the horses eligible for trading are right there, and the other half shouldn't be hard to wrangle.  


I'm with (or very NEARLY with) Boehner and McConnell on many points.  So much so, in fact, that I'm willing to allow some horse-trading to get them.  And if "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" doesn't wait for the courts for full repeal in the process, or decorated foreign veterans of the U.S. armed forces find a route to citizenship, so much the better.


Compromise THAT, gentlemen.

Good News (No, Seriously)

Put aside today's market slide for the moment.  (Not as an investment strategy: who really knows the state of earnings quality or the downward-spiral risks of QE2?)


But in a number of important fronts, what a week it's been:

• McConnell caved on earmarks.  Savings in dollars will pale against gains in Senators' focus, bipartisanship (Obama and Tea Partiers welcomed the move), and the transparency of the system.  Thank you, Sen.-elect Mike Lee!
• Simpson and Bowles spoke the truth on budget priorities.  Anything that gets the Times Editorial Board to line up (literally: bless the dying print medium) against Paul Krugman warrants attention.  Note the latter's reflexive attack on a presumptively regressive tax structure even before he runs the numbers, even while the FT notes that the proposal "to tax dividends and capital gains as ordinary income...[gives] the tax code (lower marginal rates notwithstanding) a strong progressive twist."
• Don't like Simpson Bowles?  The NYT gave you a shot at creating your own deficit-reduction plan online.
• Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta became the first living recipient of the Medal of Honor for service in the current conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan.
• The Senate took moves to grow less hierarchical, and Dems sharpened their leadership structure (albeit leaving some unhappy).  Both moves could presage more substantive discussions in the media. 

Perhaps most important of all: TLC's (ahem) reality show, "Sarah Palin's Alaska," drew five million in its debut.  (Have I ever had more fun tweeting an event?)  No numbers yet, but the smart money has this easily trouncing Tina Fey's honorifics at the Kennedy Center, which aired on PBS on Sunday.

On economics, I refer to a Bloomberg summary:

American industry churned out more automobiles, computers and appliances in October, keeping manufacturing at the head of the economic recovery that began more than year ago...

Exports and business investment may keep assembly lines busy in coming months, just as the initial spark from the need to rebuild inventories wanes. Increases in global demand that are benefiting companies like General Electric Co. gave American consumers time to repair finances and resume spending, leading to a more balanced recovery.

We've got years of monster deleveraging ahead yet.  We've got an entire housing finance system in need of total overhaul from borrower application to securitization to (in the wake of robo-signing) title insurance.  None of this will be fun.  And let's not forget that earnings quality I muttered about at the outset.  (It's the new "book value" for 2011.)

But for the first time in years, it feels as though the pendulum is swinging in a better direction -- with a bit more potential for unexpected consensus* -- and just a bit more in the open.  

*not actually unexpected if you knew who to ask and read the last paragraph.  Watch this space.

So What's The Damage?

As it is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that the branch of it under consideration [the legislature] should have an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people. Frequent elections are unquestionably the only policy by which this dependence and sympathy can be effectually secured.

     -- The Federalist #52

Well, Mr. Madison: you have our sympathy.  And so do at least 13 of the top 20 House centrists, all late of the 111^th Congress. This includes top-rated Frank Kratovil (MD-1) and John Adler (NJ-3), with races in AZ-8 and NY-25 still too close to call.

Things went better in George Washington’s “cooling saucer,” the Senate, and the Governors’ races.  The Loony Tunes candidates fell in Connecticut, Delaware, Nevada and New York, despite the general lack of appealing alternatives, and Buck looks headed the same way in Colorado.  Chafee -- a pure victim of the national mood in his loss in 2006 -- and Murkowski rode borrowed vehicles to victories from partisan exile, even as Florida melted under the heat that three-way contests can generate.

And victories for Nikki Haley and Susana Martinez made history for inclusive politicking in red and blue states equally.

