Sunday, January 31, 2010

Some sense and nonsense about terrorism (from Fareed Zakaria & Rudy Giuliani)

Caught up in what has become his habitual mode of obsessive and often factually careless sloganeering about terrorism, Rudy Giuliani slips into alternate reality again ... or perhaps he's reaching for new levels of self-parody.



Of course, it's true that Obama didn't spend the entire State of the Union Speech obsessing about the terrorist threat--whereas Giuliani has trouble talking about anything else. Would it have been a good idea for Obama to fixate, Giuliani-style, on the dangers of terrorism? Of course not.

It would be a great mistake to ignore the threat of terrorism, to pretend that it's not a serious problem, or to make excuses for terrorists (explicitly or implicitly). But Obama and his administration have never done any of those things, even slightly.

On the other hand, to the extent that terrorist organizations manage to keep us terrorized, then their efforts are successful, whether or not their bombs actually go off. As Fareed Zakaria, among others, wisely pointed out in the aftermath of the Christmas underpants-bombing attempt:
The purpose of terrorism is to provoke an overreaction. Its real aim is not to kill the hundreds of people directly targeted but to sow fear in the rest of the population. Terrorism is an unusual military tactic in that it depends on the response of the onlookers. If we are not terrorized, then the attack didn't work. Alas, this one worked very well. [....]

On Christmas a Qaeda affiliate launched an operation using one person, with no special target, and a failed technique tried eight years ago by "shoe bomber" Richard Reid. [....] The suicide bomber was not even able to commit suicide. But Al Qaeda succeeded in its real aim, which was to throw the American system into turmoil. That's why the terror group proudly boasted about the success of its mission.
It should be possible, as Zakaria properly suggests, to find "some sensible reaction between panic and passivity." But one factor that makes a sensible response to terrorism less likely is for elected officials to convey a message of panicked obsession with terrorism to the American public and to our enemies.
Overreacting to terrorist attacks plays into Al Qaeda's hands. It also provokes responses that are likely to be large scale, expensive, ineffective, and perhaps even counterproductive.
For example:
More screening for every passenger makes no sense. When searching for needles in haystacks, adding hay doesn't help. [....] What's needed is a larger, more robust watch list that is instantly available to all relevant agencies in the government. Almost 2 million people travel on planes in the United States every day. We need to isolate the tiny percentage of suspicious characters and search them, not cause needless fear in everyone else. [....]
And, by the way, here is an especially perceptive point, which advocates of (or apologists for) torture ought to ponder especially carefully:
As for the calls to treat the would-be Christmas bomber as an enemy combatant, torture him, and toss him into Guantánamo, God knows he deserves it. But keep in mind, the crucial intelligence we received was from the boy's father. If that father had believed that the United States was a rogue superpower that would torture and abuse his child without any sense of decency, would he have turned him in? To keep this country safe we need many more fathers and uncles and friends and colleagues to have enough trust in America that they too would turn in the terrorist next door.
Yours for political sanity,
Jeff Weintraub

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Why Jonathan Chait still thinks health care reform will probably get passed

Jonathan Chait suggests that we shouldn't give way to panic, despair, or wild recriminations just yet. Here's the crux of his argument:
In my opinion, the issue is in a similar place as last summer, when the national media was also declaring reform dead, or on life support. But the structural dynamic remains the same -- Democrats understand that they have to pass this bill or face even deeper electoral catastrophe than they're likely to suffer anyway. They suffer from disorganization, lack of urgency, and extreme parochialism. The good news is that, having passed a bill through the Senate, the largest procedural roadblock by far is now behind them. The Democrats now [need] just 50 Senators to cut a deal with the House to fix a bill through reconciliation, and 218 House members to vote for the Senate bill. (I interpret the complaints of Nelson, Bayh, and Lincoln as a message that they want to go to the front of the line to be among the nine Democratic Senators who can vote against the reconciliation fix without killing it.)

Again, I don't see this as a sure thing, but the outlook remains a lot better than you'd guess from reading the national news headlines.
Could be. Again, I guess we'll see.

--Jeff Weintraub

==============================
New Republic (Online)
January 27, 2010
I'm Back. So Is Health Care Reform
By Jonathan Chait

By sheer luck, I think I picked a fairly good time to go on vacation. Mainly what I missed is a bout of hysteria and elected Democrats coming around to the obvious. Last Wednesday, in the wake of the Coakley fiasco, I predicted that health care reform remained a better-than-even bet:
Here is what I think will happen. The shock and panic will play itself out over a few days. Then the Democrats will assess the situation and realize that letting health care die represents their worst possible option. And then they will make a deal to pass the Senate bill through the House. I am not positive this will happen, but it's my bet, because elected officials at the national level, dim though they can be, are usually shrewd enough to recognize their political self-interest.
That seems to be how it's playing out. First, you had a big freakout. Then the national media declared reform dead. But the more perceptive reporters can see that the basic structural dynamics favoring a deal remain as strong as ever. Here's Karen Tumulty:
After looking at all their other options--drafting a smaller health care bill, or passing the most popular parts piecemeal--Democratic leaders in the House and Senate have come down to the realization that they've got one play left on health care: Get the House to pass the Senate bill, with the assurance of a set of revisions to be included in a companion measure passed under the budget reconciliation process, to circumvent the Senate's 60-vote majority requirement. ...

