Support MyDD. Please Make a Contribution to the Site's Fundraiser.

Max Baucus and the Senate Democrats more broadly catch a lot of flak (at times rightfully so) for not sufficiently fighting for progressive ideals in their policies. But taking a look at Baucus' stimulus bill, which stands in a bit of a contrast with the legislation agreed to by the President and the House leadership, it appears that it's the Senate Democrats, and Baucus in particular, who are fighting for at least one important progressive aspect of a stimulus bill: an extension of unemployment benefits.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) today unveiled a proposed economic stimulus package providing a flat $500 rebate to any American with $3000 of qualifying income to report on a 2007 tax return - including tens of millions of seniors living on Social Security.  Rebates would be doubled for married couples filing jointly, and families would receive an additional $300 per child under age 17.  The Baucus plan extends Federal unemployment insurance benefits for jobless Americans in all states by 13 weeks, with additional benefits for workers in states with high unemployment.  Businesses losing money in the economic downturn will be allowed to write off losses retroactively for as many as five years.  Scores will be available later today, but the total package is expected to cost approximately $156 billion.

The Senate bill lifts the cap for individuals, effectively pegged at $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for couples filing jointly in the House bill, meaning that the highest wage earners would receive tax rebates as well. What's more, it seems that those earning less than $3,000 per year would not get a rebate in the Senate bill but would in the House bill (at least as best I can tell from these initial reports). However, the Senate version extends unemployment insurance, which is extremely important to ensuring that those most adversely impacted by the current economic downturn, will have some of their troubles at least partly alleviated. The agreement between the House and the President does not include such an extension.

In the end, the proof will be in the pudding, and leadership from both parties in both chambers of the Congress will likely have to get together to forge a compromise bill. But it is nevertheless good to see that the extension of unemployment benefits is now at least on the table.

This is a problem.  Both Charlie Rangel and Max Baucus are looking to renew Bush's Fast Track authority to negotiate trade deals.  As Sirota has pointed out, Baucus just reversed himself on the issue this week.  I just cannot understand why these people think it's a good idea to give Bush more authority, or why they think these trade agreements are going to help anyone except a small group of corporate elites.  

I mean, I know they are talking about making sure there are environmental and labor standards, but here's what I need to know, aside from the fact that developing countries are going to be impoverished by Doha (according to Oxfam, h/t Baldrick).

World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy visits Washington next week to confer with U.S. negotiators and the business community about ways to move the long-running talks forward. Lamy will have lunch with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Monday, and then plans to sit down with U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab Wednesday. Negotiators for major players in the talks, launched in 2001, have set yet another deadline for wrapping up the talks. They now hope to conclude a deal by year's end.

The WTO is meeting with the US Chamber of Commerce and Bush's trade representative.  That's interesting.  And then there's this.

Rangel was vague, however, on whether a Doha-only fast-track extension would have to include enforceable International Labor Organization (ILO) standards, an issue that has stalled broader negotiations between lawmakers and the administration. The Doha talks, focused on helping the world's poor, do not include labor issues.

The Center for American Progress likes Rangel's approach.  I don't get it.  Why do we need fast track?  Why does Congress need to hand over authority to Bush?  Why can't Bush negotiate an agreement and subject it to normal Congressional approval?  And why does anyone in their right mind think that an agreement is going to come out of this process that actually has enforceable provisions on labor and the environment?  These business groups have shown that they will lay down in the middle of the road in front of an approaching army rather than accept any constraints on their behavior.

What's the urgency here?

In an unrelated by kind of cool note, Trade Representative Susan Schwab's former husband was a professional magician.  

Another week, another high-profile success story from the new infrastructure of the progressive movement. This time, it wasn't the Anti-Iraq Escalation Campaign but trade, and the frontlines were right here in Montana - the state whose senior senator is Sen. Max Baucus (D), the new chairman of the Senate Finance Committee that oversees all international trade policy. Baucus has recently come around on the war, and I have congratulated him for his conversion. However, on issues important to K Street like trade, he still seems to be doing a kabuki dance - saying some of the right things, but subtly letting D.C. know that he's still considering doing Big Money's bidding at the end of the day. Specifically, Baucus used the first day of his committee chairmanship to pen an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal declaring that he supports President Bush's request to reauthorize "fast track" trade negotiating authority - the authority that allows presidents to strip all labor, human rights and environmental protections out of trade deals, and prevents Congress from doing anything about it.

Enter State Sen. Jim Elliott (D-Trout Creek), chairman of the Montana Taxation Committee - our little state's equivalent of the Finance Committee. Working closely with national groups like the Progressive States Network and Citizens Trade Campaign and with local groups like the Northern Plains Resource Council and organized labor, Elliott powered a forceful resolution through the Montana Senate demanding Baucus use his power to outright reject Bush's fast track request. The measure passed the closely divided Senate 45 to 5 - a resounding bipartisan statement.

The result, as you will see in the extended entry, has been a bit of a media flurry.

All successful movements understand the use of both the carrot and the stick. Today, the Progressive States Network, the Citizens Trade Campaign, and local labor/environmental/agriculture groups show what an effective stick looks like here in Montana, as they helped the Montana State Senate overwhelmingly pass a resolution demanding Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) use his chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee to reject President Bush's request for "fast track" trade authority. The full press release from the Progressive States Network is at the end of this post.

Make no mistake about it: the Senate resolution, authored by fair trade champion Sen. Jim Elliott (D-Trout Creek), is no small accomplishment: Baucus, by virtue of his chairmanship, is the single most powerful lawmaker in Congress when it comes to "free" trade, and "fast track" is the single most important "free" trade policy because it gives presidents the ability to ram lobbyist-written pacts through Congress without any labor, human rights or environmental standards. Additionally, Baucus used the very first day of his chairmanship to author an op-ed on the Wall Street Journal's right-wing editorial page demanding Congress support Bush's request for "fast track" reauthorization - a move that made K Street lobbyists cheer, but should make the rest of us retch.

