[Note: my headline is hyperbolic in that some of the Senators were not in office in December. But I think we can confidently state that everyone of them would have voted for the The Deal, that cut taxes that increased the debt by trillions, and surely will again.] Via Atrios and Steve Benen, 64 Senators have redefined chutzpah:

Dear President Obama:

As the Administration continues to work with Congressional leadership regarding our current budget situation, we write to inform you that we believe comprehensive deficit reduction measures are imperative and to ask you to support a broad approach to solving the problem.

[. . . W]e urge you to engage in a broader discussion about a comprehensive deficit reduction package. Specifically, we hope that the discussion will include discretionary spending cuts, entitlement changes and tax reform.

(Emphasis supplied.) More . . .

A new Pew Research poll shows voters are increasingly disapproving of Congress. The reason is because Congress, even after the November election, has failed to do anything on the basic issues everyone cares about.

Republicans and the Tea Party promised change, but haven't delivered. So it's not really a surprise that:

Pew surveyed 1,525 adults from March 8-14. The poll's findings suggest the political losers so far have been Republicans, who rode a wave of voter irritation to win control of the House of Representatives last fall.

After the election, 35 percent said Republicans had a better approach to the deficit, expected to reach a record $1.65 trillion this year. This month, that number has plunged to 21 percent.

Patience is wearing thin with the Tea Party: [More...]

Paul Krugman writes:

Republicans aren’t the only cynics. As the national debate over fiscal policy descends ever deeper into penny-pinching, future-killing absurdity, one voice is curiously muted — that of President Obama.

The president and his aides know that the G.O.P. approach to the budget is wrongheaded and destructive. But they’ve stopped making the case for an alternative approach; instead, they’ve positioned themselves as know-nothings lite, accepting the notion that spending must be slashed immediately — just not as much as Republicans want. Mr. Obama’s political advisers clearly believe that this strategy of protective camouflage offers the president his best chance at re-election — and they may be right.

Krugman, like every one else it seems, forgets about The Deal. Once Obama let loose the Catfood Commission, DEFICITS!!!! were going to be what the Very Serious Persons would want to talk about. I stupidly surmised at the time that Obama was shrewdly going to use the Catfood Commission in order to raise taxes on the rich in December. The Deal shattered my naivete. Now when we talk about DEFICITS!!! the question is how much sacrifice are the poor and the middle class going to share (the rich of course never have to sacrifice, only the "little people" have to "share sacrifice.") More . . .

In my years as a front pager at Daily Kos, a running theme, perhaps THE running theme, was that Dems needed to fight for their values. The Barack Obama phenomenon and the PPUS sidetracked that theme. But perhaps it is making a comeback. Here is E.J. Dionne today:

Consider the contrast between two groups of Democrats, in Wisconsin and in the nation's capital. Washington Democrats, including President Obama, have allowed conservative Republicans to dominate the budget debate so far. As long as the argument is over who will cut more from federal spending, conservatives win. Voters may think the GOP is going too far, but when it comes to dollar amounts, they know Republicans will always cut more.

In Wisconsin, by contrast, 14 Democrats in the state Senate defined the political argument on their own terms - and they are winning it. [. . .] Here's the key to the Wisconsin battle: For the first time in a long time, blue-collar Republicans - once known as Reagan Democrats - have been encouraged to remember what they think is wrong with conservative ideology.

The Deal was a terrible mistake, in part, because President Obama avoided a chance to fight for the middle class, for the ordinary American, and instead signed on to the "no sacrifice for the rich" Norquistian GOP agenda. He had a chance to fight for what Jim McDermott called the Common Good:

Since the economic reality that now is not the time to be dealing with deficits is ignored by every Very Serious Person, from President Obama on down, the next question is how to address the deficit.

Economic reality tells us that it is not the time to reduce government spending as the nation continues to suffer from insufficient aggregate demand, slack that the private sector is simply not capable of picking up at this time. So, if we must address the deficit now, the most efficient (not to mention fair and decent) policy choice is to raise taxes on the rich. President Obama blew this issue when he did The Deal. A terrible mistake. At the federal level, the discussion is about how much the poor and the middle class must "sacrifice," the rich must never do so. And that cake is baked. At the state level, the electorate voted in zanies as governors in many states (Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania . . . New York?) who seem determined to destroy the economies of their states (and to contribute to the destruction of the national economy.) They will likely get their way. In a sense, this will be an additional experiment regarding the basic tenet of Republican governance. But does it matter how it turns out? More . . .

Atrios asks:

I wonder what Andrea Mitchell is sacrificing for the new austerity.