But leaders have yet to figure out how that would work. Trust between the two chambers is frayed, and not likely to grow as more and more Senate Democrats come out against using reconciliation to get a health bill to President Obama's desk. Already, we are seeing the defections of moderates such as Nelson, Indiana's Evan Bayh, and Arkansas' Blanche Lincoln. Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad is no sure thing; nor is independent Joe Lieberman. Meanwhile, Republicans are certain to drag out the bill as long as they can.
Jonathan Cohn has been making a more cautious version of this case for a few days now. In my opinion, the issue is in a similar place as last summer, when the national media was also declaring reform dead, or on life support. But the structural dynamic remains the same -- Democrats understand that they have to pass this bill or face even deeper electoral catastrophe than they're likely to suffer anyway. They suffer from disorganization, lack of urgency, and extreme parochialism. The good news is that, having passed a bill through the Senate, the largest procedural roadblock by far is now behind them. The Democrats now [need] just 50 Senators to cut a deal with the House to fix a bill through reconciliation, and 218 House members to vote for the Senate bill. (I interpret the complaints of Nelson, Bayh, and Lincoln as a message that they want to go to the front of the line to be among the nine Democratic Senators who can vote against the reconciliation fix without killing it.)

Again, I don't see this as a sure thing, but the outlook remains a lot better than you'd guess from reading the national news headlines.

Are the Democrats going to capitulate on health care reform?

Hard to say.

=> On the one hand, it's clear that a lot of Congressional Democrats are still in a condition approaching blind panic, either stunned and paralyzed with indecision or else running around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off. Various bits of evidence floating around lend some plausibility to these predictions from a story in today's New York Times:
With no clear path forward on major health care legislation, Democratic leaders in Congress effectively slammed the brakes on President Obama’s top domestic priority on Tuesday, saying they no longer felt pressure to move quickly on a health bill after eight months of setting deadlines and missing them. [....]

Some lawmakers said they expected that Congress would try to adopt a vastly pared-down bill once they returned to the issue. [....]

Speaker Pelosi has said House Democrats will not simply vote to approve the health care bill adopted by the Senate on Dec. 24, and send it directly to Mr. Obama for his signature. [....]

But a plan to win over House members by making changes to the Senate bill in the budget reconciliation process ran into substantial resistance on Tuesday. [....]

[Senator Evan] Bayh said, “It would destroy the opportunity, if there is one, for any bipartisan cooperation the rest of this year on anything else.”

[JW: An "opportunity ... for bipartisan cooperation"? What planet was he visiting in 2009?]

[....] The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said [....] Mr. Obama should “put the 2,700-page Democrat health care plan on the shelf” and “move toward the kind of step-by-step approach Americans really want.”

Republicans, however, have not come forward with any new proposals, and Mr. McConnell has said he hopes the health care bill is now dead.
If the Democrats go down that route, it would be stupid, disgraceful, cravenly defeatist, politically self-destructive, and disastrous for the country--none of which rules it out as a strong possibility.

=> On the other hand, a report by Greg Sargent, who is usually well informed and reliable on such matters, offers some grounds for possible optimism:
[....] White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer told Capitol Hill staffers on a private briefing call that in his [State of the Union] speech tonight, Obama will leave no doubt that his commitment to addressing health care is as strong right now as it was in his September speech, a White House official tells me. [....]

“We’re going to let the President’s words speak for themselves,” is the message Pfeiffer delivered to Hill staff, according to the official. “There will be additional details that he will share tonight [....]

There had been some talk that Obama might call for a scaled-down approach tonight. Others wondered whether he would give the issue short shrift. But both of those possibilities seem unlikely, given what Pfeiffer is telling Hill staff.

As for how strongly Obama will signal is preferred way forward on reform, the devil will obviously be in the “additional details” he offers. But if his speech does in fact reaffirm his commitment to comprehensive reform as his strongly as his September speech did, that could reassure a lot of people.
I guess we'll see.

--Jeff Weintraub

Elizabeth Warren concisely explains why we need to repair the financial regulatory system corrupted, undermined, & dismantled since 1980

It's odd, isn't it, that nowadays a lot of the most informative news and analysis is broadcast on comedy shows? Well, so it goes. In this clip from The Daily Show Elizabeth Warren offers a very clear, cogent, and illuminating brief introduction that gets to the heart of a big, sprawling, complicated subject. Obviously, it's only an introduction, but it's a good one. So if you're interested ...

--Jeff Weintraub

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Elizabeth Warren
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political HumorHealth Care Crisis

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Pass the damn bill (#6) - Paul Begala & Andy Stern

=> Paul Begala (January 24/2010):
In an op-ed several months ago, I advised my fellow progressive Democrats to support health care reform even if it fails to include some of their cherished goals.

Now I'm begging.

I understand and share the frustrations of progressives. They compromised before the debate even began, giving up on Medicare for all and settling for its weak cousin, a public option. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party has been everything that the reactionary wing of the Republican Party has not: open-minded, pragmatic and respectful of the views of others. The Republicans' obstinacy has been rewarded by the voters, who sent Scott Brown to the Senate as the candidate of change who promised to defend the status quo on health care. So why do I urge further flexibility? Because failure is not an option and surrender is not a strategy.

