As featured on p. 218 of "Bloggers on the Bus," under the name "a MyDD blogger."
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Honduras, Red State
I think the plan for the ruling regime in Honduras is to negotiate out the clock on restoring Mel Zelaya. He only has a few months left on his term, and so endless talks would just serve to push resolution past the end. While they talk the talk of diplomacy, the government is using mercenaries, in violation of international conventions, to suppress dissent and support the rulers.
Meanwhile, the ruling regime has spent over $600,000 in a high-profile lobbying campaign, hiring those responsible for America's bloody crackdown in Central America in the 1980s like Otto Reich, along with corporate whores like Lanny Davis who will literally say anything for money. This has allowed them to gather friends at the top of the government, particularly Congressional Republicans like Sen. Jim DeMint.
Let's see, endless delays in negotiations, use of mercenaries, fealty to lobbyists, PR as a national policy.
They really are a mirror for American democracy! Circa 2002, at least.
The US government long ago decided that what happened to Honduras President Mel Zelaya was a coup. The whole "waking him up in the middle of the night in his pajamas and putting him on a military plane" must have been the giveaway. Since then diplomatic efforts have attempted to resolve the crisis, but to no avail. Zelaya snuck back into the country, and has been holed up at the Brazilian Embassy. The leaders of the new regime in Tegucigalpa, after trying to take away civil liberties to suppress dissent, have finally warmed to the idea of restoring Zelaya to office with limited powers until the next Presidential election ends his term in January. That would be a responsible compromise for both sides and would put an end to the crisis.
It is at this moment when Sen. Jim DeMint (R-Bugfuckistan) decides to lead a Republican delegation to meet with the ruling regime, which no country on Earth has recognized as a legitimate government. To quote Steve Clemons:
In other words, Jim DeMint is acting on behalf of, in cahoots with, and against the foreign policy of the United States of America in encouraging post-coup Honduran government officials defy the United States. He is encouraging a political leadership which has no legitimacy and which not recognized by other democracies in the region -- while the ousted President makes cell phone UN General Assembly statements from a couch-bed in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.
A US Senator alone does not make the America's foreign policy, and working against the policies of the United States in collaboration with foreign officials. . .well. . .there are words that come to mind to describe this behavior, but I want to be civil towards the Senator.
But let me be less blunt. Should we require Senator DeMint to register with the Foreign Agents Registration office at the Department of Justice?
I don't think this is a violation of the Logan Act any more than it was a violation for Nancy Pelosi to meet with members of the Syrian government. But at least that was a recognized world body.
The President and Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry tried to block the trip, but Mitch McConnell intervened, and DeMint and three House Republicans - Reps. Aaron Schock (IL), Peter Roskam (IL) and Doug Lamborn (CO) - will attend the meeting.
DeMint calls it a fact-finding mission. But he has been blocking two Obama Administration nominees for Latin American foreign policy in protest of the Honduras policy. Clearly, the Senator is intervening in an area of international diplomacy for naked political reasons. DeMint's response to that is interesting for a variety of reasons:
"Sen. DeMint cannot prevent Sen. Reid from bringing the nominees to the floor, he can have a vote at any time. Sen. DeMint has objected to unanimous consent," said Denton, also adding: "In fact that's all you can do. In the Senate when, someone says you're holding up a bill or a nominee, what one Senator can object to is passage by unanimous consent. No one Senator can stop the Senate working the majority of its will through 60 votes.
I hope the Democrats recognize that when it comes to health care.
I don't see anything legally wrong with DeMint's trip. From the standpoint of foreign policy, it's damaging and corrosive - and there was a time when members of political parties saw themselves as Americans first and party regulars second.
...And you can extend this out to the nonsensical Olympics controversy. As Alan Grayson said today, "Someone should remind them what team they're on." Actually, I think they know. Team GOP.
This is a very important article by Ian Millhiser for The American Prospect. Conservatives have found a new Amendment in the Bill of Rights to glorify, making a grand total of two, as they trash the other eight. Their entire Constitutional theory now rests on the tenth Amendment.
Almost a year after she called for an investigation to discover which members of Congress are "anti-American," Minnesota's nuttiest lawmaker is back. In a recent appearance with Fox's Sean Hannity, Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann accused her colleagues of "forg[etting] what the Constitution says" because they are poised to pass comprehensive health-care reform. Not to be outdone, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina told right-wing activists on a conference call last Thursday that health reform violates the 10th Amendment; he also called on state legislators and governors to "champion individual freedom" by resisting the bill. Two Florida lawmakers beat DeMint to the punch, having already introduced legislation to block health reform from taking effect in their state.
These efforts are all part of a movement whose members are convinced that the 10th Amendment of the Constitution prohibits spending programs and regulations disfavored by conservatives. Indeed, while "birther" conspiracy theorists dominate the airwaves with tales of a mystical Kenyan baby smuggled into Hawaii just days after his birth, these "tenther" constitutionalists offer a theory that is no less radical but infinitely more dangerous.
Tentherism, in a nutshell, proclaims that New Deal-era reformers led an unlawful coup against the "True Constitution," exploiting Depression-born desperation to expand the federal government's powers beyond recognition. Under the tenther constitution, Barack Obama's health-care reform is forbidden, as is Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The federal minimum wage is a crime against state sovereignty; the federal ban on workplace discrimination and whites-only lunch counters is an unlawful encroachment on local businesses.
I guess the words "to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States" don't appear in their pocket Constitutions.
Really, there's nothing new about Tentherism - it's basically nullification prettied up for the 21st century. But of course, nullification was a prelude to eventual secession and Civil War. It's not completely out of bounds to see us headed in that direction.
When George Bush sought to take money out of people's paychecks and deposit them in private retirement accounts, that was fine. Only when a Democrat takes office can the majority of actions of the federal government be seen as not only misguided, but actually in violation of the Constitution. Because conservatives consider it against the natural order of things for them not to control the government and distribute its Treasury to their favored corporate interests, a circumstance with them out of control must be criminal in nature.
This is an outgrowth of the right-wing populism we've seen in reaction to a recession and the uneasiness people feel with job insecurity and an uncertain economic future.
