Labor's Still Got Some Muscle

A couple days ago, the LA Times, no doubt dripping with glee, printed a story about labor being outmaneuvered on the Employee Free Choice Act and in particular the card-check provision. First of all, the idea that anyone in the labor movement would be surprised by corporate opposition to this bill is kind of crazy. They knew that big business would throw everything they had at this, and that Republicans and key corporate Dems would resist passage.

But rumors of labor's demise are greatly exaggerated. First of all, Tom Harkin is making a smart threat, vowing to either reach a compromise on Employee Free Choice or force his fellow lawmakers to vote on it.

That may not sound like a grave threat, but it may well be. Two of the bills main skeptics--Sens. Arlen Specter (D-PA) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)--face re-election next year, and both, for different reasons, may ultimately need union support to prevail. Specter, who tacked to the right and came out against EFCA before becoming a Democrat, is facing pressure from the Democratic base and Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) to move left or face a primary challenge.

And at least one high level union official has suggested that if Lincoln doesn't come around and support an EFCA compromise, she may face a green party challenger, in addition to a Republican challenger, in the general election.

And let's not forget that labor still can throw their weight around on non-EFCA issues, and they came up with a major victory to stymie the Obama Administration's apparent efforts to pass a corporate-written trade deal:

U.S. officials said they will delay seeking congressional approval for a pending free-trade deal with Panama until President Barack Obama offers a new “framework” for trade.

The administration, which in March said it would move quickly to pass the trade agreement with Panama, wants to outline how trade fits with other priorities such as assistance for unemployed workers and health care, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Everett Eissenstat said today.

“It’s clear that trade agreements in the last few years have been much too divisive,” Eissenstat told the Senate Finance Committee. “We want to make sure that Panama doesn’t contribute to that divisiveness.” [...]

Eissenstat’s comments follow remarks by John Sweeney, the head of the AFL-CIO labor federation, that unions would oppose a rush to ratify the deal. The Panama accord was signed in 2007 and was viewed as the least controversial of three trade agreements reached by President George W. Bush and pending congressional approval.

Really, the wolf whistles and hoots hoping that labor is demoralized and devoid of clout really are embarrassing.

Squaring Tax Haven Rhetoric With The Policy

Huge surprise here - the business lobby wants to keep ripping off the US Treasury by hiding their tax obligations in secret bank accounts. Why wouldn't they? Despite the chronic bleatings about America's high corporate tax rate, corporations only pay a scant 2.3% on their massive profits. That's hundreds of billions of dollars essentially taken from the public, that could go toward health care or jump-starting the new energy economy. The Administration is signaling that this crackdown is a "down-payment on the larger tax reform we need to make our tax system simpler and fairer and more efficient for individuals and corporations." I think the exchange of a lower tax rate with far fewer loopholes is one I would happily make.

But David Sirota is right - you simply cannot advocate for ending corporate tax havens while pushing a free trade agreement with Panama, one of the major remaining tax havens out there. Fortunately, that dichotomy has been brought to light, causing a move to get Panama to comply with the new law:

That's right, after the entire Washington press corps and all of cable news did their best stenography act and refused to ask a single serious question about the blatant hypocrisy in President Obama's "we're getting tough on corporate tax havens" announcement yesterday, ABC News' Jake Tapper demanded - and actually got - some answers at today's White House press briefing. Specifically, he asked the White House how it can be claiming to be serious about cracking down on corporate tax havens while simultaneously pushing a Panama Free Trade Agreement that would reward and legitimize the practices of one of the worst tax havens on the planet.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, clearly conditioned after years of D.C. press work to be unprepared for any kind of substantive question, had absolutely no answer for Tapper, except to promise him that someone from the U.S. Trade Representative's office would get him something. Tapper stuck to the story, and eventually broke some real news when he spoke with the U.S. Trade Representatives' office:

Carol Guthrie, a spokeswoman for US Trade Representative Ron Kirk, tells ABC News that "Ambassador Kirk has been always been very clear that it will be necessary to address outstanding issues on labor and tax policies, and we continue to work on those tax issues. Our refusal to tolerate tax havens is precisely why we're working with the Panamanian government to address concerns regarding its international tax policies. We can work to improve international tax practices and open markets for entrepreneurs and workers at the same time."