I am convinced that Democrats lost the Congress in 1994 because we failed to pass health care. And yet today many Democrats are worried that they will lose the Congress if they pass health care. They are wrong. Here's why:
[JW: Read his arguments, which make sense, HERE.]
[....] Health care is a uniquely complicated issue in Massachusetts because the state already has near-universal coverage (which Scott Brown voted for). [....] As Brown said in a debate, "We have insurance here in Massachusetts. I'm not going to be subsidizing what other states have failed to do." That's a far cry from outright rejection of health reform. In fact, if there's a lesson to be learned from Massachusetts, it is that once enacted, comprehensive reform quickly becomes broadly popular and politically impregnable. A poll co-sponsored by the Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University showed that 68 percent of Massachusetts voters support their state's health care reform -- including a majority of those who voted for Scott Brown. [JW: see here]

This is our last, best shot. Up to 40,000 Americans die each year because they lack health insurance. 40,000: a 9/11-size death toll every thirteen days. After our failure in 1994 it took 16 years before another president and Congress were bold enough to take on the challenge. If we fail now it won't be just 16 years -- or even 36. If we fail now, I doubt anyone old enough to read this column will live long enough to see universal health insurance.

If Democrats fail to deliver on a basic campaign promise, it will only heighten voters' anger and deepen their cynicism. But health reform that actually protects consumers and controls costs will soon join Medicare -- and the Massachusetts reform -- as unassailable accomplishments.

[JW: Which, of course, is precisely what frightens Republicans and other opponents of health care reform. Once people get this, they won't want to give it up--as Bill Kristol warned back in 1993.]
=>Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union (January 26, 2010):
"Take the Senate bill as it is as the foundation to find ways whether through reconciliation or other legislative processes to try and fix the things that a lot of people think need to be fixed both now in the House and the Senate," Stern said. "I think going through reconciliation we don't have Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman to kick around anymore. So the 58 other senators get to decide something they maybe didn't get to decide the first time around because of the hostage-taking that is going on in the Senate." [....]

Stern's lament of the Democratic Party's inability to get legislative action done, even with its supermajority, was shared by his co-panelist and labor colleague, Anna Burger, head of Change to Win. [....] "If Congress does not act, then they will lose. There is no way that inaction will get us anywhere... 2010 will be a terrible election. People in fact voted for change, and if they haven't gotten change then they will go back and vote for the next change."
--------------------

--Jeff Weintraub

Pass the damn bill — A wrap-up so far

Yesterday I posted the following 5 pieces, with arguments coming from somewhat different directions but converging on the same fundamental conclusion. (Most of these pieces are unapologetically Democratic in their sympathies and intended audience. Jonathan Rauch, on the other hand, clearly believes that the analysis he offers should also appeal to a pragmatic, humane, and non-doctrinaire Republican and/or conservative.)

In response to some requests, I am collecting them here in one place:

Pass the damn bill (#1) - Jonathan Cohn
Pass the damn bill (#2) - Paul Krugman
Pass the damn bill (#3) - Washington Monthly/Politico
Pass the damn bill (#4) - William Galston
Pass the damn bill (#5) - Jonathan Rauch


UPDATES:
Pass the damn bill (#6) - Paul Begala & Andy Stern
Pass the damn bill (#7) - Henry Aaron
Now, Pass The Damn Bill (#8) - Jonathan Cohn
Pass the damn bill (#9) - Warren Buffett
Pass the damn bill (#10) - Theda Skocpol
Pass the damn bill (#11) - Matt Yglesias
Pass the damn bill (#12) - The Catholic Health Association & Catholic nuns representing a range of socially active religious orders

=> I suppose I should add Paul Krugman's excellent column from last Thursday (January 21): "Do the Right Thing"
A message to House Democrats: This is your moment of truth. You can do the right thing and pass the Senate health care bill. Or you can look for an easy way out, make excuses and fail the test of history. [....]
Ladies and gentlemen, the nation is waiting. Stop whining, and do what needs to be done.
=> And I will add two brief statements that I think are both cogent and relevant.

The first is a commentary e-mailed to me yesterday by Victor Lidz (and reproduced with his permission):
Thanks for collecting these several convergent opinions. I agree entirely that (1) the bill must be passed – the administration and Democratic members of Congress cannot let the whole protracted set of negotiations go down the tubes, producing nothing after having occupied the political center stage for most of last year; (2) once passed, the law will be very popular – the opposition is based almost entirely on misrepresentations and outright lies about the bill, ones Republicans had the opportunity to put forward only because of the protracted process of developing the bill; (3) passing the Senate bill in the House is the only practical way of proceeding, because Republicans will oppose in every way possible; (4) Nancy Pelosi should be told by the White House that her job is not to count votes in the House but to produce the votes for the sake of the party’s overall needs and benefits – maybe the president has to go up to the House and meet with the Democrats to persuade them and indeed lean on them, but it is unthinkable that they would abandon the bill once they have reflected on the consequences [JW: I hope that prediction is correct]; (5) it would be best to do this tomorrow – before the State of the Union; (6) the president has to make a strong statement in the State of the Union about the importance of the Senate bill and its measures – and he needs to emphasize how much of it was shaped by concession to Republicans who then still backed away from it in bad faith; (7) the Democrats need then to focus on job creation.
The second comes from a characteristically pithy blog post by Mark Kleiman:
As Dr. Johnson said, the prospect of imminent catastrophe can concentrate the mind wonderfully.

Despite an initial tendency in Blue Blogistan to debate whether the recent reverses should be blamed on (1) progressives (2) centrists or (3) Barack Obama, a healthy consensus seems to be developing that we should (1) blame the Republicans and (2) do something about it, namely demand that our legislators Pass the Damned Bill. That would mean having the House pass the Senate bill under assurances that various points of dispute will be resolved satisfactorily to the House under the budget reconciliation process. [....]
Right. If you live in a district with a wavering member of Congress, call his or her office.

