{"id":25634,"date":"2021-02-04T02:56:18","date_gmt":"2021-02-04T02:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=343911"},"modified":"2021-02-04T02:56:18","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T02:56:18","slug":"democrats-actually-learned-from-the-failures-of-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/04\/democrats-actually-learned-from-the-failures-of-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats Actually Learned From the Failures of 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday,<\/u> Sen. Joe Manchin appeared on MSNBC\u2019s \u201cMorning Joe\u201d<\/a>\u00a0to talk about the state of negotiations over President Joe Biden\u2019s Covid relief package. The network posted the video with a misleading headline: \u201cSen. Manchin calls for bipartisanship on Covid relief plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

The headline isn\u2019t technically inaccurate. Manchin did profess a desire for Republicans to have an opportunity to shape the coming legislation, saying that he would oppose efforts to abolish the filibuster. \u201cI\u2019ve been in the minority when they\u2019re jammed. It\u2019s not the way this place is supposed to work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But the real message\u00a0Manchin delivered was a different one. He had recently spoken to Biden about the path forward, he said, and Biden was quite clear. \u201cHe basically said, \u2018I don\u2019t want to go down the path we went down in two-oh-nine when we negotiated for eight months and still didn\u2019t have a product and had to do what we\u2019re doing now.\u2019 I said, \u2018Fine, Mr. President, I\u2019m happy to start this process.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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The process he was referring to is budget reconciliation, the parliamentary avenue through which specific kinds of legislation can travel with a simple majority vote, avoiding the filibuster. And the reasoning behind it \u2014 that we can\u2019t make the same mistake\u00a0as in 2009 \u2014 marks a startling departure from the Democratic Party\u2019s long-running inability to learn from failure. Such a take on that year\u2019s Democratic legislative strategy would have found broad support among the most progressive elements of the party in years past, but to see it endorsed by Manchin and Biden effectively makes the assessment unanimous from left to right — arguably the most united the party has been since it was founded.<\/p>\n

The 2009-10 term was so traumatizing to Democrats who lived through it that many, including Biden in his conversation with Manchin, have collapsed the staggering varieties of Republican obstruction of a broad range Democratic priorities \u2014 from the stimulus to Obamacare to judicial nominations to Wall Street reform \u2014 into one dark memory of an experience never to be repeated.<\/p>\n

The 2016 presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders ushered in a new generation to Democratic politics, many of whom experienced the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis and the failure to respond to it adequately, but weren\u2019t following the day-to-day congressional drama that produced it.<\/p>\n

Those new to politics may be lucky enough to not even know the name Max Baucus. For those who lived through that year(-plus) on Capitol Hill, his apparition is enough to spike blood pressure to dangerous levels.<\/p>\n

Democrats entered<\/u> the 2009 congressional term with 58 members of their Senate caucus, tantalizingly \u2014 and, it would turn out, debilitatingly \u2014 close to the 60 needed to end a GOP filibuster. On April 28, 2009, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter switched to the Democratic Party. That meant 59.<\/p>\n

Al Franken had defeated incumbent Republican Norm Coleman in Minnesota, but was not sworn in right away; Republicans cleverly litigated the election, dragging the recount out for months, knowing that each day Franken was kept from the upper chamber was worth the price of the legal costs. On July 7, 2009, Franken finally became a senator, giving the party 60.<\/p>\n

But Sen. Ted Kennedy died six weeks later. On Feb. 4, 2010, Scott Brown was sworn in as a Republican from Massachusetts, ending the party\u2019s super majority.<\/p>\n

To see\u00a0budget reconciliation\u00a0endorsed by Manchin and Biden effectively makes the assessment unanimous from left to right.<\/blockquote>\n

The first order of business in 2009, as it is in 2021, was a stimulus package to get the economy, losing jobs by the millions, back on its feet. Obama, in his new memoir, \u201cA Promised Land,\u201d describes the pivotal meeting during the transition in which the wings were clipped off of it. Incoming White House economic adviser Christina Romer suggested a stimulus in the trillion-dollar range.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no fucking way,\u201d Obama recalls Emanuel saying, suggesting something in the $700 billion range instead.<\/p>\n

From then on, insider politics drove the number that Democrats would push for. In early February, Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson said that he expected the final package to be below $800 billion, claiming that as \u201can economic matter\u201d it ought not to be too robust. \u201cFor me it\u2019s not symbolism, it\u2019s an economic matter. At some point it\u2019s just too big,\u201d he said. I asked him if he felt that $800 billion was the point at which economists believed it was too large. \u201cIt\u2019s whatever gets 60 votes, 61 votes,\u201d he said, smiling, acknowledging that economics had nothing to do with it.<\/p>\n

Emanuel\u2019s prognostication had become self-fulfilling and Nelson, along with the few Republicans willing to negotiate, knew they held the cards. Budget reconciliation was available to Democrats, but they had chosen not to use it.<\/p>\n

In talks with Sens. Specter, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins, the proposal was whittled down, with Collins arbitrarily insisting no funds for school construction or upgrades be included. So that was cut. The resulting $787 billion package was woefully short, leaving unemployment hovering at 10 percent by November 2010.<\/p>\n

Obama had known two years earlier that if the economy was still struggling, his party would pay the price \u2014 yet his team had come up short. Leaving that transition meeting, David Axelrod, a close adviser, told him, \u201cIt\u2019s going to be one hell of a midterm,\u201d shaking his head.<\/p>\n

Obama writes in his memoir: \u201cThis time I said nothing, admiring his occasional, almost endearing ability to state the obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, Specter, still a Republican, joined Snowe and Collins in voting for the rescue package on the Senate floor in February.\u00a0It came at the cost of pairing it down severely, and extending the pain of the recession.\u00a0Though the economy eventually began growing slowly, millions were left out of work, and voters threw Democrats out of the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014. The recovery plodded along. \u201cTen years it took, because it wasn\u2019t deep enough and strong enough,\u201d Majority Leader Chuck Schumer\u00a0told Rachel Maddow<\/a>\u00a0in a recent interview. \u201cTen years. We’re not going to make that mistake with COVID.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the same interview, Schumer blasted his party\u2019s approach to the Affordable Care Act. \u201cLook at 200[9], where we spent a year and a half trying to get something good done, ACA, Obamacare, and we didn’t do all the other things that had to be done. We will not repeat that mistake,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will not repeat that mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n


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Schumer today after leaving the White House: "There's agreement — universal agreement — we must go big, bold ….<\/p>\n

"A picture of Franklin Roosevelt was hovering over all of us and we're very much aware of that. It was alluded to a whole bunch of times." https:\/\/t.co\/90lfIeTH3m<\/a><\/p>\n

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) February 3, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n