Himmelstein Shumlin and Vermont Single Payer | Single Payer Action

In case you missed it...

Himmelstein Shumlin and Vermont Single Payer | Single Payer Action: "“No, no,” Himmelstein said. “I’m actually just saying what’s true. And that is, you can have a publicly financed program, and as Deb [Richter] said, it won’t be single payer. It will be enormous progress. But let’s not confuse it with single payer because you will give up much of the advantage of the single payer program.”
“Let me just say, I agree with you,” Shumlin told Himmelstein. “But I’m going to try to get the waivers to get everybody [in Vermont] in the pool — everybody. I want everybody in the pool.”"

“That of course will take an act of Congress,” Himmelstein answered.

“That’s right,” Shumlin said. “But if you help me get rid of those Tea Party nuts in 2014, I’ll get it done.”

'via Blog this'

Paul Ryan: Here's How We Can End This Stalemate - WSJ.com

Congressman Ryan's opinion piece suggests that budget negotiations are essential and some common ground may exist among Republicans and Democrats. And he makes no mention of the Affordable Care Act.

Paul Ryan: Here's How We Can End This Stalemate - WSJ.com:

"Over the next 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office predicts discretionary spending—that is, everything except entitlement programs and debt payments—will grow by $202 billion, or roughly 17%. Meanwhile, mandatory spending—which mostly consists of funding for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security—will grow by $1.6 trillion, or roughly 79%. The 2011 Budget Control Act largely ignored entitlement spending. But that is the nation's biggest challenge."

'via Blog this'

Our Deficit/Debt Problem in one Simple Chart

Hat tip to Barry Ritholz for the chart!

Unfortunately TeamObama and the Democrats generally wants to increase the blue dotted line rather than address the real problem of the red line which is excessive spending. 

In reality some of both will be needed. Will the real leaders in Congress willing to address this please stand up? Do not be overshadowed by TeamObama's political considerations ahead of the nations financial difficulties that must be addressed.

The November Election is A Clear Choice of Worldviews

Mitt Romney's choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate sharpens the focus in the November elections between competing views of America's future. Obama, Biden and a Democrat Senate vs. Romney, Ryan and a Republican House.

The Democrat view comprises more spending, unsustainable debt and costly entitlements without a fiscal reform plan in association with a Senate that has failed to pass a budget in more than three years.

TeamRomney promises economic reform, job growth, fiscal responsibility,entitlement restraint repeal of ObamaCare and a return more limited government.

While all campaigns are full of promises, I favor TeamRomney as charting a better course for our country. TeamObama has no record of success in creating a better future for our nation.

Most important in this election is to populate Congress with Senators and Representatives that will create a future that is affordable and sustainable. The present dysfuntional Congress has failed its citizens

News Alertfrom The Wall Street Journal

Mitt Romney picked Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate, a decision that could spark enthusiasm for the Republican ticket among conservatives and all but ensures the election will turn to deep philosophical divisions between the two parties over spending, taxes and entitlements.
In Mr. Ryan, 42 years old, the Romney campaign gets a conservative who has spent recent years at the center of national debates about the size and scope of the federal government. With his proposals to revamp entitlement programs for future retirees and the poor, he has become a hero to conservatives and a target for liberals.

The pick was officially announced on Mr. Romney’s phone app just after 7 a.m. Mr. Romney plans to hold an event at 9 a.m. on the USS Wisconsin, which carries the name of Rep. Ryan's home state.

http://online.wsj.com/article/

SB1000087239639044340400457758
2112521141598.html?mod=djemalertNEWS

Found this chart on Barry Ritholz's blog who reprinted analysis work done by Chris Turner to rebut some opinions and statements in April by Paul Krugman, who favors yet more government deficit spending. Turner's full analysis is here at the Ritholz blog.

My bottom line: Government spending has been out of control since 1978 and Congress is to blame. It's easier to target Presidents, but Congress is the real culprit. They refuse to make the hard choices and persuade the American people of their necessity. Instead, they do everything possible to retain/gain political power rather than address the problems.

