Senate GOP: yes, you can have teachers, if you’ll cut food stamps. And you can have arms control (maybe) if you’ll waste additional billions on “force modernization.” Feh.
Republicans in the Senate have agreed to avoid some teacher layoffs:Â in return for cutting Food Stamps in the midst of the worst prolonged employment crisis since the Great Depression. And they might – might- be willing to approve the New Start treaty (largely negotiated under Bush II and supported by everyone with basic literacy on nuclear issues): in return for wasting additional tens of billions of dollars on fancier nuclear weapons (which presumably don’t have to be “paid for” because they don’t actually help human beings).
If you’re as angry about this crap as I am, think about writing a check to the DSCC. No, the Senate Democrats haven’t always presented a profile in courage. But compared to the alternative …
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman
I wish some netroots heavy-hitter would organize a "not a dime until you pledge to end the filibuster" campaign. I'm tired of Democratic politicians begging for money just to keep the jackals at bay. With the filibuster getting to 60 just means empowering red-state senators like Ben Nelson and the northeast Republicans. The filibuster means our dollars elect more but worse Democrats. That's great for senators but it's a waste of my money. It's so demoralizing for my dollars to support the 60th senator.
Why should we donate to the DSCC instead of individual good Democrats? The DSCC is actively wasting money on Blanche Lincoln et al. Give to Patty Murray or Elaine Marshall instead.
Alternatively, you could donate to Sen. Jeff Merkley's PAC. Like the DSCC, he's using the money to help Democrats get elected. But he's one of the good guys among the Senate Democrats, and if the money goes through him it'll give him leverage over other Democrats.
As Blue Team organizations go, the DSCC is pretty damn low on my priority list at this point. Because of weak party discipline, the Democrats have done a mediocre job pushing the Democratic agenda forward with 60 votes in the Senate (yes, what they’ve passed is better than nothing, but if it weren’t for all these feints at bipartisanship, we could have had health care reform nine months ago), and now that they don’t have that, how much of a difference is there between 51 Democratic Senators and 59?
Last night John Stewart had the best take on this BS I've seen in quite some time. The focus was on 9-11 first responders at first, but still Check it out.
"Compared to the alternative…" the DSCC is worthy of support? This is precisely the sort of thinking that has reduced the Democratic party to the protection-racket wing of the Republican crime syndicate. All the Dems have to be is arguably one (even .000001) degreee less evil than their GOP counterparts, a thing they are almost good at,and the "compared to the alternative" argument basically makes itself.
Maybe we should be thinking a little more broadly about "alternatives" and alternatives.