Budget Odds And Ends

There are these little glories tucked into the budget outline, and they all seem to have the same trajectory - marvelous, progressive, and yet not quite good enough for what's needed.

For example, the ending of direct payments to Big Agriculture farmers. This has been sorely needed for years, and yet it's not going to radically alter our food policy, which many say is broken.

The good news (and better than I speculated at ObFo): Bam wants to eliminate direct payment for farmers with SALES greater than $500,000. That will affect a lot more farmers than using income as the basis for a limit. But before you start cheering, know that the administration fully expects the lost subsidy will be replaced by "alternate sources of income from emerging markets for environmental services, such as carbon sequestration, renewable energy production, and providing clean air, clean water, and wildlife habitat." So no worries, Big Ag! The money will continue to flow.

The same distorted crop subsidies will remain as well, making it a fairer system but still not a fixed one.

Then there are the energy cap and trade proceeds - noble, but insufficient (though the Administration could be fudging).

First, the projected revenue seems strikingly low. Partly this is a function of the fact that the targets themselves, particularly in the short term, are fairly weak -- 14 percent under 2005 levels by 2020, 83 percent by 2050. (Sane climate policy would reduce emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, at least.)

Still, the proposal explicitly says that the administration expects 100 percent of the permits to be auctioned off. As Kate noted, the CBO estimated (PDF) that "the value of those allowances could total between $50 billion and $300 billion annually (in 2006 dollars) by 2020." The administration's estimate -- $83 billion a year by 2020 -- is well at the bottom end of those projections.

My guess -- apparently confirmed by "senior White House officials" who don't invite me to their conference calls -- is that this is simple conservatism. The inclusion of any carbon revenue at all is sure to spark controversy, so they're simply being cautious not to lay too ambitious a marker.

The bigger question is whether the $15 billion/year investment in clean energy will really tip the economy toward a paradigm shift.

Let me throw in one universally good element: the shuttering of Yucca Mountain.

Washington -- President Obama is taking the first step toward blocking a nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain by slashing money for the program in his first budget, according to congressional sources.

Obama's budget, which is expected to be announced today, will eliminate nearly all funding for the Yucca project with the exception of money needed for license applications submitted last year to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said sources who asked not to be identified because the document has not been made public.

"The Yucca Mountain program will be scaled back to those costs necessary to answer inquiries from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission while the administration devises a new strategy toward nuclear-waste disposal," the Energy Department will say as part of the budget document, the sources said.

This will save close to $80 billion dollars as well as force better solutions to energy than nuclear.

I am genuinely happy with the budget, and in 1993 this would be an incredible document. The problems are just so big right now in 2009, that it may not be enough. But I'm pleased it's even gone this far.

Gun To A Gunfight

Count me in as down for Barack Obama's McCain is a celebrity ad (with special cameo from Steve Carell).



I've been saying that the Obama camp had 10-15 seconds of a negative ad down before turning to a laundry list, but this one gets it about right. I think the big takeaway for me is that Obama's team figured out that the media is so insipid, they would only get their ad covered if it was seen as a "response" to the McCain ad. So by framing it that way, it gives them the opportunity to shoehorn in a bunch of pictures with McCain and Bush and make the case against their failed conservative policies. The election needs to be less about Obama and more about the axis of Bush-McCain, and this is a way to turn that around. And there's nothing out of bounds here - McCain's campaign is indeed crawling with lobbyists, and he is indeed proclaiming his support for most of George Bush's policies. It also shows how ridiculous the "celebrity" tag is when applied to a well-known politician - of course you can turn that around on everyone, but on the facts, McCain represents the same wrong direction we've been headed in for seven years.

I'm also partial to this DNC ad using the DHL/Wilmington deal to paint McCain as a job killer:



And this Obama ad blasting McCain for his position on Yucca Mountain.



Obama didn't start down this road, but he can absolutely finish it. And what's more, as the election rolls around he'll be outspending McCain 2-1 to boot.

Nevada's Electoral Jackpot?

Todd Beeton looks at Barack Obama's Western state appeal, and while he agrees that Colorado and New Mexico look pretty good, Nevada may be out of reach.

Polling says otherwise. Rasmussen Reports found Barack Obama trailing John McCain by 6 points last month. Bush won Nevada in 2004 by just 3%. The poll represents a 1 point uptick for McCain in Nevada since April and is a full 11 points worse than Hillary Clinton polled against McCain in the state. Obama is performing this badly at a time when, thanks to the hotly contested caucuses in January, Democratic registration and involvement is up.

Of course, since that Rasmussen poll was there's also been an additional facet to the race: the all-important "the governor's a scumbag adulterer who won't be able to show his face in public and campaign for the ticket" effect.

Gibbons filed for divorce last month, saying he and Dawn were incompatible. Since then, the first couple has brawled over custody of the 23-room governor's mansion. (Dawn finally agreed to sleep in the guesthouse.) She has accused him of cheating. He says "absolutely not."

