A Blue View

MSM Gets It Wrong Again: 19th House Republicans Decide To Not Seek Relelection While 14 Dems Made Same Decision

Regardless of the MSM's spin that this is a GOP year, the Dems are in trouble, etc, etc, more Republicans than Dems are choosing to retire. Plus there was good news in the Indiana senate race ... the NY Times:

Another House Republican, Representative John Linder of Georgia, is stepping down at the end of this session, making him the 19th to do so. He announced his decision Saturday morning in his district outside Atlanta.

Mr. Linder, an ally of fellow Georgian Newt Gingrich, was a respected fund-raiser and a reliable Republican vote during his nine terms in the House. He headed the National Republican Congressional Committee during the 1998 cycle, when Republicans unexpectedly lost seats following the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. That change in the party’s fortunes quickly led to the downfall of Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Linder was replaced at the campaign organization by Tom Davis of Virginia.

He has been a leading advocate of a national retail sales tax as a substitute for the current tax system and knocked off the conservative Republican Bob Barr in a 2002 primary caused by redistricting. His seat should easily remain in Republican hands.

“John Linder has been a leader in promoting conservative, reform-minded policies to protect American taxpayers,” Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, the chairman of the N.R.C.C., said in statement. Mr. Sessions said he was “confident that voters in this ruby-red district will elect another capable Republican to continue supporting the conservative principles that John so passionately promoted.”

Republicans continue to lead Democrats in the number of vacancies they will have to defend in November. Currently, Democrats have 14.

Democrats avoided another one Saturday when Representative Baron Hill of Indiana announced he would not seek the Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Evan Bayh and would instead run for re-election.

“While I agree with him that the partisanship in Washington is alarming,” said Mr. Hill, a one-time state basketball star, about Mr. Bayh, “ to reference my athletic past – I opt to stay in the game and continue to serve as an independent voice for my Southern Indiana constituents.”

Mr. Hill immediately lent his support in the Senate contest to his Democratic colleague, Representative Brad Ellsworth.

Health Insurance Reform Now Depends On The Pro-Life And Blue Dog Dems

NY Times:

The future of President Obama’s health care overhaul now rests largely with two blocs of swing Democrats in the House of Representatives — abortion opponents and fiscal conservatives — whose indecision signals the difficulties Speaker Nancy Pelosi faces in securing the votes necessary to pass the bill.

With Republicans unified in their opposition, Democrats are drafting plans to try on their own to pass a bill based on one Mr. Obama unveiled before his bipartisan health forum last week. His measure hews closely to the one passed by the Senate in December, but differs markedly from the one passed by the House.

That leaves Ms. Pelosi in the tough spot of trying to keep wavering members of her caucus on board, while persuading some who voted no to switch their votes to yes — all at a time when Democrats are worried about their prospects for re-election.

Representative Dennis Cardoza, Democrat of California, typifies the speaker’s challenge. The husband of a family practice doctor, he is intimately familiar with the failings of the American health care system. His wife “comes home every night,” he said, “angry and frustrated at insurance companies denying people coverage they have paid for.”

But as a member of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition, Mr. Cardoza is not convinced that Mr. Obama’s bill offers the right prescription. It lacks anti-abortion language he favors, and he does not think it goes far enough in cutting costs. So while he voted for the House version — “with serious reservations,” he said — he is now on the fence.

“I think we can do better,” Mr. Cardoza said of the president’s proposal.

Representative Frank Kratovil Jr., Democrat of Maryland, is also unconvinced. He voted against the House bill on the grounds that it is too big and too costly — a view that some constituents in his Republican-leaning district share. In case he did not get the message, one of them hanged him in effigy this past summer outside his district office on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

“This system is broken; we have to do something,” Mr. Kratovil said. “But my preference would be to do smaller things.”

Under the Democrats’ tentative plans, the House would pass the health care bill approved in December by the Senate, and both chambers would approve a separate package of changes using a parliamentary device known as budget reconciliation.

The tactic is intended to avoid a Republican filibuster, but in the Senate, the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, faces challenges if he tries to use it. He is having trouble persuading a majority of his caucus to go along.

In the House, lawmakers like Mr. Kratovil, Mr. Cardoza and other swing Democrats will come under increasing scrutiny from leadership as a vote draws near. Of the 219 Democrats who initially voted in favor of the House measure, roughly 40 did so in part because it contained the so-called Stupak amendment, intended to discourage insurers from covering abortion.

Some, notably Representative Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat for whom the amendment is named, will almost certainly switch their yes votes to no because the new version being pushed by Mr. Obama would strip out the House bill’s abortion restrictions in favor of Senate language that many of them consider unacceptable.

An additional 39, like Mr. Kratovil, are fiscal conservatives who voted no the first time around. Ms. Pelosi is hoping that she can get some to switch those no votes to yes in favor of Mr. Obama’s less expensive measure.

But persuading Democrats who are already on record as opposing a health overhaul to do a turnabout will not be an easy task, especially during a midterm election year in which Democrats’ political prospects already look bleak. Of the 39 Democrats who voted against the House measure, 31, including Mr. Kratovil, represent districts that were won in 2008 by Senator John McCain of Arizona, Mr. Obama’s Republican rival. Fourteen, including Mr. Kratovil, are freshmen, who are generally considered more politically vulnerable than more senior lawmakers.

“The concern among Democrats right now is that there are more yes votes reconsidering than no votes,” said David Wasserman, who tracks House races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “My sense is that for Democrats to pass this bill, they would have to convince several members who are already in serious jeopardy, even after voting no on the first health care bill, to put passage of the bill ahead of their own chances of being competitive in the fall.”

But politicians do not want to be martyrs. They want to hold onto their seats.

Ms. Pelosi is facing resistance from some of her most senior members, like Representative Ike Skelton, Democrat of Missouri and chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He has been in office since 1977, but is facing his toughest re-election challenge in years.

Mr. Skelton says he does not see any improvements in the measure that would cause him to vote in favor of it; like Mr. Kratovil, he favors a smaller, less ambitious bill. “It would be a lot easier,” he said, “if we cut this back to basics — take two or three or four issues on which everyone agrees and build on it.”

The Scott Brown Story

The NY Times magazine has a long piece on Scott Brown. Here's a taste:

Like so many politicians who have presented themselves as folk heroes, Scott Brown is a lot more complicated. He’s a real estate lawyer with a dozen years in the Massachusetts State Legislature — not exactly a career politician, but not an outsider either — and two spacious homes, one on a leafy cul-de-sac in the Boston suburb of Wrentham, Mass., the other about four blocks from the Atlantic in Rye, N.H. He’s indisputably self-made and indeed something of a he-man, but with a background that’s part Horatio Alger, part Zoolander. The Cosmo article came toward the start of a long, lucrative modeling career, and it was hardly his last voyage as a showboat.

3 Senators To Propose Alternative To Cap-And-Trade

Wash Post:

Three key senators are engaged in a radical behind-the-scenes overhaul of climate legislation, preparing to jettison the broad "cap-and-trade" approach that has defined the legislative debate for close to a decade.

The sharp change of direction demonstrates the extent to which the cap-and-trade strategy -- allowing facilities to buy and sell pollution credits in order to meet a national limit on greenhouse gas emissions -- has become political poison. In a private meeting with several environmental leaders on Wednesday, according to participants, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), declared, "Cap-and-trade is dead."

Graham and Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) have worked for months to develop an alternative to cap-and-trade, which the House approved eight months ago. They plan to introduce legislation next month that would apply different carbon controls to individual sectors of the economy instead of setting a national target.

According to several sources familiar with the process, the lawmakers are looking at cutting the nation's greenhouse gas output by targeting, in separate ways, three major sources of emissions: electric utilities, transportation and industry.

Power plants would face an overall cap on emissions that would become more stringent over time; motor fuel may be subject to a carbon tax whose proceeds could help electrify the U.S. transportation sector; and industrial facilities would be exempted from a cap on emissions for several years before it is phased in. The legislation would also expand domestic oil and gas drilling offshore and would provide federal assistance for constructing nuclear power plants and carbon sequestration and storage projects at coal-fired utilities.

"This is a different bill," Lieberman said in an interview. "We haven't abandoned the market-based idea, but we're willing to negotiate with colleagues who have different ideas."

Many lawmakers and lobbyists say even a radically different climate bill would face big hurdles to passage, given conflicting corporate and consumer interests, regional divides and a crowded Senate calendar. Energy industry lobbyists have turned much of their attention to proposing numerous variations of more narrow energy legislation.

But President Obama has continued to push for broad legislation that he says would make the U.S. economy more efficient, slow climate change and fulfill U.S. pledges in international climate talks in December to cut the country's emissions by 17 percent by 2020. A U.S. failure to fulfill that commitment could undercut the determination of other nations to live up to their pledges ...

Environmental advocates, eager to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation before the November midterm elections, said the shift in strategy represents the best shot at getting something done this year ...