Here's the thing, the time to ask Andrea Mitchell and Alan Greenspan and rich people like them to sacrifice was when President Obama was striking The Deal. Everyone wants to pretend that what is happening now on the "New Austerity" has nothing to do with the The Deal that was struck in December. It has everything to do with it. When Ezra Klein was giving The Deal a standing ovation back in December, me and a few others were saying that it was a terrible mistake because the "New Austerity" was coming. If Obama has simply said No to The Deal, he could be negotiating tax rates right now, not just budget cuts. The Deal was a terrible mistake and anyone who was honest when thinking about it knew this.

Speaking for me only

Regular readers are familiar with my writings on the Madman Theory of Political Bargaining. Today, E.J. Dionne discusses the GOP's use of it in the budget negotiations:

Richard Nixon espoused what he called "the madman theory." It's a negotiating approach that induces the other side to believe you are capable of dangerously irrational actions and leads it to back down to avoid the wreckage your rage might let loose. House Republicans are pursuing their own madman theory in budget negotiations, with a clever twist: Speaker John Boehner is casting himself as the reasonable man fully prepared to reach a deal to avoid a government shutdown. [. . .] Thus are negotiators for President Obama and Senate Democrats forced to deal not only with Republican leaders in the room but also with a menacing specter outside its confines. As "responsible" public officials, Democrats are asked to make additional concessions just to keep the bomb-throwers at bay.

There is less "madman" to this approach for the GOP than in the past. The reason is simple - the GOP has rolled the Dems for most of the past two years (some would say past 2 decades.) In any event, the only way to defeat the madman bargainer is to stand up to him. In this case, that means being willing to suffer a government shutdown. Are the Dems ready for that? We'll see.

Speaking for me only

Yesterday, Matt Yglesias wrote:

Democratic Party politicians can win if and only if they secure large majorities of the vote from self-identified moderates, and then self-identified moderates have different opinions from liberals about several important issues. I really strongly recommend the paper as a dose of Real Talk for folks (myself included) who are more inclined to take the liberal side of these issues[.]

Today, Ezra Klein writes:

The capitulation begins:

With a political standoff over spending threatening to trigger a federal shutdown next week, Senate Democrats began drafting a plan Thursday to slice billions of dollars from domestic agency budgets over the next seven months, yielding to Republican demands to reduce the size of government this year.

In December, President Obama led the capitulation on tax policy. Now Senate Dems lead the capitulation on spending. They of course regret all the pain they will be inflicting and the severe damage they will be causing to the economy. Grover Norquist and the Republicans have no regrets of course. But does that really matter? The results are the same.

Speaking for me only

Ezra Klein points to this critique of Judge Gladys Kessler's opinion (PDF) upholding the Affordable Care Act. Ezra writes:

Avik Roy argues against Judge Gladys Kessler's ruling upholding the individual mandate. I'm linking to this for two reasons: One, to remind myself to blog on it tomorrow. Two, to recommend bookmarking Roy's blog for a smart conservative take on health-care policy.

I read the critique and am still looking for the "smart." I'll explain why on the flip.

In the wake of a USA Today/Gallup Poll showing that Americans strongly oppose union busting bills such as the one proposed by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, two GOP governors have come out against such bills. In Indiana, Mitch Daniels advised his party to abandon its "right to work" bill. And in Florida, Rick Scott, perhaps smarting from following the Tea Party's bad advice on HSR funding, supports collective bargaining for public sector employees:

My belief is as long as people know what they're doing, collective bargaining is fine," Scott said in an interview with Tallahassee's WFLA FM radio station.

Overreach by Walker? Can he extricate himself now?

Update: Also Michigan's GOP Governor.

Speaking for me only

James Joyner reports on Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's explanation for exempting police and firefighters from his assault on collective bargaining rights makes sense. Joyner wrties:

On NPR this morning, Walker answered that he couldn’t take the risk of cops and firefighters going out on strike and allow mayhem to ensue. But that’s an appeal to consequences — and a very dangerous one — rather than a principled reason.

How does this explain why Walker is exempting police and firefighters from his assault on collective bargaining rights? Indeed, unless police and firefighters are not prohibited from striking by law (think PATCO), permitting them collective bargaining rights makes the use of a strike more likely, not less. Indeed, Walker's argument provides stronger support for limiting the collective bargaining rights of police and firefighters than for other state employees. After all, if state employees who are not police and firefighters can strike without causing mayhem, then there is less risk in permitting them collective bargaining rights. But of course nothing Walker has said on the subject has made any sense at face value.

Speaking for me only