It helps that several hits are cushioned by candidate quality and experience.  Turnovers to returning veterans Kasich, Coats and even Toomey recall (relatively speaking) a more familiar and mainstream form of conservatism than the Joe Millers of the world.  Though I am not a member of the Barbara Boxer or Jerry Brown fan clubs, money certainly did not win the day in either big race in California. 

Some hope for new ideas remains, too.  Sen. Wyden, a proponent of an alternative healthcare strategy in bipartisan partnership with Utah’s Sen. Bennett, won handily in Oregon, improving prospects for Congress to improve on Obamacare rather than simply repeal it, as Sen. Bayh argues in today’s Times.  Even Rand Paul, though (shall we say) out there on a number of questions, was among the few Tea Partiers who spelled out his approach to budget cuts.  It is a place to start.

Bear in mind, gentle reader, that many of this year’s fallen were newcomers who rode Obama’s train into town.  While we mourn the Blue Dogs and some other good centrists today, many more lost who squandered their two years on votes to enlarge government at any opportunity, and sometimes without debate.  They got their comeuppance. And that Senatorial cooling saucer survives.  It can contain a bit more hot water yet.

As Madison wrote near the conclusion of Federalist 52: “It is a received and well founded maxim, that, where no other circumstances affect the case, the greater the power is, the shorter ought to be its duration.”  It may smart today.  But it’s a lesson the more extreme freshman will also be asked to ponder as they take their oath.  Boehner is mindful of how the government shutdown threw the Gingrich revolution into reverse. If he sticks by his compromise offer on the Bush tax cuts, it could be the beginning of something more constructive than anyone on Fox or MSNBC currently anticipates.

Top 10 Slogans Observed At The Rally

What a blast my wife Kelly and I had on our day trip to the Rally for Sanity.

Due to massive A/V deficiencies, we still have no idea what happened onstage.  But we met some great people and saw some crazy good signs.  If you'll indulge, gentle reader, a little comic relief from the usual TheCenterline.org sobriety...

Top 10 Signs at the Rally for Sanity:

10. "Magic Powers Are Not A Choice - Equal Rights For Wizards"

9. "Anyone For Scrabble Later?"

8. "25, Single, Not In Tea Party, Don't Live W/My Mother, Won't Go 'Dutch' On Dates"

7. "Save Ferris" [I know-this rally skewed older than you think]

6. "The Rant Is Too Damn High" [I know-this rally skewed way New York]

5. "They Confiscated This Sign At The Airport [1/3 of every UN meeting I've been to is devoted to a variation on this complaint)

4. "Speak Softly And Don't Be A Big Dick" [next to picture of TR]

3. "Moderates R Sexy"

2. "I Masturbate, And I Vote" [hey, Delaware is practically next door]

And the self-servingly #1 sign carried indefatigably by Kelly Macmanus Funke (no relation of course) is:

"Fear The Center"

To be clear, you should NOT fear the following:

Porta-Potties crunkling under the weight of Stewart/Colbert enthusiasts dying for a view...

 ...tree-huggers of the purest sort, angling to improve on the Porta-Vus...

...giant Ahmadinejad puppets who are, quote, "Gay For America"...

...Lord Vader, who after all only seeks "to restore order to the galaxy"...

...tear gas attacks, provided you are appropriately garbed...

...certainly not apple-faced Secret Muslims...

...much less the Nth generation of Tom Lehrer's "Folk Song Army."

No no no no no...fear none of these.  But after one more Congress of ever-increasing extremism, as reform promises fade and debt gets debtier and debtier, you should absolutely, positively....

Top-Ranked Centrist Kratovil In Top 10 Race... By Money

Frank Kratovil, who ranked first with a score of 92 in TheCenterline.org's ratings released last week, finds himself in one of the 10 most expensive races in the country as the DCCC and RCCC pour resources into the Maryland 1st. 


