Ezra: The Worst Idea In Washington

I haven't linked to Ezra Klein in a while, because something went wrong with the feed on the blogroll.  But I fixed it finally, and he talks in two posts about the GOP's new "Balanced Budget Amendment".

This atrocity would require two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress in order to raise taxes.

This would make the United States the budgetary equivalent of California.  Maybe there aren't enough Republicans left in California for them to know what that would look like, but it's not pretty.  You have roughly 60% of the legislature in Democratic hands, but they still can't raise taxes, despite a massive budget shortfall.

The result is that taxes in California are very regressive.  Sales taxes are very high, while taxes that pinch the rich are impossible to raise.  The same thing would happen if the GOP were to get their way on this awful amendment. (Luckily they won't.)

There are three important political trends since the 2010 midterms (and Ezra has a chart to show the demographics of that election):

First, Governors Scott Walker, John Kasich and Rich Snyder all launched attacks on public service unions.

Second, the GOP went to the mat for tax cuts for the rich.

Third, the GOP has a single minded dedication in the House to creating jobs pushing right-wing social issues.

The result of all this has been a lost opportunity for the Democrats.

There is a lot of merit to the No Drama Obama model, but he has to pick a fight with these guys!  Even if it is a calm, professorial type fight, he has to make the case that the GOP is a captive party to the rich and the socially conservative.  Neither of those positions are majority positions.

I suppose there could be a plan to give the GOP a lot of rope between now and the beginning of the silly season next winter fall.  Let them create their own oppo ads.  Maybe the plan is to wait for the inevitable government shutdown.

But there are a host of socially conservative union members in the midwest who are ripe for the picking.  There are a host of socially liberal fiscal conservatives, who acknowledge the need to raise taxes, especially on the rich.  While the union members are paying attention, I'm not sure the suburban 40 year old woman who works part time in the school system, generally supports liberal social causes, wants to see some responsibility in the federal budget and never watches the news is really hearing what's going on.

She likes Obama and will likely vote for him anyway.  But he needs to get her fired up about the assault on sanity that the modern GOP currently represents.  That's how you realign the country.

Obama is said to be fortunate in the list of potential candidates he will go up against.  Fine.

But he's really fortunate in the ideology that he's going up against.  And he needs to make that clearer.