Guthrie, of course, is bullshitting when she says "Kirk has been always been very clear that it will be necessary to address outstanding issues on labor and tax policies." All he's been clear on is that he wants the Panama deal passed. But now forced into a corner, he's stated that the "precise" reason the administration hasn't introduced the Panama pact in Congress is its attempt to "work with the Panamanian government to address concerns regarding its international tax policies." That's actual, genuine and important news - a statement far clearer and more precise than any of the general bromides of the past.

It seems to me that the Obama Administration has the right theoretical stance but often backslides on the details. That's where a vibrant progressive movement comes in. Incidentally, Sirota tweeted this question to Tapper.

The Suburban Amendments

On balance, if the recovery package stays relatively the same size after the conference committee, I think it's a pretty good start. The fact that Obama is standing firm on the size of it is relieving. If cuts need to be made, however, I know several good places to start - with many of these craptastic Senate amendments that have been passed over the last couple days, in particular the "suburban amendments."

First there's the amendment giving tax credits to new-car buyers. Given the new emissions standards, this would make sense if it modernized the American fleet. But it's too early just to give a blanket credit without targeting emissions, so this amounts to keeping the sprawl economy alive. And it does nothing in particular for the battered US auto industry. It just rewards people who have the money to buy a new car. That's not who needs to be helped. Also, the greater problem with the car market, if I understand it correctly, is that nobody can secure an auto LOAN. Yet this tax credit only kicks in if you can.

Worse is this truly awful amendment, an effort to reinflate the housing bubble. Right, because that crash didn't cause too much pain.

The Democratic-led U.S. Senate Wednesday moved to attract needed Republican support for a massive economic stimulus bill by approving an expanded tax credit for home buyers, as other senators worked on ways to remove spending they say will not heal the economy.

By voice vote, the Senate accepted the housing amendment, potentially adding to the cost of the $900 billion bill that Democratic leaders hope to finish in coming days.

The amendment would expand for one year an existing $7,500 tax credit for first-time home buyers to all purchasers of principal residences. And it would boost the credit as high as $15,000, or 10 percent of the home price, whichever is less.

This is just completely stupid. Home prices aren't where they should be yet. All this would do is artificially inflate the market and keep it from bottoming out. The way to fix housing is to keep people in their homes and stop foreclosures. This just gives people a tax giveaway for playing "Flip My House" one last time. And today's amendment, which would guarantee a 4 to 4.5% mortgage rate, would be even stupider.

There were some victories on amendments, too. Jim DeMint tried to make the Bush tax cuts permanent and that went down. John Thune tried to make sure the bill wouldn't expand the scope of the federal government and that went down. And while the "Buy American" provision was altered it was not eliminated.

Senators, on a voice vote, approved an amendment requiring the Buy American provisions be "applied in a manner consistent with U.S. obligations under international agreements." [...]

Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, urged the Senate to go further and specifically bar any Buy American provision as part of the stimulus package. But senators rejected his amendment by a vote of 65-31.

Free traders need to take a pill. Dean Baker dispatches with them so I don't have to.

The free trade crew tells us that this Buy America provision will start a trade war. Why would our trading partners start a trade war over a bill that increases demand for their exports?

That's right, the stimulus bill will increase demand for imports, including for imported steel. The bill will lead to more growth, which will increase demand for all products, including imported steel. That will be the case even if we have barriers that limit the use of imported steel for a small part of the stimulus. So, will our trading partners start a trade war because we are buying more of their products?

It is also worth comparing the protection that the "free traders" see compared to the protection that they don't see. The government has already provided $350 billion in subsidized loans to our banks through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The Fed has provided hundreds of billions more.

For some reason, these massive government subsidies, which hugely advantage U.S. banks relative to their foreign counterparts, have gotten no attention whatsoever from the so-called "free traders." Every bad thing that they say about protection for steel can be said for protection for banks, but for some reason we haven't heard any complaints about the bank bailouts.