This against an opponent, Andy Harris, who believes energy security lies in abolishing the Department of Energy and developing ANWR -- and that "the Constitution protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms for security and defense of self, family, property..."


Harris is a physician and naval reservist who has held the line on taxes over his decade-plus in the state senate.  But his black-and-white view on all investments by government -- and his activist, expansionist interpretation of the "well-regulated militia" clause -- are no match for Kratovil's ability to separate the wheat from the chaff.  


A former prosecutor, Kratovil is a great match for the politically balanced district that elected him in 2008, and he has a great future as a consensus-builder in Congress.  But first he has to persuade the good people of Maryland to let him keep at it.

Amtrak Points: Paboo It Is!

"Moderates Do It Without A Lot Of Unnecessary Screaming"

It hints at the role centrists play in getting stuff done.  It brings a smile to the face.  It's PG rated for family viewing.  And it's bumper-sticker ready.

Thanks to all who submitted, whether via facebook, the blog or email.  And especially to Paboo for posting the winning slogan.  Get ready to rally...

Top 10 Centrists in Election Jeopardy?

My apologies to those having difficulty clicking through to the complete rankings list on IE8. Chrome and Firefox are doing better, especially if you right-click and open as a new tab or window.

For now, here are the top 10:

Kratovil - 92
Adler - 87
Kissell - 82
Boccieri - 80
Markey (B., Col-4) - 80
Teague - 80
Giffords - 78
Gordon - 78
Herseth Sandlin - 78
Childers - 77

A reader notes that both top-scoring Kratovil and Lance, the highest-rated Republican in the list, are in tougher re-election fights than they expected.  In Maryland, Kratovil has been forced to characterize his own vote for better TARP oversight (as a condition of releasing TARP funds) as an anti-TARP vote.  This, even though GOP.gov states:

While the legislation does include many conditions on TARP spending, and transparency improvements that Republicans may support, many Members may be concerned that H.R. 384 is designed to grease the wheels for a release of the final $350 billion tranche of taxpayer money...

G-d forbid a member should require "conditions" and "transparency improvements" as the price for "support" of the final tranche of a system-saving, 8.2%-returning program!

In Pennsylvania, 2nd-rated centrist Rep. Adler is in a "wire close" race, due in part to the backfiring of a bone-headed strategy by Democrats to split the Republican vote by introducing a tea party candidate.  In Arizona, Rep. Giffords is still looking at a Cook Report "tossup" in a district that went for Bush and McCain (though boasting nearly 30% independent registration).

Meanwhile in North Carolina, 3rd-rated centrist Rep. Kissell is hedging on his principled vote against Obamacare -- presumably to help maintain turnout among the liberal Democrat contingent in a C.D. the Almanac of American Politics calls "split personality."  And in South Dakota, Herseth Sandlin was highlighted as a vulnerable Blue Dog in a WSJ article yesterday (as I retweeted from OpenCongress.org).

If only two extremes averaged out to one center.  But without actual voices populating the middle, we will have no compromise solutions from the mainstream -- and no tie-breaking votes for them.  Policymaking will be a lopsided mix of conservative and liberal wins.

Maybe it will even out after all.  After a parent croaks, you can take advantage of the complete repeal of the estate tax...to pay for your state-mandated health plan and your neighbor's subsidized Corolla and haphazardly refinanced house.  It will be dizzying.

Amtrak Points for Sanity Rally Slogan: Last Day!

With trains beginning to sell out this afternoon, a winner will be announced TOMORROW!
In the spirit of eBay, the current best bid is Paboo, with: "Moderates do it without a lot of unnecessary screaming."
May the most moderately awesome line win...

111th Congress: Democrats Dominate Centerline.org Ratings

They crammed the most unwieldy healthcare legislation since Medicare D down our throats.  (Unwieldier, actually.)  They resorted to wasteful gimmicks like Cash for Clunkers, passed mortgage relief that didn't relieve mortgages, and marred otherwise sensible legislation with mission creep and old-fashioned party politics.