--Jeff Weintraub

Monday, January 25, 2010

Pass the damn bill (#5) - Jonathan Rauch

I agree with Andrew Sullivan that this piece by Jonathan Rauch in the National Journal offers an exceptionally "smart, fair, balanced and thoroughly researched" analysis of the Senate health care bill and of the practical options currently available.

In fact, the perspective informing it could be described as balanced, judicious, moderate, and bipartisan almost to a fault. One of the things that Rauch likes about the bill is that it is a fundamentally centrist, pragmatic and non-doctrinaire first effort to deal with an undeniable and worsening problem. In some ways this could even be seen as an example of conservative reform. For example:
(Indeed, one striking feature of the reform bill, given its all-Democratic provenance, is the extent to which it leaves the existing infrastructure of private health insurance intact. In a few years, the public might be less willing to do that.) [....]
From my perspective, this is a drawback of the bill--though probably a necessary one--rather than a positive feature. But, as Rauch recognizes, it underlines the absurdity of some of the wilder claims by right-wing opponents of the bill that it is somehow a radical measure, involving a "government take-over of health care," and so on. Unlike the previous writers I have included in this "Pass the damn bill" series, who have been talking primarily to Democrats, I think Rauch sees his argument as one that a sensible, humane, pragmatic, and non-doctrinaire conservative or Republican should also find convincing.

Rauch can see a number of imperfections and limitations with the legislation that has come together over the past year, and he can foresee some potential problems that might emerge if it is enacted in its present form (problems which would require future fixes). He also cautions that "anyone claiming this legislation is an easy call has delusions of omniscience."

But in the end, Rauch concludes, the Senate health care bill "is worth saving"--especially if one compares that to the realistically available alternative, which is to do nothing, or at least nothing serious. That's the real choice right now.
"Doing nothing would be better than doing what they are proposing to do," Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told CNN in December. Regardless of what you think of Thune's answer, he raises the right question about the Democrats' health care reform. Is it better than nothing?

Republicans think that doing nothing this year might yield a GOP House majority in 2011 and a better bill in 2012. Maybe. But after the last attempt crashed in 1994, it was 15 years before Congress was willing to try again. If the current effort fails, the next chance for comprehensive reform might not arrive for years.

In the meantime, piecemeal changes might make matters worse instead of better. [....]

A friend of mine made a full recovery from prostate cancer, only to find that he could not get health insurance at any price. Stories like his are common -- too common to be politically sustainable, let alone morally acceptable. [....]

The Democrats' shocking loss this week of the late Edward Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts certainly increases the odds that Republicans will block the bill. Still, even without a filibuster-proof majority, House Democrats could finish the job by swallowing their pride and simply passing the Senate bill. Should they?

I think the answer is yes. The Senate health bill, though flawed, passes the Thune test.

True, it could have been so much better. If, for example, it were bipartisan (but Republicans chose to boycott it). If its "pay-fors" were more solid (but this is the U.S. Congress we are talking about). If it were serious about malpractice reform (but these are Democrats we are talking about). [Etc. ....]

But the point is that the reform contains a pathway to sanity. No one can say that about the status quo.
And that's particularly true because the "status quo" is not static. The result of the 1994 debacle--in terms of the well-being of the country, if not the short-term partisan fortunes of the Republican Party--was that the problems of the health care system continued to deepen and intensify for the next decade and a half, and another failure now would yield similar results. Again: This reform "contains a pathway to sanity. No one can say that about the status quo."

The heart and substance of this piece lie in the reasoning by which Rauch arrives at his conclusion, so I recommend reading it carefully and in full. In the end, I find that conclusion solidly convincing, but even readers who are more skeptical about that should find the discussion informative and usefully thought-provoking.

--Jeff Weintraub

==============================
National Journal
Saturday, January 23, 2010
The Health Care Bill Is Worth Saving
Anyone claiming this legislation is an easy call has delusions of omniscience.

by Jonathan Rauch

"Doing nothing would be better than doing what they are proposing to do," Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told CNN in December. Regardless of what you think of Thune's answer, he raises the right question about the Democrats' health care reform. Is it better than nothing?

Republicans think that doing nothing this year might yield a GOP House majority in 2011 and a better bill in 2012. Maybe. But after the last attempt crashed in 1994, it was 15 years before Congress was willing to try again. If the current effort fails, the next chance for comprehensive reform might not arrive for years.

In the meantime, piecemeal changes might make matters worse instead of better. Absent broader reforms, legislative scrambles to cut Medicare would mostly shift costs to private payers, and requirements to cover all comers could price private insurance nearly out of existence. A few more years of ad-hockery and Band-Aids might leave the public in the mood for exactly the kind of single-payer socialized medical system that Republicans dread. Doing nothing, in other words, is not a risk-free proposition, even for the John Thunes of the world.

The Democrats' shocking loss this week of the late Edward Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts certainly increases the odds that Republicans will block the bill. Still, even without a filibuster-proof majority, House Democrats could finish the job by swallowing their pride and simply passing the Senate bill. Should they?

I think the answer is yes. The Senate health bill, though flawed, passes the Thune test.

True, it could have been so much better. If, for example, it were bipartisan (but Republicans chose to boycott it). If its "pay-fors" were more solid (but this is the U.S. Congress we are talking about). If it were serious about malpractice reform (but these are Democrats we are talking about).