Advantaging the domestic housing industry and the domestic banking industry, fine. Advantaging domestic steel and iron? Protectionism! Doesn't make any sense.

Anyway, I'd love to see this nonsense come out in a House-Senate conference.

A Faster 100

GOOD Magazine has an interesting chart encapsuling the first 100 days of every Administration since FDR. What jumps out to me is that these Presidents didn't actually do a heck of a lot in those 100 days. It's a familiar trope of the media that a President must get a lot done in that early period, but it doesn't actually happen very much.

However, in this case there are a number of things Obama is going to be able to get done early in the term, because of two things. One, he's signaled his willingness to reverse lots of Bush-era executive orders. Second, there are lots of bills that were able to pass Congress or nearly break a Republican filibuster in the Senate that, with the expanded majorities in that chamber, could be on Obama's desk within a matter of weeks. Chris Bowers has a list:

Democratic trifecta legislation

H.R. 1591, U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007. Withdrawing between 100,000 to 120,000 of the 160,000 American military troops in Iraq.

Webb amendment to HR 1585: To specify minimum periods between deployment of units and members of the Armed Forces for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

Employee Free Choice Act of 2007. Making it easier to join a union.

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Another worker's right's bill.

District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act : A bill to provide the District of Columbia a voting seat and the State of Utah an additional seat in the House of Representatives.

Rush Holt's verified voting bill. A verified paper trail for every vote cast in America.

Specter amendment to HR 1585: To restore habeas corpus for those detained by the United States.

H.R. 976, Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007. Expanding children's health care.

Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act : A bill to amend part D of title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for fair prescription drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries.

Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007. Increasing stem cell research.

Renewable Fuels, Consumer Protection, and Energy Efficiency Act. Increased investment in renewable energy.

Harkin amendment to the Farm Bill. Not sure what this is, but it probably will pass when we get six more votes in the Senate.

Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. A centrist global warming bill that doesn't do much to stop global warming, from what I have heard.

I'm not sure all of these will be offered (Lieberman-Warner is probably dead), but most of them will. And compared to the GOOD chart, that's quite a lot to keep busy, checked only by Congress' speed in acting. It's much more preferable if Congress provides input on these issues rather than executive orders, in my view. And supporting a renewable energy standard, allowing bargaining for prescription drugs, expanding SCHIP and funding for stem cell research, Webb's dwell time amendment and many more of these would be significant.

Of course, none of them have much to do with the urgent economic challenges that we're facing right now, which is why Obama yesterday tried to push President Bush to put together a second stimulus and help to automakers (in exchange for their building cleaner cars) during the lame-duck session of Congress. Bush said, "Well, you scratch my back...."

Mr. Bush indicated at the meeting that he might support some aid and a broader economic stimulus package if Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats dropped their opposition to a free-trade agreement with Colombia, a measure for which Mr. Bush has long fought, people familiar with the discussion said.

The Bush administration, which has presided over a major intervention in the financial industry, has balked at allowing the automakers to tap into the $700 billion bailout fund, despite warnings last week that General Motors might not survive the year.

Mr. Obama and Congressional Democratic leaders say the bailout law authorizes the administration to extend assistance.

Mr. Obama went into his post-election meeting with Mr. Bush on Monday primed to urge him to support emergency aid to the auto industry, advisers to Mr. Obama said. But Democrats also indicate that neither Mr. Obama nor Congressional leaders are inclined to concede the Colombia pact to Mr. Bush, and may decide to wait until Mr. Obama assumes power on Jan. 20.

January 20, which isn't all that far away. Does Bush really think he still has any leverage? If the guarantees are ensured publicly the auto industry can probably muddle through until then. It's not preferable to wait a few months, but at the expense of bad policy, it certainly is. But this is of course Obama's problem for expecting a good faith discussion with Bush.

Economic Royalists Still Dismissive Of Average American's Struggles

Two moments on the Sunday sows yesterday typified why a Democratic takeover of the Presidency and additional gains in Congress are nearing so close to reality - Republican spinners remain in total denial about the impact of failed conservative economic policies.

