PAYGO

At Culture11, I've written a piece on how Republicans and Democrats can and should work together.  A little.  While they still can.

Rather than giving advice to President Obama on the policies he should offer, I would advise Congressional Republicans to take Obama up on some of his offers … and quickly, lest the opportunity slip away. ...

For a very brief period after President Obama takes office, there will be an alignment of political interests.

• Republicans philosophically support federal transparency and responsible budgeting — at least, they are supposed to; theory and practice have diverged in recent years.

• Democrats have marketed themselves as supporters of transparency and responsible budgeting — at least, they claim to; theory and practice will diverge in coming years.

But remember, Democrats aren't cleaning up the problems.  They're just putting new pigs in the mud. The time for idealism and cooperation is short.

However, there will only be a very brief window to do that. Whatever Senator Obama has claimed, President Obama will have very different interests. The new Democratic administration and Congress will act according to their own incentives, just as Republicans did in the past.

The election of Obama did not empower people. It empowered politicians. [...]

Hope and Change got people on board the Democratic bus. Political convenience will throw them under it.

There's a lot more to it.  Read the rest at Culture11.

Soren is right that Obama is already walking away from moderation when he, as Matt Stoller put it, "renounce[d] the stupid PAYGO rules".  Like everybody who decides PAYGO is inconvenient, Stoller rationalizes it by excluding from the calculation spending that he finds appealing.  The problem with this, of course, is that you can't simply attribute debt to "the good kind of spending"; money is fungible.

Obama had previously said it was a "Number 1" priority that "we shouldn't be running up budget deficits", written in his book that we should "restore ... PAYGO", and his website says he "strongly supports ... commonsense “Pay As You Go,” or “PayGo” rules".  But now....

Change!

In any event, Obama had already announced this last year during the 2007 Yearly Kos convention.  At the time, Ezra Klein reported....

Obama says he's not going to sacrifice his domestic priorities for deficit reduction. Universal health care, renewable energy, and all the rest won't be sacrificed on the altar of PAYGO.

I'm not sure why the media never calls out politicians when they talk about fiscal responsibility.  Lucy always pulls the football away.  You would think they would have enough pride to stop playing the part of Charlie Brown. 

H/T to Matt Stoller for noting that Barack Obama abandoned another centrist position that he has been running on. No more PAYGO:

Tucked into tonight's debate was a little noticed statement from Obama about fiscal responsibility and what he'll have to cut.  He talked about how the country needs to live within its means and so he supports PAYGO, but importantly, also said we'll have to get back to that after we get through these rough economic times.  I don't have the exact quote but it's very good news that he supports a Keynesian stimulus, and hopefully he'll be able to bring the Blue Dogs along.  They want to renounce the stupid PAYGO rules, because making all policy revenue neutral prevents obviously good investment choices like bonding out government revenues to build mass transit, new energy systems, etc.

What other respnsible, centrist positions will Obama abandon? And are Republicans willing to fight to peel off Democratic Blue Dog votes to win a rules fight on PAYGO in a time of a trillion dollar deficit?

While it would seem disinegenuous, given previous objections to PAYGO that it prevented tax cuts. But tax cuts aren't exactly on the horizon. Matt gives us the schedule::

The first discussion of any import within the new Democratic caucus will take place on November 17, when the caucus decides the rules they will vote on in January.  Those rules may include PAYGO or they may not; hopefully if they do include PAGYO there will be exceptions for investment activities that will eventually produce revenue.

Republicans and responsible people (only partial overlap) have between November 17th and some time in early January.