The expansion of health care coverage to many, though not all, of the uninsured may prove to have found the exact sour spot: enough new beneficiaries to increase demand for health services and so raise system costs, but not enough to deliver the risk-spreading and efficiency-capturing benefits of true universality. Despite mandates, many people will manage to free-ride, and some who don't free-ride will pay more in premiums. There is plenty to worry about here.

So what's to like?

After reform is enacted, the taboo on taxing employer-provided health benefits will be shattered once and for all.

First, the expansion of insurance coverage to tens of millions more Americans and the abolition of the "pre-existing conditions" insurance exclusion are changes for the better. A friend of mine made a full recovery from prostate cancer, only to find that he could not get health insurance at any price. Stories like his are common -- too common to be politically sustainable, let alone morally acceptable.

On paper, Congress might have found better ways of making insurance available to high-risk individuals than by requiring insurers to cover them and by creating government-regulated markets ("exchanges") where these individuals can buy insurance; the alternatives, however, are complicated, lack political support, and in the end might make government even bigger. (Indeed, one striking feature of the reform bill, given its all-Democratic provenance, is the extent to which it leaves the existing infrastructure of private health insurance intact. In a few years, the public might be less willing to do that.)

Second, the bill is probably as close to paying for itself as the political system is likely to manage. It would be great if Congress made up-front reductions in other programs, rather than counting on, for example, Medicare savings that may or may not materialize. But, given the political unacceptability of horror stories like my friend's, the real-world alternative to plausible-maybe-almost-sort-of fiscal neutrality is something more like the Republicans' 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill, which made no attempt at all to pay for itself.

Although long-term budget projections are squishy, the Congressional Budget Office's are the best we have to go on. Notably, CBO scored the Senate bill as deficit-neutral (actually, it would slightly reduce the deficit) over the reform's second decade after enactment, which is well beyond the window of cost-shifting and timing gimmicks. We could do worse, and possibly will do worse next time around.

And what about bending the cost curve? Health care inflation devours wages, burdens employers, and could eventually bankrupt the government. A reform that fails to grapple with the cost problem, the critics say, is not worth having. I agree.

So how does the reform score on cost control? The original House bill does poorly. However, the Senate-passed bill is better on cost control than many people realize. Although far from optimal, it contains a potential pathway to a restructured health payment system that gets incentives right instead of wrong.

I'll return to that weasel word "potential," but first the major elements. Most economists believe that two pervasive market distortions fuel health cost inflation. The first is Medicare's fee-for-service payment system, which pays providers based on the number of procedures they perform, rewarding inefficiency. The second is the tax deductibility of employer-provided health insurance, which subsidizes high-cost policies, hides the costs of those policies from employees, and denies employees the opportunity to shop around.

Both distortions inhibit market discipline, and both originate with bad government policy. If socialized medicine is state payment for most health care, then the country is there already: When the value of the employer tax subsidy is included, the government (federal and state) pays for almost 60 percent of all U.S. health care, according to Paul Van de Water, an analyst with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Dealing with Medicare and the employer tax deduction is therefore crucial to cost control.

Medicare is a tough problem, both because of the politics and because no one really knows how to fix it on a national scale. The reform bill includes programs designed to identify better payment methods, and it establishes a special commission that could, theoretically, help push through worthwhile Medicare reforms. There is no guarantee, obviously, that those schemes would work. But they might well improve the situation, and they are unlikely to do any harm.

As for the employer tax break, the Senate bill docks it. Not a ton. Only high-premium policies covering a minority of workers would be taxed. But even the limited tax is very important, for several reasons.

Crucially, the threshold for taxation would not rise as fast as health inflation. Translation: Gradually more and more employer-provided policies would be taxed. The change would be incremental, even glacial -- but slow seems to be the only pace with which Americans are comfortable.

Moreover, after reform is enacted, the taboo on taxing employer-provided health benefits will be shattered once and for all. From then on the question will be how much to tax, not whether. A door that had been welded shut will have been pried open. The country will be able to have a new kind of discussion, one in which the tying of health insurance to employment -- which is insane, when you think about it -- is no longer sacrosanct.

Meanwhile, the reform also includes a provision quietly inserted by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that allows a narrow band of workers to cash out their employer's health insurance tax break and use it to buy a policy of their own choosing. In other words, instead of being captured by the employer, the tax subsidy would flow to the employee.

Again, the provision applies only to a few workers -- at first. However, as rising costs push up premiums, more workers would qualify. No less important, the provision puts in place both a precedent and a mechanism for rewiring the system so that consumers, not employers, can make the choices.

Taken together, these measures could set in motion a virtuous cycle. As health costs rise, more employer-provided health plans become taxable, giving employers an incentive to find cheaper plans. As employer-provided plans grow less generous, more employees have an incentive to take a tax credit and shop around, and, as premiums rise, more qualify to do so. Little by little, insurance coverage shifts toward an individual-based, consumer-driven market. And the faster health insurance costs rise, the faster the transition happens. The disease triggers its own antibodies.

Again, no guarantees. The transition would be very gradual, and political blowback could easily disrupt it. But the point is that the reform contains a pathway to sanity. No one can say that about the status quo.

Pass the damn bill (#4) - William Galston

In some respects, as Galston says, he now finds himself "in a paradoxical position."
In this publication and elsewhere, I have argued since October of 2008 against beginning the new administration with an ambitious agenda that included comprehensive health reform. Nonetheless, I believe that the president and congressional Democrats would be ill-advised to shelve the effort at this point. Here are my reasons.
In the course of laying out those reasons, which strike me as quite cogent and convincing, Galston also disposes of various arguments suggesting that, on both pragmatic and principled grounds, it would be a good idea for the Democrats to give up and abandon the whole effort in the face of political setbacks, relentless opposition, negative polls, and all the rest.