Today, however, the tenthers tap into the same populist outrage that inspired a generation of working-class religious conservatives to enthusiastically vote against their own interests. Fox News star Glenn Beck exhorts his audience to "be a constitutional watchdog for America" by lining up against health-care reform, cap-and-trade legislation, and the stimulus package. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who enthusiastically backed a tenther "state sovereignty resolution," told a right-wing radio host that he is "willing and ready for the fight if this administration continues to try to force their very expansive government philosophy down our collective throats." Tenther-inspired claims that federal spending violates the Constitution are so common at "tea party" protests that it is impossible to tell where the tenthers end and the tea baggers begin.
In other words, it is all but certain that tenthers will play a significant role in selecting the GOP's presidential nominee in 2012. And if that nominee wins, the tenthers could even come to dominate the administration in the same way that the religious right set its hooks into George W. Bush.
This is the inevitable point where all the anti-government rhetoric of the post-Reagan years was bound to go. Tenthers literally want a government that cannot govern, period. And the movement is growing. Ultimately, this is where the teabaggers meet up with the corporate interests who would thrive in an era of no regulation and no ability for the government to use their power.
But, you know, liberals are the Constitutional "activists."
The LA Times has an article out about Congressional health benefits that fails to delineate between the recipients of those benefits. Congressional staffers work long hours and a great majority of them make next to nothing. These benefits are excellent, but they'd probably be happy to give them up in exchange for a bump in salary.
The lawmakers themselves have less of an excuse. Their salaries are fixed but the great majority of them are rich beyond belief. If you means-tested health benefits for members of Congress at, say, $1 million dollars net worth, you'd capture close to every member of the Senate and a good bit of the House.
Really only one Congressman, Steve Kagen (D-WI), can speak with any authority about this issue:
The Wisconsin Democrat has refused to accept federal healthcare benefits, making him the only member of Congress to do without. He will continue, he said in an interview, until every American can enjoy the same coverage as federal lawmakers.
Kagen recently had knee surgery, writing checks for more than $4,500 after bargaining for a reduced-rate MRI and a 50% discount on the operation. (He is still dickering over the hospital bill.)
"If every member of Congress put their heads on their pillow every night like I do . . . knowing this could be the night I lose my house, we'd fix healthcare in a week," said Kagen, who spent decades as a doctor in the Green Bay area before winning office in 2006.
Kagen said his wife and three of his four children have health coverage. But not his oldest daughter, 28, who can't afford insurance.
She's a nurse in Miami.
I don't think a guy who practiced medicine for decades before landing a job with a comfortable six-figure salary is actually in danger of losing his house (and how did he bargain for a discount surgery? Can I do that?), his point is fairly obvious. And the punch line, about the daughter who can't afford health insurance while a practicing nurse, is devastating.
Meanwhile, morons like Jim DeMint feel comfortable opening their yap every day about health care, not only while having done nothing for the American people in all the years Republicans were in power, but while accepting generous subsidies from the taxpayer for their own health insurance.
Amazing what comes out of the mouths of retiring Republican Senators once they no longer have to depend on the base for their political survival:
Too many conservative senators like Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) are to blame for the GOP's downfall, one of their retiring Republican colleagues complained Monday.
"We got too many Jim DeMints and Tom Coburns," Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) told the Columbus Dispatch. "It's the southerners."
Voinovich, a native Clevelander who retires after the 2010 election, continued after the southern elements of the GOP.
"They get on TV and go 'errrr, errrrr,'" he said. "People hear them and say, 'These people, they're southerners. The party's being taken over by southerners. What they hell they got to do with Ohio?'"
Markos sez that this is largely factual, that the interests of the South do not match the interests of the country and a political party overcome by regional elements will inevitably have problems. But I think Voinovich is being a bit too clever here. What has he really stood up to his party about over the last several years? He temporarily blocked John Bolton's confirmation. That's about all I can think of.
Indeed, if you look at Jim DeMint's solution for health care, it doesn't have a regional bias, but reflects the standard conservative talking point about the free market.
DeMint offered the usual line on health care: free markets will solve all. And he pushed especially hard for letting insurance companies sell across state lines, which he claimed would make insurance affordable for everyone.
This is a teachable moment; I think it helps get at the heart of what’s wrong with free-market approaches [...]
The reason we have restrictions on interstate sales of health insurance is that a number of states regulate insurers. In particular, some states have a form of community rating, which basically says that insurers can’t deny you coverage or charge extremely high premiums if you have a preexisting condition. And community rating will be unsustainable if individuals can buy insurance from out of state; insurance companies in states that don’t have community rating will cherry-pick the healthy, good risk people, leaving the community rating states with only the highest-cost people.
Now, you might say that’s fine: if you’re a bad risk, you don’t get insurance. But politicians never say that in public, because most voters feel that their fellow citizens shouldn’t be denied health care. So the way this is always presented is that effective competition will make insurance so cheap that everyone can afford it [...]
So when you hear people like DeMint — or conservative economists — preach the wonders of a market-based health care system, bear in mind that this is what it would look like: an America in which nobody who has ever had a major health problem, or had a minor health problem that for some reason bothers the insurance company, can get coverage. Believing that it would turn out otherwise is the triumph of ideology over experience.
DeMint believes unfettered markets can cure health care, when they cannot. But would that be at odds with the approach of the Business Roundtable, or the Chamber of Commerce or any of a dozen or more think tanks?
Southerners may have a different style than a George Voinovich, but they are all selling the same policies. Maybe the Southern rump does it with a little more flair and a lot more religion. But they fundamentally have a conservative set of mantras, and they don't deviate. Sen. Voinovich wants to deflect blame for the failure of these policies, but we shouldn't let him.
When Jim DeMint is pleased about anything you've done in Congress, look out country. That's the effect of Harry Reid's statement today, putting off a final vote on a health care bill until after the August recess. In addition to this being potentially bad for the policy, although I'm not convinced of that, the politics are terrible, as Ezra Klein noted in a WaPo chat today.
Point Pleasant, NJ: So what are the odds of getting health care reform out of the House and Senate by the August recess? And will they postpone the recess until it gets done?
