{"id":6606,"date":"2009-02-10T17:20:59","date_gmt":"2009-02-11T00:40:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=6606"},"modified":"2009-02-10T17:20:59","modified_gmt":"2009-02-11T00:40:47","slug":"regarding-john-dingells-commitment-to-consensus-and-working-with-republicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=6606","title":{"rendered":"Regarding John Dingell's Commitment to Consensus, and Working With Republicans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nolan Finley, in the Detroit News<\/a>, writes:<\/p>\n

Growing up in the House, Dingell gained an appreciation for the institution and for its rules and protocols. […]<\/p>\n

That commitment to consensus cost Dingell his beloved job as Energy and Commerce chair. The far left wing of his party torpedoed him for striking a middle ground on environmental laws.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dingell was booted out of his committee chairmanship for “striking a middle ground” only if you define “middle ground” as making common cause with global warming denialism. That’s why so many liberals are angry at Dingell — not because he has a “commitment to consensus,” but because his positions on global warming are, we believe, mistaken and damaging.<\/p>\n

Dingell is actually great on many issues, but on energy and climate issues he’s substantively out of step with both the vast, vast majority of the relevant scientific experts. Substantively, Dingell’s position isn’t the middle — he’s the extreme.<\/p>\n

Do you think that substantive policy positions matter? I do. I think that, based on substantive policy considerations, it made sense to give Dingell the boot from heading up that particular committee. That he’s willing to work with Republicans doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t face any consequences for his actual policy positions.<\/p>\n

“I’m an anachronism around here,” he says. “I’m an institutionalist who believes the House has an importance beyond the work that it does. I believe that we ought to give the Republicans a say in the place. You get better legislation that way.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How?<\/p>\n

I’ve seen the compromises that were put into the stimulus bill. And they’re really, really bad. Once again, substantive policy positions matter — or they should.<\/p>\n

For instance, encouraging middle-class people to buy new homes right now is a bad idea, because the housing bubble still hasn’t fully deflated, and new homeowners buying now will get screwed over and lose money when the value of their homes go down. There’s a lot we can and should do to help the middle class, but artificially lowering the costs of buying houses during a bubble is genuinely stupid.<\/p>\n

Another example: We are going to have to spend money to repair schools sooner or later. No one questions that. But if we do it now, we can borrow the money at a virtually 0% interest rate; putting off this work for two years will force taxpayers to pay more for it. Furthermore, this is “shovel-ready” work, and excellent stimulus. What rational reason is there to cut this spending out of the stimulus (unless you’re against stimulus spending altogether)?<\/p>\n

Republican ideas didn’t make the Senate bill better. They’re making it worse. And anyone who thinks these ideas are good ideas, is either ideologically blinded, or ignorant of economics.<\/p>\n

Republicans right now don’t have any real reason to want the stimulus to work. Their best chance of regaining power is for the economy to tank; the lower unemployment gets, the worse off Republicans are. (By “Republicans,” I’m referring to powerful elected officials, not ordinary folks.) But I don’t think it’s rational to seek a compromise with people whose best interests are served by your bill failing.<\/p>\n

I don’t think Democrats should ignore the other side with impunity. I think Democrats should ignore the other side when the other side is acting as if they want the country’s economy to fail, and when the other side not only has no rational ideas to contribute, but is contributing ideas that clearly make things worse.<\/p>\n

When Republicans start having intelligent, constructive ideas to contribute, then Democrats should pay attention to them. Not before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nolan Finley, in the Detroit News, writes: Growing up in the House, Dingell gained an appreciation for the institution and for its rules and protocols. […] That commitment to consensus cost Dingell his beloved job as Energy and Commerce chair. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-and-politics","category-environmental-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6606\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}