Webb goes out swinging

On the wall in Sen. Jim Webb’s office hangs a framed newspaper article highlighting his “blunt challenge” to President George W. Bush during an emphatic Democratic State of the Union response in 2007.

Webb is now on his way out of the Senate — and he’s offering a blunt challenge to his own party.


He’s opposed President Barack Obama’s jobs proposals because of its tax policies. He suggests the administration is not being “serious” and believes the White House seems to have “misquoted” Warren Buffett in some of its proposals. Webb won’t even say whether he’d stump next year for Obama in Virginia, a state critical to the president’s reelection hopes.

And he expressed frustration that Senate Democratic leaders continue to bring pieces of the president’s plan forward even though they know full well the proposals will fail.

“I think people in this country are really worried about the future — they are looking for people who will stick up for them,” he said, before referring to his leadership’s strategy as political “messaging.”

“I’ve always gone my own way,” he said in his no-nonsense, matter-of-fact style.

Webb’s evolution from party icon to frustrated lame-duck senator may be a warning sign for Democrats trying to find a political escape hatch from the malaise that grips Washington and the dysfunction that dominates the Capitol.

When he arrived in the Senate in January 2007, he was a hero to his party, a former Navy secretary and decorated Vietnam veteran whose son, Jimmy, was fighting in Iraq, and who eked out a stunning upset of Republican George Allen, giving his party a narrow Senate majority. The former novelist — who was executive producer of the 2000 film “Rules of Engagement” — had clout on national security issues and outmaneuvered Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) by winning approval of the largest GI Bill expansion in a generation.

As he heads into his final year of his first and only Senate term, Webb, 65, has grown increasingly frustrated and is speaking out against his party’s tax proposals. His positioning speaks to the broader dynamics driving Democrats and the GOP: Leaders of both parties are increasingly squeezing out the middle of their caucuses as they harden their stances ahead of 2012.

Webb’s departure also highlights the increasing Democratic struggles in keeping control of traditionally Republican states that they were successful in winning in the 2006 and 2008 elections.

“I think like all of us, he’s distressed by the fact that you have trouble getting something done,” said Sen. Ben Nelson, the conservative Nebraska Democrat, who has also opposed the recent jobs plans. “But extreme partisanship is not what he or I would prefer.”

Asked about the concerns from the center of the Democratic Caucus over political tactics, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said dismissively: “A political strategy in the Senate? Where did you come up with that?”

In an interview with POLITICO, Webb made clear his opposition to the president’s $447 billion jobs agenda, the $35 billion package for local governments to hire first responders and teachers and the $60 billion infrastructure bank plan, which all rest primarily on one concern: They’re all funded by a surtax on millionaires.

Instead, he’s calling for an increase in taxes on capital gains from 15 percent to 20 percent, leaving ordinary income rates untouched for now, saying the real income inequality rests on the huge tax breaks the wealthy receive by their lower rates on capital gains and dividends.

“That’s what Warren Buffett has been saying; I think he’s been kind of misquoted even in some of the administration proposals,” Webb said. “And I don’t see a proposal from the administration to bump that back up to 20 [percent]. … When they do that, I’ll know they’re serious.”

Not every Democrat agrees with that.

“I’m a great fan of Jim Webb’s, but I find it a little inconsistent, given his courageous articulation of the growing income disparity in America,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.). “I’m not quite sure how you square opposition to a surcharge on millionaires, which would lessen that disparity — I’m not sure I understand that.”

Last December, Webb voted against his party’s effort to raise income tax rates on those earning more than $250,000, but he voted to break a GOP filibuster when Democrats raised the threshold to $1 million. Neither measure came forward for an up-or-down vote.

Webb hasn’t been a complete thorn in his party’s side: As a matter of “courtesy” after holding “long talks” with his leadership, he’s opposed GOP filibusters on each of the three jobs plans this fall in order to bring the measures for debate. But his stated opposition to the underlying proposals has given Republicans ammunition to use against the Democratic jobs plans.

“I think he’s concluded that the whole approach to job creation that the president is using might not work,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Webb said the real reason why CEOs make some 400 times more than the average worker has far more to do with the tax rates on capital gains, and said it’s consistent with the platform he ran on in his 2006 campaign when he made the case that there were “three Americas” where the wealthiest had grown even wealthier. And he said he pushed the Democratic Party to stress “economic fairness” in the 2007 State of the Union response when there was a push for him to focus on Iraq.

“It’s a matter of principle,” he said.

The tax fight is not the only thing that has irked Webb as of late. He pushed a bill last year to raise billions in new taxes on executives of financial institutions that received at least $5 billion in federal bailout money — but that plan never came up for a vote.

“Neither side wanted to vote on it,” a frustrated Webb recalled.

And last month, Webb’s long-sought initiative to create a bipartisan panel recommending reforms of the criminal justice system was blocked by a GOP-led filibuster, infuriating Webb, who took his frustrations to the floor Tuesday.

“It is impossible not to notice, over the past two years, the lamentable decline in bipartisan behavior in this body, even in addressing serious issues of actual governance,” an annoyed Webb said on the floor.

“Jim marches to the beat of his own drum; that’s the way he is, and frankly it’s refreshing to listen to,” said Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.).

Webb is showing party loyalty on the campaign trail ahead of next week’s state elections, stumping for local candidates during last week’s recess. Asked if he would do the same for Obama in 2012, Webb said: “I don’t want to talk about next year yet.”

Webb — who was once considered a potential 2008 vice presidential candidate before he took himself out of the running — was asked about the changes in the past few years between him and his party. He said he hadn’t changed, but wouldn’t say whether his party has.

“If I had to say what is my calling, my calling in life is not politics — it’s leadership, leadership is trying to bring people to places where they might not have gone themselves,” he said.