But in the end, what mattered -- what we will remember as the real story of the 111th Congress -- was its role in responding to the financial and economic crisis.  For all the defects in the design and execution of TARP and the stimulus package, they saved the financial system from ruin, and the states from making cuts in a single budget cycle that will be debilitating enough when spread over two or three.

This sense of priorities made the difference in the scoring by TheCenterline.org, because we dared to assign greater weight to votes that were manifestly more significant than others.  Only a handful of lawmakers scored over 75 on our 100-point scale.  But 19 of the top 20 were Democrats -- owing largely to their greater support for these urgent measures.  Right-click to see the rankings here.

Next time will be different.  The 112th will be far more constrained by debts and diminished revenues, and members will have to drastically refocus their priorities.  But this year, my hat is off to a man I'd never heard of: Frank Kratovil (D-MD1), who with a score of 92 led the pack, and to Leonard Lance (R-NJ7), who topped the Republican rolls.

The first time is always a work in progress.  Thanks to all who posted, called or emailed with feedback during the rating process.  I'm happy to email the spreadsheet to anyone who's interested.

You can read more about this year's results here.

The Rally for Sanity: Cancel It?

WaPo's Lozada says Stewart should cancel the rally...ah, but is he being meta, or simply META-meta?  
Head to twitter.com/CenterlineOrg for up-to-the-minute articles of interest to centrists, meta and otherwise.
Also, Amtrak's dynamic pricing suggest sold-out trains will be here shortly...only a few days left to pitch your best rally slogan!  

Chris Christie: Imposing a "Social Agenda"?

Over the weekend, the Star-Ledger ran this headline: "Gov. Christie brings social conservatism to historically blue state, experts say."  The evidence?

In his first year in office, Christie also drew attention from social advocates by cutting funding to historically protected programs like public schools, health programs for working poor people and legal aliens, and family planning clinics.

Note the emphasis on funding over rights.  And programs that are "historically," not "constitutionally" protected.


Sure, Christie is higher than sly in couching his cuts, as Peggy Noonan illuminated (" 'As much as I love teachers...' That's good.").  And I don't doubt that the Gov found it less painful to impose these cuts less than for some others he's called for.  But on balance, there is plenty of truth in his spokesman's assertion that "spending was cut across the board ... Many people, many interests, were disappointed, but this is what the fiscal crisis we inherited required."


"Many people, many interests were disappointed..."  That's just the price of repairing a broken hull.  As Noonan would say: that's good.

Two New Criteria: Repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell (Good) and Debt Limits (Bad)

Specifically and respectively, House Roll #317 on an amendment to H.R.5136 and H.R.1065.  The presses are nearly ready to run on the Excel spreadsheet...

The Bono...OK, Lugar-Cardin Amendment

Thanks to those who have asked to add non-defense (and non-tourism-idiocy) -related foreign policy criteria.

Bono, the Africa-trotting, HIV-trouncing friend of W. who used to write insightful pop lyrics, now writes insightful pop-eds.  In one a few weeks ago that I just got around to reading, he calls out the Lugar-Cardin amendment to Dodd-Frank that increases transparency for US-traded extraction companies re: their payments to government officials in Africa.

Bono concludes: "And the cost to us is zero, nada. It’s a clear thought in a traffic jam."


This is how to judge members of Congress.  Unfortunately, it was withdrawn before coming to a separate vote (Sen. Leahy "championed" it in committee, making a separate vote unnecessary).

And so the search goes on for additional criteria.  For now, I'm going to stick with the plan: a rating system based on important votes, vs. the "votes with Pelosi 93% of the time" sort of nonsense that reflects every vote to rename a post office.  But in TheCenterline's Congressional Ratings 2.0, the first thing I'm going to do is build cosponsorship of key pending (or failed) legislation, which expands the palette meaningfully.

Congressional Ratings: Let The Adjustments Begin!