Is it any wonder the American public's approval rating of the job Congress is doing is at an all time low of ~18%?

The record of the last 4 years is crystal clear to me. The massive stimulus spending triggered by the near meltdown of the economy in 2008 caused by a combination of extraordinary risky behavior by Wall Street and failed government policies and regulation has failed to resolve the economic doldrums while at the same time creating massive and unsustainable debt. This debt will likely be resolved by devaluing the currency in the future with massive consequences.  It cannot possibly be paid off even by our great-great grandchildren.

Obama v. SCOTUS - The Washington Post

Pure Bullshit. If you believe TeamObama's pronouncement, you are not paying attention to American politics.

“I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”"

Such an absurd statement from POTUS. He's allegedly a Constitutional scholar? The healthcare act was passed on a Sunday in Congress with only a few votes in the House favoring it. No Republicans voted for it.

Deficit Reduction Budget Proposals

(Chart from the WSJ March 28, 2012)

The House plans for deficit reduction make more sense than TeamObama's proposal, which is more a political creation than a fiscally responsible budget. Of course, all budgets in an election year are political, but the U.S. must reduce reliance on debt to fund programs and operations. The present course puts us in "Greek mode.'

Cuts are essential, but a revenue increase via a bold revision of the tax code and entitlements reform are necessary to change Congressional spending habits and expectations of Americans. I favor the House GOP Plan.

No Anti-Corporate Amendment to the Constitution

In Vermont we are watching an effort led by various liberal/socialist elements to amend the Constitution in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United case. We have slogans such as "Money is not speech," "a corporation is not a person" and others to gin up the emotions of their followers. We see State Senators (Lyons & Campbell) leading rallies calling for a resolution supporting an Amendment to restrict free speech. [There are several versions floating around. The former link is just one.] And the usual activists, including Ben And Jerry's founder Jerry Greenfield, are beating the drum against political free speech by corporations.

I'm not an attorney, but in reading portions of the Citizen's United decision which has raised the hackles of these people who would amend the Constitution, I find this comment by Justice Scalia writing in response to Justice Stevens' dissent most relevant:

"But to return to, and summarize, my principal point, which is the conformity of today’s opinion with the original meaning of the First Amendment. The Amendment is written in terms of “speech,” not speakers. Its text offers no foothold for excluding any category of speaker, from single individuals to partnerships of individuals, to unincorporated associations of individuals, to incorporated associations of individuals—and the dissent offers no evidence about the original meaning of the text to support any such exclusion. We are therefore simply left with the question whether the speech at issue in this case is “speech” covered by the First Amendment. No one says  otherwise. A documentary film critical of a potential Presidential candidate is core political speech, and its nature as such does not change simply because it was funded by a corporation. Nor does the character of that funding produce any reduction whatever in the “inherent worth of the speech” and “its capacity for informing the public,” First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765, 777 (1978).

Indeed, to exclude or impede corporate speech is to muzzle the principal agents of the modern free economy. We should celebrate rather than condemn the addition of this speech to the public debate."

Scalia has it right. To the detriment of our public discourse, the 'class warfare' element of today's deeply partisan politics paints large, for-profit corporations as society's 'enemy.' Operating on that belief, some reject capitalism as the basis of our free society and would restrict free speech by restraining corporations from exercising that right.

Americans should reject that belief and premise if they support the Constitution. We should allow and encourage political speech of all kinds, but demand transparency in who pays for it.

No Constitutional amendment is necessary or desirable to constrain free speech in nothing more than a blatant attempt to muzzle certain speakers.

Some argue that the Constitution already provides Congress a remedy for constrain the Judiciary. Whether Congress would act under Article III, Section 2 to restrict the Judiciary

[ this part of Section 2: "In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make."] [emphasis added]

in the domain of political speech/spending is doubtful. After all, they are politicians who are financed by all sorts of 'special interests.'

Congress Occupied Wall Street First!

Think what you will about Sarah Palin who has taken a back seat to others in the media recently. Congress is a problem that needs a remedy. Here's the reasons why.