Ezra Klein: Out of the House? Quite high. Out of the Senate? That's where things get trickier. And I think that's a real shame. The problem here, incidentally, is not the date but the recess. Right now, all the committees are working, talking, in the groove on this. To take a month off when they're nearing the finish line? It's nuts.
I don't think the odds in the House are particularly high unless the Senate Finance Committee releases its bill soon.
The President has the ability to focus attention on this. Today in Cleveland, he said in reaction to Reid's call for delay, "That's okay. I just want people to keep on working. Just keep working." The crowd cheered. And if that can be translated into a call to stop the recess and continue to work toward a solution, that would be great. An Administration aide told CNN today that "Reid's announcement does not change Obama's timetable, with the president still wanting House and Senate votes before the upcoming recess." The only way to do that is with no recess.
It makes no sense politically to leave town and slow momentum on this bill. It plays right into the hands of the obstructionists.
The strategizing of how to sell health care reform does kind of fascinate me. The Obama Administration has learned - perhaps too well - the lessons of 1994, and have repeated the mantra of "You can keep what you have, you can keep what you have". But that doesn't offer a stake for that group of people in any reform.
Current bills would expand the number of insured — but 90 percent of voters already have insurance. Congressional leaders say the bills would cut costs. But experts are dubious. Instead, they point out that covering the uninsured would cost billions.
So the typical person watching from afar is left to wonder: What will this project mean for me, besides possibly higher taxes [...]
Our health care system is engineered, deliberately or not, to resist change. The people who pay for it — you and I — often don’t realize that they’re paying for it. Money comes out of our paychecks, in withheld taxes and insurance premiums, before we ever see it. It then flows to doctors, hospitals and drug makers without our realizing that it was our money to begin with.
The doctors, hospitals and drug makers use the money to treat us, and we of course do see those treatments. If anything, we want more of them. They are supposed to make us healthy, and they appear to be free. What’s not to like?
The immediate task facing Mr. Obama — in his news conference on Wednesday night and beyond — is to explain that the health care system doesn’t really work the way it seems to. He won’t be able to put it in such blunt terms. But he will need to explain how a typical household, one that has insurance and thinks it always will, is being harmed.
This is a vexing problem, and buying off stakeholders so that they could protect some of their profits doesn't help. But there is a way to sell this to the public. First of all, we can say that the current system is broken. With no reform, premiums will continue to rise, with lower and lower quality. The second point is one of security. When people lose their jobs, they in many cases lose their health care. COBRA is too expensive to be a fix. You cannot move from one job to another seamlessly and keep your health care. You are at the mercy of employers in an inefficient system for delivering insurance. Providing stability to the system, so that you know you are covered, and you know the costs won't rise so much that they'll break you - 60% of all bankruptcies are from medical bills - is deeply sought. Nancy Pelosi stressed this today.
Do you need more time?
You don't need more time. The time is now. People have been waiting so long for this. I had a friend who was getting married, I said "You're getting married, I didn't know about all this!" She said, "I need health benefits."
And the third way is to show Republicans as simply going about obstruction for political purposes. You hate to go back to the "accountability moment," but that's pretty true. Voters asked for change last November, and they did not want their President to face a "Waterloo" within the first year. Particularly because of the dangers of the status quo. Pelosi, again:
We have to assume that the Republicans share our value that all Americans should have health-care coverage. But the Republicans know that passing real health-care reform that is meaningful to the American people is politically powerful. And they must stop it. It's the most noticeable initiative Congress can take to improve the lives of the American people, and they must stop it [...] I would imagine there were some Republicans who felt some discomfort at [Jim DeMint's comments that this could defeating health-care reform could "break" Obama], because he blew their cover.
I think if the President goes out tonight and adds all that into his formulation of a pitch, we'll have something. And a speck of righteous anger wouldn't hurt.
...and of course, the idea of choice should be foregrounded:
Of course, then you're in a place where you need to explain exactly how the reforms will make health care cheaper. And the answer is that they won't in the next few years. Take-home pay will not increase in 2014 because of health-care reforms. But they're a start. That's the correct answer. But it's not an exciting answer. And it asks people to endure a measurable short-term harm in the hopes of a speculative long-term gain. That doesn't work out so well.
For that reason, I keep coming back to this idea of choice. When even RNC Chairman Michael Steele doesn't have a choice in health-care insurance, you're dealing with a world in which you could really help them out by giving them access to options. That's why I'm so enamored of Ron Wyden's idea. But there are no silver bullets. It's taken a long time to get health care to this place. It'll take at least a bit of time to get it to a better place. But patience is not one of the political system's virtues.
Voinovich Admits GOP Opposes Health Care Reform For Political Reasons
George Voinovich is retiring from Congress next year, and I guess that means he can feel free to let a few things slip out. In this clip from CNBC, he admits what we've known all along - that opposition to the President is driving opposition to health care reform. Republicans know that if a Democratic President expands access to health care more than any time since Medicare, and lowers individual costs for most people, he will reap rewards. So their strategy, as revealed previously by internal memos and Jim "Waterloo" DeMint, is to obstruct reform to deny the President a "win", thusly turning the uninsured and the poor into pawns in a political game.
Most of Voinovich's remarks are of the fiscal scold variety, claiming that we cannot afford the cost of government (something I forget hearing from Voinovich when he voted to authorize a war in Iraq that cost three trillion dollars), but here's the key moment at around 4:25:
QUESTIONER: ...on health care, how much of this disagreement with the Administration is about the policy of health care and how to fix it, and how much of it is Republicans' obvious and understandable desire to declaw the President politically? How much of that does fit into the equation.
VOINOVICH: I think it's about 50/50, but I will tell you this...
He then claims that some Republicans want to work "on a bipartisan basis" on health care, but that's pretty much the death knell right there.
Democrats are right to jump all over this and expose the GOP as obstructionists. We've known this for some time with the record number of filibusters, but haven't gotten it out to the public. On a high-profile issue like health care, it should be radioactive to obstruct for political reasons and deny millions of people the right to have quality, affordable care.
If these geniuses in the GOP end up winning this fight on health care, we should all give up. Because look at the intellectual rigor they bring to the debate.
CNN: What type of health insurance do you have? Do you get that through the RNC?
STEELE: Yup, through my employer.
