Senate Finance Committee Final Vote Delayed

Any guesses as to why this is happening?

Early in the amendment process, the panel agreed not to hold a vote until a preliminary analysis on the legislation's cost-saving potential was available, and it appears as if the CBO will not complete its work until later in the week. That would touch off yet another delay--one that's likely to frustrate Democrats and liberal activists, who've grown impatient over the glacial pace of reform efforts.

Maybe everyone's waiting for the final CBO score. But I have a couple other theories. One is that the Committee needs some time for the White House to twist the arms of Democrats wary of approving the bill for various reasons. Jay Rockefeller and Ron Wyden are particularly upset about the fate of some of their amendments in the markup, and could take it out on the bill. If both of them refuse to support the bill, it won't pass, in all likelihood, unless Olympia Snowe votes for it.

Although Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said he has the votes to pass the 10-year, $900 billion bill out of the committee, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) remained undecided Sunday. If all 10 Republicans on the panel vote no, two Democratic defections would be enough to send Baucus and the Obama White House scrambling to regroup.

"More needs to be done to hold insurance companies accountable, to hold premiums down for the American people," Wyden said in an interview Sunday. "I want to continue these discussions."

Committee defeat of the bill is an unlikely scenario, but one that highlights the power every Senate Democrat -- and perhaps a few Republicans -- holds going forward in a process that could stretch beyond Thanksgiving.

I think Wyden and Rockefeller think they can improve the bill down the road. But the maximum leverage is right now, before the committee vote. So they're withholding their support until they can wring some concessions. Ultimately, Baucus will probably get his votes, but he'll need a little more time. Jon Cohn looks at the five key swing votes on the Committee - Rockefeller and Wyden, plus Bill Nelson, Blanche Lincoln and Olympia Snowe.

I have a guess that there may be another factor, however. Kent Conrad has made no secret of his disdain for the reconciliation possibility. If it did go that route, requiring only 50 votes, we may end up with a bill that, in some key parts, wouldn't even get Conrad's vote. So he's been trying to sabotage it for some time. The more the delays continue, the more that the deadline of October 15 for reconciliation comes into play. Before long, the Senate committees would have to begin that process. Conrad doesn't want that to happen. Neither does Baucus, in all likelihood, since it would lessen the power of his more centrist bill. And they've been delaying ever since. Given that there are so many issues that will need to be decided by the leadership when they merge the bills, the Finance Committee has probably already delayed the vote long enough to make reconciliation an impossibility. Mission accomplished.

The Actual Business Of Health Care

The teabag rallies are theater, but some actual substance has made its way into the health care debate this week.

First of all, the President has openly considered a partisan process to pass health care reform.

President Obama urged Democratic senators on Tuesday to persevere in trying to get a bipartisan deal on health care, but left open the possibility that they might have to pass a bill with only Democratic votes if Republicans stood in the way.

At lunch with Democrats at the White House, Mr. Obama vowed to respond to Republican attacks on his plan, which aims to guarantee insurance for all Americans while slowing the explosive growth of health costs.

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said there was “absolute unity” among members of the normally fractious Democratic conference.

“Everyone recognizes that we are going to do, if there’s any way humanly possible, a bipartisan bill,” Mr. Reid said. “We don’t want to do a partisan bill, and we hope our Republican colleagues acknowledge that. We’ll continue to work with them as long as we have to.”

I take the nods toward bipartisanship is simply what you say. The news here is Obama suggesting they must not be an obstacle. And frankly, it's about time. Chuck Grassley today actually referenced Ted Kennedy's brain tumor to try and whip up a fear of rationing. And he's one of the Republicans in the midst of bipartisan talks! They are simply not bargaining in good faith.

In an interview today with Chuck Todd, Obama reinforced the deadline for those talks in the Senate Finance Committee.

"I am glad that in the Senate Finance Committee, there have been a couple of Republicans--Chuck Grassley, Mike Enzi, Olympia Snowe--who have been willing to negotiate with Democrats to try to produce a bill. But they haven't yet. And I think at some point, sometime in September, we're just going to have to make an assessment."