The change in policy, which might even include giving money raised through carbon pollution allowances directly back to consumers, a scheme known as "cap-and-dividend," could appeal to some wavering senators. Senior Obama administration officials have also been studying the cap-and-dividend approach. But it remains unclear whether that would be enough to produce the 60 votes proponents need, especially when the Senate has yet to finish work on health-care legislation and a jobs package.

Why It's Hard Not To Be Disgusted By The Congressional GOP

Here is the so far successful GOP formula for scuttling any health care reform: focus on relatively small details, lie about them in a way that gains you politically and then smear the whole bill with that distorted brush. Here's an example:

Broad brush smear: the whole bill is a government takeover of health care.

The lie that's the basis for the smear: the government would set standards for the insurance policies all Americans can buy

The first truth: the Secretary of HHS would establish minimum standards for the policies that would be sold in the exchange to a small minority of Americans, the < 10% who do NOT get their insurance through work. The vast majority who get theirs through the private market (eg, through work) would be uneffected. 

The second truth: even if one pretended for a moment that the GOP was right and this was a government take over of health care payers, there is nothing in the bill, not even one tiny provision that can be lied about and puffed up into something bigger, that can be construed as a take over of health care providers.  All along, the focus has been on the insurers, not the doctors and hospitals that most Americans think of when they hear "government takeover of health care." It does seem that fear mongering to induce anger is a GOP specialty.

Here's Paul Krugman with more GOP distortions:

What was nonetheless revealing about the meeting was the fact that Republicans — who had weeks to prepare for this particular event, and have been campaigning against reform for a year — didn’t bother making a case that could withstand even minimal fact-checking.

It was obvious how things would go as soon as the first Republican speaker, Senator Lamar Alexander, delivered his remarks. He was presumably chosen because he’s folksy and likable and could make his party’s position sound reasonable. But right off the bat he delivered a whopper, asserting that under the Democratic plan, “for millions of Americans, premiums will go up.”

Wow. I guess you could say that he wasn’t technically lying, since the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the Senate Democrats’ plan does say that average payments for insurance would go up. But it also makes it clear that this would happen only because people would buy more and better coverage. The “price of a given amount of insurance coverage” would fall, not rise — and the actual cost to many Americans would fall sharply thanks to federal aid.

His fib on premiums was quickly followed by a fib on process. Democrats, having already passed a health bill with 60 votes in the Senate, now plan to use a simple majority vote to modify some of the numbers, a process known as reconciliation. Mr. Alexander declared that reconciliation has “never been used for something like this.” Well, I don’t know what “like this” means, but reconciliation has, in fact, been used for previous health reforms — and was used to push through both of the Bush tax cuts at a budget cost of $1.8 trillion, twice the bill for health reform.

"The President Accomplished His [Summit] Goal Three Weeks Ago"

A smart take on how the summit has helped the President, from Ezra Klein:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

GOP To Uninsured Americans: You're On Your Own & We Don't Care

Steven Pearlstein:

I'm not sure what else was accomplished at Thursday's Blair House summit, but surely one result is that we learned what Republican "leaders" really think about health care and health insurance.

The most important thing Republicans think is that if there are Americans who can't afford the insurance policies that private insurers are willing to offer, then that's their problem -- there's nothing the government or the rest of us should do about it.

"We just can't afford this," said Eric Cantor, the fresh-faced House minority whip from Virginia, while John Boehner, the House Republican leader, called it "a new entitlement program that will bankrupt our country." What they were referring to, of course, was the $125 billion a year that Obama and his Democratic allies propose to spend in subsidies so tens of millions of low-income households can afford to buy health insurance and handle the co-payments. But if paying for those subsidies means raising taxes on high-income households with lots of investment profits, or capping a tax break for people with extravagant health insurance, or charging a modest fee on medical device makers that refuse to moderate future price increases, then Republicans are agin' it.

That was their clear message Thursday. It was their message during all those years when their party controlled Congress and the White House and they did nothing and said nothing about the plight of the uninsured. And it is clear that they would continue to do nothing if, by some miracle, Democrats were to drop their plan or embark on a more modest approach. For Republicans, the uninsured remain invisible Americans, out of sight and out of mind.

Judging from Thursday's discussion, Republicans have much more sympathy for those who can afford to buy health insurance but are denied because of a preexisting medical condition. They oppose Democratic efforts to end this industry practice directly through regulation, preferring instead to refer those customers to special high-risk insurance pools where they would be guaranteed to find coverage.

In some versions of the high-risk pool, the cost of a policy would be so high that households with average incomes would have to set aside a third or even half of their income to pay for it. It takes a Republican to view this as a solution -- the equivalent of giving a starving man a coupon for $2 off his next dinner at Le Bernardin.

Or perhaps Republicans imagine high-risk pools that are subsidized sufficiently enough that the insurance policies are actually affordable. Unfortunately, the only way to finance such subsidies is through some sort of tax or fee, mostly one imposed on every insurance policy sold outside the high-risk pool. It's a fine idea but one that turns out to be the actuarial equivalent of what Democrats proposed in requiring that insurers charge pretty much the same premiums for everyone, with only modest variations based on age and health condition.

The Republican, Incremental Approach To Health Care (cartoon)

 
 
 

The Health Care Summit

Wash Post:

President Obama declared Thursday that the time for debate over health-care reform has come to an end, closing an unusual seven-hour summit with congressional leaders by sending a clear message that Democrats will move forward to pass major legislation with or without Republican support.

Democratic leaders face a heavy lift in reviving their stalled bill, a process that would involve intricate parliamentary maneuvering and carries no guarantee of success. But Obama signaled that if meaningful GOP cooperation does not materialize in the weeks ahead, he is ready to proceed without bipartisan support and risk the political consequences.

"The question that I'm going to ask myself and I ask of all of you is, is there enough serious effort that in a month's time or a few weeks' time or six weeks' time we could actually resolve something?" Obama said. "And if we can't, then I think we've got to go ahead and make some decisions, and then that's what elections are for."

The remarkable session at Blair House ranged from dull to pointed as it revealed the deep divide between the two parties over health care. It was the same philosophical gulf that led to the collapse of bipartisan Senate negotiations last summer, and the primary reason Congress has resorted to changing the health-care system piecemeal, rather than in broad strokes, over the years.

Republicans said that they share Democrats' assessment that the health-care system is broken, but that they view the pending legislation assembled by Democrats as deeply flawed. They questioned fundamental elements of the Democrats' approach, including whether it is appropriate for the government to set standards for coverage or require individuals to buy insurance.

Obama played the role of active moderator for much of the event, calling on participants to speak and interjecting when he disagreed on specific points. He chided members of both parties for lapsing into campaign rhetoric, but he saved some of his most pointed jabs for Republicans, his voice heavy with sarcasm when he accused GOP speakers of using "good poll-tested language" to describe the Democratic plan as "government-run health care."

Some Republicans were more pleased with the session than others. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) complained as the GOP delegation left the White House that Democrats and Obama had consumed the vast majority of the airtime. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) described it as "a good discussion," telling reporters, "I wouldn't call it a waste of time."

GOP lawmakers arrived at the table with two primary goals: to demonstrate that the party has its own health-care solutions, and to criticize the Democrats' proposal as big-government overreach.

"We Republicans care just as much about health care as the Democrats in this room," said Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the No. 2 House Republican. But he added: "There is a reason why we all voted no. And it does have to do with the philosophical difference that you point out."

During a break in the session, Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (Ill.) deemed a bipartisan deal "a long-shot" prospect, but he told reporters that Democrats are undaunted in their quest to deliver a bill to Obama's desk.

"If nothing comes of this, we're going to press forward," he said. "We just can't quit. This is a once-in-a-political-lifetime opportunity to deal with a health-care system that is really unsustainable."

Democrats are attempting a historic feat in seeking passage of a huge bill that aims to expand coverage to an additional 30 million people, reform insurance industry practices and curb rising health-care costs.

If nothing else, the session was an attempt to bring an air of civility and openness to the debate. "Unfortunately, over the course of the year, despite all the hearings that took place and all the negotiations that took place, and people on both sides of the aisle worked long and hard on this issue, and you know, this became a very ideological battle," Obama said ...

The session allowed the parties to draw sharp contrasts that are likely to be echoed throughout the midterm election season. Republicans criticized Democrats for attempting to levy new fees and taxes on businesses to pay for their legislation. They depicted the Democratic proposal as a vast expansion of government authority, and they warned that consumers would have higher insurance premiums and fewer choices.

Democrats countered that health-care problems -- whether related to rising costs or barriers to coverage -- have grown so egregious that the government has no choice but to intervene.

The two parties did find accord in several limited realms.

A Parable For Our Times (cartoon)

 
 

"You're invited to Organizing for America's local 2010 Strategy Sessions"

From Organizing for America:

You're invited to Organizing for America's local 2010 Strategy Sessions!