In an eye-popping statement on ABC's This Week, George Will told us that we're all doing much better than we were eight years ago, and shut up-a-you face, nervous ninnies, and let the free market do its job and reap untold fortunes (for a select few, of course). The astonishing transcript:

REICH: I don’t think you can separate economic security from national security. This is why I find John McCain’s position so interesting, because he wants to and needs to separate himself from Bush, a failed presidency, particularly if you look at the polls. And yet, on Iraq and on the economy, he is going beyond what George Bush has done. I mean, his tax cuts are beyond anything that –particularly for the wealthy—beyond anything that George Bush has proposed or did implement.

WILL: But Bob, today we have a bifurcated economy. The export sector is doing wonderfully, it’s pulling the country along, and the Democratic Party is raising doubts about its commitment—indeed, it’s affirming its lack of commitment—to free trade.

Now it is true that I think there is a disjunction in the public mind without precedent in 200 years of American history. We’ve always assumed that the very process—the dynamic market capitalism—produces increased national wealth simultaneously produced increased family and individual security. Now the doubt is that today’s capitalism on steroids, if you will, globalized capitalism increases national wealth, but undermines family and individual security which will produce a great flinch from free economics.

REICH: That’s exactly the point. That’s exactly the problem, George. Americans now have lost their faith in free trade; they’ve lost their faith in economic growth because they haven’t seen the benefits of it. It’s all gone to the top. That’s why Obama’s tax cuts for the middle class and for the poor are so critical for this campaign.

WILL: Because friends like you are misinforming the country by saying that they have not seen benefits. Even housing, Bob, housing today after the big decline, the average American house is worth a third more than it was in 2000.

REICH: George Will, you tell average Americans that they are better off today than they were in 2000-2001…

WILL: I will.

REICH: …and they will not believe you.

It's almost not worth arguing this point. Just let George Will on a national speaking tour telling everybody in the country how well they're doing, empirical evidence notwithstanding. I'd be willing to bankroll that tour if I weren't an American trying to pay for $4.50 a gallon gas and seeing my home value and purchasing power shrink.

(Will is also lying about so-called "free trade" - its benefit on prices is only on relative prices, good for people who buy things but bad for people who make things. And while America is moving toward a model of only buying things, it's beyond obvious that such a model is unsustainable.)

But for those who think that it must be only Will who is overlooking stagnant wages, growing unemployment, flat investment portfolios and inflation on necessities, let me direct you to another high-profile confab from yesterday:

WILLIAMS: One last point on this economic thing. I think if you say to most Americans that the tax cut is going — is simply a matter of not continuing President Bush’s tax cuts in 2010, they don’t view that as raising taxes.

That’s the wealthy who might say that, but it’s not on average people who are feeling higher gas taxes. It’s not on average people who have to pay more for food.

It’s almost like you guys are out of touch with what ordinary Americans are going through in this country at this time. People want government to respond to need and not simply to talk about more tax breaks for the rich and for big corporations.

HUME: (sarcastically) That’s what McCain’s doing, for sure. He’s saying, I want more tax cuts for big corporations, and I want the rich to get richer off the tax code. Oh, what baloney. That’s not what it’s about at all.

WILLIAMS: Well, where’s the pro-growth? If we have 5 percent –the other day we had the biggest jump in unemployment in this country in 20 years.

HUME: Juan, right. You know what that came from? People coming out of school for the summer, and they’re going into the job market.

WILLIAMS: Oh, come on.

HUME: We’re at 5.5 percent unemployment.

WILLIAMS: Right.

HUME: By historical standards, that is remarkably low. The growth policies and particularly the tax cuts that were passed in this administration have, I think, unquestionably helped this economy through some severe blows — 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and so forth — to the point now where despite a predicted recession the economy is still managing to eke out a little bit of growth.

That’s a strong economic performance, on balance, and not a particularly good argument for allowing the tax cuts that were…

WALLACE: All right.

WILLIAMS: Nobody’s saying that. Justice Hume thinks that ordinary Americans aren’t feeling any pain.

WALLACE: I’m going to gavel you down.

WILLIAMS: Please.

