Friday Funday: Truly Important Things

The Ides of March are upon us today, and while our week hasn't been nearly as bad as Julius Caesar's was 2,057 years ago, it wasn't exactly a Roman holiday.

The sequester cuts continue to grind on, spreading more economic pain daily, as many had forecast - including us. President Obama continued his somewhat pointless outreach to Congressional Republicans this week, while some of those same GOP stalwarts postured and pouted, yet got nothing done.

Congressional Democrats were actually hard at work this week, putting forward two balanced, honest budget plans, and even passing out of the Senate Judiciary Committee a renewal of the assault weapons ban. Add to the crazy news cycle this week a sabre-rattling North Korea, clouded thinking in China, the election of a new pope, and the crazy political rumschpringe that is CPAC, and you can likely understand why we're incredibly glad it's Friday.

It's easy enough in the whirling mix of the professional media to end up jaded and bowing to the political media idol of partisan politics - without much thought to more nuanced political positions, let alone truly consequential ideas.

As we were reminded by a detailed story in the Hartford Courant this week, the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School was just three months ago - and there are things far more important than arrogant Senators and partisan political battles.

To start with, the accomplishments and activities of some our friends and professional colleagues.

Our congratulations go out to both Chris Hayes and Ed Schultz of MSNBC, who are shifting their time slots on that cable network. With new opportunities for both men, and hopefully more time each day for Ed to spend on his radio show and with his wife Wendy - who successfully battled cancer last year - we have to send our professional congratulations and best wishes on their great new projects.

If you're in Washington, DC this weekend, we highly recommend you check out a screening of a new series about politics in the nation's capitol called "Chasing The Hill," being screened at the Letelier Theater in Georgetown. Even if you're not in DC, you can watch some of the series online at chasingthehill.com, where you can see a few talented people that we happen to know. If you liked "The West Wing," we are very certain you'll enjoy this show.

If you're at home, or getting ready to travel, you might want to slip over to SnowByNight.com and check out the latest chapters in the ongoing graphic novel helmed by the husband of one of our editors. Crisp, rich looking printed copies are available for those of us who like our cartoon artwork the old fashioned way, though thankfully, you can also read the comic on your favorite digital device.

If you're looking for something more sports oriented, the Husker men's basketball team is still alive in the Big Ten Tournament, a sign that bodes well for the team's move to the Pinnacle Arena next year. There is plenty of basketball on television this weekend - or if you're in Florida or Arizona, you might even catch a Spring Training baseball game.

Whatever you do this weekend, take some time for yourself, and for your friends and family, to just enjoy the truly important things in life.

The rest of it - the partisan politics, the crazy international news, and all the rest of our insane modern world - it'll all wait until you get back.

This weekend, focus on what's really important.

Zombie Ideas

More often than we'd like to see them these days, ideas that we thought were dead and buried keep being resurrected in American politics. Like most things that should have remained dead and buried, most 'zombie ideas' aren't exactly good things.

Take the effort to expand gambling in Nebraska.

We recently wrote about the current efforts being pushed in the Nebraska Legislature, by out-of-state lobbying interests to spread legal casino gambling across the Cornhusker State. As we noted two weeks ago, this zombie idea has been run past Nebraska voters three times in the last decade, with all three attempts going down to resounding defeat.

There are those who are saying LR41CA - the measure to allow betting on historic horse racing in Nebraska - is yet another zombie gambling bill. We admit, there are some significant similarities to the 2012 Nebraska jobs and horse racing bill, which passed the Nebraska Legislature last year, but was vetoed by Republican governor Dave Heineman.

The key difference, however, is that both the 2012 and 2013 horse racing bills are trying to save Nebraska jobs that already exist, by only slightly modifying current law. The expanded gambling interests, however, want to completely change a law that's part of the Nebraska State Constitution.

Sadly, the lobbyists with the zombie gambling idea just keep coming back to bang on the door of the Nebraska legislature.

In a similar vein, the GOP keeps bringing back another zombie idea, Paul Ryan's failed budget plan. As we noted on Wednesday, Ryan's proposals aren't the only budget plans coming out of Washington, DC these days.