We are pleased to invite you to an important and exciting series of meetings taking place across the country.

In 2008, we joined together and worked hard to elect a President who shared our vision of a stronger, fairer, more just, and more progressive America. In just 13 months, much has been accomplished and much has been learned. Now it is time for all of us to renew our commitment to change that moves America forward, and to plan our strategy for 2010.

Join Organizing for America (OFA) for your local 2010 Strategy Session. The purpose of this session is to clearly articulate our 2010 strategic framework in your state and to start creating local strategies to accomplish our goals.  This Strategy Session also is an opportunity to meet with OFA staff and other volunteers in our area. There are countless opportunities to create change this year, and we have an important role to play in moving our country forward. As a team, we will talk about how to be involved in creating change in our country, both legislatively and electorally. We will talk through OFA’s national strategy and discuss what that means in your local community.

You will leave this event informed, inspired, and in action – to ensure the success of President Obama’s agenda for change in 2010.

Please join us for an inspiring and informative evening!

Find your nearest OFA Strategy Session at http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/strategysession/

White House To Use Power Of Federal Purse To Drive Up Wages & Benefits

And  surprise, surpise, the GOP is opposed. NY Times:

The Obama administration is planning to use the government’s enormous buying power to prod private companies to improve wages and benefits for millions of workers, according to White House officials and several interest groups briefed on the plan.

By altering how it awards $500 billion in contracts each year, the government would disqualify more companies with labor, environmental or other violations and give an edge to companies that offer better levels of pay, health coverage, pensions and other benefits, the officials said.

Because nearly one in four workers is employed by companies that have contracts with the federal government, administration officials see the plan as a way to shape social policy and lift more families into the middle class. It would affect contracts like those awarded to make Army uniforms, clean federal buildings and mow lawns at military bases.

Although the details are still being worked out, the outline of the plan is drawing fierce opposition from business groups and Republican lawmakers. They see it as a gift to organized labor and say it would drive up costs for the government in the face of a $1.3 trillion budget deficit.

“I’m suspicious of what the end goals are,” said Ben Brubeck, director of labor and federal procurement for Associated Builders and Contractors, which represents 25,000 construction-related companies. “It’s pretty clear the agenda is to give big labor an advantage in federal contracts.”

Critics also said the policy would put small businesses, many of which do not provide rich benefits, at a disadvantage. Furthermore, government officials would find it difficult to evaluate bidders using the new criteria and to determine whether one company’s compensation package should give it an edge, said Alan L. Chvotkin, executive vice president of the Professional Services Council, a coalition of 340 government contractors.

From his earliest days in office, President Obama has called for an overhaul of government procurement policy, citing the contracting scandals of the previous decade involving cost overruns and no-bid contracts ...

In testimony last year to the Office of Management and Budget, Mr. Podesta said that 400,000 workers employed under federal contracts — like cafeteria workers, security guards and landscaping workers at federal buildings — earn less than $22,000 a year, the federal poverty line for a family of four, assuming just one paycheck in a household.

“We have a president who is talking about bringing more people into the middle class,” Mr. Stern said. “The government should expect contractors to obey the law, and at the same time contractors should not be building a poverty economy, but should be trying to build a high-road economy.”...

Even as business groups press the administration for more details, they are denouncing the plan, tentatively named the High Road Procurement Policy ...

Randel K. Johnson, senior vice president for labor at the United States Chamber of Commerce, called the plan a “warmed-over version” of President Bill Clinton’s regulations that sought to bar federal agencies from awarding contracts to companies with a record of breaking labor, environmental or consumer laws. President George W. Bush vacated those regulations soon after taking office ...

On Feb. 2, Senator Susan Collins of Maine and four other Republican senators sent a letter to Peter R. Orszag, director of the White House budget office, saying, “We are concerned that the imposition of these requirements, during a time of significant economic turmoil in the private sector and tight federal budgets, could have serious, negative consequences, especially for our nation’s small businesses.”  ...

"Truth And Reconciliation"

Jonathan Chait calls out the GOP hypocrisy on reconciliation:

Republicans have been working very hard to portray any use of budget reconciliation to amend budgetary features of the health care bill as some unprecedented assault upon minority rights. Here, for instance, is Michael Gerson:

[A] reconciliation strategy would both insult House and Senate Republicans and motivate them for future fights. The minority would not only be defeated on health reform but its rights would be permanently diminished -- a development that would certainly be turned against Democrats when they lose their majority. Each side would have an excuse for decades of bitterness, creating a kind of political karma in which angry spirits are reincarnated again and again, to fight the same battles and suffer the same wounds.

If only we had this sensitive soul around in 2001 when the Bush administration used reconciliation to push through a massive, regressive tax cut! Oh, wait, we did.

Anyway, if you want to read an informed take on the history of using budget reconciliation for health care reform, look at today's report by NPR's Julie Rovner. It documents how reconciliation has been used very frequently for major health care changes. ("In fact, the way in which virtually all of health reform, with very, very limited exceptions, has happened over the past 30 years has been the reconciliation process," says Sara Rosenbaum, who chairs the Department of Health Policy at George Washington University.) It's kind of amazing that nobody has done this story before.

The NY Times provides additional examples of the GOP's frequent use of reconciliation. Here's one my favorites: 72% of the time that reconciliation has been used, it has been used by the GOP (16 out of 22 times).

Majority Of Texans Don't Think Humans Evolved From Other Species; 30% Think We Walked With The Dinosaurs

 

Read the depressing Texas Tribune story.

"On our side, the time for haggling is over. The question is: Do you want this, or do you want nothing?"

Wash Post:

Congressional Democrats are already looking beyond the White House health-care summit, reckoning that Thursday's session will amount to little more than political theater and focusing instead on a final round of intraparty negotiations that are likely to determine the fate of President Obama's top domestic priority.

Although Obama is billing the White House gathering as an opportunity for Republicans to air their ideas for reform, Democrats do not expect it to reveal much common ground and are showing little willingness to abandon the basic outline of legislation that the House and Senate have approved.

"It largely depends what the Republicans come to the table with," said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who plans to attend the summit. "If it's just coming to repeat a lot of the stuff we've heard for six months, then I don't expect much out of it." He added: "We're not going to start writing a bill all over again."

Democrats hope that after Thursday's meeting, Obama will bring a more forceful approach to his role as lead negotiator on health-care reform. To the frustration of many on Capitol Hill, the president has dipped in and out of the debate throughout the past year, offering broad objectives and cutting deals here and there with individual lawmakers but seldom putting the weight of his office behind demands for specific provisions in legislation.

Only if the president is willing to take command of the debate, Democrats in both chambers said, will a health-care reform bill have any chance of reaching his desk. "The difference here now is the president is not in a back room with his sleeves rolled up trying to play Lyndon Johnson," said Rep. Anthony Weiner (N.Y.), a leading House liberal.

"He's now out there being Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Abe Lincoln -- which, you know, is what we've needed all along," Weiner said. "That's what we really need here. And that's why I believe the vote count on things is not static."

Obama's toughest audience Thursday may be members of his own party, who have been feuding since a Massachusetts special election cost Democrats their 60th vote in the Senate. House Democrats fume that the Senate took too long to pass its version of health-care legislation, causing the debate to spill into the midterm election season. Senate Democrats want their House counterparts to back off their more expensive plan and accept the bill that the Senate passed on Christmas Eve.

With a single roll-call vote, the House could send the Senate version of health-care reform directly to Obama for his signature. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), along with White House officials, have spent recent weeks weighing potential "fixes" to the legislation that would address House Democratic objections. Those changes could be offered as a separate bill, protected from filibuster under special budget rules known as reconciliation that would allow it to pass the Senate with a simple majority.

Those rules may also require the House to initiate action on the fixes -- a leap of faith that many House Democrats are unwilling to take. "The trust of House members . . . in the Senate delivering on anything is at an historic low," said Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.). "And the House taking major action that is dependent on a future action of the Senate, I think that's very, very difficult."

But Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said the order of the legislative process would be nonnegotiable, because the Constitution requires that all revenue-related bills -- several of the fixes would involve tax policy -- begin in the House. If the House doesn't vote first, "then it's dead," Conrad said of the health-care bill.

Pelosi and her team have declined to discuss the process by which they hope to complete a bill, instead focusing on building support for the policy outline that Obama unveiled Monday as a potential Democratic compromise.

Surprise! Conservatives Love Government, Too.

The Numerologist:

Conservatives agree that the government spends too much. But ask them what to cut ...

At last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty called on the attendees to imitate the wife of Tiger Woods: "We should take a page out of her playbook and take a nine iron and smash the window out of big government in this country."

But there’s a problem for Pawlenty and the activists who cheered him: Rank-and-file conservatives actually like big government.

In 2008, the American National Election Study asked a national sample whether federal spending on 12 different programs should be increased, decreased or kept about the same.

As the graph above illustrates, the respondents who identified themselves as "conservative" or "extremely conservative" had little appetite for specific spending cuts.