Chris Wallace must have heard the shouting from the IFB in his ear to cut off the economic royalist telling them that the sky is actually red and the grass is blue.

Out of touch is an understatement. Americans are not so studious in tax policy that conservatives can't get away with telling some sweet little lies, like the pervasive statement that America "has the world's 2nd-highest corporate tax rate," which ignores all of the tax credits and deductions that makes the effective corporate tax rate the 4th-lowest among industrialized nations (and don't get me started about the offshore tax havens - in 2000 61% of corporations paid NO TAXES AT ALL).

But when you try to use the big lie - that actually the economy is going quite swimmingly and nobody's feeling any pain - that's where conservatives run into the brick wall of their own failed policies. You can't tell someone who has to stretch his budget more for basics that they're doing just fine. You can't tell someone who's home is in foreclosure that the fundamentals are strong. You can't look at the significant upsurge in bank robberies this year and make no connection to the broader economy.

And since royalists are wired to believe that what's good for the rich is good for everyone, since they are so convinced of conservative myths like how lower taxes equals increased revenue, or how the wealthy always convert their tax breaks into job creation and not trust funds, they're going to keep throwing out these fictions. They're going to keep telling Americans to their face that their empty bank accounts are actually full.

And Robert Reich is correct - "they will not believe you."

The Royalist And The Neoliberal

The New York Times takes a look at the economic programs of both Barack Obama and John McCain and finds them both to hold doctrinaire ideological positions.

For all the efforts of Senators John McCain and Barack Obama to portray themselves as willing to break with party orthodoxy to get things done, the economic debate that opened their general election campaign this week previews a classic clash. It is a battle between Republican supply-side economics and a Democratic tradition that uses government levers to try to reduce inequality and spur the economy.

Mr. McCain, who once opposed the Bush tax cuts in part because they favored the wealthy, has now made extending those cuts a central plank in his economic plan, which is based largely on the Republican credo that tax reductions stimulate the economy. And he is pushing another strain of fiscal conservatism that has not been much in evidence of late: a call for smaller government and a vow to cut pork-barrel spending.

He often adds a dash of populism, speaking against excessive corporate pay packages on Tuesday, and has pushed for a gasoline-tax reprieve. And while Mr. McCain has portrayed his tax cuts as benefiting the middle class, most of the benefits would go to the wealthy and to corporations, including his calls for the elimination of the alternative minimum tax.

Mr. Obama often speaks of the traditional liberal goal of trying to redistribute the tax burden to reduce economic inequality, and at least in his public pronouncements has not emphasized the market-friendly, deficit-reduction aspects of the economic approach credited to former President Bill Clinton and former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin in the 1990s. Mr. Obama’s plan would raise taxes on those making more than $250,000 by allowing Mr. Bush’s tax cuts on top earners to expire, and he has signaled that he would consider increasing the current cap on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax.

He has also proposed, for instance, more spending on providing access to health care, which critics say would widen the deficit when coupled with tax cuts. While Mr. McCain asserted in a speech in Washington on Tuesday that under Mr. Obama’s tax plan Americans of every background would see their taxes rise, Mr. Obama’s plan calls for cutting taxes on people earning less than $75,000 a year and for eliminating federal income taxes on elderly citizens who make less than $50,000 a year.

I think they get it half right. McCain is certainly following in the economic royalist tradition of the hard right. He wants massive tax cuts based on - not a credo - the myth that tax cuts add revenue by spurring the economy. He believes in wealthy corporations getting wealthier, and he thinks that a $200,000 annual salary is not rich. He's going to use the same tired refrain that "my opponent will raise your taxes" while he seeks to redistribute wealth upward. His sensitivity to runaway spending masks the fact that he himself has requested and taken $60 million in porkbarrel projects, and that he wouldn't touch the sacred defense budget, the biggest source of waste that the government funds. It's more of the same profit taking for the rich under a McCain Administration.

The Obama economic philosophy is a little harder to understand. He's not a populist, and he sits pretty squarely in the Robert Rubin tradition of neoloiberalism, at least in part. He's trying to maintain the free market but make sure that, in a time of great economic dislocation and disruptive change, that there is some measure of protection given to those in the middle who suffer because of that disruption, and that the "burdens and benefits of globalization are fairly distributed." Matt Stoller explains it further.