He says he'd "prefer" a bipartisan process. And I'd prefer dinner every night at Nobu. But I can't get that. So I eat what I can get. Obama's saying the same thing. I think everyone's ready to go to war on this. And you will see arm-twisting to end cloture like you wouldn't imagine.

Meanwhile, Jay Rockefeller is doing a good job savaging the Finance Committee talks, talks which he has been shut out of even though he chairs the Health Subcommittee on the panel. Rockefeller's tough talk will push the debate in that committee to the left, just as liberals in the House are pushing Nancy Pelosi and the leadership to the left and drawing a line on the public option. And the September deadline enforces the whole process, telling Republicans like Grassley they can either have input or watch a bill get passed without them.

That's the theory, anyway, we'll see how it works in practice.

Couple other things. Health Care for America Now has a good report personalizing the health care debate and explaining what reform will bring for every type of family. And the White House has apparently secured a win in the all-important budget nerd battle:

The White House scored a point today in its ongoing battle to convince establishment Washington that health-care reform will succeed at cutting costs even as it expands coverage. The White House and budget director Peter Orszag, as well as the House Blue Dogs, are very bullish about allowing an independent board to pursue cost-cutting measures in Medicare. But when CBO scored the measure to determine if it would be succesful, they produced a very lukewarm estimate. Today, though, a group of health-care experts sent a letter [PDF] to Obama arguing that IMAC, the independent cost-cutting board, would be very effective if done right -- and nine of the signatories are members of the CBO's Panel of Health Advisers, nearly half the membership. It's a good sign for the White House, and will help push the message that, while CBO's scores are important, the assumptions made in that office are not carved in concrete.

The CBO simply should not be the final arbiter on questions that are really outside their purview.

A New Day In Iraq

Not only are the blast walls which divide Baghdad coming down, which separated the city and provided a dreary reminder of life during wartime, but Arabs and Kurds are actually meeting to resolve their differences.

In the first such meeting in a year between the two rivals, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Kurdish President Massoud Barzani pledged Sunday to resolve disputes over land and oil that have threatened to spill into fighting.

The conflict between the Iraqi government and the Kurdish autonomous region is seen as the most dangerous threat to the nation's stability, and U.S. officials have publicly urged both sides to resolve their disputes before most American combat troops complete their withdrawal from Iraq by August 2010.

"The challenges that face the political process require more meetings and cooperation between all Iraqi people," Maliki said Sunday at a news conference with Barzani and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, also a Kurd. "I am very optimistic after this meeting."

The war in Iraq was an unnecessary horror for millions who had their lives disrupted, their families shattered, their friends and neighbors killed. The country is just now returning to some normalcy after the tragedy of war. I hope for their sake it holds.

Dueling Threats

A strange bit of stories coming out of Joe Biden's trip to Iraq yesterday. In the first, the Vice President warned that US troops would bug out if sectarian violence increased.

In meetings with senior Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Biden stressed that the United States would remain engaged in Iraq, even as its military role diminishes in a withdrawal that is expected to dramatically gather pace after parliamentary elections in January.

But a senior administration official briefing journalists said Biden made that support contingent on Iraqi progress in resolving long-standing conflicts, some that bedeviled Iraq even before the United States invaded in March 2003.

If "Iraq were to revert to sectarian violence or engage in ethnic violence, then that's not something that would make it likely that we would remain engaged because, one, the American people would have no interest in doing that, and, as he put it, neither would he nor the president," the official said.

He added that there "wasn't any appetite to put Humpty Dumpty back together again if, by the action of people in Iraq, it fell apart."

I would argue that there's no ability to put Humpty Dumpty back together again is it falls apart. The decisions on sectarian violence and reconciliation will be made by Iraqis. Despite our firepower we have had little ability to control events over there.

At the same time, another report suggests that the US sought a greater diplomatic role in pushing reconciliation, and the Prime Minister rebuffed him:

Biden's meeting with Maliki was a reminder that although the U.S. maintains about 130,000 troops in Iraq, its influence is waning rapidly now that the clock is ticking on the timetable for the departure of all American combat troops next year.

Days earlier, Iraqis had celebrated the withdrawal of U.S. forces from their cities as a "day of national sovereignty." And though Biden's visit was welcomed as evidence that the United States doesn't plan to completely disengage from Iraq, Maliki made it clear that he does not want U.S. officials to be as closely involved in Iraqi politics as they have been.