I have always laid blame with Congress rather than the President for our fiscal pain because they are in control of spending under our Constitution. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

How Congress Occupied Wall Street

Politicians who arrive in Washington as men and women of modest means leave as millionaires. Why?

Mark Twain famously wrote, "There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress."

Peter Schweizer's new book, "Throw Them All Out," reveals this permanent political class in all its arrogant glory. (Full disclosure: Mr. Schweizer is employed by my political action committee as a foreign-policy adviser.)

Mr. Schweizer answers the questions so many of us have asked. I addressed this in a speech in Iowa last Labor Day weekend.

How do politicians who arrive in Washington, D.C. as men and women of modest means leave as millionaires?

How do they miraculously accumulate wealth at a rate faster than the rest of us?

How do politicians' stock portfolios outperform even the best hedge-fund managers'?

I answered the question in that speech: Politicians derive power from the authority of their office and their access to our tax dollars, and they use that power to enrich and shield themselves.

The money-making opportunities for politicians are myriad, and Mr. Schweizer details the most lucrative methods: accepting sweetheart gifts of IPO stock from companies seeking to influence legislation, practicing insider trading with nonpublic government information, earmarking projects that benefit personal real estate holdings, and even subtly extorting campaign donations through the threat of legislation unfavorable to an industry. The list goes on and on, and it's sickening. [emphasis added]

Astonishingly, none of this is technically illegal, at least not for Congress.Members of Congress exempt themselves from the laws they apply to the rest of us. That includes laws that protect whistleblowers (nothing prevents members of Congress from retaliating against staffers who shine light on corruption) and Freedom of Information Act requests (it's easier to get classified documents from the CIA than from a congressional office).

The corruption isn't confined to one political party or just a few bad apples. It's an endemic problem encompassing leadership on both sides of the aisle.

It's an entire system of public servants feathering their own nests.

None of this surprises me. I've been fighting this type of corruption and cronyism my entire political career. For years Alaskans suspected that our lawmakers and state administrators were in the pockets of the big oil companies to the detriment of ordinary Alaskans. We knew we were being taken for a ride, but it took FBI wiretaps to finally capture lawmakers in the act of selling their votes. In the wake of politicos being carted off to prison, my administration enacted reforms based on transparency and accountability to prevent this from happening again.

We were successful because we had the righteous indignation of Alaskan citizens on our side. Our good ol' boy political class in Juneau was definitely not with us. Business was good for them, so why would they want to end "business as usual"? The moment you threaten to strip politicians of their legal graft, they'll moan that they can't govern effectively without it. Perhaps they'll gravitate toward reform, but often their idea of reform is to limit the right of "We the people" to exercise our freedom of speech in the political process.

I've learned from local, state and national political experience that the only solution to entrenched corruption is sudden and relentless reform. Sudden because our permanent political class is adept at changing the subject to divert the public's attention—and we can no longer afford to be indifferent to this system of graft when our country is going bankrupt. Reform must be relentless because fighting corruption is like a game of whack-a-mole. You knock it down in one area only to see it pop up in another.

What are the solutions? We need reform that provides real transparency. Congress should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act like everyone else. We need more detailed financial disclosure reports, and members should submit reports much more often than once a year. All stock transactions above $5,000 should be disclosed within five days.

We need equality under the law. From now on, laws that apply to the private sector must apply to Congress, including whistleblower, conflict-of-interest and insider-trading laws. Trading on nonpublic government information should be illegal both for those who pass on the information and those who trade on it. (This should close the loophole of the blind trusts that aren't really blind because they're managed by family members or friends.)

No more sweetheart land deals with campaign contributors.

No gifts of IPO shares. No trading of stocks related to committee assignments.

No earmarks where the congressman receives a direct benefit.

No accepting campaign contributions while Congress is in session.

No lobbyists as family members, and no transitioning into a lobbying career after leaving office.

No more revolving door, ever.

This call for real reform must transcend political parties. The grass-roots movements of the right and the left should embrace this.

The tea party's mission has always been opposition to waste and crony capitalism, and the Occupy protesters must realize that Washington politicians have been "Occupying Wall Street" long before anyone pitched a tent in Zuccotti Park.

