Michael Barone does a fascinating analysis of the prospects for the economically disastrous Obama energy bill in the U.S. Senate. It's a long way from making it through, which means the economy can be saved, at least for now. Not a sure thing by any means, but likely

Anatomy of the House cap-and-trade roll call

By: MICHAEL BARONE in the Washington Examiner
Senior Political Analyst
06/28/09 2:09 PM EDT

The House Democratic leadership succeeded in passing the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill by a 219-212 margin. In all, 44 Democrats voted against the bill, and 8 Republicans voted for it. It’s always interesting to examine the roll call on a close vote on an important issue—when members are voting for keeps and when some significant number of members cross party lines. And House roll call votes provide useful clues in gauging the legislation’s possible fate in the Senate.

This bill was passed by the votes of one-third of the nation—the Northeast (New England, NY, NJ, DE, MD) and the Pacific coast (CA, OR, WA, HI), as the following table shows. Just over half the votes cast for it came from those two regions.

UNITED STATES 219 212
Northeast & Pacific 110 31
Rest of US 109 181

To oversimplify just a bit, the one-third of the nation that doesn’t depend on coal for its electricity passed this over the less unanimous opposition of the two-thirds of the nation that does.

This was true despite Democrats’ gains in House seats in the rest of the nation in 2006 and 2008. Seven of the 8 Republicans who voted for the bill came from the Northeast & Pacific; 39 of the 44 of the Democrats who voted against it came from the rest of the nation. By the way, despite the opposition of Greenpeace and some other environmental restriction groups, only 3 of the Democrats who voted against this seem to have done so for similar reasons: Peter DeFazio (OR 4), Dennis Kucinich (OH 10) and Pete Stark (CA 9).

Only three members did not vote on the bill, Jeff Flake (AZ 6), Alcee Hastings (FL 23), and John Sullivan (OK 1). Nancy Pelosi made an exception to the usual custom that the speaker does not vote by casting an aye vote, indicating the importance she attached to the measure.

To gauge the bill’s prospects in the Senate, I’ll break the country down further.

● Northeast (CT, DE, ME, MD, MA, NH, NJ, NY, RI, VT). Representatives from these states voted 66-7 for the bill. These 10 states have 20 senators, 17 Democrats and 3 Republicans: Olympia Snowe (ME), Susan Collins (ME) and Judd Gregg (NH). That looks like at least 17 solid votes for a bill similar to the one that passed the House, and perhaps a couple more.

● Pacific Coast (CA, HI, OR, WA). Representatives from these states voted 44-24 for the bill, with 20 of the noes coming from California Republicans (there is one vacancy in California). These states have 8 Democratic senators and no Republicans. Count another 8 for a House-like bill, which brings the number up to at least 25.

● The Germano-Scandinavian Midwest (IA, MN, WI). This is the only other one of the regions I am using for this analysis that voted for the House bill, by a 13-8 margin, all on party lines. These states have 4 Democratic senators and 1 Republican; the Minnesota seat formerly held by Republican Norm Coleman is now vacant but may go to Democrat Al Franken soon if the Minnesota Supreme Court rules as generally expected. Count another 4 or 5 Senate votes for a House-like measure, which gets the number up to 29 or 30, with a live possibility of a couple more.

● The Industrial Heartland (IL, IN, MI, MO, OH, PA). This region voted 41-48 against the bill, mostly on party lines. These states have 9 Democratic and 3 Republican senators. With the exception of IL, with its large nuclear power plants, they tend to depend on coal-fired electricity. Republican senators from these can be expected to oppose a House-like bill, and some Democrats may too. Evan Bayh (IN) is up for reelection in 2010 and his state’s House members voted 2-7 against the House bill, with 3 Democrats crossing party lines. Also, 4 PA House Democrats and 2 OH House Democrats crossed party lines. That leads me to think that Bob Casey (PA), who sees himself as the spokesman for culturally conservative ethnics, and Sherrod Brown (OH), who sees himself as the tribune of unionized industrial workers, cannot be counted as sure votes for a House-like bill. MI House Democrats all voted for the bill, which suggests that their concerns particularly about the auto industry have been assuaged, but the states two Democratic senators, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, may seek more concessions. As for Arlen Specter (PA), up for reelection in 2010, who knows? We’re having trouble here getting up to 40 sure votes for a House-like bill.