Galston's discussion is well reasoned and worth reading in full, so I won't try to summarize it. But think Democrats, in particular, might want to pay special attention to the following passages, if only because Galston makes some points there that they may find jarring.

Some people argue, explicitly or in effect, that it's not just imprudent but somehow illegitimate for an elected government to pursue any policy that doesn't command majority support in public opinion polls. (That's what many Republican politicians and Fox News types are now saying about health care reform. Over in Britain, it's a common line pushed, or insinuated, by critics of Tony Blair who are obsessively determined to show that the decision to go to war against Saddam Hussein in 2003 was not just mistaken but somehow also "illegal" or, if all else fails, "legal but of questionable legitimacy".) However, as Galston points out, such arguments rest, explicitly or implicitly, on confused and simplistic premises concerning the nature of representative government:
The Founders designed a representative republic, not a plebiscitary democracy. Officials are elected to make judgments on behalf of the people, and the people get to judge those judgments. Large changes are always more uncertain than is the status quo, which is why change is so hard. At some point, elected officials have to tell their constituents, “I’ve done my best to think this issue through, and this is the conclusion I’ve reached. Now it’s your turn.” [....]
And here Galston is willing to go where other Democrats might fear to tread:
This brings us back to the issue of the nature of our political system and the principles of conduct it embodies. One might argue that by the fall of 2006, the American people had rendered a negative judgment on the Iraq war [JW: much more decisively than their current ambivalence about the Democrats' health care reform plan] and that George W. Bush’s decision to double down with the troop surge was undemocratic. Well, speaking as someone who publicly opposed that war well before we entered it, I have to say that I respect President Bush for making the decision he did ... and that it was probably right on the merits. Yes, it’s one thing to be the chief executive, another to be a member of the House. But that difference doesn’t mean that it’s always wrong, or undemocratic, for Congress to exercise independent judgment. [....]
Correct. However, a lot depends right now on strong and effective leadership from President Obama--who at first gave the unfortunate impression that he might be waffling:
If the president sounds such an uncertain trumpet, who will follow? If he still wants legislation, he should invest the full authority of his office to persuade the House to endorse the Senate bill, accompanied by a package of amendments to be considered separately under the reconciliation process. If he has concluded that he has no choice but to take the issue off the table, he should say so. If he continues to utter hopeful banalities devoid of concrete meaning, the fragile reform coalition will collapse within days, with consequences that will endure for decades.
Presumably, Obama's State of the Union address on Wednesday will make some things clearer. Meanwhile, Galston's discussion is on-target, so I recommend reading it in full and considering it carefully.

--Jeff Weintraub

==============================
New Republic (On-Line)
January 22, 2010
Why Obama Can’t Abandon Health Care Now
By William Galston

In the wake of Massachusetts, President Obama faces two urgent decisions. One concerns his agenda for 2010 and beyond. I offered >my advice on this last week, have not changed my mind, and won’t repeat myself.

The president must also decide how to proceed with health care legislation. Here I find myself in a paradoxical position. In this publication and elsewhere, I have argued since October of 2008 against beginning the new administration with an ambitious agenda that included comprehensive health reform. Nonetheless, I believe that the president and congressional Democrats would be ill-advised to shelve the effort at this point. Here are my reasons.

First: At the most basic political level, turning tail and running for the tall grass is bound to fail. Democrats who have already voted for health reform (and that’s most of them) can’t take their votes back. Whatever they do between now and November, they’ll be called on to defend what they’ve done. Are they going to say that they’ve changed their minds? Who would believe them?

Second: The American people won’t support representatives they don’t respect. The people respect sincerity, consistency, and strength of purpose. It is often the case that constituents will respect positions with which they disagree—if they think their representatives really mean it. One thing is clear: They won’t respect vacillation and weakness. Does anyone?

Third: The president and congressional Democrats have spent the past year arguing that health reform is in the national interest—that it will broaden coverage, begin to contain costs, increase disposable income, and help improve the government’s long-term fiscal outlook. Which of those arguments ceased to be true between Monday and today?

Fourth: The Founders designed a representative republic, not a plebiscitary democracy. Officials are elected to make judgments on behalf of the people, and the people get to judge those judgments. Large changes are always more uncertain than is the status quo, which is why change is so hard. At some point, elected officials have to tell their constituents, “I’ve done my best to think this issue through, and this is the conclusion I’ve reached. Now it’s your turn.”

There are two cogent arguments against the position I’m defending. The first is that there’s not nearly enough trust in government to sustain comprehensive health reform, and ramming it through in the face of public disapproval will only intensify mistrust and make matters worse. The shortage of trust was a compelling reason not to go down this road in the first place--especially in the context of necessary but expensive and unpopular measures needed to ward off a second Great Depression--but it doesn’t resolve the question of what to do now. It’s a judgment call: Are you more likely to begin rebuilding trust by sticking to your guns--or by in effect saying that you weren’t really that serious about the most important piece of social legislation in decades?