Ms. Palin, a former governor of Alaska, was the Republican nominee for vice president in 2008.'

Secret Fed Loans Helped Banks Net $13B - Bloomberg

A fascinating, well researched story by Bloomberg of the massive bailout of banks during the 2008-2009 financial crisis and the secrecy surrounding it. Kudos to Bloomberg and their authors and editors for doing this. Clearly, the financial system was in jeopardy at the time and bold action was necessary. It's the secrecy that surrounded it that we find so egregious along with the fact that far too many bankers and the industry in general benefited to an unwarranted degree.


I'm no financial expert, but it seems to me that the finance industry and the Fed were in cahoots to keep Congress in the dark and, for the most part, impotent during this crisis. One could argue that haste was necessary and a dysfunctional Congress could not be trusted to do the right thing in a speedy fashion. Yet, what does it say about the resiliency of our democracy in time of crisis?


Sadly, these world-rattling events have further relegated Congress to irrelevancy in a time of financial crisis. We continue to see more of it with failure of the Super Committee to rationally rein in the deficits and debt, part of which arose from the frantic efforts to save the big banks and the financial system from collapse.

 "The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing.
The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue."

'via Blog this'

How Do You Spell Dysfunctional?

BULLSHIT  is the proper noun for this statement from the co-chairs of the Select/Special/Super Committee charged with finding $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction in the next 10 years as reported in the WSJ (see below).

Obama is the easy target, but it's our Congress that has failed us. No visible leadership will stand up and vote what must be done to correct our fiscal path. The only credible voice, IMHO, is Paul Ryan in the House of Representatives. He speaks truth. Most of he rest speak nothing but empty partisan rhetoric. Will the real leaders please stand up?

Deficit Panel Leaders Fail to Reach Deal

"WASHINGTON — After one last bout of fitful but futile talks, Congressional negotiators conceded the obvious: that the joint Congressional committee charged with drafting a deficit reduction package would miss its deadline this week. But they did not quite give up the ghost of a chance that a solution might be found later.

“After months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee’s deadline,” said a statement issued late in the afternoon by Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas and Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the panel’s Republican and Democratic co-chairs.

“Despite our inability to bridge the committee’s significant differences, we end this process united in our belief that the nation’s fiscal crisis must be addressed and that we cannot leave it for the next generation to solve,” they said. “We remain hopeful that Congress can build on this committee’s work and can find a way to tackle this issue in a way that works for the American people and our economy.”"

Poll: Washington to blame more than Wall Street for economy | Burlington Free Press | burlingtonfreepress.com

Congress , even more that Presidents, deserves the reproach for spending America into deep debt. That means we, the people have ourselves to blame since we elect them. The Constitution gives only Congress the purse strings of government, and they have far too freely opened that purse to 'provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare...'

"Most Americans blame Wall Street for the nation's economic predicament — but they blame Washington more.


And in the democracy that fancies itself the capital of capitalism, more than four in 10 people describe the U.S. economic system as personally unfair to them. A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken last weekend, as the Occupy Wall Street protest movement completed its first month, found that:


•When asked whom they blame more for the poor economy, 64% of Americans name the federal government and 30% say big financial institutions.


•Only 54% say the economic system is personally fair to them; 44% say it is not.


•78% say Wall Street bears a great deal or a fair amount of blame for the economy; 87% say the same about Washington."

'via Blog this'

Peter Wallison: Wall Street's Gullible Occupiers - WSJ.com

And the beat goes on... the blame game is rampant on the pages of both the NYTimes and the WSJ. Are some real leaders available who can brush aside this noise and get on with moving this country in a healthy direction?

TeamObama has failed his rabid liberal supporters and the country at the same time. We need some real leadership. Where is it? We need a groundswell of sanity, not partisan ideological talking heads.

Congress has also failed us and shown America its great need for people who truly show by their actions that they put the country first and are willing to make the tough choices that will lead to recovery. The answer is certainly not more government spending and exorbitant debt. I consider Congress the only place this can be remedied as I read the Constitution.

