For those who think American politics will be all rainbows and unicorns after Bush leaves, President-elect Barack Obama just sent a reminder that the Democrats have ridiculous constituencies to please, too. Although Congress passed $25 billion in favorable loans to Detroit's Big Three auto manufacturers in September, they're already begging for more. Today, Obama asked Bush to sign another $25 billion in loans before he leaves office.
Although some argue that these loans can give Ford, GM, and Chrysler capital needed to create cleaner cars, the question is why Honda, Toyota, and upstarts like Tesla Motors don't need similar favors. If we agree to live in a capitalist system, we have to agree to let failing companies fail. Period.
Note to the Democrats: If you are looking for a good policy that might save Detroit, think about fixing the health care system. Part of the problem is that the Big Three pay thousands more per car in health care and retirement costs than foreign companies. Then everybody wins.
Showing posts with label congress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label congress. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Salutations - and elections recap/open thread
Hi fellow Hippos! I will be posting here quite a bit over the course of the year, so I thought I'd introduce myself. I go by "optimo" in blog land, but elsewhere you can call me Jeremy. I'm a first year MPP student and an Associate Editor for this year's Policy Perspectives.
So I am hoping we can rev up some lively discussion over here the course of the year and beyond. This is such an exciting time to be in Washington, having lived through an election that deserves a full chapter in the American history books and is yet to be fully completed.
There will be much time to talk about 2009 and the coming Obama presidency, but it feels right to start off with a recap of the election.
Obviously we know Obama won, and decisively so. He definitely has amassed 364 EVs and still could end up with 376 (Missouri and the single Omaha district remain too close to call). He outperformed John Kerry in just about every demographic group you can imagine. Check out the details, they're pretty striking. Obama won the 18-29 age group by an astounding 2-to-1 margin. Regionally, major gains were made in the coastal South, upper Midwest, Northeast and non-Mormon areas of the Mountain West. It's hard to see these gains fading away anytime soon if Democrats manage to deliver on at least some of their promises over the next few years.
In Congress, Republicans actually did a little better than expected. Although a few races in both chambers are still yet to be decided, they lost ground but managed to avoid a major landslide. As of now, the count stands at 22 seats flipping from R to D, 4 '06 D pickups flipping back to R, and eight still yet to be decided. If the eight remaining seats split 4-4, the final count will be 258-177.
The Senate saw at least six Democratic pickups in a very tough year for Republicans, while 3 races involving R incumbents remain too close to call. AK is waiting for all mail-in ballots to be counted, MN will go to a recount, and GA will go to a runoff election. If the D challenger wins in all three (which is very unlikely), then Democrats reach that supposedly magical 60 mark. Georgia would really be a shocker, and both sides will be throwing a ton of resources into the special December 2nd runoff election. My best guess for the final tally is 57-43: Franken wins in Minnesota and Lieberman bolts to the GOP. Again, both houses see non-negligible Dem majorities, but not large enough for the center-left governing coalition within the party to easily get legislation through.
The state level elections produced few surprises and was much more even. Democrats picked up the Missouri governorship which will impact policy there, but all other governor races stayed the same. Democrats picked up 5 state legislative chambers, including the NY Senate (as expected) for the first time in over a century, and Republicans surprisingly picked up both chambers in Tennessee along with 2 other bodies. New Hampshire now has the first majority-female legislative body in the country's history. Ballot initiatives were a very mixed bag. I won't bother with the details, but some nonpartisan review can be found here.
So, let's discuss. What specific thing are you most excited or upset about regarding the 2008 election results?
So I am hoping we can rev up some lively discussion over here the course of the year and beyond. This is such an exciting time to be in Washington, having lived through an election that deserves a full chapter in the American history books and is yet to be fully completed.
There will be much time to talk about 2009 and the coming Obama presidency, but it feels right to start off with a recap of the election.
Obviously we know Obama won, and decisively so. He definitely has amassed 364 EVs and still could end up with 376 (Missouri and the single Omaha district remain too close to call). He outperformed John Kerry in just about every demographic group you can imagine. Check out the details, they're pretty striking. Obama won the 18-29 age group by an astounding 2-to-1 margin. Regionally, major gains were made in the coastal South, upper Midwest, Northeast and non-Mormon areas of the Mountain West. It's hard to see these gains fading away anytime soon if Democrats manage to deliver on at least some of their promises over the next few years.
In Congress, Republicans actually did a little better than expected. Although a few races in both chambers are still yet to be decided, they lost ground but managed to avoid a major landslide. As of now, the count stands at 22 seats flipping from R to D, 4 '06 D pickups flipping back to R, and eight still yet to be decided. If the eight remaining seats split 4-4, the final count will be 258-177.
The Senate saw at least six Democratic pickups in a very tough year for Republicans, while 3 races involving R incumbents remain too close to call. AK is waiting for all mail-in ballots to be counted, MN will go to a recount, and GA will go to a runoff election. If the D challenger wins in all three (which is very unlikely), then Democrats reach that supposedly magical 60 mark. Georgia would really be a shocker, and both sides will be throwing a ton of resources into the special December 2nd runoff election. My best guess for the final tally is 57-43: Franken wins in Minnesota and Lieberman bolts to the GOP. Again, both houses see non-negligible Dem majorities, but not large enough for the center-left governing coalition within the party to easily get legislation through.
The state level elections produced few surprises and was much more even. Democrats picked up the Missouri governorship which will impact policy there, but all other governor races stayed the same. Democrats picked up 5 state legislative chambers, including the NY Senate (as expected) for the first time in over a century, and Republicans surprisingly picked up both chambers in Tennessee along with 2 other bodies. New Hampshire now has the first majority-female legislative body in the country's history. Ballot initiatives were a very mixed bag. I won't bother with the details, but some nonpartisan review can be found here.
So, let's discuss. What specific thing are you most excited or upset about regarding the 2008 election results?
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
On getting things done
It's amazing to me that Congress was designed by the framers to be a slow and deliberative body. I've been working as a fellow there for the last two months and my day is anything but slow and deliberative. In fact, it's a bit of a workout.
I feel like I'm constantly running from a 10am meeting on one topic to a 12-2 briefing on another, then to a 2pm meeting on something else. And in between, I'm supposed to have read something, answered emails, made phone calls, and tried to think of intelligent questions to ask in the next meeting.
Or maybe this is the point: The members of Congress and their staff are so caught up with all the activity that no one can really sit down to think things through.
I feel like I'm constantly running from a 10am meeting on one topic to a 12-2 briefing on another, then to a 2pm meeting on something else. And in between, I'm supposed to have read something, answered emails, made phone calls, and tried to think of intelligent questions to ask in the next meeting.
Or maybe this is the point: The members of Congress and their staff are so caught up with all the activity that no one can really sit down to think things through.
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