Valences: Where the Discourse Should Be It is not so much a notion to propose that any given subject is a prerequisite for serious political discussion, nor an exclusion of other aspects. Rather, the idea of where the American political discourse should be is a far more subjective proposition for our purposes; while our advert-driven media cycle and market-driven political establishments howl about superficial notions of principle and democracy, more informative—and oft-fascinating—details about the Beltway often drown in the noise. David Hawkings of Roll Call noted an unusual transition in House Appropriations leadership, brought on by the death of Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-FL13) and resignations of Reps. Jo Bonner (R-AL01) and Rodney Alexander (R-LA05). All the shifting gavels were delivered to veteran Republicans who stand out as moderates on their party’s tilted-to-the-right ideological spectrum. That should in no way be interpreted as a sign of any changing balance of power in the Republican Conference, where the hard-line budget conservatives look to dominate just as they have for the past three years. Instead, the fact that the winners were all centrists should be seen as evidence that seniority and leadership reliability still provide some benefits in Republican circles. It’s also a reminder that the sort of GOP lawmakers who choose to devote their careers to deciding where the money goes are by and large a fiscally malleable lot. The altered assignments mean a changed membership for one-third of the group known all over Capitol Hill as the college of cardinals. The allusion to the power players of the Catholic Church is not only because of the significant unilateral power these chairmen have to reward or restrict federal agencies through subtle tugs on the federal purse strings. It also refers to their somewhat secretive code of conduct for rewarding colleagues in both parties who embrace the panel’s spending culture — and punishing those who don’t. This latter code has frayed somewhat since earmarking became verboten and the GOP majority unified behind the goal of cutting the discretionary part of the budget that appropriators control. But it still remains solidly in force at the margins. And so — if a comprehensive omnibus spending package is going to be written to dictate spending for the 35 weeks after Jan. 15, when the current continuing resolution expires — the four new and repositioned chairmen, along with their eight colleagues, will each be called on to quickly bless hundreds of small trade-offs and compromises. “Being an Appropriations cardinal is an incredibly important job with great responsibility,” said Chairman Hal Rogers of Kentucky, because lawmakers must be “responsible and pragmatic leaders who get the job done.” That’s a rare characteristic in the total-budget-breakdown era of the moment. The marquee appointment is Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ11), and if his dynastic credentials might count against him among those cynical of establishment politicians, he is looked upon by his colleagues "as a shrewd, if low-key, deal-maker". The other appointments are worth noting: Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID02) moves from his chair of Interior-Environment, and will take Frelinghuysen's former seat at the head of the Energy and Water Development subcommittee, which can be read as having its own political implications if one chooses, not only advancing the Idaho Republican's environmental conservation efforts in the Snake River Valley, but also buffing his credentials ahead of a potentially problematic primary challenge backed by the Club for Growth. Simpson's former I-E seat will go to Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA42), and Calvert's chair of the Legislative Branch subcommittee, "customarily the least-sought-after subcommittee chairmanship", goes to Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK04). Certes, the Speaker will want faithful allies in coming budget negotiations, but there is also a matter of competence. The thing is that the hardliners are volatile, and many of them untested in negotiation because they refuse to negotiate. So here's the twist. Frelinghuysen gets the Defense subcommittee: "With or without a continued sequester, the panel and its Senate counterpart are assigned to allocate slightly more than half of all discretionary money." This point cannot be understated: Allocates slightly more than half of all discretionary money. More than simply moving allies into key open seats, the Speaker needs "a shrewd, if low-key, dealmaker". To be more specific, Timothy Noah explained, earlier this month: No one dreamed congressional Republicans would tolerate the 2013 sequester, because it slashed defense spending along with non-defense discretionary spending (while exempting automatic-spending programs like Medicare and Social Security). Republicans hate to slash defense spending! But the House GOP surprised everybody by tolerating the sequester just fine; this new breed of Tea Party reactionaries, it turned out, didn’t care nearly as much about defense spending as its predecessors had. Even so, the next round of sequestration cuts will put that blasé pose to a very severe test. Under the 2014 sequester, defense spending will drop about $20 billion (off a base of about $518 billion), or roughly 4%. Non-defense discretionary spending, meanwhile will remain flat, at about $469 billion. Indeed, technically it will go up slightly (from $468 billion). If they do nothing, then, House Republicans will prompt the writing of headlines that say, “GOP Chooses Military Dismantlement Over Tax Increase.” A hard-bargaining president could tell John Boehner, You want to be a cartoon Republican and block all tax increases? Fine. Then I’ll be a cartoon Democrat and allow a big fat cut in Pentagon spending. I’d rather not do that. But it’s your choice, pal. Perhaps you’re wondering how it came to pass that the sequester’s automatic cuts for 2014, which were supposed to be divided evenly between defense and domestic discretionary spending, ended up encompassing nothing but defense spending. The short answer is that, through a complicated set of circumstances involving, among other factors, the fiscal cliff deal, the continuing resolution that resolved the government shutdown, and the 2011 Budget Control Act, the cuts to domestic spending ended up getting front-loaded in 2013, whereas the Pentagon cuts were not. Even setting the power struggle aside, the fact is that Boehner is still maneuvering in good faith on behalf of the United States of America. The political implications are