Conservative friends of long standing point out that as much as I crave campaign finance reform, I found McCain-Feingold unconstitutional and couldn't support it.  (I prefer such playingfield-leveling approaches as requiring FCC-licensed to provide free airtime to bona fide candidates.)

Applying the same logic, I am persuaded to reconsider my position on the DC voting rights vote.  Just because updating that corner of the Constitution is warranted doesn't mean an act of Congress will satisfy the urge.  (What can I say: I didn't name myself Chief Frustration Officer for nothing.)

To my conservative brethren upset that I came to accept the value of stimulus spending and financial reform, and my left-leaning comrades astonished that I can't get past the mammoth new healthcare laws...I genuinely appreciate the feedback.  But I have too high a regard for the peril we faced in 2008-09 to discount the former, and have spent too much time in the private sector to accept the latter.  As yet, I don't have anything on those scores to add to my thoughts here.

I'm still on the hunt for distinct votes that will call out extremists on key social issues.  Most groups I've approached for recommendations have plenty to say about pending legislation and their personal Congressional committee champions, but little guidance on past roll call votes.

Congressional Rankings: Draft Criteria

When I first broached the idea of ranking members of Congress based on centrist criteria, I described the policy passions and initial legislative priorities that motivated me.  Here is a breakdown of specific votes of the 111^th Congress, and where I propose that a centrist lawmaker should have pulled the lever.

Wikipedia suggested which votes I should consider; OpenCongress.org will be my chief data source.  For judgment on what constitutes the “right vote,” I look to readers for input -- before I start running the numbers.

Congressional Ranking Criteria: Financial Legislation

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: PRO.  In hindsight, a stitch in time that saved nine, especially for the states.  But be forewarned: we can't afford any more of this sort of tailoring.

Dodd-Frank Wall Street & Consumer Act: PRO.  For all its sins of omission and commission, this landmark reform improves systemic oversight and resolution authority, and incorporates the Volker Rule.  These advances trump lingering uncertainties: in fact, it’s good that the agencies, not Congress, will manage the details.  (Can’t wait to see what they come up with for the GSEs.)

Helping Families Save Their Homes Act: AGAINST.  This convoluted effort to forestall foreclosures failed impressively in its purpose, while eschewing more creative solutions and stoking moral hazard.

Credit CARD Act : PRO.  A welcome, bipartisan blow against decades of unregulated usury.  The Coburn amendment, allowing licensed gun-owners to carry firearms in national parks, is odiously ungermane. But if Obama could stomach it, so can I.

Worker, Homeownership & Business Act : PRO.  The $8k tax credit proved somewhat effective in cushioning the continuing descent of home prices; the extension of unemployment is warranted for the hardest-hit states. But neither can be funded indefinitely.

Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment: AGAINST.  Harmless enough, but hard evidence that Congress has no clue what actually drives hiring in the private sector.

Cash for Clunkers: AGAINST.  Desperate, expensive and effective chiefly in distorting the demand curve for autos.  (With Toyota taking top market share, it failed even in its goal of promoting American nameplates.)

Congressional Ranking Criteria: Healthcare Legislation

Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: AGAINST.  Strongarmed through because politically unsaleable, sweeping in impact though conceptually limited to tweaking a failed system: this was the best we could do since the equally irresponsible Medicare D?  

Children's Health Insurance Program: PRO.  Despite mission creep, this remains by most accounts a successful and efficient way to give more kids a healthy start.  Bears watching to see if future Congresses strengthen the program, or just bloat it.

Congressional Ranking Criteria: Other Domestic and Social Policy

American Clean Energy and Security Act: PRO.  The best litmus available on the most permanent impact any Congress can have: saving the planet.  And through time-tested market mechanisms to boot.

Omnibus Public Land Management Act : PRO.  Seriously: how do 140 members seriously oppose federal management of federal lands?

Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act: PRO.  This expansion of AmeriCorps builds this honorable, fully-tested program in some well-considered ways at manageable cost.

Caregivers & Veterans Health Services Act: PRO.  Advances care for our women veterans among other good things.  (No impact on rankings as vote was justifiably unanimous.)

Family Smoking Prevention & Tobacco Act: PRO.  This latest tweak in the regulation of tobacco advertising also gives the FDA some teeth. 

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act: PRO.  Though other fixes might have been fairer to business, the injustice -- here corrected -- to employees facing decades of low pay was greater still.  (Ultimately, the courts may well bring the better balance Congress should have provided.)

DC House Voting Rights Act: PRO.  Ensign's pro-gun poison pill spoiled this latest attempt to restore some measure of representation to the District of Columbia's 600,000 residents.  But Lindsay Graham’s co-sponsorship reminds us that the right to representation is a conservative principle, too.

Employee Free Choice Act: AGAINST.  Drop card  check, and I’m for it.  Or at least constructively indifferent.

Congressional Ranking Criteria: Defense and Foreign Policy

Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act: PRO.  This fully-vetted, much-anticipated reform of DOD procurement passed unanimously, and rightly so.  It should pay for itself in minutes.

National Defense Authorization Act: PRO.  As a moviegoer, I love the idea of the F-22 Raptor; as a taxpayer, other priorities rightly take precedence.  Despite germaneness issues, the Matthew Shepard hate crimes provision represents inclusive public policy.

Iran Sanctions, Accountability & Divestiture Act: PRO.  Opposition to sanctions for those who aid Iran’s petroleum complex came from earnest quarters, including business and Iranian-American groups.  But the Act reminds us that Congress can sometimes still let politics stop at “the water’s edge.”

Travel Promotion Act: AGAINST.  The purpose of this law is to encourage international tourism by taxing international tourists.  The kicker: the $4 administrative charge to facilitate collection of the $10 international levy that put the European Commission in a twist.   Thank the Senator from Vegas -- and the 77 other groupthinking senators who voted with him.

SPEECH Act: PRO.  This measure, intended to protect Americans against foreign libel judgments (especially in the UK), sent the right message.  Go First Amendment!  (Note to staff: find out how many voted for SPEECH after supporting a flag-burning amendment…)

Under Review: Worth Including?

Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act: Is this so toothless, so riddled with loopholes, that only a cynic could vote for it?  Or is it a first step toward fiscal sanity?

TARP and TALF: I initially wrote that a centrist should defend “yes” votes on the most successful – and hated and misunderstood – tools Congress made available to contain the financial crisis.  But they fell on the watch of the 110th Congress, not the 111th.  Any objections to including these votes in my calculations, for members who sat in both Congresses?

Congressional Rankings: Draft Criteria Posts Today

Later today, I will post draft criteria for the major legislation of the 111th Congress.  The legislative acts will be those crowd-sourced by Wikipedia; the "yea" and "nay" criteria will be my own.  But before I start the number-crunching, I will be grateful for your contributions.


OpenCongress.org, a terrific resource I wish I was in a position to support more generously, is the database Bill Owens (D-NY) turned to in a bid to shore up his moderate credentials.  It is my main tool for sourcing voting information.  But as OpenCongress.org put it: "It’s important to get the full picture here, including knowing which bills members agreed or disagreed on."  


I will be very interested to see where Mr. Owens ranks based on a more comprehensive voting data set -- and against all of his peers, not just Boehner and Pelosi.  Check back here tonight or in the morning -- and tell me where you think I've got the centrist position on a given vote wrong.  

$200 Billion Here, $200 Billion There...

New York faces $200B in retiree costs "while setting aside almost nothing." 

The money shot:  

“So far, the market doesn’t care,” said Edmund J. McMahon, the director of the Empire Center. “The market seems to assume, on the basis of nothing, that at some point all of these places are simply going to stop paying retiree health benefits.”