Very few conservatives said they favored reducing (or cutting out altogether) spending on any program. The least popular program proved to be childcare -- with a grand total of 20 percent of conservatives saying they’d slash it. The most popular is highways; only 6 percent want to cut spending there. Even bugaboos like welfare and foreign aid fare well, attracting the ire of only 15 percent of conservatives. Amazingly, the survey found that, on average, 54 percent of them actually wanted to increase spending.

Political scientist James Stimson has suggested that a fifth of the country consists of what he calls "conflicted conservatives," those who might respond positively to a broad appeal like Pawlenty’s, but not once specific windows start getting smashed.

At CPAC, Glenn Beck turned to 12-step lingo: "Hello, my name is the Republican Party and I have a problem! I’m addicted to spending and big government." But why blame the GOP? After all, the party is being enabled by its own base.

McCain Ad Goes After Primary Challenger By Linking Him To Birthers

It is very interesting that McCain thinks this ad will discredit his opponent with a majority of Arizona's Republican primary voters. He at least thinks the birthers are a conspiracy theorist fringe within the GOP looked down upon by the rest. The partisan in me hopes he's wrong (since that'll hurt the GOP's general election viability) but the American in me hopes he's right (since the birthers are a nutty, fringe who need to be kept far, far from political power).

Preparing, And Jostling, Before The Health Care Summit

NY Times:

In convening Thursday’s bipartisan health session, President Obama is angling to recreate the kind of spontaneous, unscripted debate that gave him a decided advantage when he took questions on live television at a House Republican retreat in Baltimore last month.

Seating arrangements and camera positions at Blair House have been negotiated. On Thursday, talk will turn to health care.

But this time, Mr. Obama will face adversaries who are well prepared to joust with him on the finer points of health policy before a large audience that will be judging both sides and looking for signs of bipartisanship.

From the seating arrangements to the camera positions and buffet lunch — not to mention the talking points — the meeting has been carefully orchestrated, the product of days of negotiations that led to a walk-through on Wednesday for Congressional aides at Blair House.

One way Mr. Obama could throw Republicans off stride would be to make a bold opening offer to embrace one of their health care priorities, like limiting medical malpractice lawsuits — an idea one Democrat close to the White House said had been under consideration.

But, this Democrat said, such an offer appeared unlikely, in part because Republicans seem dug in against the president’s plan and in part because it would arouse the ire of Mr. Obama’s Democratic base. In a conference call Wednesday, Congressional Democrats warned White House officials “not to go too far” on tort reform, one person familiar with the call said.

White House officials said Mr. Obama would use his opening remarks to make the case that Democrats and Republicans are not as far apart as they think on health care, because both parties are concerned about the deficit and rising health premiums — issues, the president will argue, that can be addressed only by controlling health care costs.

Republicans said they would frame their arguments in opposition to the Democrats’ expansive plan, and would emphasize a handful of ideas that were part of a House Republican alternative to the Democrats’ legislation in November, including allowing small businesses to band together to buy health insurance at lower prices, permitting the sale of insurance policies across state lines, expanding state high-risk pools to offer coverage to people who otherwise could not obtain it, and limiting damages in medical malpractice lawsuits.

On Capitol Hill, both parties spent Wednesday preparing. Republicans met to plot strategy, even as they continued to deride the event as “political theater.”...

Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi met to prepare in Ms. Pelosi’s office, as party leaders insisted the session would provide voters a fresh perspective — even though Washington has been debating health care for nearly a year.

“I honestly think it’s going to be quite constructive, because with TV cameras it’s going to force senators and representatives, both sides, to not over-dramatize but to burrow down on what health care reform does and does not make sense,” said Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana. “I just believe in the disinfectant of the sunshine. The more we have got questions on both sides, gradually the American people are going to see more and more and more that we really do need health care reform.”

As the parties readied themselves, House Democrats were busy counting votes on Wednesday. The Democratic whip, Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, said he believed Democrats could muster the votes to adopt a health care bill that resembled the plan Mr. Obama laid out on Monday, even picking up votes from some Democrats who opposed the House bill that was adopted in November.

Amid Wednesday’s political maneuvering, there was also legislative action.

Obama Health Bill Strikingly Similar To 1993 Plan From A Republican

Kaiser Health News:

 

"Large Coalition of Religious Groups Urges Passage of Health Bill"

Prescriptions:

An unusually broad array of religious groups sent a letter to President Obama and members of Congress on Wednesday calling on them to pass a comprehensive health care bill [pdf].

The 58 national and 80 local groups signing the letter represent evangelicals, most mainline Protestant denominations, Roman Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Quakers and Mennonites. Some of the signatories are health care providers, and some work with low-income communities. Some are religious orders of Catholic sisters.

The letter says that while no reform bill will be perfect, “Turning back now could mean justice delayed for another generation and an unprecedented opportunity lost.”

The letter does not specifically endorse the president’s proposal or the House or Senate bills. But one of the coalitions that signed the letter, the PICO National Network, which represents a thousand congregations across the country, has applauded the president’s plan, saying it would go further than the Senate plan to reduce out-of-pocket costs for low-income families.

The last-minute lobbying push caps a year in which religious groups that support a health care overhaul were drowned out by religious leaders who opposed it, often because of concern that it did not adequately restrict coverage of abortion.

Today's Health Care Cartoons

Maryland To Recognize Same-Sex Marriages From Elsewhere

Powerful implications since D.C. just opted for Marriage Equality. From the Wash Post:

Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler (D) declared Wednesday that Maryland will recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere and that its agencies should immediately begin affording gay married couples the same rights as heterosexual ones.

With Gansler's decision, Maryland in effect joins the District and a handful of states including New York that recognize same-sex marriages performed in four New England states and Iowa. The District also has its own measure legalizing those unions that is expected to take effect next week.

Gansler, a supporter of legalizing same-sex marriages, was asserting his authority as the top legal adviser to state agencies to answer a question that experts say had been left unclear by Maryland law. He was responding to a legislator's request that he issue an opinion.

The attorney general's opinion unleashed a torrent of emotions from both gay rights advocates and those opposed to same-sex marriage, adding a potentially explosive issue to election-year politics in Maryland. It is likely to be quickly challenged in court, Gansler acknowledged.

Republicans, socially conservative Democrats and several African American lawmakers from Prince George's County to Baltimore blasted the decision. One Republican lawmaker vowed to bring articles of impeachment against Gansler for trying to usurp Maryland law, which defines marriage within the state as between a man and a woman. The Roman Catholic archbishops of Washington and Baltimore and the bishop of Wilmington said in a statement that they take "strong exception" to the decision.

Gay and lesbian groups said the decision put the state on track toward legalizing same-sex marriage and would embolden them to push more strongly for pending legislation to do so. Similar measures have died in the legislature in years past.

The exact practical implications of Gansler's decision were unclear. David Rocah, a staff lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, said he thought that the opinion could have "hundreds, if not thousands," of implications for same-sex couples married elsewhere. Rocah said the opinion could ensure same-sex spouses' rights to health benefits, inheritances, child support and even divorce.

Gansler said state laws have more than 1,000 references to spouses or marriage.

Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), who has consistently voiced support for civil unions but stopped short of endorsing same-sex marriage, said his administration would be "guided" by Gansler's legal opinion. Under O'Malley, Maryland has significantly expanded benefits to couples who register as domestic partners, but under Gansler's opinion, same-sex couples married elsewhere would no longer have to go through that step to get many of the same protections ...

Gansler's opinion answered a question about recognizing same-sex marriage that was posed last spring by Sen. Richard S. Madaleno Jr., an openly gay Montgomery County Democrat.

In a roughly 50-page opinion that took nine months to compose, Gansler says the starting principle in state law is that a marriage that is valid in the place of celebration remains valid in Maryland. And even though the state narrowly defines marriages performed within its borders as between a man and a woman, Gansler says, such restrictions don't amount to a strong public policy argument that would override recognizing unions from elsewhere.

The opinion points to several examples Gansler says prove his case: Maryland has recognized common-law marriages from other states even though it does not have common-law marriage. The state has even recognized a marriage of a Rhode Island man and his niece that would have amounted to incest under Maryland law, Gansler said.

Call Congress Before The Summit

From a MoveOn email:

Dear MoveOn member,

If you've never picked up the phone to call Congress about health care, today's the day to change that. Will you join the Virtual March for Real Health Care Reform? With the future of health care reform hanging in the balance at the president's summit tomorrow, this may be our last big chance to make sure Congress knows that voters want real health care reform.

So we're aiming to send one million messages to Congress TODAY. The message? It's time to get the job done and pass comprehensive health care reform.  Click below and we'll sign you up and automatically send a fax in your name to Sens. Brown and Kerry today:

Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 5 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

And if you live in Massachusetts (one positive effect of losing the seat is a member of the GOP now has us as constituents):

Call Sen. Scott Brown: (202) 224-4543

{Thursday, 8:00 update} From MoveOn:

One million messages!