Gibbons, 63, lacks the looks and charm of a Gavin Newsom or Antonio Villaraigosa -- yet the governor is now trailed like a club-hopping starlet.

The Republican governor has been spotted with his alleged paramour, according to published reports, at a sushi bar and at her daughter's high school play. He escorted another woman to the movie "Sex and the City." A Las Vegas paper posted video of him chatting with a dark-haired woman whose face is mostly obscured. The headline: "Video of governor with 'other woman' surfaces." [...]

Conservative activist Chuck Muth says the governor needs to clean up the mess. "If they get divorced -- this is Nevada, for crying out loud -- it's not a big deal. But a messy divorce, that's trouble for everyone."

The governor won't face voters until 2010 -- a political eternity -- but GOP activists fret that his purported philandering could hurt the party in November. What if fed-up Republicans pare back campaign contributions -- or stay home on election day? That could flip control of the state Senate, where Republicans cling to a slender majority -- or even hand Nevada, which twice voted for President Bush, to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

"You're going to have candidates begging the governor not to come into their district because he'll make things worse," Muth says.

This is alternatively known as the Robert Taft (Ohio Gov. caught up in Coingate) effect. Ohio went completely blue in 2006 because the Governor's troubles impacted every Republican. So too in Nevada, perhaps. Especially since John McCain loves him some nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain, which I'm sure Obama will spell out in ads.

Libertarian Nevada doesn't care about a high-profile politician getting divorced and fooling around on the side, but enough people might - social conservatives and Latinos in particular - to flip a very close state. And if Gibbons can't help the state GOP, they're robbed of a valuable asset.

UPDATE: Ooh, text messages.

You know that unidentified estranged wife of a Reno doctor that the governor of Nevada is not having an affair with?

Well, during one month last year he exchanged 850 text messages with her phone from his official state phone, at 15 cents per.

This is going to get worse and really damage the Nevada GOP.

Sometimes I Don't Get These People

Harry Reid just sent out an email to his list calling out Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ) for supporting the nuclear depository at Yucca Mountain. It's a fundraising email for Frank Lautenberg, the New Jersey Senator who is being challenged in a primary by Andrews (and hardly; Lautenberg is whipping him handily so far).

It's the type of news you need to spit out fast, so I won't sugarcoat it - United States Representative Robert Andrews has knowingly voted to store the most toxic substance known to man - nuclear waste - near American citizens, while at the same time vying to represent those citizens in our government.

How? By running for Senate and trying to oust my friend, esteemed colleague, and champion of progressive values, Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey [...]

It's hard to believe that a representative of the American people, Rep. Andrews, actually voted to store nuclear waste in a highly earthquake-prone area above a large source of water, only 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But don't take my word for it, take his:

"I joined with my colleagues in the House of Representatives to approve President Bush's decision to store the country's nuclear waste beneath Yucca Mountain ... 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas."

And to top off his record of shame, Rep. Andrews was also one of the earliest and staunchest supporters of President Bush's plan to go to war in Iraq.

All of this is true. Lautenberg is indeed a very good Senator, and Andrews is a snake. But you know, considering this challenge is a fringe possibility at best, I can't get enthused that Harry Reid is wasting his time on it, when John McCain was an even earlier and stauncher supporter of the war in Iraq, and just today he signaled his support for Yucca Mountain.

RENO, Nev. – Calling it “a little straight talk,” Sen. John McCain told Nevada backers at a town hall meeting Wednesday he still supports the construction of a nuclear waste repository north of Las Vegas as long as it meets all the regulatory requirements.

But the Republican presidential hopeful from Arizona also said he wants to address nuclear waste by reprocessing spent fuel and trying to find a place for an international repository, which he said the day before may make it unnecessary to build the Yucca Mountain facility.

“I support Yucca Mountain once it goes through all the processes it needs to go through,” McCain said Wednesday. “But I also support reprocessing. A little straight talk, we have to do both." [...]

McCain, a longtime backer of the waste dump most Nevadans oppose, responded to a question at the town hall meeting about Yucca Mountain by saying he's not the kind of politician who tells voters only what they want to hear. He said he earlier told the people of Iowa he doesn't support ethanol subsidies and he still doesn't.

“I go to places and tell people what they don't want to hear,” he said.

Like "I don't care if you die from nuclear radioactivity."

I'm not convinced Yucca Mountain is all that big an issue in Nevada. McCain's going to play an identity-based game rather than an issue-based one, anyway, and if you see Mitt Romney on the ticket it's to win this state. But it's certainly a bigger issue in Nevada than in New Jersey, and it's certainly more newsworthy to Harry Reid's email list that McCain supports Yucca Mountain than some Democratic primary opponent who's not going to win.

Is he interested in winning the Presidency or helping out his buddies?