On Left Action there is a petition Tell Harry Reid: Fix the Filibuster!

For too long, the work of the Senate has been held hostage by the filibuster. It is time to fix it. Don’t back down. Fix the filibuster!

I was going to add a note about how to refute one objection to fixing the filibuster, but then I found it as part of the petition already.

Some have argued against fixing the filibuster, asserting that it will be needed if the Democrats are again in the minority. However, keeping this rule in place now provides no protection for the future. There is nothing preventing the Republicans from eliminating it themselves if they gain the majority, regardless of what happens this term.

If there is one issue to raise your voice about, then this is it.  Other good things can derive from fixing this problem.

Now that we know that good things can pass the House if Boner will only allow them to be voted on, we have another point of pressure where a hopeless roadblock seemed to be.

The Daily Kos has given the headline What Harry Reid did today at 5:03pm will make your day to this segment of the Lawrence O’Donnell show on MSNBC.

OK, so the headline is way overblown, and the presentation by O’Donnell is over the top, but I suppose it is worth giving Harry Reid his due every now and then.

WBZ-TV broadcast an interview with Elizabeth Warren on the eve of her swearing in as Senator for Massachusetts.

I just hope that she can help get filibuster reform passed on her first day.

Talking Points Memo has the article Filibuster Reform Uncertainty Worries Proponents.

Filibuster reform is in trouble, proponents warn, at the hands of a scaled-back proposal they say would enhance rather than diminish the Senate minority’s power to obstruct.
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Here’s the good news for reformers: they have time to build support for the plan, under which they could push through a rules change with 51 votes on the first day of the new Congress. But the “first day” will technically continue through Jan. 22 because the Senate intends to recess rather than adjourn until then. And Merkley is confident of winning the support of incoming Democratic senators, particularly Elizabeth Warren.

If Reid decides to pursue McCain-Levin instead of the talking filibuster plan, “Senator Merkley will encourage others to vote against the bill,” his aide said. It’s not yet clear that proposal has the super-majority of votes required to pass, but multiple Democratic senators have said there are at least 51 votes for reform.

It is stupid to worry about the Republicans taking advantage of this if they gain the majority in the Senate. If the Democrats can take this power with 51 votes, then even if they don’t take the chance, you know the Republicans will if they ever get a 51 vote majority.

Giving up the chance to reform the filibuster is a guaranteed loser for the Democrats no matter who may win a majority in the future.

If Harry Reid screws this one up, you really have to wonder whose side he is on.  This is our chance to contact every Senator we can think of and put pressure on them to pass real filibuster reform.  If they fail to do so, we know what the next 4 years is going to look like.  This could even seal the fate of the U.S. in the rest of the world.  We will be powerless to act on almost everything.

McClatchy has the story House votes country back from fiscal cliff.

America’s not going over the fiscal cliff, as the House of Representatives Tuesday approved the last-minute deal to pull the nation away from the brink of economic chaos.

The vote came quick and without much controversy, a calm and collegial finish to a turbulent day. The House approved the measure by a vote of 257-167 and sent it to President Barack Obama for his signature.

I am really disappointed in the House vote.  I though that I could depend on the recalcitrance of the House.

Mark my words, in the ensuing debate over fixing the filibuster rules in the new Senate after January 3, people will be able to refer back to this fiscal bump incident.  They will say, “See, it isn’t so bad.  We can agree on something when we have to.”

But let us not forget how much time is wasted in getting the Congress to act on even the most simple matters.  If more were required of a Senator to block something that the vast majority of the Senate wants to do, then there would be much less obstruction and much more time to consider priorities that now get left behind.

New Economic Perspectives has a series starting with Functional Finance and the Debt Ratio—Part I. The articles come with the warning:

This five part series will explore at length (warning!) and in detail (another warning—wonk alert!) the MMT perspective on the debt ratio and fiscal sustainability.  While the approach suggests a macroeconomic policy mix and strategies for both fiscal and monetary policies that most neoclassical economists currently believe are unsustainable, ultimately the MMT preference for a significant role for fiscal policy in macroeconomic stabilization is shown to be consistent with traditional neoclassical views on fiscal sustainability.

MMT is Modern Monetary Theory.  While this is heavy going  for the uninitiated (including me), it is still worthwhile to read.  A learning style that works for me is to read papers  on a topic that add even a little bit to my understanding of the topic.  If I then take the necessary time to ponder what I have read and process it in my conscious and subconscious mind, the next item I read on the topic will be more worthwhile.  I make no claim that this process works for everybody.  I can only attest to what works for me.

In this learning process, it is not necessary to buy the premise of what you are reading.  It is only necessary to understand what they are trying to say.  Eventually you may achieve your own informed opinion on the matter.

At the time of this blog posting, only two of the five parts have been published.

Truth Out has the opinion piece Economy Wrecker Alan Greenspan Was Central to the Formation of the Campaign to Fix the Debt.

Lest you forget who Alan Greenspan was or what he did, there is this introductory paragraph:

Alan Greenspan will go down in history as the person who has done more damage to the U.S. economy and society that anyone who was not a foreign enemy. In fact the destruction he wreaked through his incompetence would also exceed the damage caused by almost all would-be enemies as well.

Regarding the headline of the article author Dean Baker comments

“The Campaign to Fix the Debt started to come together at a salon dinner held in the backyard of Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, in the fall of 2011. …

And who was at this meeting?  None other than Alan Greenspan:

The person most responsible for wrecking the economy — and incidentally adding trillions of dollars to the debt — was there at the founding of the Campaign to Fix the Debt.

Unless Alan Greenspan can give you an in depth explanation of his mistakes of the past, I can see no reason to listen to his advice for the future.  Unless he can convince us he has learned a lot from his past mistakes, it may be safest to assume he has learned nothing.

WordPress has put together an Annual Report for this blog.

WordPress does not seem to be counting the bots and web crawlers that read this site every day. The numbers from my own statistics gathering, which counts all reads of this site, are shown at the very bottom of this page.

The Real News Network has the interview Will Obama Offer Massive Corporate Tax Cuts to Make “Fiscal Cliff” Deal?

But the offshoring of all activities in addition to intellectual property would be—manufacturing, sales, marketing—that would really make a big hole in the U.S. tax system, especially for small business, which can’t take advantage of these international games.

So if you are worried about small business, maybe you should be less concerned about regulation and more concerned about huge tax breaks for big business that gives them an unfair tax advantage.

The bottom line is the Obama administration has been very, I would say, disappointing on this particular front, the corporate income taxation. They seem to be on the brink of giving away the store.

It seems that there is no end to the number of scams to screw the middle-class. The negotiation on the Fiscal Bump is all about finding one that the middle-class won’t detect.

In the interview there is mention of the movie We’re Not Broke.

There is a count the squares puzzle that seems to be running rampant on the internet.

Here is the picture and the words that go with the puzzle.

PLEASE HELP! I just got into a heated battle with Don (our boss) over this – I got 24 squares, he says 25. How many squares do you see!!?? -Nudge

I decided to answer this silly puzzle once and for all. I’ll post the answer in the comment.

I don’t know what the political implications of this are.