The second counterargument is that elected officials have involved the people in a year-long discussion about health reform, and the people have rendered their judgment, first in public opinion surveys, then in Massachusetts. Proceeding in the face of this judgment, the argument goes, is a gross violation of small-d democratic norms. This brings us back to the issue of the nature of our political system and the principles of conduct it embodies. One might argue that by the fall of 2006, the American people had rendered a negative judgment on the Iraq war and that George W. Bush’s decision to double down with the troop surge was undemocratic. Well, speaking as someone who publicly opposed that war well before we entered it, I have to say that I respect President Bush for making the decision he did ... and that it was probably right on the merits. Yes, it’s one thing to be the chief executive, another to be a member of the House. But that difference doesn’t mean that it’s always wrong, or undemocratic, for Congress to exercise independent judgment.

So what is to be done? President Obama’s opening post-Massachusetts gambit--his interview with George Stephanopoulos--was not helpful. Consider the following statement: “I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on.” Which people? If he means the American people as a whole, I’m not sure what that proposal amounts to. Sure, everyone would like restraints on insurance companies and constraints on costs increases (the two areas the president cited), but you can’t get them without other things that many people don’t like, such as costly coverage expansion and increased regulatory bureaucracy. If he means Democrats and Republicans in Congress, the zone of agreement is near zero and likely to remain there until November. Given the success of their obstructionism so far, why would Republican leaders change course? And after the failed negotiations in the Senate Finance Committee last year, who believes that Republican moderates would break ranks now? As for focusing on areas of agreement between House and Senate Democrats, I thought that’s what the discussion up until Monday was all about.

If the president sounds such an uncertain trumpet, who will follow? If he still wants legislation, he should invest the full authority of his office to persuade the House to endorse the Senate bill, accompanied by a package of amendments to be considered separately under the reconciliation process. If he has concluded that he has no choice but to take the issue off the table, he should say so. If he continues to utter hopeful banalities devoid of concrete meaning, the fragile reform coalition will collapse within days, with consequences that will endure for decades.

Pass the damn bill (#3) - Washington Monthly/Politico

Here's how it could (and probably should) be done. From Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly's "Political Animal" blog.

--Jeff Weintraub
==============================
Washington Monthly (Political Animal)
January 23, 2010
By Steve Benen

THE TALKS THAT MAY SAVE HEALTH CARE REFORM.... Over the last few days, it's become increasingly evident that congressional Democrats aren't sure how, when, or whether to move forward on health care reform. There is an obvious course that would deliver an extraordinary victory -- the House passes the Senate bill, then approves changes through reconciliation -- but fear is driving reluctance.

Politico reports that there will apparently be some talks this weekend that may save health care reform (and save the Democratic Party, and save the lives of uninsured Americans, and save countless families from bankruptcy).

Struggling to salvage health reform, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have begun considering a list of changes to the Senate bill in hopes of making it acceptable to liberal House members, according to sources familiar with the situation.

The changes could be included in separate legislation that, if passed, would pave the way for House approval of the Senate bill -- a move that would preserve President Barack Obama's vision of a sweeping health reform plan. [...]

The changes are being worked on this weekend with plans for Pelosi to present them to her caucus next week, according to sources familiar with the situation. But, sources stressed, neither Reid nor Pelosi know if this strategy can win the support of their members, but they are attempting it because it is the quickest path to passage.

As recently as last week, in the midst of lengthy discussions at the White House, a wide variety of changes were agreed upon by House and Senate negotiators. The idea, of course, was to craft a final bill to be approved by both chambers. Voters in Massachusetts have since made this approach impossible.

But if Reid and Pelosi can package those already-discussed improvements, and agree to approve them through reconciliation after the House passes the Senate bill, then there's still hope that a fiasco for the ages can be avoided.
The changes being considered track closely with the agreements House and Senate leaders made in White House meetings last week, according to a source. They include the deal with labor unions to ease the tax on high-end insurance plans, additional Medicare cuts and taxes, the elimination of a special Medicaid funding deal for Nebraska and a move to help cover the gap in seniors' prescription drug coverage. Pelosi is also working to change the Senate provision that sets up state insurance exchanges. The House prefers a single, national exchange.
Discussions, a Pelosi spokesperson said, "are ongoing ... but no final decisions have been made."

Once more with feeling: Pass. The. Damn. Bill.

Pass the damn bill (#2) - Paul Krugman

This collection of items from Paul Krugman's New York Times blog--starting on the day of the Massachusetts election, when the result was not yet known but widely anticipated--adds up to an argument that requires no further commentary:

"Just do it — pass health care. Then move on to confronting the bankers."

--Jeff Weintraub

----------------------------------------
Plan B (January 19, 2010)

It sounds as if House Democrats — or at least their leadership — are prepared to pass the Senate bill if, as expected, they lose today’s special election.

That’s a shame: the House was in the process of making the bill better. But as Ezra Klein says, they should do what’s necessary — not as a matter of political advantage, although it’s probably better for them even in that sense, but because it’s the right thing to do. Imperfect as it is, the Senate bill would save tens of thousands of lives, save many Americans from financial catastrophe, and partially redeem us from the shame of being the only advanced nation without some kind of universal care.

The Choice (January 22, 2010)

So, House Democrats have a choice: do they pass the Senate bill, or do they go back to the drawing board and spend several months cobbling together a plan that’s worse in almost every dimension, generating thousands of stories about hapless Democrats — and almost surely find that Senate Republicans block the new plan, too.

Guess which way they seem to be leaning.

Maybe they’ll come to their senses over the next few days. It would be really helpful, of course, if Democrats actually had a party leader — you know, the president or someone.