In one day, people from coast to coast sent over one million messages to Congress urging them to finish the job and pass real health care reform. Congress heard loud and clear that voters want reform, now.

President Truman's Push For Universal Health Insurance Higlights The Tragedy Of Its Absence & The Dem's Ineptitude

Sixty-five years ago on Nov 19, 1945, President Truman gave a speech to Congress urging the passage of a universal health care law. At the time, the cost of health care accounted for 4% of the nation's income. Today it is has risen to 16% and there's no end in sight.

Reading the speech excerpts made me realize how:

1. Tragic it is that an entire lifetime has passed without universal health care being enacted (if Truman's speech were a person, it would be able to collect Social Security by now) and

2. Inept the Dems and Obama have been in their explanation of their bill. Read how Truman positioned his bill and tell me if it was not a far better, more palatable/popular way to describe what he wanted. Plus, consider the fact that the GOP's arguments against it haven't changed in 65 years and yet the uninventive Dems have still not been able to overcome it.

    In my message to the Congress of September 6, 1945, there were enumerated in a proposed Economic Bill of Rights certain rights which ought to be assured to every American citizen.

    One of them was: "The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health." Another was the "right to adequate protection from the economic fears of . .. sickness ...."

    Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. The time has arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and that protection ...

    In the past, the benefits of modern medical science have not been enjoyed by our citizens with any degree of equality. Nor are they today. Nor will they be in the future--unless government is bold enough to do something about it.

    People with low or moderate incomes do not get the same medical attention as those with high incomes. The poor have more sickness, but they get less medical care. People who live in rural areas do not get the same amount or quality of medical attention as those who live in our cities.

    Our new Economic Bill of Rights should mean health security for all, regardless of residence, station, or race--everywhere in the United States.

    We should resolve now that the health of this Nation is a national concern; that financial barriers in the way of attaining health shall be removed; that the health of all its citizens deserves the help of all the Nation ...

PREPAYMENT OF MEDICAL COSTS

    Everyone should have ready access to all necessary medical, hospital and related services.

    I recommend solving the basic problem by distributing the costs through expansion of our existing compulsory social insurance system. This is not socialized medicine.

    Everyone who carries fire insurance knows how the law of averages is made to work so as to spread the risk, and to benefit the insured who actually suffers the loss. If instead of the costs of sickness being paid only by those who get sick, all the people--sick and well--were required to pay premiums into an insurance fund, the pool of funds thus created would enable all who do fall sick to be adequately served without overburdening anyone. That is the principle upon which all forms of insurance are based.

Will Obama's Governing Style Work In Our Partisan, 24 Hour News Cycle Age?

Whether it ultimately works to get Congress to pass his agenda remains to be seen, but it certainly worked well during his 90 minute debate with House Republicans and should come off very well tomorrow. I guess that's one of the things the White House is counting on. From the NY Times:

Ever since his days as a young community organizer in Chicago, Mr. Obama has held fast to the belief that by listening carefully and appealing to reason he can bring people together to get results, an approach that in Washington has often come up short.

He is not showing any signs of changing his style. But he is facing perhaps the toughest test yet of his powers of persuasion: winning the votes he needs, in the face of unified Republican opposition and a deteriorating climate for Democrats, to push his health care measure through a skittish Congress.

Mr. Obama has not been the sort to bludgeon his party into following his lead or to intimidate reluctant legislators. And while he has often succeeded by relying on Democratic leaders in Congress to do his bidding — the House and Senate, after all, both passed versions of the health legislation last year — it is not clear whether his gentle, consensus-building style will be enough.

“I wouldn’t mind seeing a little more toughness here or there,” said Representative Louise M. Slaughter, a New York Democrat, who contends that if Mr. Obama had pushed the Senate harder last year, the bill would have been law by now.

Like many Democrats in Congress, she praises Mr. Obama as intellectually gifted and a generous listener. But “if you are asking me if he dominates the room,” she said, “I would have to say no.”

White House officials strongly resist any suggestion that Mr. Obama is not tough enough, and they say the days are gone when a president can simply browbeat his own party into submission, especially on an issue as complex as health care.

“If the president weren’t tough, if the president weren’t committed, if the president didn’t believe that this was an imperative for the future of American families, businesses and the sustainability of our budget, this thing would have been dead six months ago,” David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, said in an interview. “I would love to live in a world where the president could snap his fingers or even twist arms and make change happen, but in this great democracy of ours, that’s not the way it is.”

One of the most persistent criticisms of Mr. Obama, especially on health care, is that he has given Congress too much latitude to engage in backroom deal-making and expedient trade-offs. His critics suggest that they want him to step forward more assertively to put his stamp on the process and the legislation.

But his defenders and some historians say that perhaps more than any modern president since Lyndon B. Johnson, Mr. Obama has been aggressive in trying to work his will with Congress. During his 13-month-old presidency, he has had countless one-on-one meetings with lawmakers — a technique that some scholars and strategists say evokes memories of Johnson, though their styles could hardly be more different.

Today's Health Care Cartoons

 

GOP Will Tomorrow Stress Private Solutions That Will Leave 47 Million Uninsured

Wash Post:

Republicans are preparing to use Thursday's White House health-care summit to sell their own ideas for using the private marketplace to expand coverage and reduce costs, but they remain wary of fumbling away what they believe is an advantage on the issue heading into this year's critical midterm elections.

GOP leaders are acutely aware of the stakes involved in the extraordinary bipartisan gathering. An effective performance could give their party a vital image boost as November approaches. But if the party's delegation stumbles or oversteps, President Obama and congressional Democrats could see the session provide new life to the stalled health-care legislation they have been laboring over for a year.

The Republican summit strategy is twofold: to portray the Obama plan as radical and ruinously expensive, while reassuring a potential television audience of millions that the GOP takes the health-care crisis seriously and is prepared to address it headon.

But Republicans are not prepared to match every Democratic provision with one of their own. "You will not see from us a 2,700-page comprehensive rewrite of one-sixth of our economy," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.). "We don't think that ought to be done."

Their goal is to present voters with a clear choice between a Democratic approach that seeks to expand the government role in health care, and the Republican aim of finding solutions in the private marketplace. "There'll be no question as to where Republicans stand," said House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.). "It is with a much more common-sense, modest approach to health-care reform."

The roster of GOP lawmakers set to attend the session remained unclear as of late Tuesday, but as many as 19 Republican Senate and House lawmakers are expected to be on hand Thursday. Senior Republican aides said the delegation would seek to portray the Obama health-care bill as a further threat to the record deficit and target specific parts of the Democratic proposal, including tax increases and Medicare cuts. Republicans also will be prepared to argue that Congress should be focused on the more urgent need for job creation rather than health-care reform.

GOP aides said they anticipate that Obama will zero in on potential weaknesses in the Republican plan. For instance, the House Republican bill would not ban insurance companies from denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions. Nor it would it restrict how much insurance companies can raise their rates.

"We're fully aware of the president's skills," said one top GOP congressional aide. "But this is a debate we've been winning for the last eight months."

As Democratic proposals began to take shape last spring, Republicans were holding their own internal discussions about how to approach the health-care debate. Some wanted to offer a path to universal health care centered on conservative, market-based ideas, while others favored more targeted, incremental legislation to correct fundamental flaws in the system. Others embraced a strategy that focused solely on attacking ideas put forth by Democrats.

The raucous town hall meetings of the August congressional recess, driven largely by opposition to widespread health-care reform proposals, ended that debate. The three GOP senators who had been negotiating with Senate Democrats backed away from the table, and GOP leaders shelved the idea of offering a broad alternative overhaul proposal.

Instead, Republicans rallied behind a set of long-held conservative ideas, many proposed by President George W. Bush but never enacted. The list included new rules that would allow people to buy insurance policies across state lines, the expanded use of health savings accounts, funding to encourage state-based coverage innovation, and limits on lawsuits against doctors.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the House GOP approach would cost $61 billion over the next 10 years, compared with nearly $1 trillion for various Democratic plans. The Republican proposals would cover about 3 million uninsured people, whereas the Democratic legislation aims to reach 30 million. The House rejected the GOP proposal on a 258 to 176 vote Nov. 7, before narrowly approving the Democratic bill.

One challenge for Republicans at the summit will be to convince people that they are taking on the system's major problems, just in a different way. Instead of expressly banning insurance companies from denying people coverage, the Republican plan would give more money to high-risk pools that operate in most states and cover people who cannot get insurance companies to sell them plans.

Government Is Broken Cartoons

Head Of Army & Air Force Wary Of DADT Repeal

NY Times:

The top generals from the Army and the Air Force expressed deep concern on Tuesday about moving rapidly to lift the ban on openly gay service members, saying it could make it harder for their forces to do their jobs while fighting two wars.