CNN: What company is it?
STEELE: Uhh. BlueCross BlueShield, I believe. Or maybe not.
Elsewhere today, Steele names four policies that would reduce health care costs, former GOP Congressman Joe Scarborough calls him out for being full of crap, and Steele treats him like his dad telling him he can't borrow the car.
"Spare me." Hilarious.
Elsewhere, Jim DeMint thinks he came up with a cunning plan by deliberately stating Republican strategy to use the lives of the uninsured as a proxy to "beat" Obama.
These guys make me pine for Ronald Reagan. He was wrong, but at least he had an original point (at the time) and could speak in complete sentences (again, at the time).
Seriously, if we don't end up running circles around these guys, we're really sunk.
I had a chance to participate in a conference call with President Barack Obama and some bloggers today about the health care debate. Clearly the very fact of this conference call's existence shows that the White House is leaving no stone unturned in searching for allies to help sell reform, and that the President is ready to step forward in this debate. That's a good thing. He still has enough political capital to manage the process where he wants it to go, and if he wants certain elements of the policy included in the final bill, provided that there is a final bill, I wouldn't bet against them getting in there. And the result of the conference call was interesting.
The President spoke for a few minutes, then took about 15 minutes of direct questions. In his opening remarks, he said that now was a critical time for the bill, and that we're closer to passage than we've been in the last 50 years. Those who are opposing have offered no credible alternative but the status quo, which he termed "unacceptable". He hoped that the blogs would help him in "debunking myths," for example the notion that this bill, which is entirely paid for as a package, would spread record deficits. He said that the default position in Washington is one of inertia, and that pressure must be kept on members of Congress - not Republicans, but members of Congress - to move the process forward. He made sure to highlight - as did David Axelrod in a short Q&A afterwards - the words of Sen. Jim DeMint, calling health care Obama's "Waterloo." Clearly that will be used by the White Hosue as a badge of honor and a rallying cry in the weeks ahead, because it evokes the same concept as the leader of the GOP Rush Limbaugh saying he hopes Obama fails.
With that, the President took questions, and it was truly unlike most press conferences you'd see by the heavily pancaked White House press corps. Bloggers wanted to know about two things - the tactics for getting a bill through, and the substance of that bill. For example, John Amato from C&L asked if the President would call on Congress to forego the August recess if they didn't reach a floor vote by the deadline, which the President pretty much dodged. He acknowledged that we cannot delay any further and that we've been debating this for 50 years, and that those who are calling for delay are doing so deliberately in order to kill any hope of passage, but he would only commit himself to working as hard as we can to see "serious forward motion" by the recess, and never fully answered what I think could be a good tactic Amato brought up, to ask the Congress to finish their work and keep reform on track. In a similar kind of question about reconciliation, Jonathan Singer from MyDD asked at what point we move to using budget reconciliation if a Senate bill stalls, and the President kept that stick of reconciliation in his back pocket, saying that they expect a bill by mid-October, but failing that, "we'd look at all options including reconciliation." He admitted that reconciliation wasn't the preferred option but that the status quo cannot continue. That speaks very well to the probability that something will pass this year.
What I wanted to ask about was something that Robert Reich wrote about today. The White House and Congress have made all these deals with key stakeholders, which do provide for hospitals, drug companies and doctors to give back some profits, but preserve additional costs that could be wrung from the system. And these "legacy costs" are making it very hard to provide the kind of controls that reformers seek and Blue Dogs pay lip service to.
Big Pharma, for example, is in line to get just what it wants. The Senate health panel’s bill protects biotech companies from generic competition for 12 years after their drugs go to market, which is guaranteed to keep prices sky high. Meanwhile, legislation expected from the Senate Finance committee won't allow cheaper drugs to be imported from Canada and won't give the federal government the right to negotiate Medicare drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies. Last month Big Pharma agreed to what the White House touted as $80 billion in givebacks to help pay for expanded health insurance, but so far there's been no mechanism to force the industry to keep its promise. No wonder Big Pharma is now running "Harry and Louise" ads -- the same couple who fifteen years ago scared Americans into thinking the Clinton plan would take away their choice of doctor -- now supportive of Obamacare. Private insurers, for their part, have become convinced they'll make more money with a universal mandate accompanied by generous subsidies for families with earnings up to 400 percent of poverty (in excess of $80,000 of income) than they might stand to lose. Although still strongly opposed to a public option, the insurance industry is lining up behind much of the legislation. The biggest surprise is the AMA, which has also now come out in favor -- but only after being assurred that Medicare reimbursements won't be cut nearly as much as doctors first feared.
But all these industry giveaways are obviously causing the healthcare tab to grow. And as these long-term costs rise, the locus of opposition to universal health care is shifting away from industry and toward Blue Dog and moderate Democrats who are increasingly worried about future deficits.
I asked the President about this tension between these buyoffs to stakeholders and his goal to "bend the cost curve" and make health care cheaper and more effective in this country, and here's a paraphrased version of his answer.
I cannot expect the hospital association, for example, to sign up for something they don't think is right for hospitals and exepct them to back reform. So I understand what they're doing to protect their interests. I think we can negotiate and find a good way to go about this. In theory we could cram down additional savings, but to have the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, the drugmakers, the insurance companies, all of them on our team, that does help us move the process forward. Theoretically, there should be enormous savings inside the system. We all know that we pay more for health care than we should, and we shouldn't need additional revenue. But that's harder to do in practice, because all these powerful interests block the efforts. What I think is that we can get a framework where reform begins, one with an insurance exchange, and a robust public option, concrete reductions in cost, prevention, health IT, comparative effectiveness research, and it will be possible to achieve greater savings with a more efficient system down the road. And we can revisit the policy 10 years from now and possibly see even more savings than what was scored and anticipated.