huge, of course; a budget standoff will hurt Republicans immensely, and while that might actually be beyond the Speaker's control, a keen and reliable hand is simply what the Defense subcommittee needs. As much as Americans mutter and mumble about entrenched politicians—and Frelinghuysen is the essence of dynastic politics, with family influence dating back to the American Revolution—even a leftist pacifist can comprehend the need to be surgical about defense cuts; this is not time for hacking away with a machete. And as far as the actual function of our government goes, watching Frelinghuysen navigate the treacherous waters ahead will be one of the more fascinating insights we can glean from the Beltway. Certes, we can never know how it might have gone under a hardliner's hand; and the Tortilla Coast Junta may well stage another insurgency, which would complicate the Defense subcommittee's job that much more. And when we think of national debt in terms of trillions, perhaps twenty billion should seem easily doable. But it's not. These cuts cannot simply come from personnel services. You can't cut enough birth control or PTSD counseling out of the budget to make that gap. Defense has an economic stake in every Congressional district; this will cost jobs, somewhere, in project cuts. As Noah suggests, Congress and the White House can get as cartoonish as they want. The wise course is to avoid all that. Whatever else the political winds bring to the Defense subcommittee, Frelinghuysen is widely regarded as the best choice for Boehner, and can reasonably be expected to specifically guard—with no small dexterity and skill, at that—against a cartoonish disaster in poorly-executed Defense cuts that would have far greater ramifications than the merely electoral. And that is what makes this fascinating. As the spectacular political dramas explode into the headlines and teasers and sound bites, the newly-appointed chairman of the House Appropriations Committee Defense Subcommittee will be working to accopmlish what really is a fairly dramatic hit to what accounts for slightly more than half of all discretionary money. Or so says me. Fascinating. In the quesiton of where the political discourse should be, it is not a question that this or that must be the subject of consideration. Rather, it is a proposition of valences. The high-flung superficiality that dominates the public discourse makes for all manner of spectacular drama. But the substantive questions generally occur at a higher altitude, oft-obscured by the storm clouds of petty and perpetual electioneering. There will likely be a bounty of superficial criticism to bandy about as the Defense cuts move to the forefront. But the real story will be Frelinghuysen, and his Senate counterpart Barbara Mikulski (D-MD). Not only will they have to juggle the superficial politics, they will be doing so while trying to execute what we can reasonably expect will be a long, complex, and extremely delicate budgetary surgery. ____________________ Notes: Hawkings, David. "4 Centrists Get Money Seats in Appropriations Gavel Shuffle". Hawkings Here. November 13, 2013. Blogs.RollCall.com. November 20, 2013. http://blogs.rollcall.com/hawkings/4-centrists-get-money-seats-in-appropriations-gavel-shuffle/ Noah, Timothy. "2014 cuts hit defense spending, so Obama has leverage on taxes". MSNBC. November 4, 2013. MSNBC.com. November 20, 2013. http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/dems-have-more-budget-clout-they-think
Boehner: No Borrowing Authority Without Spending Increase? Debtron 3030 Even amid the left-of-center media marketplace, this is not a sentence I would have expected: Consider the implications of this trial balloon: the top Republican lawmaker on Capitol Hill is now effectively prepared to tell the White House, "As a condition for raising the debt ceiling, we're asking Democrats to increase spending." (Benen) Yes, really. So, what's going on here? The politics are pretty simple. We all recall the infamous, informal "Hastert Rule" about which bills to bring to the floor? Set that aside; what we're discussing is the infamous, informal "Boehner Rule". This is an idea that suggests a dollar-for-dollar exchange in order to move money around in the budget without requiring additional funding. Nor is it really dollar-for-dollar. It's dollar-for-dollar, but only on top of the other dollars the Republicans want cut with no exchange. Still, though, it's all immaterial. That is to say, with a new debt-ceiling consideration coming up at the end of the month, Congressional Republicans are still scrambling to find a list of demands; as recently as yesterday, Steve Benen was looking at this in terms of a "blank ransom note". And while that point is important—"Democrats don't see the need to pay a ransom if the hostage takers are bluffing"—the turnabout from Boehner is only surprising for its form. As previously noted, the upcoming sequester cuts are heavily—almost entirely—aimed at Defense, the deal having been front-loaded with other cuts. The result, of course, is that Republicans are playing a deficit-cutting game, but don't want to cut defense. This is hardly a shocking, new revelation. But, yes, it really does seem that Boehner's office is floating the idea of refusing to authorize further borrowing authority until Democrats agree to increase deficit outlays. Which certainly has its flavor of irony. Look, we all knew this was the way it was going to go; front-load with the stuff Democrats don't want to give up, then hit the stuff Republicans don't want to give up. The course was obvious; get what you want out of the sequester and then complain about the damage it's doing before the bits you have sympathy toward land on the block. Mechanically speaking, it's not exactly Politics 101, but neither is it a two-hundred level class, either. Let's go with POL104, "The Craft of the Wheel and the Art of the Deal". However, at the same time, Congressional Republicans and their surrogates have had all this time to get ready for this phase of the argument. And what do they come up with? A little high and outside. Or maybe just flat-out high. I mean, we get it. Right now this is just basic maneuvering. But why so clumsy? ____________________ Notes: Benen, Steve. "GOP eyes spending increases in debt-ceiling fight". MSNBC. February 6, 2014. MSNBC.com. February 6, 2014. http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/gop-eyes-increased-spending-debt-ceiling —————. "GOP eyes spending increases in debt-ceiling fight". MSNBC. February 5, 2014. MSNBC.com. February 6, 2014. http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/holding-blank-ransom-note