The central challenge of his strategy is that while he believes that we are undergoing a fundamental structural shift in our global economy, the changes he is proposing, with the exception of health care, are somewhat small-bore. This makes sense when you examine his economic team in a bit more detail. The big news on that front is that Hamilton Project denizen and neoliberal economist Jason Furman is Obama's newest economic advisor. Steve Clemons a noted, "To some degree, Furman manifests the interests and perspective of perhaps the leading neoliberal force in politics today, Robert Rubin." Furman is not Rubin, but Clemons thinks that he is "an essential spear-carrier of Rubinomics."

Furman's defense of Walmart as a 'progressive success story' provides an element of caution to the good news about Obama's strength as a candidate. I am not ringing alarm bells about Obama as a NAFTA loving centrist, or suggesting that Furman is a bad choice for an advisor. I know and like Austan Goolsbee, and Furman is probably a highly intelligent and open-minded policy advocate. Additionally, the economic debates have moved far beyond that, and he's likely to pull as much of his policy ideas from Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler's Nudge with its behavioral economics frame of 'choice architecture', or 'libertarian paternalism' in which the government gently slopes the choices we face in ways that are good for us, without banning bad choices outright. Opt-in, opt-out, and default choices, for instance, are significant and substantial forces in governing our society, and my guess is that Obama believes strongly in making small adjustments for big impacts.

Furman's appointment has raised the ire of some on the left, but it's worth noting that Republicans have gone so far to the right and shown the ultimate failure of an unregulated free market that the Rubin forces and the more liberal economists have moved substantially leftward. When you have Senate Republicans filibustering any energy bill that doesn't solely address the crisis through drilling, when you have Republicans in general only interested in tax cuts without paying for them, I can understand why the NYT would say that both sides are ideological. Only the Obama camp represents about 99% of the spectrum of economic opinion, and McCain that tiny 1%.

Some of those mainstream Democratic ideas, like extending unemployment insurance, are mainstream because they work. In fact, Republicans know they work, because half of them are about to break and vote for the bill. Common-sense measures like this, like a windfall profits tax on oil companies, like a donut-hole approach to Social Security, like fairness in trade, like the Employee Free Choice Act, fit into a coherent argument because the right has retreated to a small, radical corner on the economic front. So Obama can get away with rhetorical brilliance like this.

... We did not arrive at the doorstep of our current economic crisis by some accident of history. This was not an inevitable part of the business cycle that was beyond our power to avoid. It was the logical conclusion of a tired and misguided philosophy that has dominated Washington for far too long.

George Bush called it the Ownership Society, but it’s little more than a worn dogma that says we should give more to those at the top and hope that their good fortune trickles down to the hardworking many. For eight long years, our President sacrificed investments in health care, and education, and energy, and infrastructure on the altar of tax breaks for big corporations and wealthy CEOs – trillions of dollars in giveaways that proved neither compassionate nor conservative.

And for all of George Bush’s professed faith in free markets, the markets have hardly been free – not when the gates of Washington are thrown open to high-priced lobbyists who rig the rules of the road and riddle our tax code with special interest favors and corporate loopholes. As a result of such special-interest driven policies and lax regulation, we haven’t seen prosperity trickling down to Main Street. Instead, a housing crisis that could leave up to two million homeowners facing foreclosure has shaken confidence in the entire economy.

I understand that the challenges facing our economy didn’t start the day George Bush took office and they won’t end the day he leaves. Some are partly the result of forces that have globalized our economy over the last several decades – revolutions in communication and technology have sent jobs wherever there’s an internet connection; that have forced children in Raleigh and Boston to compete for those jobs with children in Bangalore and Beijing. We live in a more competitive world, and that is a fact that cannot be reversed.

But I also know that this nation has faced such fundamental change before, and each time we’ve kept our economy strong and competitive by making the decision to expand opportunity outward; to grow our middle-class; to invest in innovation, and most importantly, to invest in the education and well-being of our workers.

