Some Good, Some Bad, Some Vital

The House and Senate are rolling along implementing the 100-hour agenda, with mostly victories, a couple setbacks, and the 800-pound elephant in the room (Iraq) impinging upon the whole thing.

It's welcome news that the Senate passed an amendment into their ethics bill which would strip lawmakers who commit serious crimes while in office of their taxpayer-funded pensions. And they did it with UNANIMOUS support, on a vote of 87-0. This self-evident legislation, authored by John Kerry, would take the American people off the hook for financing criminals who betray the public trust. It wouldn't retroactively apply to Duke Cunningham, but it will be his legacy.

On the House side, their next item on the agenda is prescription drug prices. And sadly, it looks like the Democrats are caving to the pharmaceutical lobby on this one, though it's not as bad as this Washington Post article makes it out to be.

Before taking control of the House last week, Democratic leaders briefly considered proposing a new government-run prescription drug program as a way to reduce seniors' drug costs, according to Democratic aides and lawmakers involved in the deliberations.

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her allies chose a far less ambitious plan -- to require the government to negotiate for lower Medicare drug prices -- that will come to a vote today. They stepped back largely out of concern that the pharmaceutical industry would stall a complex change, denying them a quick victory on a top consumer-oriented priority, aides say [...]

The industry worked closely with the Republican Congress to shape the Medicare prescription drug program, which included a provision barring the government from negotiating with the pharmaceutical industry for lower prices. In the three-year run-up to passage, industry lobbyists poured more than $6 million into both Republican and Democratic campaign coffers, dispatched an army of more than 800 lobbyists to Capitol Hill and quietly funded seniors organizations and patient advocacy groups that opposed Democratic alternatives.

Democrats opposed the legislation, but now that they have a chance to rewrite the law, they are pressing for what party leaders concede is only a minor alteration. "This is a first step," said Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

The House proposal would require the government to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry for lower prices on behalf of the private insurers that run the drug benefit program. The impact on prices could be small, however, since the government does not buy drugs directly for Medicare and manufacturers could ignore federal pressure to lower prices without consequence.

The bill passed 255-170. I would have hoped for a bolder plan (like importation of cheap drugs from Canada). But this is essentially what the Democrats ran on: to allow Medicare to negotiate on prescription drug prices. They decided not to use a formulary (in other words, to threaten to pull drugs off the plan, based on pricing), but they'll still have negotiating power. This is a net loss, and I wish they would do a better job to fight the Big Pharma lobby, which they decry in election speeches but not in the halls of Congress:

To strengthen their position, drug firms and their trade groups have been transforming their Washington operations by hiring top Democratic lobbyists to gain access to new committee chairmen, bolstering Democratic political donations and spending millions on public relations campaigns to overcome an image, indicated in recent surveys, that the industry puts profits ahead of patients.

Drug companies spent more on lobbying than any other industry between 1998 and 2005 -- $900 million, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. They donated a total of $89.9 million in the same period to federal candidates and party committees, nearly three-quarters of it to Republicans.

This is a major barrier to any effort to reform the broken health care system. Democrats need to be empowered by the grassroots to counteract it.

But of course, the Iraq policy is the most vexing for Democrats. How best to deal with the escalation proposal? While the Senate is apparently going for a symbolic, nonbinding resolution, one which Mitch McConnell is threatening to filibuster (go for it, pal, place your whole party on the other side of the American people). The House, meanwhile, will try to fence the money.

Senior House Democrats said yesterday that they will attempt to derail funding for President Bush's proposal to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq, setting up what could become the most significant confrontation between the White House and Congress over military policy since the Vietnam War.

The bold plans reflect the Democrats' belief that the public has abandoned Bush on the war and that the American people will have little patience for an escalation of the U.S. military presence in Iraq. But the moves carry clear risks for a party that suffered politically for pushing to end an unpopular war in Vietnam three decades ago, and Democratic leaders hope to avoid a similar fate over the conflict in Iraq.

The striking new approach took shape yesterday morning during a closed-door meeting of the House Democratic Caucus, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), invoked Martin Luther King Jr. as she urged her members against timidity, members who were there said. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), a quiet, hawkish supporter of the war, stunned many of his colleagues when he came out strenuously against Bush's proposal and suggested the war is no longer militarily winnable.

Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense and the party's leading voice for withdrawing troops, is to report back to Appropriations Committee members today on hearings and legislative language that could stop an escalation of troops, said Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a member of Murtha's subcommittee.

Those plans could attach so many conditions and benchmarks to the funds that it would be all but impossible to spend the money without running afoul of the Congress. "Twenty-one thousand five hundred troops ought to have 21,500 strings attached to them," said House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.).

Mitch McConnell threatened to filibuster any attempt to stop funding for escalation as well, to which I echo AmericaBlog: bring it on. McConnell must not understand how legislation works. The President needs money to fund his escalation plan. He has to go to Congress for it. If McConnell filibusters amendments to appropriations that would put conditions on the money Bush needs, he CAN'T GET THE MONEY. Bush needs an appropriation of funds, and a filibuster would kill that. Furthermore, if Bush vetoes legislation that would put conditions on the money, he denies himself the funds he needs. HE would be responsible for denying troops in the field the money they need, NOT the Democrats. So, bring it on.

(This is where I might lose people, and some would say it's gratutitous and unseemly, but you know what I think should happen? Cloture should be decided by voice vote. Sen. Tim Johnson is beginning to speak again. How great would it be to see the Senator wheeled into the Senate floor to cast the deciding ballot, straight from a hospital bed, to say "No" to the Bush escalation agenda? Talk about symbolism. Talk about bravery. Talk about something that isn't going to happen.)

The Democrats are being strong-willed on this policy, and putting themselves on the same side as the American people, the overwhelming majority of which do not support escalation. A bunch of Republicans are lining up on the same side. But they have the Bush anchor around their necks. Congress must act to do whatever is in their power to stop this insane policy. I really believe they're going to go for it.