The comments by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of the staff, and Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff, may provide political cover for members of Congress who oppose President Obama’s call for repealing the policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

“I do have serious concerns about the impact of repeal of the law on a force that’s fully engaged in two wars and has been at war for eight-and-a-half years,” General Casey told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We just don’t know the impacts on readiness and military effectiveness.”

In a separate appearance before the House Armed Services Committee, General Schwartz cautioned that there was little research on how the policy change might affect Air Force personnel deployed for combat, surveillance and support missions around the world.

“This is not the time to perturb the force that is, at the moment, stretched by demands in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere without careful deliberation,” General Schwartz said.

Both generals — one representing the Army, the nation’s largest armed service, and one from the Air Force, the newest — spoke with what sounded like carefully considered language.

Both expressed reservations about moving too swiftly to change the policy, and both endorsed the decision by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to deliberately review the issue before acting. And both pledged that they would fully carry out any decision of Congress about gay men and lesbians in the military. Changing the policy that Congress imposed 16 years ago would require legislative action.

It had been an open secret in the corridors of the Pentagon that some senior generals held a different view of “don’t ask, don’t tell” from that expressed by Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, before Congress this month.

“No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Admiral Mullen said.

Admiral Mullen, the first serving chairman to support repeal of the ban, said it was his personal belief that “allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do.”

Maddow Exposes More GOP Hypocrisy On Stimulus & Climate Change

Cause & Effect? While Obama Pushes For Wall St Reform, The GOP Rakes In Their Cash

NY Times:

White House in New Push for Changes on Wall St.

The Obama administration redoubled its efforts on Tuesday to overhaul the nation’s financial regulations, saying it would not back down from its efforts to restrict the trading activities of banks and to create a consumer agency to regulate financial products.

In an attempt to thwart fierce lobbying against those measures, among others, the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, summoned leaders of the United States Chamber of Commerce, the American Bankers Association, the Financial Services Forum and other groups to a meeting on Thursday to urge them not to obstruct the legislative effort. <Continue reading.>

Wash Post:

Wall Street shifting political contributions to Republicans

Commercial banks and high-flying investment firms have shifted their political contributions toward Republicans in recent months amid harsh rhetoric from Democrats about fat bank profits, generous bonuses and stingy lending policies on Wall Street. The wealthy securities and investment industry, for example, went from giving 2 to 1 to Democrats at the start of 2009 to providing almost half of its donations to Republicans by the end of the year, according to new data compiled for The Washington Post by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Commercial banks and their employees also returned to their traditional tilt in favor of the GOP after a brief dalliance with Democrats, giving nearly twice as much to Republicans during the last three months of 2009, the data show. At the same time, total political donations by the major banks and investment houses alike dropped in the waning months of that year.

The nascent shift came even before the White House announced proposals for a new tax on banks and a curb on some of their riskiest trading activities. <Continue reading.>

Analysis Of Obama's Approach: "Obama stays on offense with health-care proposal

Anne Kornblut and Michael Shear:

There had been rampant speculation that the White House would narrow its ambitions for health-care legislation after the loss of the Democrats' filibuster-proof Senate majority last month. Instead, the president's proposal is striking for the extent to which it hews to the basic scale and framework of the bills on which Congress has toiled for months.

That decision -- to go big one last time, rather than small -- emerged quickly inside the White House after senior advisers to President Obama concluded privately that his goals for comprehensive changes to the health-care system could not be done piecemeal.

And after initially reeling from the surprise election of Republican Scott Brown to the Senate in Massachusetts, Obama's chief political strategists came to believe that voters would punish Democrats more severely in this year's elections for failing to try, they said.

"This is a big, long-term threat to families, businesses and the solvency of the country," senior adviser David Axelrod said, describing the thinking inside the West Wing. "And we've come a long way. And this is an opportunity to try and complete it and deal with a problem that we know is only going to get worse."

Obama's top aides say they recognize the risk for the president if this latest effort fails, providing more ammunition to Republicans that the party in power cannot govern effectively. By once again embracing comprehensive reform, Obama could help the Republican narrative that he wants a government takeover of health care.

Reaction Monday was swift and blunt from GOP leaders, who had been making the case for weeks that the president should scrap the previous bills and start over. They said Obama's latest move represented more of the same problematic policies that Democrats in Congress had been pushing for months ...

But White House advisers said they concluded weeks ago that there was still a narrow path to legislative and political victory -- either by securing a modest amount of bipartisan support at a live, televised summit on Thursday or, more likely, by using parliamentary maneuvers to pass the legislation in the Senate without needing 60 votes.

On Capitol Hill, it took longer to come to accept that view, according to legislative and White House sources. Democratic members worried that they, too, might fall to the populist anger that swept Brown into office. And polling out of Massachusetts suggested that even voters who were wary of health-care changes wanted bipartisan cooperation -- and did not want Brown to be a roadblock.

"The White House position was not to push [legislators] -- let them come to it," said a senior Democratic strategist who has advised the president and his team on health-care strategy. "It was clearly one that members had to be given the space to come to this decision."

A senior Democratic Senate aide described this week's efforts as a welcome "attempt to try and change the story line" on health care, which he said had become mired in the legislative process. He said the president is trying to demonstrate that he is willing to go the "last mile" to get it done.

"Now that we've gotten a plan, we're going to need the active and ongoing engagement of the White House and the president," the aide said, reflecting a view among Democratic lawmakers that Obama has been slow to lead on the contentious issue. "They're not just going to be able to dump it on us." In the House, particularly, Democratic leaders are not assured of the votes they need for passage.

After hinting for weeks that he would pivot exclusively to jobs this year, Obama has also bet that success on health care will help repair some of the damage to his reputation from a bruising, year-long legislative battle that called into question his commitment to transparency, open debate and reform.

After Obama's question-and-answer session with House Republicans last month was met with a surprisingly favorable reaction, White House officials saw a potential opening for the president to step in and shape the debate. It fit a familiar pattern: Repeatedly, as a candidate and as president, Obama had delegated a difficult task to others and, after watching them falter, attempted a rescue himself, leaning heavily on his intellect and rhetorical skills.

Today's Health Care Cartoons

Analysis Of Obama's Health Care Bill

The NY Times's analysis:

President Obama on Monday issued his own blueprint for a health care overhaul, challenged Republicans to come forward with their ideas and laid the groundwork for an aggressive parliamentary maneuver to pass the legislation using only Democratic votes if this week brings no progress toward a bipartisan solution.

In laying out for the first time the details of what he wants in the legislation, Mr. Obama set in motion a new round of maneuvering intended to bring a bitterly divisive yearlong clash to a conclusion. With the two parties scheduled to meet Thursday for a televised session on the health care overhaul, Mr. Obama appeared intent on forcing the Republicans into a choice: either put a specific alternative on the table, giving Democrats a chance to draw pointed contrasts between the parties’ approaches, or be cast as obstructionist and not serious about addressing an issue of great concern to voters.

The initial Republican response suggested the two parties are more likely headed toward a showdown than toward a deal. Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, said Mr. Obama had “crippled the credibility” of Thursday’s meeting by proposing “the same massive government takeover of health care” that Americans had already rejected.

The bill, which the White House estimates would cost $950 billion over a decade, aims to fulfill Mr. Obama’s goals of expanding coverage to millions of people who are uninsured, while taking steps to control soaring health care costs. It sticks largely to the version passed by the Senate in December, but offers some concessions to House leaders who have demanded more help for middle-class people.

Mr. Obama’s measure would, for example, eliminate a highly criticized special deal to help Nebraska pay for a proposed Medicaid expansion, and would instead provide more help for all states to pay for their new Medicaid enrollees. It would delay enactment of a controversial tax on high-cost employer-sponsored insurance plans and, in a nod to the concerns of older Americans, do away with the unpopular “doughnut hole” in the Medicare prescription drug program.

But more than a specific policy prescription, the measure is a gamble by a president trying to keep his top legislative priority alive. The White House signaled more clearly than it had until now that barring a bipartisan breakthrough, Democrats would try a legislative maneuver known as reconciliation to pass the bill through the Senate on a simple majority vote, avoiding the 60-vote supermajority needed to avert a Republican filibuster.

By using the existing Senate bill as the basis for his proposal, Mr. Obama made it easier for Democrats to try to execute that parliamentary tactic, though the maneuver would bring vehement Republican opposition and remains subject to all kinds of procedural challenges.

“The president expects and believes the American people deserve an up or down vote on health reform,” Dan Pfeiffer, Mr. Obama’s communications director, said in a morning conference call with reporters. “And our proposal is designed to give us maximum flexibility to ensure that, if the opposition decides to take the extraordinary step of filibustering health care.” ...

By unveiling its own proposal and posting it on the White House Web site, whitehouse.gov, the administration was trying to combat the relentless attacks on Mr. Obama’s approach while also challenging Republicans to come forward with their own comprehensive solution to the problems in the health care system.