Maliki told Biden that "the reconciliation issue is a purely Iraqi issue and any non-Iraqi involvement might have a negative effect," said Maliki's spokesman, Ali Dabbagh. "We don't want the Americans to come and get involved."

Biden "received the message well, and he said he is ready to help whenever the Iraqi government asks," Dabbagh said.

I'm trying to piece together the narrative here. It goes something like this:

Biden: We want to help you reconcile.
Maliki: You can't help us reconcile.
Biden: Well, if you don't reconcile, we will leave.
Maliki: We want you to leave.
Biden: Then we're in agreement!

All indications are that Maliki has successfully used the leverage of US military might to crush his internal enemies, and now wants to govern as a potentate without interference from the US. And yet Arab-Kurdish violence does actually threaten to break apart the country, though I wonder if everyone - particularly Biden - would see that as a bad thing.

The Arab-Kurdish divide in Iraq is extremely unfortunate and economically irrational. If Iraq can ever reestablish security and develop the southern oil fields, which are enormous, Kurds will be drawn down south as workers in large numbers, and get spread around the country. The Kirkuk fields are old, water-logged and on the way to being worked out. Iraq's future probably lies elsewhere and therefore probably so does the future of Kurdish citizens of Iraq. Kurds would be wiser to forget about trying to control territory in the 19th century way and surrender to the messiness, ethnic mixing and multiple identities, and uprootedness of postmodern life. And nothing better exemplifies such postmodernism than the polyglot hydrocarbon states of the Gulf. If Kurds aren't careful they'll be stuck landlocked, with small resources, and surrounded by powerful local enemies fearful of their separatism, while Nepalis, Pakistanis and Sri Lankans get rich working in the oil economy of the Arab Shiite south of Iraq.

I think the view of the Administration, at least on Iraq, is that they don't want to get sucked into some other country's internal civil conflict. Maliki obviously believes he can come out on top in such a struggle because he has the numbers behind him. Lots of parts of the world are dangerous, and we don't sit 130,000 American troops in them to babysit. If we cannot affect spasmodic violence - and we can't - we shouldn't sit around waiting.

Can We Really Reconcile Taliban?

Barack Obama's nod to the possibility that moderate Taliban could potentially be co-opted into working with the Afghan government and US forces, the way Sunni insurgents were presumably co-opted to work against Al Qaeda in Iraq (I say "presumably" because that's not the accurate description of what happened, in fact the Awakening forces got sick of Al Qaeda practically of their own accord), is a fairly good position to take. It recognizes that peace can only happen with the support of those who can enforce it. However, the reality of actually getting moderate Taliban to ally with the US is that it's unlikely to happen. That doesn't mean you stop trying, but it's important to understand the truth of the situation on the ground.

Barack Obama's call for "moderate" Taliban members to be brought in from the cold met with scepticism yesterday from leading Afghan opposition figures, who warned that co-opting fighters would fail as long as Hamid Karzai's government appeared weak and corrupt [...]

Ashraf Ghani, a former Afghanistan finance minister, who is to stand as presidential candiate in the elections in August, said: "I don't know of a single peace process that has been successfully negotiated from a position of weakness or stalemate."

A Taliban spokesman, who said that the US president's overture was a sign of weakness, poured cold water on the notion that "moderate" fighters could be easily turned.

Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman contacted by telephone, said: "They say they want to speak to moderate Taliban but they will not be able to find such people because we are united around the aim of fighting for freedom and bringing an Islamic system to Afghanistan." He added that Obama's comments were a reflection of the fact that the Americans had "become tired and worried".

the tenor of this piece is that there's no reason for the Taliban to switch sides when they appear to be winning. This would have been a good strategy five or six years ago, but now it will be difficult to turn Taliban unless the government first turns itself around and recaptures the support of the Afghan people. And that probably doesn't happen without the end of the Karzai regime. His reputation is too tarnished with weakness and corruption.

Spencer Ackerman goes deeper on this possibility, and is a little more optimistic - hoping that alliances between midlevel commanders and US unit leaders at the brigade level could break out. Personally, I see Chinese copper wealth and a new government able to distribute it as being a potentially better bet.