"There is no mystery where the Occupy Wall Street movement came from: It is an offspring of the same false narrative about the causes of the financial crisis that exculpated the government and brought us the Dodd-Frank Act. According to this story, the financial crisis and ensuing deep recession was caused by a reckless private sector driven by greed and insufficiently regulated. It is no wonder that people who hear this tale repeated endlessly in the media turn on Wall Street to express their frustration with the current conditions in the economy.

Their anger should be directed at those who developed and supported the federal government's housing policies that were responsible for the financial crisis."

Then there is this:

"Research by Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer of Fannie Mae (now a colleague of mine at the American Enterprise Institute) has shown that 27 million loans—half of all mortgages in the U.S.—were subprime or otherwise weak by 2008. That is, the loans were made to borrowers with blemished credit, or were loans with no or low down payments, no documentation, or required only interest payments.Of these, over 70% were held or guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie or some other government agency or government-regulated institution. Thus it is clear where the demand for these deficient mortgages came from."

If true, government is clearly to blame for instigating the sub-prime mess by the policies enacted by Congress and the administration. 

Vermont Tiger: Facing the Inevitable

Tom Pelham, Vermont’s budget commissioner in the Dean administration and tax commissioner in the Douglas administration, has it right in his advice to Congress and particularly, to Vermont's Congressional delegation. It's time for leadership, not politics to reshape our national fiscal insanity.

"...America needs leaders, of all political stripes, to accept responsibility for their accumulated budget deficits and enact remedies in scale with the problem. Tax reform, tax increases and budget cuts must come first, thus freeing Americans to look to the future knowing how much more of their cash, both corporate and individual, the government will take and how much will be left for investment and consumption that can reawaken the economy and create jobs.

Vermont’s Congressional delegation should reject President Obama’s American Jobs Plan. It’s a political prop diverting attention, effort and scarce tax revenues from the more essential task of right sizing our federal government and calming fears about a profligate and irresponsible Washington..."

'via Blog this'

The Political Machine is Grinding Away to Shape Public Opinion

The political machines are ramping up their rhetoric in the midst of the economic turmoil playing the blame game for what's caused the country to go off track. Here are but two examples, one from the WSJ and the other from the NY Times in the last couple of days.

It's a long road to November 2012 and if these two examples are indicative of the type of storyline we can expect from the very far left and right, we have a tough and brutal slog ahead.


Meanwhile, the ball is in the hands of 12 Senators and Representatives (the Super-Committee, a Jedi Council?) to wrestle spending to ground while bombarded from both sides wit calls for far less and far more spending. How have we grown so far apart when the welfare of the country rests in the balance?

What Happened to Obama? Absolutely Nothing. 

(Norman Podhoretz, WSJ 8/13/11)

He is still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president.

..."But I emphatically agree with Messrs. Limbaugh and Sowell about this president's attitude toward America as it exists and as the Founding Fathers intended it. That is why my own answer to the question, "What Happened to Obama?" is that nothing happened to him. He is still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president, and it is this rather than inexperience or incompetence or weakness or stupidity that accounts for the richly deserved failure both at home and abroad of the policies stemming from that reprehensible cast of mind."

Genuflecting to the Tea Party

(Charles Blow, NYT  8/12/11)

..."What we are witnessing is an extension and acceleration of the G.O.P.’s obscene genuflection to Tea Party tenets: give no ground; take no prisoners; accept no deal."
..."David Axelrod, the Obama campaign strategist, said the candidates at the debate were “essentially pledging allegiance to the Tea Party, instead of resolving the problems of this country.”

Paul Ryan: Where's Your Budget, Mr. President? - WSJ.com

Rep. Paul Ryan's budget proposals may not be perfect, but the alternative (oops, to date there is no viable alternative) from TeamObama creates ever increasing taxes in a dismal economy. That's a failing recipe for the Democrats at the polls and for the country. We deserve better from Washington leaders.