● The Great Plains and Rocky Mountains (AK, AZ, CO, ID, KS, MT, NE, NV, NM, ND, SD, UT, WY). Representatives from these 13 states voted 13-24 against the House bill. Only the delegations from CO, NV and NM, the three states in this group which voted for Barack Obama, voted for it. These mostly sparsely populated states have much more leverage in the Senate (where they cast 26% of the votes) than in the House (where they cast 9%). Most of them depend on coal for electricity. They have 11 Democratic and 15 Republican senators. The refusal of Kent Conrad (ND) to support the reconciliation process for cap-and-trade suggests that he and his ND colleague Byron Dorgan cannot be counted on to support a House-like bill (ND gets 93% of its electricity from coal and has big coal deposits), and that may be the case also with Tim Johnson (SD), Ben Nelson (ME), Max Baucus (MT) and Jon Tester (MT). Harry Reid (NV), who is proud of putting the kibosh on the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository, will likely support anything the administration does, but what about appointed Senator Michael Bennet (CO), who is up in 2010 and must be aware that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s brother John Salazar (CO) voted against the House bill? Better prospects are the just-elected cousins Mark Udall (CO) and Tom Udall (NM); the latter’s colleague Jeff Bingaman (NM) has been more cautious on some energy matters.

● The South Atlantic (FL, GA, NC, SC, VA). These were good states for Barack Obama, who carried 55 of their 78 electoral votes and helped elect Democrats to the House or Senate in FL, NC and VA. Nevertheless representatives from these five states voted 26-41 against the bill. It won pluralities in none of these 5 states. There are 4 Democratic and 6 Republican senators from these states. Bill Nelson (FL), Jim Webb (VA) and Mark Warner (VA) would probably not face too much political peril in supporting a House-like bill; Kay Hagan (NC) might, although I note that Duke Power, headquartered in her state, is one of the firms eagerly gaming cap-and-trade systems.

● The Interior South (AL, AR, KY, LA, MS, OK, TN, TX, WV). Here is the heartland of opposition to the House bill; representatives from these 9 states voted 16-60 against the bill. The AL, LA, OK and WV delegations were unanimously against, with 7 Democrats among the 44 who opposed the House bill. AR and WV both have 2 Democratic senators, whose support for a House-like bill cannot be taken for granted; Mary Landrieu (LA) seems like a sure opponent, as do the 13 Republican senators from these states.

As I have gone down the list, I have stopped trying to tabulate the number of likely Senate votes for a House-like bill, but attentive readers will see that the number is clearly short of 50, much less the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster. This doesn’t mean the fight is over. Senate Democratic and Obama administration vote counters are looking at the same numbers and trying to figure out how to modify the House approach to get the votes needed.

A couple more statistical exercises. The population increases from 2000 to 2008 in the regions favoring the House bill, according to Census Bureau estimates, was 5.9%; the population increase in that period in the regions opposing the House bill was 9.2%. As a result, according to projections by Polidata, the states whose delegations voted for the House bill will lose a net 5 House seats in the reapportionment following the 2010 Census, and the states who delegations voted against the House bill will gain a net 5 House seats.

If you assume those five seats would represent a shift in votes on the House bill, it would have lost by a 214-217 margin. Of course, that’s just an arithmetical exercise, and I expect that if the House Democratic leaders had actually faced such a counterfactual they would have switched a couple more votes and would have won. But it does suggest that cap-and-trade is not necessarily the wave of the future.

The 2012 guessing game has already started. Who are the likely Republican contenders to face the Obama re-election? Four names are consistently being bandied about; Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota. Pawlenty is perhaps the least known of the four. He appeared on CNN's Sunday political talk show and made sense.

Obama has slashed defense spending at a time of growing peril. North Korea and Iran are both determined to menace the U.S. and the world with nuclear-armed missiles. China is building a modern navy to rival the U.S. at a furious pace.

Mitt Romney says the Adminisration is putting the country in grave danger.

June 1, 2009
Romney: President putting country in jeopardy
Posted: 09:07 AM ET

From CNN Political Producer Peter Hamby

Romney will deliver a speech focused on missile defense on Monday.'
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Mitt Romney, eyeing a run at the presidency in 2012, is taking another step in fleshing out his foreign policy portfolio with a Monday speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation on the topic of defense spending.

According to excerpts of the speech provided to CNN, Romney will call the Obama administration's plan to trim more than $1 billion from missile defense programs a "grave miscalculation" that will put America at risk, especially given North Korea's nuclear provocations.

Romney says that Obama should push for "comprehensive, regime-crippling sanctions" against North Korea and "immediately reverse his recent decisions and strongly support completing our ballistic missile defense system."

In the speech, entitled "The Care of Freedom," Romney will also call on the administration to increase the modernization budget by $50 billion per year and to lock in total defense budgets at no less than four percent of GDP. But the military budget has been endangered, Romney argues, by the administration's domestic spending programs.

Let's hope all the intervention by government now doesn't turn a bad recession into a long Depression.