I found that to be both a decent and a deeply unsatisfying answer. I understand that you don't want the stakeholders bringing in the Howitzers and seeding massive attacks against any reform, so keeping them on the same side is important. At the same time, with these groups bought off, and indeed knowing that they will get an ultimately good deal from Washington, the transition from the broken system we have to that theoretical one that Obama discussed gets delayed. I agree about getting a framework in place, something to tweak down the road. But we spend so much time in our politics bowing to powerful interests that it's very frustrating to concede that as a political reality. Especially when drugmakers and insurance companies are pretty reviled in the populace (though doctors really are not). Obama seems to know that there's an easy path for real reform, but it's complicated by a real control from special interests of the levers of the political debate. So we keep the dogs at bay, but in the process, we don't reform health care to the extent that we could. That animates the "if you like what you have, you can keep it" mantra (even if what you have is ultimately inefficient), and these deals with stakeholders. Then the fiscal scolds can talk about how the bill costs too much even while resisting those cost control methods because they would hurt these same stakeholders! It's maddening.
There is a bright spot, however. Obama went pretty far in support of a public option, a fairly tangible reform effort, on the call. He doubted the evidence that a co-op plan like that pushed by Kent Conrad would work, citing past experience that showed them having trouble getting off the ground. And he then said that the House and Senate bills would not be identical, that a conference committee would certainly be required. And at that point, the White House would engage in serious negotiations, with the President's fundamental principles and benchmarks in place. The House and Senate bills would not match up exactly, but that would not mean that the final bill wouldn't include certain elements, he essentially said. The President was basically saying: get it to conference, and we'll straighten it out. That probably doesn't mean that the President gets everything he wants, but it means that the big issues will be at his determination and discretion, almost certainly.
I think that's an important reminder. Past White Houses have used the conference committee very effectively to make sure bills matched preferences. Obama signaled his willingness to do that. Which means that, while we can have a role in getting this bill through each chamber, the White House will be able to make their presence felt to a degree at the finish line. In effect, he will take ownership of the policy and ensure it beats the status quo.
Take a look at this ad from America's Health Insurance Plans, the insurance industry lobby.
See what's missing? The words "public option." Or really, any attack on the current plan in Congress at all. The spot associates AHIP with a reform banning denial of coverage for pre-existing condition in exchange for getting every American covered, gently asks for the final bill to be bipartisan, and... that's it.
Similarly, Olympia Snowe, who signed on to the letter calling for a delay in the deadline for reporting a health care bill out of the Senate, positively called for a public option on day one in a speech this weekend in Maine.
What this shows me is that we have now moved beyond the public option as the fulcrum point for the health care debate. We don't know what form it will take or how accessible it will be to all Americans, but if there's a bill signed by the President, it will include a public option. The major players have given up on that score and moved on to other issues to try and derail health care, particularly costs. We've seen much more criticism about cost controls and surtaxes on the wealthy over the last week than any discussion of the public option.
That's because those other facets of the policy don't poll very well, certainly not as well as a public option does. And the forces defending the status quo have found a much easier path by arguing for more delay, raising questions about costs, claiming that Democrats are engaging in class warfare, raising specters about rationing, and generally using that fiscal scold pose, saying we cannot pay for health care reform while protecting federal health care funding for their districts and localities. On the far right fringe you have lies about how the bill "outlaws private insurance," but in general, the status quo forces think they can trap the bill with a discussion about its cost, not its function.
Of course, the larger effort here is to destroy the Democratic agenda and basically ensure a first term without substantive accomplishments. And Obama is right to use Jim DeMint's "Waterloo" line against him, make it famous, and condemn those who would turn an urgent need for tens of millions of Americans into a game of political hardball:
Just the other day, one Republican Senator said, and I’m quoting him now, “if we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” Think about that. This isn’t about me. This isn’t about politics. This about a health care system that is breaking America’s families, breaking America’s businesses and breaking America’s economy. And we can’t afford the politics of delay and defeat when it comes to health care. Not this time, not now. There are too many lives and livelihoods at stake.
What we may see is a brief scaling back on the deadline, which should still leave enough time to report a bill out of both houses in September and reconcile them by October. But the fights ahead for health care appear to be playing out over cost and who pays. The public option is in the bill, as long as it gets dragged over the line.
David Broder's paean to bipartisanship yesterday was pretty funny. Funny in an "what version of Earth in the DC multiverse is this guy living on" fashion.
Some consider Obama's wooing of Republicans a rookie mistake, a measure of his naivete. Others focus on the Republicans and fault them for obduracy in denying Obama all but three of their votes on the stimulus bill. The critics agree that the effort at bipartisanship should end.
I hope Obama isn't listening. It's the worst advice he has received.
It starts from a false premise: that the stimulus bill proves the failure of outreach to Republicans. In fact, had Obama not negotiated successfully with Republican Sens. Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter and met most of their terms, his bill would have died. This was a success for bipartisanship, not a failure.
Morone's history also is false. To prove that bipartisanship has never existed, he has to skip over Harry Truman's success with a Republican Congress on the Marshall Plan, Lyndon Johnson's forging the great civil rights acts with Sen. Everett Dirksen and Rep. Bill McCulloch, and Ronald Reagan's steering his first budget and tax bill through a Democratic House.
But the real reason Obama should ignore this advice is that he will need Republican votes to pass the remaining parts of his program. When it comes to energy, regional and commodity interests will inevitably divide the Democrats. They always do. Oil, coal, natural gas and consumer groups will exert their will. If Obama writes off the Republicans in advance, he will end up with a watered-down bill -- or nothing.
It's useless to argue with Broderella, but nevertheless...
Never mind the fact that he has to go far back in history, when Dixiecrats still existed and the parties were ideologically jumbled, to prove his fantasy. He really manages to define bipartisanship in this one, doesn't he? Meeting most of the terms enforced by conservatives is the new working definition. And he demands that the President give in to the terms of Republicans in the same way to pass his agenda.
The parties disagree. These days they violently disagree. And the public has pretty much made their decision on who to support.
According to a new AP poll, voters are assigning blame to gridlock -- and they're blaming Republicans. Asked whether Obama was doing enough to cooperate with the Republicans, 62 percent said he was. Asked if the Republicans were doing enough to cooperate with Obama, 64 percent said they weren't.