In fact, U.S. Senate Democrats released their own budget proposal on Wednesday, and unlike the House Republican 'Ryan Plan', the Democratic budget plan is no zombie.

The always astute Ezra Klein broke down Democratic Sen. Patty Murray's budget plan, and found it was actually more honestly conservative - in the dictionary definition of "preserving existing conditions" - than the Ryan Plan is.

The Democratic Plan is, to some degree, vague about certain details, though unlike the Ryan Plan, the Murray Plan is clear about how Democrats plan to pay for the things Americans demand from their government. The full Democratic Budget is long, but the key differences between the Murray Plan and the Ryan plan are simple.

The Democratic Murray Plan focuses on keeping and growing jobs in America, as well as making sensible progress on paying down debt and deficit, through slight modifications in current laws and programs. Further, the Murray Plan is an equal mix of closing loopholes to raise revenue, while cutting waste to cut costs. In short, the Democratic plan is fair, balanced, and not radical.

In comparison, the Ryan Plan wants to drastically change how our Federal government works, gutting support for the poor and elderly, giving massive new tax breaks to the rich, and significantly changing our federal laws to benefit those who already have more than enough - a plan that voters strongly rejected last fall.

There's a reason we call stupid ideas that won't go away 'zombie ideas.' We just wish we could find the legislative weapon that would finally bury some of these undead notions once and for all.

Clouded Thinking

Solutions to the world's major problems aren't actually as difficult as they often seem - or rather, they wouldn't be nearly as difficult if it weren't for all the stupid human beings most simple solutions run into.

In part, we're talking about the story we linked to in Tuesday's edition by Brad Plumer, about the pollution problems in China. As Plumer details, if China would actually make some serious commitments to energy and transportation reform and environmental controls, and then would stick to those commitments, the Chinese government might make some serious headway in cleaning up their smoggy skies.

The biggest problem China appears to be having is that its plans to clean up its environmental act keep running into the clouded selfish decisions of some its own people.

In America, we know exactly how that kind of clouded thinking works - or doesn't - as some of that same kind of clouded thinking is so obviously behind the Congressional Republican's latest budget wish list, and our nation's ongoing budget battles.

On Tuesday, Republican Rep. Paul Ryan rolled out the latest version of his previously failed budget plan, the one that Americans rejected completely just four months ago in one of the most decisive election defeats in recent memory. If Rep. Ryan was a wise man, he would have taken that severe thumping as a message from the American people on how they wanted their government to be run.

Ryan, however, doesn't seem to have learned anything from his embarrassing defeat. Instead, Rep. Ryan's "new and improved" plan proposes even bigger tax cuts for the rich, leaves out even more details than his last plan, and decimates Medicaid and other social services for the poor and elderly. Further, Ryan's budget plan dishonestly assumes the Affordable Care Act - also known as "Obamacare" - will be repealed, which is about as likely as Rep. Ryan himself being elected the next Pope.

As Ezra Klein so succinctly put it on Tuesday, Ryan's budget is simply "social engineering with a side of deficit reduction."

Thankfully, our U.S. government isn't only run by those being deliberately dumb with numbers like Rep. Ryan.

Sen. Patty Murray and Senate Democrats, with some consultation from the White House, released a sneak peak of their own honestly balanced budget plan late Tuesday, which includes both revenue increases and targeted, wise budget cuts - unlike the ongoing, dumb, across-the-board sequester cuts.

The full Democratic plan won't be released until later today, but the information that's been leaked shows that Democrats actually paid attention to what the American people said they wanted in last fall's elections.

The Democratic budget plan calls for $1.85 trillion to slice budget deficits, through an equal mix of closing tax loopholes on corporations, tax increases on the rich, spending cuts, and job creating stimulus.

That's right - the Democratic plan calls for highly targeted stimulus spending to generate jobs, and begin repairing our national infrastructure. Jobs - what Americans REALLY care about.

When you take a look at both budget plans, side by side, with a clear head and real people in mind, it's really hard not to see that Democrats have honestly taken into account both what Americans need and what Americans realistically want.

Republicans, led by Paul Ryan, are still wondering around with their heads in the clouds, refusing to accept the message of the 2012 election - or the reality that Republican's plans for "winning" are not realistically possible.