State of Union: by Paul Krugman

The Conscience of a Liberal
by Paul Krugman

Same As He Ever Was

These days quite a few people are frustrated with President Obama’s failure to challenge conservative ideology. The spending freeze — about which the best thing you can say in its favor is that it’s a transparently cynical PR stunt — has, for many, been the final straw: rhetorically, it’s a complete concession to Reaganism.

But why should we be surprised? Here’s one from the vault. Two years ago, I was deeply frustrated with Obama’s apparent endorsement of the Reagan myth.

There was a lot of delusion among progressives who convinced themselves, in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, that Obama was a strong champion of their values. He wasn’t and isn’t.

That doesn’t mean that there’s no difference between the parties, that everything would have been the same if McCain had won. But progressives are in the process of losing a big chance to change the narrative, and that’s largely because they have a leader who never had any inclination to do so.

The Curse Of The Supermajority

Here’s how democracy works: political parties that make an effective appeal to voters get the right to govern and implement new policies.

Here’s how the United States government works: political parties that make an effective appeal to voters get seated — but can’t govern unless they have 60 Senators.

The past year has been a spectacular demonstration of the crippling effect of the filibuster on America’s ability to deal with, well, anything.

Sen. Tom Udall is proposing a change in Senate rules, going back to the Constitution — which says nothing about supermajorities. Here’s his very good analysis, including a demonstration that the universal requirement for supermajorities isn’t, contrary to what you often hear, isn’t a long-standing tradition; it’s something that only developed recently, and mainly since Republicans found themselves in the minority.

Tom Schaller argues that the supermajority gives American policy a center-right bias, since conservatives don’t want to do much. But didn’t Bush manage to do a lot? Yes, in a way. But the thing about Bush policies were that they were all buy-now-pay-later: unfunded tax cuts, unfunded expansion of Medicare, unfunded wars. Bush never demonstrated that it’s possible to govern America responsibly, because he never tried.

Udall is right. We need to fix the Senate. Otherwise, we’re headed for full banana-republic status.