Again, the full press release is in the extended entry. It will be interesting to see Baucus's reaction. In just the last week his language on trade seems to have changed - but whether that rhetorical shift means a policy shift is anyone's guess. This is, after all, the guy who traveled to India to give a speech trumpeting job outsourcing.

As the House of Representatives looks to move forward with clean legislation to increase the minimum wage for the first time in a decade (i.e. not containing any gifts to corporate interests), on the other side of the Capitol Sen. Max Baucus, who as Democratic chairman of the Finance Committee is handling the companion bill, has apparently caved to business groups interested in making such a move more palatable to their members. CQ's Midday Update email has the story (no link available).

Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., unveiled four proposals at a morning hearing, including one to cut small business depreciation schedules from 29 years to 15 years, which would let those businesses to write off investments faster.

Baucus and ranking Republican Charles E. Grassley of Iowa have been working on the package for several days and plan to mark it up Jan. 17. Minimum wage legislation could come to the Senate floor next week.

Senate Democrats, lacking the 60 votes needed to overcome filibusters in the Senate, have known all along they would need to accept some "sweeteners" for business to get a minimum wage hike through.

In a statement of administration policy, the White House today said it "strongly supports" adding business-friendly provisions to the House minimum wage bill.

There is no reason whatsoever for the Democrats to give in to the demands of the business lobby at this point. The service and retail sectors spent big dollars in recent years to convince the Republican Congress not to increase the minimum wage, giving $28,537,380 to GOP candidates over the last two cycles and just $11,277,663 to Democrats. This effort was a complete success as Republicans obstructed Democratic moves to boost the minimum wage for years. Yet the Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress on November 7, in no small part as a result of their calls to raise the minimum wage.

Now the Democrats have a responsibility to follow through with their campaign promises, not only because it makes for good politics but also because it makes for good policy. But good policy does not include handing massive giveaways to the business lobby to buy their support for legislation they have fought with all of their might to oppose. Simply put, Americans rejected the position of these special interest lobbyists last fall, and Congress must listen to the voters rather than K Street.

It is certainly possible that the Democrats, at this point, do not have enough votes to invoke cloture on a clean minimum wage bill in the Senate. But if this is the case, then the Democratic leadership in the chamber should at least hold a vote to put Republican Senators -- particularly those up for reelection next year -- on the record either for or against raising the minimum wage. Even if such a gambit fails, the Democrats could always go back and try to pick off wayward Senators with enticements at that point. But to give away the house so early in the game is unconscionable, and Senator Baucus should know that. And, what's more, Harry Reid, Dick Durbin and the rest of the Senate Democratic leadership need to make it clear to Baucus that this type of unnecessary kowtowing to the business community will not be tolerated in the 110th Congress.

Dear Dr. Chair Governor Dean,

Thanks for your consideration.

(cross-posted at Daily Kos)

Over at MyDD, there's a little discussion going on about the merits of having a primary challenge against Senator Max Baucus (D-MT). It's been noted that he's no friend to Democrats on many domestic issues. You know it's bad when even The New Republic thinks that Baucus is a sellout:

If you look closely enough at recent domestic policy debacles, you'll invariably see his fingerprints. Facing George W. Bush's massive tax-cut proposal in 2001, Baucus undermined the Senate Democrats' strategy of forcing concessions by maintaining a united front. In private negotiations with his GOP counterpart, Chuck Grassley, Baucus produced a bill that handed the White House virtually all of its top priorities. Afterward, he boasted that he'd done Democrats a favor, since they "would have been in trouble in 2002 just saying no to every one of the president's proposals." We shudder to think what might have happened had the Democrats been labeled "obstructionist."

Then there was the 2003 Medicare debate. Baucus, true to his method, agreed to a set of procedural conditions that undermined Democratic unity and preordained a disastrous outcome. Then he used the little authority he retained to--how to put it?--give away the store. In addition to agreeing to Health Savings Accounts--a gambit that he had once condemned as irresponsible--Baucus assented to a provision preventing Medicare from negotiating discounts with pharmaceutical manufacturers.

Baucus and his defenders--alternately known as his press office--make two arguments on his behalf. The first is that Baucus is simply doing what he needs to do to get reelected. (This argument usually masquerades behind the mantra of doing what's best for the "people of Montana.") But, unless the way to get ahead in Montana is to insist on overcharging Medicare patients by billions of dollars, the senator has been going far above and beyond the call of duty.

Robert Reich has an important post on lobbying and Democrats.  The signs are clear that big money is buying support very quickly, and that we have a lot of work to do to make sure Democrats fulfill their promises made to the electorate.  The Medicare Part D no-brainer to negotiate lower drug prices may not apparently be going so smoothly, for instance, and it's due to a Senator you should become familiar with really quickly.

The only thing that might stop the new Congress from going through with this sensible plan is huge bargaining power of a different kind. I'm talking now about politics. Because when it comes to campaign contributions and Washington lobbyists, Big Pharma has more bargaining clout than almost anyone. It has already lined up former Democratic congressmen and officeholders to lobby their old colleagues. And it's showering the Hill with money. Already Max Baucus, the upcoming head of the Senate Finance Committee, is expressing doubts about the new Democratic plan.

On economic policy, Baucus is the worst Democrat out there, and he's out of step with his constituents in Montana, which, while a red state, is economically populist.  And Baucus is in charge of the Finance Committee, which is a horrific place for someone like Baucus to wield power.

There are certain signposts to look out for in terms of creating a progressive majority.  We cannot as a party enable big pharma to steal from the government.  And that's what Baucus looks like he might be doing.