Republicans say they do not share the goal of a comprehensive bill, but White House officials say they can shift the debate to their terms if it is framed as a choice between competing ideas rather than a referendum on the Democrats’ legislation.

The White House even offered Monday to post the Republicans’ plan on its Web site. “We had a clear majority in both the House and the Senate that voted for this bill,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat and one of the authors of the House version. “If Republicans do dig themselves in against it, Democrats ought to realize that they’re going to be attacked for having voted for the bill, so we might as well get the job done.”

Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, did not immediately embrace the plan, but instead scheduled a caucus meeting for Monday evening.

A combination of vacant seats and unresolved disputes over issues like restrictions on abortion financing under the health care legislation have left the White House short of the votes it needs in the House, meaning Mr. Obama has his work cut out for him in assembling even simple majorities in both chambers.

The White House projects that Mr. Obama’s bill would extend coverage to 31 million people who are currently uninsured, at a cost over 10 years of $950 billion — more than the $872 billion the Senate would have spent, but less than the $1.05 trillion for the version passed by the House. The administration estimates that its plan would reduce the federal deficit by $100 billion over the next 10 years — and even more over the second decade — by cutting spending and reining in waste and fraud.

Global Warning & DC Snow (cartoon)

 

Brown Helps Tip The Scales: Senate Jobs Bill Passes With Bipartisan Support

Wash Post:

Aided by a handful of Republicans, Senate Democratic leaders on Monday kept alive a $15 billion job-creation measure and are poised to pass the measure later this week.

Five Republicans, including new Sen. Scott P. Brown (Mass.), joined 57 Democrats in voting to break a filibuster of the jobs bill, after a suspenseful buildup in which members of both parties wondered whether Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) could cobble together enough support to clear the legislative hurdle.

The bipartisan result marked a breakthrough for Democrats, who have been frustrated since President Obama came to office by their inability to attract much Republican support for their agenda. The vote was also a vindication for Reid, who is grappling with a tough reelection race in Nevada and faced questions in Washington over whether he mishandled the jobs issue.

"I hope this is the beginning of a new day in the Senate," Reid said after the vote.

Reid lost the public support of several Republicans after discarding an $85 billion jobs package negotiated by Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) in favor of a narrower bill favored by liberals. GOP leaders complained that Reid had spurned a bipartisan deal that had been negotiated in good faith.

Republicans Christopher Bond (Mo.), Susan Collins (Maine), Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) and George V. Voinovich (Ohio) joined Brown in breaking ranks to back the bill. Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.) was the only Democrat to vote against the measure, which advanced, 62 to 30.

The bill's centerpiece is a $13 billion program allowing companies to avoid paying Social Security taxes for the remainder of 2010 on new hires who have been unemployed for at least 60 days. Employers would also receive a $1,000 tax credit for each new worker who stays on the job for at least a year. Democrats tout the plan as a simple way to create tens of thousands of new jobs, though some experts dismiss it as too narrow to make a significant dent in the nation's unemployment rate.

The jobs bill also includes a one-year reauthorization of the Highway Trust Fund, a provision allowing companies to write off equipment purchases as business expenses, and an expansion of the Build America Bonds program, which helps state and local governments finance infrastructure projects.

Brown, who pulled off a stunning political feat last month by capturing the seat of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D) and gave Republicans the 41 votes to block most Democratic initiatives, announced his intention to support the measure minutes before Monday's vote. He said he "came to Washington to be an independent voice, to put politics aside. . . . This Senate jobs bill is not perfect. I wish the tax cuts were deeper and broader, but I will vote for it because it contains measures that will help put people back to work."

Charlie Cook: "Very hard" To See How Democrats Can Keep The House

Chris Cillizza:

Political handicapper Charlie Cook said that it was "very hard to come up with a scenario where Democrats don't lose the House" in an interview with National Journal late last week.

Cook, who, in the interest of full disclosure, gave the Fix our first job in political Washington, went on to note that while House Republicans have their fair share of problems but "you could triple the Republican Party's problems and I'd still rather have their problems than the problems facing Democrats."

Cook has, of late, been extremely down on Democrats' chances -- an attitude born, he argued in the interview, of "fundamental, total miscalculations from the very, very beginning" by the White House about the direction to take the country. Cook added that the White House's miscalculations in terms of their agenda were "of proportions comparable to President George W. Bush's decision to go into Iraq."

Stu Rothenberg, another noted political handicapper in Washington, has pegged Democratic House losses as between 24 and 28 seats. He writes: "We currently expect Republicans to fall short of the 40 seats they would need."

GOP Stimulus Hyprocrisy (cartoon)

 

EPA's Regulation Of Greenhouse Gases To Be Phased In Gradually

It seems that Obama's Brilliant Strategy To Get His Transformative Policies Enacted has run into politics as usual: rather than the EPA being a lever to force Congress to do something revolutionary, Congress is forcing the EPA to s-l-o-w down and delay. The NY Times:

Facing wide criticism over their recent finding that greenhouse gases endanger the public welfare, top Environmental Protection Agency officials said Monday that any regulation of such gases would be phased in gradually and would not impose expensive new rules on most American businesses.

The E.P.A.’s administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, wrote in a letter to eight coal-state Democrats who have sought a moratorium on regulation that only the biggest sources of greenhouse gases would be subjected to limits before 2013. Smaller ones would not be regulated before 2016, she said.

“I share your goals of ensuring economic recovery at this critical time and of addressing greenhouse gas emissions in sensible ways that are consistent with the call for comprehensive energy and climate legislation,” Ms. Jackson wrote.

The eight Democratic senators, led by John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, said hugely significant decisions about energy, the economy and the environment should be made by elected representatives, not by federal bureaucrats.

The senators, who earlier questioned broad cap-and-trade legislation pushed by the Obama administration, join a number of Republican lawmakers, industry groups and officials from Texas, Alabama and Virginia in challenging the proposed E.P.A. regulations of industrial sources. Senate Republicans are going a step further, seeking to prevent the agency from taking any action to limit greenhouse gases, which are tied to global warming.

Ms. Jackson warned that if the Republicans thwarted the agency’s efforts to address climate change, it would kill the deal negotiated last year to limit carbon pollution from cars and light trucks and would have a chilling effect on the government’s scientific studies of global warming.

New Credit Card Rules (cartoons)

If you're not sure what the cartoonists are depicting, see Banks Apply Pressure to Keep Fees Rolling In.

President Kicks Off Drive To Upgrade American Education

NY Times:

President Obama kicked off a drive Monday to upgrade American education, unveiling a plan requiring states to adopt new reading and mathematics standards and committing his administration to “breaking down some of the barriers to reform.”

Meeting with the nation’s governors at the White House, Mr. Obama stressed the importance of education to America’s economic competitiveness in a tough global marketplace, a theme he has cited in recent days to undergird a number of his domestic priorities.

He said the depth of the competition was brought home to him during a visit to South Korea last year, when he was told of that country’s determination to educate its children to out-compete American children.

“That’s what we’re up against,” Mr. Obama said. “That’s what’s at stake — nothing less than our primacy in the world. As I said at the State of the Union address, I do not accept a United States of America that’s second-place.”

The president’s proposal, part of the administration’s recommendations for a Congressional overhaul of the No Child Left Behind education program initiated by President George W. Bush, would require states to adopt “college- and career-ready standards” in reading and math to qualify for federal money from a $14 billion program that concentrates on impoverished students.

The No Child Left Behind law required states to adopt “challenging academic standards” in those subjects, but left it up to the states to decide what qualified as “challenging.” The result was that the standards set by states varied widely, with some as rigorous as those used in high-performing countries like Japan, but others setting only mediocre expectations for students.

Mr. Obama singled out Massachusetts for raising its performance so that its eighth graders now tie for best in the world in science. But overall, he said, American eighth traders rank 9th in the world in math and 11th in science, and under No Child Left Behind, 11 states actually lowered their standards in math between 2005 and 2007.

The president praised efforts by 48 states — all but Alaska and Texas — to develop common standards in math and reading, coordinated by the National Governors Association. The collaboration was a bipartisan project at variance with the highly polarized political mood in Washington that has frustrated many of Mr. Obama’s top priorities in Congress.

Reid: Reconciliation Will Be Used. Klein & Chait: Reconciliation Was Designed For This.

Ezra Klein:

Big, encouraging news on health-care reform today: Harry Reid says that Senate Democrats will use the reconciliation process to finish the bill within the next 60 days.

I've noticed some confusion about what this means, so some quick context: Reid is not talking about rewriting the bill or passing the whole thing through reconciliation. He's talking about passing a small package of fixes through reconciliation so that the House and Senate bills come into alignment.

This is actually the sort of situation reconciliation was designed to address, as Brookings' Henry Aaron explains here (pdf). Budget reconciliation is called "reconciliation" because it's supposed to speed the, well, reconciliation of the differences between two budget bills. That's exactly what's left to do with the health-care reform bills, which were indeed part of the 2010 budget and whose passage is expected in the 2011 budget.