Republicans now run the risk of being blamed for their own irrelevance. The stimulus bill passed without their votes and that's being seen as evidence of their intransigence, not Obama's. Bipartisanship is being measured by through the evident intention's of the players, not the final tally on the bill. If this normalizes -- if Americans begin to expect that the GOP won't cooperate and so Obama can't be expected to win their votes -- you'll have a situation where Obama can reach out to them on entirely on his terms because it doesn't matter if the outreach actually succeeds. If the President asked Mithc McConnell to help him pass Medicare-for-All, it's hardly the President's fault if McConnell refuses. And that will lead the GOP totally, and unsympathetically, marginalized.
In fact, Republicans are starting to actually be blamed for their own policy ideas, and are desperately trying to run away from them. Jim Tedisco, the candidate in the New York Congressional special election to replace Sen. Gillibrand, refuses to answer the question of whether or not he supports the stimulus even though the answer is obvious. Rep. Joseph Cao, who beat Dollar Bill Jefferson in Louisiana, is now facing a potential recall as a cause of his vote against the stimulus. This is not a function of whether one side or the other is bipartisan enough, it's that the public has generally discovered that they really don't like Republicans.
Parties disagree. They have a particular platform and they are expected to uphold it. The electorate looks at each side and makes a decision. If they don't like the results they can choose the alternative later. It's called democracy. I don't think David Broder believes in it.
Hale "Bonddad" Stewart explains why we need a stimulus, and in turn explains what "stimulus" means. It's been successfully framed by the right as a tax cut and nothing else, but that's completely bogus, so it's important to break down what's happened to the economy and why extraordinary measures must be taken. There are a lot of graphs showing the historically low data points on the economy, and then:
Let's look at this from another angle. The equation for GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is Consumer spending (C) + Investment (I) + Net Exports (E) + Government Spending (G) = GDP.
We've already covered personal consumption. It's dropping hard and fast (see the chart above). As for total private domestic investment, consider the following percentage changes from the preceding quarter starting in the 4th quarter of 2007: (-)11.9%, (-)5.8%, (-)11.5%, 0.4%, (-)12.3%. Because the US is a net importer the exports part of the equation is moot. That means the only thing holding up the US economy is government spending. And considering the mammoth drops in investment and consumer spending in the latest report (-12.3% and -3.5%, respectively) neither of these numbers appears ready to turnaround anytime soon.
There are some Republicans who are arguing that tax cuts are the answer. But there are several problems with that. The first is tax cuts were advertised as an engine of job creation in 2003 and we got one of the lowest rates of job creation on record [...]
In addition, recent history demonstrates that tax cuts will go to savings and paying down debt rather than consumption. In addition, there is little reason for business to invest in production right now.
That leaves pure spending [...] There's an old maxim in business: you've got to spend money to make money. That's where we are now as a country. We've exhausted the possibilities of the buy everything you can on the planet school of economic thought. We're in debt up to out eyeballs -- we are in fact choking on all of the debt we have wrapped up in consumption. We need to change models. That means we need to invest in new technologies and improve our basic infrastructure to attract and support this new business. It's really that simple.
Let me add one other tangible way to prove that government spending is all that's left: the buildup of unused goods in warehouses and stock rooms.
Consumers didn't consume, businesses didn't invest, overseas buyers of American goods didn't buy and unsold products piled up in warehouses in the final months of last year. Those factors combined to drive the economy to its weakest quarter in nearly three decades and signaled that the worst is still to come.
New government data showing that the economy contracted at a 3.8 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter was not as grim as economists had forecast. But the data on gross domestic product, released yesterday by the Commerce Department, were a portrait of an economy in a deep and broadening recession. Business inventories swelled as consumer appetites waned, suggesting that companies will cut their excess stockpiles and curtail new orders this year, pulling down growth in the months ahead.
There's no consumption, no investment, and no trade. Lump-sum payments to consumers will pay down debt and do nothing for the economy. Government spending is the only answer. This is not being done to fulfill a Democratic wish list, it's being done because we have no choice.
We need better surrogates on the stimulus, like Barney Frank, who made some crucial points yesterday on ABC.
DeMint: Let's not say it's a stimulus when it's a government spending plan. All of the things, the needs in our society, education, these are things we debate every year.
Frank: Spending can be stimulus. I don't understand.
DeMint: It's the largest spending bill in history and we're trying to call it a stimulus.
Frank: The largest spending bill in history is going to turn out to be the one in Iraq. If we're going to talk about spending, I have a problem when we leave out that extraordinary expensive, damaging war in Iraq, which has caused much more harm than good in my judgment. I don't understand from my conservative friends, building a road, building a school, helping to get health care, that's wasteful spending. But that war in Iraq, that's going to cost us over a trillion dollars, yeah, I wish we hadn't done that we would have been in a lot better shape fiscally.
Yes. Defense spending is not magical, and federal spending is stimulus. In fact that's ALL it is.
One way to start being a positive surrogate is to call your representative. According to reports, calls are running overwhelmingly against the stimulus on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers use that as an indicator of the relative popularity of legislation. Rush's minions are out-organizing us on this point. The number for the Capitol switchboard is (202) 224-3121. If you think the American economy is worth saving, call all of your representatives in Washington. The details are up to you, but you might want to tell them that they need to pass something that spends because nobody else will.
I thought that John McCain was trying to dispense with the roll call, but the Senate just confirmed Hillary Clinton as the next Secretary of State of the United States by a 94-2 vote. Freedom Fighter Jim DeMint and David Vitter voted no. Vitter is up for re-election in 2010, and it seems to me that the PUMAs now have their activism target.
Now, of course, David Paterson has to actually pick a successor. He says he has someone in mind but wants to think it over for a little while longer. Hey, no hurry!
It's hardly worth pointing out that conservatives like Jim DeMint think they're noble freedom fighters saving the world from the grip of socialism. Incidentally that's verbatim.
"We have to have a remnant of the Republican Party who are recognizable as freedom fighters," Mr. DeMint said. "What I'm looking to do as a conservative leader in the Senate is to identify those Republicans, and even some Democrats, and put together a consensus of people who can help stop this slide toward socialism."
DeMint is out of his gourd, but he's not really the problem. The problem is that Barack Obama remains committed to securing the votes of people like this and will weaken his own legislation in an effort to do so.
President-elect Obama and his advisers are resisting attempts to include a provision in the economic stimulus bill backed by congressional Democrats that would allow bankruptcy judges to shrink mortgages.