Or if you prefer:

The information is starting to come to light because of a new accounting requirement.  One city, Schenectady, found the cost too overwhelming to calculate, warning that it “will be astronomical, with the potential of bankrupting municipalities.”        

Feel good, near-bankrupt Harrisburg: you owe us for taking one for the team here and making you look financially responsible.

Congressional Rankings: Gay Marriage

Work is progressing on TheCenterline's Congressional rankings.  A friend this weekend suggested the Defense of Marriage Act -- but that passed in 1996.  The Respect for Marriage Act, which would have restored federal recognition of legal marriages throughout America,  including gay marriages, never went to a vote, though it did garner 91 cosponsors.  

In the spirit of political cross-pollenization, I will reach out to some gay Republicans to see what they consider the most telling vote on this issue in recent sessions.  And I'll welcome any recommendations posted by readers.

Short Pieces From The Long Weekend

As followers of twitter.com/CenterlineOrg have already seen, here are the best op-eds I stumbled across over Columbus Day weekend.


Comedy division: Gail Collins ranks the very best awful elections nationwide. http://nyti.ms/a9Fch3.


Tragedy division: Tom Friedman captures the collapse of a Senate compromise. http://nyti.ms/bUyvsC.


And in this morning's FT, a comer for the newly minted realism category: Gideon Rachman on the limits of Tea Party power. http://tinyurl.com/2dfvcyv  \


Each of these offers a dose of sense in a homeopathic dose.  Happy reading!

David Brooks: "The Quintessential New Republican"

For those who missed David Brooks's column, "The Austerity Caucus," he proclaims: "The quintessential New Republican is detail-oriented, managerial, tough-minded, effective but a little dry."  He makes the critical point that "the governing soul of the party is to be found in statehouses where a loose confederation of über-wonks have become militant budget balancers."  


It's not just Republicans, and it's certainly not just governors, who are taking action outside Washington.  Not since Alan Ehrenhalt published The United States of Ambition a generation ago have I seen the states and counties increase their share of attention.  


With less media glare and greater room to maneuver, the state chambers deserve the interest of ambitious young things nationwide.  Given the challenges our states face -- California and New York being merely the most obscene examples -- perhaps Governing Magazine will become the Economist for tomorrow's movers and shakers.  

Cultural Interlude: The Met's New "Rheingold"

Last year, I described the Ring Cycle as "a parable of regulatory failure, brought about by irregular financing for a home even the gods cannot afford."  In short: the perfect opera for the subprime era.


Thin grounds for talking opera trash on a political site, I know: future cultural musings will be banished to my family blog, macfunke.com, or my occasional writing  for the New York Press and CityArts.  But since I demanded "a Ring for our time" -- and since Times critic Daniel Wakin says Robert Lepage has delivered a new production "for our video-saturated, MP3-playing, computer-dependent, YouTube-watching age" -- you can find my thoughts on the new "Rheingold" here.

Congressional Rankings: Cap and Trade

Over the weekend, I buttonholed my former employer and mentor Tom Kean at the annual Women's Association of NJPAC* benefit for his thoughts on criteria for my Congressional rankings.  He pointed out that only a handful of Republicans voted for cap & trade legislation -- and didn't pause before adding that three of those were from New Jersey (Representatives Lance, Lobiondo and Smith).

Liberals will prefer a straight carbon tax, and conservatives will oppose any further environmental mandates.  Though cumbersome, cap & trade has precedents in Clean Air Act emissions certificates (1977), the Acid Rain Program (1990) and the Chicago Climate Exchange (2003) and, for the internationally minded, emerging regimes under Kyoto.

Cap and trade is operationally tested, political feasible, and becoming the global standard.  It relies on the development of private-sector solutions to achieve a public good within an accountable context.  Consider a "yes" vote a constructive add to the Centerline.org criteria.


*New Jersey Performing Arts Center. NOT a political action committee - though Jersey being Jersey, the cast of characters had some...overlap.