If that's not liberal enough for people, I don't know what more he can say.

Good On Nancy Pelosi

She'll see your forcing a fast-track vote on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, and raise you a blockage.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the House will change its rules so as to skirt a requirement that it vote on a free trade agreement with Colombia.

Pelosi says the House will vote on the rules change policy Thursday, effectively putting off a vote on a free trade agreement that is a key priority of the Bush administration.

"The president took his action. I will take mine tomorrow," Pelosi said.

The best part of this is maybe the Speaker recognizing that she has a hand to play and power to wield, making the unitary executive not all that unitary.

It's ridiculous that we're even having to deal with a free trade agreement at a time when the US economy is falling apart. But this particular free trade agreement, with a country where trade unionists are routinely killed, is particularly offensive. Colombia has a complete disregard for basic worker rights, and rewarding that with access to US markets would be absurd.

But as I said, it's Pelosi standing up for the legitimacy of Congress as a co-equal branch that makes this a heartening development.

Pelosi insisted that the House's right to determine its own procedures overrides any requirements that Congress take up a measure within a prescribed time period.

She said she is interested in taking up the agreement in an atmosphere that is "as unemotional as possible," but "that is not possible if the president of the United States is going to usurp the discretion of the speaker of the House to bring" legislation to the floor.

We all want Congress to act in a more oppositional manner. They're starting to get the message. Reward good behavior.

...asking John Yoo to have a chat works in this regard, too.

UPDATE: Then again, perhaps not. CongressDaily reports:

House Democratic leaders are seriously considering delaying a vote on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement until after the November elections, thereby providing needed cover for vulnerable rank-and-file members, according to senior Democratic leadership sources.

That would be fairly revolting. The situation is fluid...

Penn Still Full Of Ink, Actually

So it looks like rumors of the demise of Mark Penn were greatly exaggerated. He's still sitting in on conference calls, he's still delivering poliing and message, and he's still part of the inner circle in the Clinton campaign. Even campaign spokepersons are acknowledging that he is playing an important role.

Which is fine, of course. But this also means that Penn's actions remain fair game for the rival campaign. He's either an advisor or he isn't, and these events clearly indicate that he is. And so the incident with the Colombian government on the pending free trade agreement, on which George Bush has forced a vote in the Congress, will continue to be a significant part of the debate. This seems like a bad strategy for the Clinton campaign; a clean break would have short-circuited the controversy.

OH-05: Lots of buzzing about an upset

So there are two special elections for Congress on December 11, one in VA-01 for the late Jo Ann Davis, and one in OH-05 for the late Paul Gillmor. Both were Republicans, and both are Republican-leaning seats. But they are also test cases to see just how badly Republican support has cratered in the country, particularly in the two bellweather states of Ohio and Virginia.

In particular, OH-05 looks very interesting. There's been an enormous amount of buzz today for the candidacy of Robin Weirauch, a former director of the Center for Regional Development at Bowling Green State University. Establishment and netroots-based Democrats are coming together to put a lot of pressure on the Republican in the race, Rep. Bob Latta. It's a career politician versus a citizen, and in Ohio, any career Republican pol is going to be tainted with the "Coingate" scandal that rocked the entire GOP and caused their whole statewide slate to lose in 2006. The DCCC has dropped a boatload of money on negative ads (one of which is here), and Weirauch has just been added to the Blue Majority page. The Republicans countered with a $280,000 ad buy, which is huge. That accounts for almost 10% of the NRCC's entire cash on hand. What's more, it shows that they're plenty nervous about what should be a safe seat.

New Daily Kos FPer brownsox has a backgrounder.

What I really like is that Weirauch's blog emphasizes real-world issues like jobs, product safety and children's healthcare. She seems to be running on a message of populism, opposition to NAFTA and other free trade agreements that have pummeled NW Ohio, and strengthening labor. She would not just be an additional Democrat, but separate from the corporatist Hoyer/Emanuel crowd. Let's hope she can pull through - and show the nation that the Republican brand is dead and buried in the Buckeye State.

UPDATE: Denny Hastert's old seat in IL-14, which will have a special election in March, will also be a great opportunity.