In a hastily convened Democratic Caucus meeting last week, Obama economics adviser Jason Furman made it clear to lawmakers that Obama thinks the so-called “cramdown” provision would cost GOP votes and endanger bipartisan support in the Senate.
He committed to dealing with the issue after the bill passes, as did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Lead supporters of the cramdown provision say the time to deal with the issue is now. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said it’s worth losing some Republican support to help homeowners.
“I would take that risk,” Nadler said. “I don’t think you’re going to get a lot of Republican votes anyway.”
Exactly. "Cramdown" would allow bankruptcy judges to restructure the amount owed on a home in a way that would give lenders and homeowners the impetus to modify terms of the loan. The lenders take a haircut but it's a better situation for them than a foreclosure, and those who get to keep their homes can continue to contribute to the economy. It's a great idea and a major step toward reforming the hideous 2005 bankruptcy bill.
The reason Obama wants it out of the recovery seems purely ideological. He has made a fetish of bipartisan support, and will not risk a few votes on the margins to limit foreclosures now. And what buy-in on this "grand bargain" has he received from the business community? Surprise, calls for more tax cuts.
And anyone who thought K Street would stop seeking its share of the stimulus pie after convincing Democrats to add the mysteriously named "net operating loss carryback" to the stimulus ... well, you'd be wrong. K Street wants more tax breaks for businesses -- and the latest one is called the "cancellation of indebtedness (COI) waiver."
The second half of this Journal article explains the COI tax break well. Essentially, any company buying up its own outstanding debt at a discount price -- which usually means a private equity firm that has taken over a struggling corporation -- the purchaser of debt has to pay taxes on the amount of debt it forgives. If I buy up your $100 debt at a discount of $40, leaving you on the hook to me for $60, the cancelled $40 of debt is still taxable.
The Chamber of Commerce, and 35 other trade associations in the home building and retail sectors, are seeking a COI waiver that would allow cancelled debt to be tax-free.
Here's some more recommendations from those nice fellows at the Chamber of Commerce (who essentially have their hands up the asses of half the Republicans in Washington, if not more). They're concerned about the "balance" of tax and spending provisions and would like it awfully so much if the businesses they represent could be handed bagfuls of money. Isn't the era of comity grand?
The Chamber believes that a truly effective stimulus package must have the proper balance of tax and spending provisions to trigger near-term economic growth while underpinning long-term economic growth. The Chamber supports the tax relief provisions in H.R. 598 [...] However, in sum, the Chamber believes that the tax provisions in H.R. 598 are simply too small to have the desired impact.
In addition to tax relief for debt repurchase, the Chamber believes other provisions could also ease the liquidity problems plaguing the economy. Notably, the Chamber supports:
Temporarily allowing foreign subsidiary earnings of U.S. companies to be repatriated at a reduced tax rate would ease liquidity challenges, relieve stress on the commercial paper market, help companies meet funding requirements in employee pension plans, and generally increase available funds. This could be achieved while generating revenue for the Treasury.
Making TARP funds available to expand access to the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF) for "Tier 2" commercial paper would ease liquidity problems, thereby thwarting unnecessary job loss and enabling companies to better meet their working capital needs. Making TARP funds available to capitalize a Federal Reserve liquidity facility for new commercial mortgages and unsecured commercial real estate loans to permit commercial real estate credit markets to restart and clear in an orderly fashion.
Lease newly-available offshore oil and gas resources on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), which could yield as much as $1.3 trillion in new royalty income to the federal government, create more than 75,000 new jobs, and reduce the cost of H.R. 598.
Reduce the corporate capital gains rate to 15% to encourage unlocking of appreciated assets held by companies. This would generate substantial tax revenues for the government and provide much needed capital that would be redeployed more efficiently into the economy.
Oh, and they think that all environmental laws should be eliminated so that infrastructure projects can begin "without delay." And they aren't much into expanding health care eligibility for COBRA because it would "impose significant administrative burden on and economic costs to employers."
Wednesday, a group of House Republicans will argue that Obama’s Hill colleagues haven’t embraced his vision of shared sacrifice, arguing that Democratic leaders cut the GOP out of negotiations over the new administration’s first big bill.
Some members of the group, organized by Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia and Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, are upset that Democrats abruptly canceled a meeting last week with Republicans before unveiling the $800 billion stimulus. The GOP group has requested to meet with Obama later this week.
Republicans, led by Minority Leader John A. Boehner, complained that Democrats were refusing to work with the GOP on a package that focuses more heavily on tax cuts for middle-class households and small businesses.
Republicans would love Democrats to “sacrifice” some of their power and negotiate.
See, the President said he would bring people together and yet nobody's working with us to eliminate taxes and destroy government.
Obama would be right not to listen to any of this, but he clearly wants to open with a big bipartisan victory. There's a case to be made that giving Republicans and Blue Dogs some ownership of the stimulus would make it easier to go back to them for other important legislation, like re-regulation of the financial sector. But that assumes that Republicans would take that ownership seriously, that they would even allow themselves to vote for this if they didn't get essentially the bill George Bush would sign, and that they care about consistency or coherence. They don't. They care about trench warfare.
Does anyone still believe this "wait until September" claptrap?
The U.S. ground forces commander in Iraq says he might need more time to assess the impact of the new security plan, beyond the September assessment President Bush and the Congress are expecting. Lieutenant General Ray Odierno made the statement Thursday during a news conference via satellite with reporters at the Pentagon. He also spoke about increased efforts to reach out to insurgent groups and a new threat some of his forces are facing as they move into new areas in and around Baghdad.
This is no different than a junkie asking for a few more lines of coke to satisfy his drug fix until he "goes clean for sure." In truth the junkie has no intention of going straight, and neither does the Bush Administration. They're war junkies, and they'll be damned if someone will tell them to get out of the land they worked not hard enough to conquer.
Tell you what, I have no problem giving these guys a few more months, as long as with each extension, we get to send somebody like Paul Wolfowitz over to be the mayor of Baghdad. Maybe after that Sen. Jim DeMint can fill in. After all, the Democrats are such "wimps" by talking about defeat, maybe he can go be the mayor of Baghdad and set an example!
