REALITY CHECK: Simplifying the Budget Impasse

The debate over whether raising taxes or cutting spending is the way to avoid default has moved into high gear as the President issued a "Grand Compromise" to the Republican Congress that includes significant tax increases, as well as long-term spending cuts. So far, the GOP is having none of it. But I think we can simply the political calculation going on in the halls of Washington:

• IF the US Government goes into default, we will vote everyone out.
• IF the only spending cuts are to take place 2, 3, or 4 years out, we will vote out every Republican
• IF there are tax increases, we will grumble but live with it. Your job is probably safe.
• IF there are ONLY tax increases and no substantive spending cuts, we will vote out every Republican.
• IF Medicare, Social Security, and Military Spending remains off the table, nothing will be resolved and we will vote everyone out.

Hopefully, the President and Congress are keeping these important realities in mind as they play hardball in their negotiations.

I'll do anything... except the one thing you want me to do

President Obama had admitted that the results of this week's elections were bad for him - a "shellacking" is the term he used. Clearly, the nation wants a change in course from the last 2 years, and has handed the reins of the House to the Republicans. But with a divided Congress, compromise and negotiation will be critical. So, what is the president's idea to start negotiations?

To take the one thing Republicans are sure to want off of the table completely.

"At a time when we are going to ask folks across the board to make such difficult sacrifices, I don’t see how we can afford to borrow an additional $700 billion from other countries to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent, even for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans," the president said. "We’d be digging ourselves into an even deeper fiscal hole and passing the burden on to our children."

Obama noted the importance of extending the tax cuts in the lame-duck session, but focused the address on digging in against the full extension sought by Republicans and some Democrats.

Well, clearly the president is eager to take back the "Party of No" label he had previously stuck onto the GOP. Unfortunately for him, I get the sense that many Democratic congresspeople are more ready to compromise in order to win back the electorate.

Google concedes to Rupert Murdoch

You may recall a few weeks back that Rupert Murdoch had threatened to pull all of his new properties from the Google Search Engine in a bid to increase profitability and decrease the number of unpaid hits coming from the outside. He was widely mocked at the time for thinking FoxNews, WSJ, etc. could stay relevant if they were delisted from the search giant. Instead, Google has given NewsCorp a major concession with its new "First Click Free" feature in Google News. Under this new algorithm, the first 5 times that a user clicks on an article in Google News that lives behind a pay wall, they are allowed thru. Then the 6th time, they are redirected to the "register (and pay) to view" site for the newspaper.

Seems like a reasonable compromise. At the same time, it is unclear why the NewsCorp sites couldn't do this themselves, rather than pawning off the functionality to Google. Technically, it is not a big challenge to implement. Perhaps this is merely a way to prove NewsCorp has power in the online world.

Thoughts on Same-Sex Marriage

One issue which was already red-hot in 2008 - and is sure to get even more explosive with a Democratic majority at the Federal level in 2009 - is Same-Sex Marriage. While most advocates would call 2008 a bad year, because of the loss in California, the fact is that significant progress was made toward remaking the political landscape in favor of legal recognition of same-sex unions. More state courts have mandated recognition, there is a greater awareness of the challenges faced by same-sex couples, and the opposition is growing tired of the fight.

Personally, I have opposed the recognition of same-sex unions as "marriage" for some time, but have been sympathetic to the problems of loving couples without the protection of "marriage." I was saddened when same-sex partners had no rights to information about their loved ones who may have been hurt or killed in the attacks on 9/11/01. I was angered by stories about same-sex couples crossing state lines and suddenly losing medical coverage or inheritance rights that they depended on.

For a while, I pushed the idea of a "next of kin" rights package, which would allow the designation of an arbitrary person for hospital visitation, inheritance, etc. rights. But no one seemed interested in following that particular idea set. My impression is that advocates want nothing less than the full social and civil recognition implied by the word "marriage", and opponents don't want to offer any compromise. President-Elect Barack Obama is on record as supporting "civil unions" but opposing "marriage for same-sex couples."

What I wonder at this point is whether we have moved beyond the area where compromise is possible? The logic compromise is "civil unions", where traditional couples keep the name "marriage" and same-sex couples do not, but where the word is equivalent from a legal standpoint. But this moderate course more and more is anathema to both sides, because the wrestling has ceased to be over the rights and conditions of the couples and has become about the social acceptance and normalization of same-same lifestyles.

What do Mod-Bloggers think? Is there still a reasonable middle road here, or are we heading toward an abortion-style reckoning where a winner-takes-all solution is imposed from above?

Deep Thought of the Day: Abortion and Gay Marriage

I may have posted this before, but the situation in California has brought it back to mind. In American history there have been a series of great compromises: the Connecticut compromise which created a proportionally-chosen House and a 2-per-state Senate, the compromise that cut off slavery at the Mason-Dixon line, etc. I am wondering if one more could be possible:

What if we were offered a compromise which would allow individual states to ban abortion, in return for allowing individual states to allow gay marriage?

Could it ever have a chance? Could a "new face" like Obama or a "maverick" like McCain propose such a compromise? Or would this simply radicalize both the Right and Left to make later compromise harder?

Okay, now it your turn to tell me how naive I am.

WHAT IF: Will the GOP need a compromise candidate?

Not for the first time, political analysts are raising the specter of a Republican convention with no clear nominee which would require political wheeling and dealing in order to come up with a candidate for president. The pundits are mostly pointing back to the convention that nominated Dewey, who lost to the Democrat Truman. But I am starting to wonder if they should be looking back to the convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln - arguably one of the greatest presidents and UNarguably the greatest Republican president. (I think even Reagan himself would agree to that.)

It is too soon to really think this is a certainty, but it is not too soon to see that we may be a Lincoln-esque juncture in American history. Like Lincoln, we have a highly polarized America (him: slave/free, us: red/blue). Like Lincoln, we face a time of unique pressures and the war (him: civil war, us: War on Terror). Like Lincoln, we see a Republican party desperate to define itself and to resolve the splinters within (him: abolitionism vs states rights, us: religious values vs economic conservatism).

Does the Republican Party have a Lincoln this time around? Do we have a compromise candidate who can both be the standard-bearer, and re-unify the party? Lincoln used the Civil War as a means to reforge the party by recruiting his former rivals to his cabinet. Do we have anyone running now who can do that? Or is there anyone waiting in the wings who could do so?

I am interested to see the opinions of Mod-Bloggers on this topic. I have my own thoughts about who has the potential to do this, and who does not. But I want to ready your opinions first.