I hope Ryan is appointed to the 'Super-Committee" that must recommend another $1.5 trillion ($1,500,000,000,000)

"Since then [February 2011] he has offered a lot of rhetoric but no real plan to avoid a spending-driven debt crisis. His speeches and press conferences are no substitutes for actual budgets with specific numbers and independently verified projections of future deficits and debt. Meanwhile, it has been over two years since the Democrat-controlled Senate passed any budget at all. This is a historic failure to fulfill one of the most basic responsibilities of governing.

This leadership deficit has thrown the federal budget process into chaos at the worst possible time. Even though Congress has cut spending by a significant amount, it still hasn't dealt with the drivers of our debt—primarily federal spending on health care."

Corporate, junk bonds weaken after U.S. downgrade - MarketWatch

This simple quote captures the real problem with Congress and the Administration (story by Deborah Levine; quote from Ken Jacques, credit and derivatives manager at Informa Global Markets ...whatever expertise he may have.)

"The problem is that S&P's downgrade isn't about the 'lack of faith in the ability of the US to pay its debts, but with the lack of faith in the leadership of this country and where that may lead us,' Jaques wrote in a note. 'And where that will lead us is into another recession.'"

What We Must Do to get our Country Back on Track

I have read two pieces recently that seem to express most of what I think is reasonable and necessary. The first is by Thomas Friedman, somewhat middle-left in his outlook, but a pragmatist for the most part. The other is an interview with  Rep. Eric Cantor by the WSJ.

Friedman piece.

Cantor Interview

The Harvard economist in the Friedman piece has it right. The U.S., its people and other countries of the world are armpit-deep in debt and economies will 'brake' until that debt is worked down, We simply cannot go on spending what we do not have.

Public Views Congress as Top Culprit in Debt Debate, Poll Finds - NYTimes.com

While much of the media attaches the spending binge to our Presidents, Congress is the culprit. Under our Constitution, they have the responsibility to authorize spending. They have failed the country in their quest for power and reelection.

However, in the final analysis, we, the American people, have encouraged the deficit and debt binge by our entitlement mentality. It's beyond time for us to change the Washington dynamic by electing fiscal conservatives who will move the country to a sustainable future. Moreover, we must not allow the U.S. to slip into the socialist camp as Sen Sanders and too many others in Washington would lead us.

"A record 82 percent of Americans now disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job — the most since The Times first began asking the question in 1977, and even more than after another political stalemate led to a shutdown of the federal government in 1995."

Congress in the Lead - NYTimes.com

Do we have a failure of leadership and a triumph of politics in Washington at this critical hour? Did Congress really wrestle control of the the debt crisis from a petulant TeamObama as David Brooks suggests? Of course, over-spending has always been Congress' problem because they have the nation's spending reins under our Constitution.

[Chart from the Wall Street Journal 07/26/11]

Alas, the dream of a Grand Bargain died Friday evening for three reasons.

First, it was always going to be difficult to round up the necessary Congressional votes. Republicans didn’t want the tax increases. Democrats didn’t want the entitlement cuts.

Second, the White House negotiating process was inadequate. Neither the president nor the House speaker ever wrote down and released their negotiating positions. Everything was mysterious, shifting and slippery. One day the president was agreeing to an $800 billion revenue increase; the next day he was asking for $400 billion more. Spending cuts that seemed to be part of the package suddenly seemed hollow. Negotiating partners disappeared.It was phenomenally hard to figure out exactly who was offering what. Democrats in Congress were kept in the dark and were understandably suspicious. It was all a recipe for misunderstandings, hurt feelings and collapse.

Third, the president lost his cool. Obama never should have gone in front of the cameras just minutes after the talks faltered Friday evening. His appearance was suffused with that “I’m the only mature person in Washington” condescension that drives everybody else crazy. Obama lectured the leaders of the House and Senate in the sort of patronizing tone that a junior high principal might use with immature delinquents. He talked about unreturned phone calls and being left at the altar, personalizing the issue like a spurned prom date.

Obama’s Friday appearance had a gigantic unintended consequence. It brought members of Congress together. They decided to take control. The White House is now on the sidelines. Democratic and Republican Congressional leaders are negotiating directly with one another.