After all, it's easy to be a war junkie, when you're not the one fighting the war.
The Bush Administration and 36 Republican Senators showed their true colors today when they saw fit to hijack our nation's security to ensure that airline screeners remain underpaid and overworked. It is embarrassingly clear that the Republican Party is a party that hates people, and would rather expose them to risk from terrorism than allow them to get ahead. Indeed they save their angriest, most vicious and hateful threats for the working people that built and sustain this country. If Democrats simply let people know about this, raised awareness of the Republican contempt for anyone who gets their hands dirty or cashes a paycheck every week, they would never lose an election again.
President Bush and his Senate allies will kill a Sept. 11 antiterror bill if Congress sends it to the White House with a provision to let airport screeners unionize, the White House and 36 Republicans said Tuesday.
"As the legislation currently stands, the president's senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.
Senate Republicans swiftly backed up the threat with a pledge by more than enough senators to block any veto override attempt.
"If the final bill contains such a provision, forcing you to veto it, we pledge to sustain your veto," they wrote to the president. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., planned to offer an amendment to strip the provision from the bill.
Listen to what the Republicans are saying here. If you allow screeners to collectively bargain with their employers, to give them the opportunity to leverage their labor the same way all federal employees can, to utilize the free market in the same way businesses and governments do every day, we will stop all attempts to make the country more safe.
This is what is less important than the scourage of letting airline screeners unionize:
Other measures in the bill would improve rail and aviation security, provide funds for state and local emergency communications systems, improve intelligence sharing between federal, state and local officials, and expand a visa waiver benefit for favored countries.
The Republicans would rather NOT improve rail and aviation security.
They would rather NOT give funding to state and local emergency communications systems, systems which would be deployed first in the event of any incident or catastrophe, either natural or man-made.
They would rather NOT improve intelligence sharing at all levels.
They would forego all of these efforts to actually make America safer, if it means that a security screener might make $2 more an hour and get better health care. They would rather deprive security screeners who are on the front lines the peace of mind that comes with knowing you can pay your bills.
And this is not isolated. The Bush Administration has vowed to veto The Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow any worker to join a union without fear of intimidation or harrassment or losing their job. The bill will also likely face resistance in the Senate to reach a filibuster-proof majority. The vast majority of Republicans hate people who work. The trade policies they favor sell working people out and eliminate their jobs. The labor policies they favor reward union busting and mass firings of union organizers and sympathizers and practices designed to hinder free choice. The business policies they favor increase the stratification between rich and poor, doling out billions in corporate welfare while shrinking the social safety net. The bankruptcy policies they favor essentially eliminate bankruptcy protections for working people. The health care policies they favor do little more than create tax shelters for the wealthy, doing nothing for the 47 million uninsured. The anti-poverty policies they favor do nothing to alleviate poverty, and indeed have left record numbers of Americans in severe poverty, the highest levels in 32 years, and have created a culture of meanness toward poor people that indirectly leads to things like sport killings of the homeless.
But this is the last straw. The Republicans would make us less safe to guard the bottom line of the corporate paymaster to whom they subcontract out the airline screening operation. They could not stomach the sight of a working man or woman being able to own a house or a car, or provide for their children. They HATE PEOPLE, anyone who works for a living.
Let me show you Michael Chertoff's defense of this absurdity, and while I don't think any commentary is needed I'll provide some.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said that allowing screeners to unionize would impede the department's quick response to possible threats. (because they've been so quick to respond so far -ed.) Fast redeployment of screeners, such as in response to Hurricane Rita and the failed London plot to blow up airliners, cannot wait for negotiations, he said. (see, it's been negotiations slowing them down all along! Or not.)
Chertoff said screeners are as much on the front lines in the war against terror as military troops (and we need to treat them just as badly by depriving them of equipment and health care).
"Marines don't collectively bargain over whether they're going to wind up, you know, being deployed in Anbar province or in Baghdad," (and that's why they're still in Iraq at all, since most of them agree with the American people in wanting redeployment) Chertoff told reporters after a briefing with senators. "We can't negotiate over terms and conditions of work that goes to the heart of our ability to move rapidly in order to deal with the threats that are emerging."
The talking point here is that screeners have to be quickly deployed to places where threats emerge. So they can screen the wreckage, you see. I don't even know what this means. Is the plan to shuttle screeners all around the country when a threat alert goes to red? Are screeners on 24-hour alert?
No, of course not, the answer is explained in one sentence.
Other federal employees have collective bargaining and whistle-blower protection rights.
Other federal employees have the right to organize, and the Republicans want to keep it away from airline screeners. They don't want to have to pay anyone what they're worth. And they'd rather torpedo pending antiterror legislation than do it.
This is an embarrassment that we live in a country where this isn't the only news. Democrats should be talking about this for the next three weeks and shaming these Republicans who put profit over security. The campaign ads should be cut. Democrats are not perfect in this regard; we have our own corporate wing. But Republicans are BOUGHT AND PAID FOR by corporate interests. Anyone who isn't on the side of working people in this country ought to make that fact well-known. And the Democrats can do it for them.
Fortunately, Howard Dean is calling out those who don't support working Americans.
Regardless of where you live or what you do, labor unions are our first line of defense for worker's rights. What do they fight for? Raising the minimum wage. Improving labor standards. Expanding health care benefits. Every day, millions of Americans work hard and play by the rules but are still struggling to get by. Democrats understand the important role that labor unions play to fix this crisis.
Congress is set to debate a bill that will restore American workers' right to freely choose whether or not to form a union. Call on the White House to join the Democratic majority and support the Employee Free Choice Act.
We should be shaming the Republicans at every opportunity with this, over the EFCA and the threatened veto of 9-11 legislation. We have two major parties in this country, and one of them actively hates the vast majority of people who live here.
While the Senate simply must lead on Iraq and Iran, I do have to give them a world of credit for overwhelmingly passing a minimum wage increase today. It includes some tax breaks for small business but not nearly as many as the Republicans initially wanted. The working poor just got a major boost today, and they have deserved it for a decade.
Special thanks go out to Ted Kennedy, who worked tirelessly for this for years.
Tom Coburn (R-OK), Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Jon Kyl (R-AZ), on the other hand, hate working people.
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