Because this is what the process is actually meant to do, it doesn't present the manifold problems of using reconciliation for the entire bill. Things like the insurance market reforms have passed with 60 votes in the Senate and 220 in the House. They're done. What's left are some tweaks to the way the bill spends and raises money (that is to say, tweaks to its budget implications) that are needed to, yes, reconcile the two bills. Reconciliation works for this because reconciliation was designed to do this.

Jonathan Chait agrees with Klein and pans the media for not getting it:

Now that they've lost the ability to break a filibuster, Democrats plan to have the House pass the Senate bill, and then use reconciliation to enact changes to the Senate bill demanded by the House. These changes -- higher subsidy levels, different kinds of taxes to pay for them, nixing the Nebraska Medicaid deal -- mainly involve taxes and spending. In other words, they're exactly the kinds of policies that are well-suited for reconciliation.

It's not just The Hill that misses the distinction, but the whole political media. Here's Sunday's New York Times:

Many Democrats in Congress said they doubted that it was feasible to pass a major health care bill with a parliamentary tool called reconciliation, which is used to speed adoption of budget and tax legislation. Reconciliation requires only 51 votes for passage in the Senate, but entails procedural and political risks.

Again, using reconciliation to patch up the Senate bill is a totally different thing than using it to pass an entire health care bill. I can understand why Republicans would treat them as identical -- they're spinning for partisan purposes. Reporters covering this issue have no good excuse.

Petraeus Agrees With Obama, Not Cheney, On Interrogation Methods & Closing Gitmo

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Obama Proposes New Federal Oversight Of Health Insurers' Rate Increases

NY Times:

President Obama will propose on Monday giving the federal government new power to block excessive rate increases by health insurance companies, as he rolls out comprehensive legislation to revamp the nation’s health care system, White House officials said Sunday.

The president’s legislation aims to bridge differences between the bills adopted by the House and Senate late last year, and to frame his debate with Republicans over health policy at a televised meeting on Thursday.

By focusing on the effort to tighten regulation of insurance costs, a new element not included in either the House or Senate bills, Mr. Obama is seizing on outrage over recent premium increases of up to 39 percent announced by Anthem Blue Cross of California and moving to portray the Democrats’ health overhaul as a way to protect Americans from profiteering insurers.

Congressional Republicans have long denounced the Democrats’ legislation as a “government takeover” of health care. And while they are likely to resist any expansion of federal authority over existing state regulators, they will face a tough balancing act at the meeting with the president to avoid appearing as if they are willing to allow steep premium increases like those by Anthem.

Republican leaders had not formally accepted the president’s invitation to the meeting. But the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said on Sunday that he would attend. “I intend to be there, and my members will be there and ready to participate,” Mr. McConnell said on Fox News ...

The White House has held details of Mr. Obama’s bill extremely tight, leaving even top Democrats in Congress anxiously awaiting the text to be released Monday. But administration officials said it would incorporate legislation proposed last week by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, in response to the Anthem increases. Officials said it would “help make sure that people are not unfairly subject to arbitrary premium hikes.”

Anthem, California’s largest for-profit insurer, has announced premium increases for nearly 700,000 customers, citing the soaring costs of medical care and the effects of a weak economy in which many younger and healthier people are dropping insurance. But the increases, far outpacing the rate of medical inflation, led to outrage among officials in Sacramento and Washington.

The Obama administration has sought to portray the situation as a warning of what could happen to many more Americans if Congress does not act to overhaul the health system.

The president’s bill would grant the federal health and human services secretary new authority to review, and to block, premium increases by private insurers, potentially superseding state insurance regulators. The bill would create a new Health Insurance Rate Authority, made up of health industry experts that would issue an annual report setting the parameters for reasonable rate increases based on conditions in the market.

Officials said they envisioned the provision taking effect immediately after the health care bill is signed into law.

The legislation would call on the secretary of health and human services to work with state regulators to develop an annual review of rate increases, and if increases are deemed “unjustified” the secretary or the state could block the increase, order the insurer to change it, or even issue a rebate to beneficiaries.

The new rate board would be composed of seven members, including consumer representatives, an insurance industry representative, a physician and other experts like health economists and actuaries, the White House said. The board’s annual report would offer guidance to the public and states on whether rate increases should be approved.

But the focus on rate increases is also spotlighting questions about whether the Democrats’ plans do enough to control rising health costs. Anthem and other insurers say they do not.

Bipartanship In Congress (cartoons)

New Uniform, Rigourous Standards For No Child Left Behind

NY Times:

In a proposed change to the No Child Left Behind law, the Obama administration would require states to adopt new academic standards to qualify for federal money from a $14 billion program that concentrates on impoverished students, the White House said Sunday.

The proposal, part of the administration’s recommendations for a Congressional overhaul of the law, would require states to adopt “college- and career-ready standards” in reading and mathematics.

The current law, signed by President George W. Bush in 2002, requires states to adopt “challenging academic standards” in reading and math to receive federal money for poor students under the program known as Title I, but leaves it up to states to decide what qualifies as “challenging.”

The result was that states set their standards at widely varied levels, some as rigorous as those used in high-performing countries like Japan, but others at far lower levels that lay out at best, mediocre expectations for their students ...

President Obama was scheduled to announce the proposal in a meeting on Monday with governors who are gathered in Washington for the annual winter meeting of the National Governors Association.

Since last year, 48 states have been collaborating to write common standards in math and reading, coordinated by the governors’ group and with the encouragement of the White House. Texas and Alaska decided not to participate in that state-led effort.

The common-standards effort has produced a draft, and earlier this month Kentucky became the first state to approve the substitution of the new standards for the state’s own standards in the two subjects.

Today's Health Care Cartoons

 

Senate Votes Today On Scaled-Down Jobs Bill

Wash Post:

Democrats' renewed focus on bolstering the economy faces a key test Monday, with the Senate expected to hold a procedural vote on what Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) hopes will be the first of several job-creation bills.

The chamber will vote on whether to proceed with a $15 billion measure that includes a one-year Social Security tax break for companies hiring new employees who have been out of work for at least 60 days. The package also would reauthorize the Highway Trust Fund, allow companies to write off equipment purchases, and expand Build America Bonds, which help state and local governments fund infrastructure projects.

But the measure does not include a host of other provisions from an $85 billion bipartisan package negotiated by Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). Reid's decision to discard that bill in favor of a smaller version has cost him the public support of several Republicans, casting doubt on whether Democrats will garner the 60 votes necessary to proceed Monday.

"We're pretty close," Reid said Friday during a television appearance in Nevada, adding that he thought "fat cats" would have benefited too much from the larger Baucus-Grassley bill.

As of Sunday, no Republicans had declared intentions to vote to proceed on the slimmer bill. Under normal circumstances, Democrats would need at least one GOP vote to reach a filibuster-proof majority. With Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) absent after receiving a diagnosis of cancer last week, his party will need to lure at least two Republicans on Monday in order to set up a vote on final passage later this week.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on "Fox News Sunday" that Republicans "may well" support the jobs bill, though that doesn't necessarily mean the GOP will help Democrats on Monday's procedural vote.

Climate Change Cartoons

 

New Study Of Foreign Militaries Shows No Ill Effects From Openly Gay Soldiers

NY Times:

A comprehensive new study on foreign militaries that have made transitions to allowing openly gay service members concludes that a speedy implementation of the change is not disruptive. The finding is in direct opposition to the stated views of Pentagon leaders, who say repealing a ban on openly gay men and women in the United States armed forces should take a year or more.

The study, “Gays in Foreign Militaries 2010: A Global Primer,” is to be released Tuesday by the Palm Center, a research group at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The Palm Center has no official position on “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the American law that bans openly gay service members, but the group has become a leading force among advocates for repeal. The principal author of the study is Nathaniel Frank, who also wrote the book “Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America.”

The 151-page study, which updates existing studies on gay service members in Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa and other countries, offers the first broad look at the issue in foreign militaries since Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for an end to “don’t ask, don’t tell” earlier this month.

The report concludes that in foreign militaries, openly gay service members did not undermine morale, cause large resignations or mass “comings out.” The report found that “there were no instances of increased harassment” as a result of lifting bans in any of the countries studied.

In addition, the report says that none of the countries studied installed separate facilities for gay troops, and that benefits for gay partners were generally in accordance with a country’s existing benefits for gay and lesbian couples.

On implementation, the study said that most countries made the change swiftly, within a matter of months and with what it termed little disruption to the armed services. Mr. Frank said the study did not look at what happened if the change was implemented gradually because, he said, “I don’t think any of the militaries tried it.”

Mr. Frank’s report cited a 1993 RAND study on the effects of allowing openly gay members to serve in the American military, which concluded that “phased-in implementation might allow enemies of the new policy to intentionally create problems to prove the policy unworkable.” On personnel policy decisions of this nature, the RAND study said, “Any waiting period permits restraining forces to consolidate.”