Policy

Went to a blogger panel discussion today featuring David Atkins (aka thereisnospoon) and Howie Klein of Down With Tyranny and longtime blogger Kevin Drum of Political Animal, the blog for The Washington Monthly. At a lunch afterwards, the talk turned to what policies the Democrats will try to enact come November, which makes sense given Kevin Drum's status as chief wonk of the progressive blogosphere.

Obviously the Democrats will try and deliver on their very narrowly defined, focus group-tested, broadly palatable goals that they've already expressed. They'll try to increase the minimum wage by about two dollars an hour, implement all the recommendations of the 9-11 commission, remove subsidies for Big Oil from the energy bill and allow Medicare to negotiate with drug companies on prices for prescriptions. Some of those (9-11 Commisssion recommendations) will be signed by the President, others (Big Oil subsidies) likely blocked. The White House are likely to try to include some sort of tax relief for small businesses to offset the minimum wage increase. On that score it will be very interesting to see how things go, whether or not the Democrats will hold to their ideals or just give away the farm to the President.

Then there are oversight hearings, on Iraq war contracting, on lobbying and ethics, et cetera. I agree with Kevin that the committee Chairman need to keep it in balance and not hold a hearing every day. Proper oversight instead of either none or too much.

A few things in the news today offer some more clues. First of all it looks like the Dems will go after the AMT:

Democratic leaders this week vowed to make the alternative minimum tax a centerpiece of next year's budget debate, saying the levy threatens to unfairly increase tax bills for millions of middle-class families by the end of the decade.

The complex and expensive tax was designed to prevent the super-rich from using deductions, credits and other shelters to avoid paying the Internal Revenue Service. But because of rising incomes, the tax is expected to expand to more than 30 million taxpayers in 2010 from 3.8 million mostly well-off households in 2006.

Fixing the AMT has long been a top priority for Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who is in line to head the Senate Finance Committee. Last year, Baucus co-authored a bill to repeal the tax with Senate Finance Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa).

Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), the presumptive chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, this week put fixing the AMT at the top of his agenda, calling it far more urgent than dealing with President Bush's request to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, which are scheduled to expire in 2010.

And yesterday, House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), who is campaigning to keep his leadership post, said Democrats will make "fixing the AMT . . . a priority of tax policy next year."

If this is done and Bush's tax cuts are allowed to expire, that'd be actually more than revenue-neutral. Of course there'd be a severe funding gap until 2010 when those cuts sunset. Kevin seemed to think that the image of the Democrats going in and immediately doing a tax cut would be bad strategically, but it could cut against the image of "tax and spend" liberals (I think I'm in the latter camp). The AMT is clearly a bad tax, designed for a bygone era and never updated to reflect current reality.

As opposed to that kind of confused messaging, this would be great and right:

An effort to restore habeas corpus rights for enemy combatants could be the first test of the Democrats' resolve to change course in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who is expected to become chairman, confirmed Thursday that he is drafting a bill to undo portions of a recently passed law that prevent terrorism detainees from going to federal court to challenge the government's right to hold them indefinitely.

You have to pick your battles, and this is certainly one worth picking. I think the torture bill was actually a net negative for Republican candidates this year. If the Democrats could effectively get out the message of just how dangerous it is to remove habeas corpus, they will be thanked by the public for fixing this. Obviously the President would veto it. But this is a battle you need to fight.

Republicans are trying to push through the warrantless wiretapping program in the lame-duck session, and the Democrats are saying the right things about that. Here's Patrick Leahy again:

"We have been asked to make sweeping and fundamental changes in law for reasons that we do not know and in order to legalize secret, unlawful actions that the administration has refused to fully divulge....If legislation is needed for judicial review, then we should write that legislation together, in a bipartisan and thoughtful way."...

I don't see them backing down on this, they certainly have no reason to do so. Certainly the White House will try to demonize and play the "you're a terrorist sympathizer" card, but that didn't work this year.

There are other policies, like the Employee Free Choice Act, and real healthcare reform (starting with covering children and working your way up), that will be part of the picture. What's so great is that I can have this type of discussion with other bloggers and not have it be theoretical. We can actually IMPLEMENT this policy this time around.

UPDATE: WaPo discusses the Democratic agenda here.