How Government Prolonged the Depression

Policies that decreased competition in product and labor markets were especially destructive.

By HAROLD L. COLE and LEE E. OHANIAN
OPINION FEBRUARY 2, 2009 Wall Street Journal

The New Deal is widely perceived to have ended the Great Depression, and this has led many to support a "new" New Deal to address the current crisis. But the facts do not support the perception that FDR's policies shortened the Depression, or that similar policies will pull our nation out of its current economic downturn.

The goal of the New Deal was to get Americans back to work. But the New Deal didn't restore employment. In fact, there was even less work on average during the New Deal than before FDR took office. Total hours worked per adult, including government employees, were 18% below their 1929 level between 1930-32, but were 23% lower on average during the New Deal (1933-39). Private hours worked were even lower after FDR took office, averaging 27% below their 1929 level, compared to 18% lower between in 1930-32.

We have been advised that some concerned taxpayers will be holding a discussion this coming Wednesday, February 4th, to discuss the challenges of how to hold the line on spending and property tax increases in Chatham. We are publishing their message and refer you to their website for further news about what they plan to do.

All Chatham, Massachusetts taxpayers concerned about increased spending and higher property taxes in these very difficult times are invited to attend the first meeting of what we are currently calling Chatham Concerned Taxpayers. It's a get-together, not a membership organization or a club or an association, just a gathering of like minded people who think fiscal discipline and not adding burdens to the taxpayers right now are good things. The details are below. We would appreciate an email saying you are coming and, by all means, bring a neighbor or two, to meet some other neighbors.

Chatham Concerned Taxpayers meet
Chatham Community Center
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.

Subject: Holding the Line on Chatham Spending and Property Taxes

Coffee, tea and donuts for all.
www.chathamct.org for more information
chathamct@comcast.net

In light of this development, this website will no longer be covering Chatham financial matters, unless, of course, they fizzle out.

It's pretty clear that Chatham, like other cities and towns in Massachusetts and across the country, will have a tough time over at least the next year or two.

It all started with the collapse of the U.S. housing bubble fueled by the explosion in subprime mortgage loans to folks who couldn't afford them. When those defaults started showing up in the U.S. government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities sold to governments and other investors around the world it caused panic and triggered the worldwide credit freeze. As a result, securities markets tanked and hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars in the life savings of Americans vanished. Job losses multiplied, As housing values also sank, Americans had good reason to feel poorer and began to dig in to start the long, hard process of cutting expenses to make ends meet.

What has happened is just another example of well-meaning, do-good Democratic policies that foul up the working of the economy. FDR's government programs turned a severe recession into the Great Depression with unemployment rocketing to 25% and staying there until the build-up for World War II got the economy moving ahead.

Mortgage loans for the neglected minorities had a nice ring to it when President Carter floated the idea and had the Community Reinvestment Act passed. Over the years pressure built to make riskier and riskier loans to those with questionable credit. Indeed, President-Elect Obama himself had a hand in that: In the early 1990s in Chicago he was teaching radicals in ACORN, the Marxist community agitator group, how to intimidate banks and banks into making mortgage loans they shouldn't.

The Clinton Administration turned the screws tighter by creating a scorecard for banks: Those who weren't "doing enough" found they couldn't get approvals for mergers and other normal business activity. Banks understandably didn't want to make bad loans and hold them on their books, fearing defaults. This is where Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac came in. Congressional Democrats on financial services committees like Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank and Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd pressed these government-sponsored agencies to buy those subprime loans from banks and mortgage lenders eager to get rid of them. That they did, and packaged the risky paper into mortgage-backed securities and sold them to the regular buyers of U.S. government securities around the world.

With the new money from Fannie and Freddie, banks and mortgage lenders now could make ever more loans to iffy borrowers. Subprime loans as a percentage of total loans leaped from 2% to 30% from 2002 to 2006 and Fannie and Freddie were the biggest buyers of them. President Bush and Senate Republicans called for a reform of the madness in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, but Barney Frank and Chris Dodd successfully led Congressional Democrats in blocking reform. Everything was fine, said Frank. Of course, when the subprime collapse came, Frank blamed Wall Street, which was just doing its job of selling what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gave them to sell. But it was government meddling that has created the mess in the first place.

Now the government is poised to do everything to solve the problem except let the economy sort itself out as it ultimately has to do. Past evidence, such as in the Great Depression doesn't support the idea that massive government intervention is the answer. Now Democrats argue FDR, who did a lot, just didn't do enough. So they will pump trillions into programs they think are neat and nifty, saddling taxpayers with massive debt for generations to come. But the world will be saved.

We can hope.