One-Legged Stools (January 21, 2010)

As things fall apart on the health care front, one thing you keep hearing is the idea of doing reform in pieces — start with something popular, like banning discrimination on the basis of medical history, then do the hard stuff later.

I have another proposal: let’s save money by making stools and chairs with only one leg.

As I’ve written before, the pieces of reform are interdependent. You can’t do one or two pieces on their own. Ban discrimination based on medical history, and you get an adverse-selection death spiral, in which healthy people opt out and premiums soar. You can’t solve that without both requiring that healthy people buy insurance and helping those with lower incomes afford the premiums. In short, you basically end up with the Senate bill.

Hasn’t anyone been paying attention here?

Intimations Of Sanity (January 23, 2010)

Politico reports that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are working on a strategy that just might save health care: get the House to pass the Senate bill, while the Senate uses reconciliation — a process that avoids the need for a 60-vote supermajority — to address some of the concerns of House Democrats.

That’s very good news.

Of course, if they do this, there will be howls of protest — they’re defying the will of the 41-59 Republican majority in the Senate! This violates the spirit of the Constitution the very strange rules the Senate has imposed on itself. But I hope Democrats have learned by now that the public doesn’t know or care about such things.

Right now, the Democrats are, like it or not, the party of health reform. They can either be the party that passed reform, and at least stands for something, or the party that tried to get health reform but proved itself incompetent and weak in the process.

They need to pull this out.

Fools On The Hill (January 19, 2010)

So, will health care reform fail because a lazy candidate didn’t bother campaigning and didn’t know her Red Sox? (Yes, there were national factors at work, but Nate Silver makes it clear that a better candidate would have won easily). It’s up to the House, which can and should just pass the Senate bill.

Unfortunately, quite a few representatives seem to be in panic mode. And that’s just dumb.

First of all, the strategy of playing Republican-lite, and hoping that you’ll be left alone, has been tried — and failed disastrously. Remember 2002?

Second, David Axelrod is right: the campaign against HCR has been based on lies, and the only way to refute those lies (and stop them from being rolled out again and again) is to pass the thing, and let people see it in action. It’s too bad startup is delayed under the Senate bill — but even so, that’s what you have to do.

Finally, Democrats have to realize that politics isn’t just about where you stand on issues, it’s about perceptions of a party’s character. The rap on Dems has always been that they’re wimps — and giving in on such a central part of the party’s agenda, emerging from two years in power with nothing major to show for it, will play right into that perception.

Just do it — pass health care. Then move on to confronting the bankers.

Pass the damn bill (#1) - Jonathan Cohn

Jonathan Cohn has long been one of the most informed, perceptive, and illuminating analysts writing about the political and policy issues surrounding the health care reform controversy. The piece below was one of his first reactions to the political bombshell caused by the Senate special election in Massachusetts. The whole thing bears careful reading.

I won't really try to summarize or excerpt from Cohn's argument. But let me just highlight two passage from Cohn's advice to a "nervous and frustrated House Democrat". First, he doesn't shy away from the bad news:
It’s up to you.

A few days ago, after a year of debate, you were on the verge of achieving a goal that’s eluded progressives for nearly a century: Creating a national health insurance program. But now the whole effort could fall apart. [....]

You’re depressed [....] You’re angry [....] And, let’s face it, you’re scared. If a Democrat can lose in Massachusetts, any Democrat can lose anywhere. That includes you. [....]

The temptation will be to drop health care, change the subject, and hope for the best. [....] The polls suggest more people oppose the plan than support it. And the right wing is having a field day with it.

[....] But in the one state that has implemented a similar set of reforms--Massachusetts, it so happens--voters support the idea by large margins. That’s why Brown went out of his way to endorse the Massachusetts system, even as he criticized its analogue on the national level.

True, shelving the bill would end the dithering. But it would also solidify the public perceptions that are destroying you now. Listen to the complaints: You’re feckless. You don’t follow through on your promises. You don’t deliver progress. Giving up on the idea that’s been your primary preoccupation for the last year--and, by the way, a primary focus of the last presidential campaign--is not exactly a way to challenge these conclusions. [....]
But there's also a positive side to being a mensch right now (something both men and women can do), in political terms as well as in terms of substantive social benefits:
[I]f you find a way to pass legislation, then you have something to show for your efforts--an accomplishment you can tout, legitimately, as making people's lives better. [....] The uninsured will benefit, for sure, but so will the insured--with a guaranteed benefits package, caps on out-of-pocket spending, cost control to slow down rising premiums, and more.

There's a problem, I know. [....] The big structural changes to health care--the ones that guarantee good, affordable coverage for all--wouldn’t happen for several years. [....] But the people who constructed this reform plan aren’t stupid. [....] Health reform is [also] full of what wonks call “deliverables”--tangible benefits scheduled to take effect mere months after the bill becomes law. Among them:

Seniors will see the Medicare “donut hole” start to shrink.

Families will get to keep kids on their policies past high school, until the kids are 26.

Preventative services will have "first-dollar" coverage, meaning you'll pay nothing out-of-pocket--that's right, nada, zilch--when you get a regular checkup.

People who are uninsurable because of high medical risks will get access to catastrophic policies, as a stopgap until full coverage becomes available in a few years.

The government will set up a website with information about different insurance plans, letting people compare benefits in standardized, plain English terms.

It will also make investments in the health care workforce--spending money to train or hire new primary care doctors, nurses, and direct care workers.

Insurers will have to fess up about how much money they divert from patient care to overhead and profits--and to set up systems for appealing coverage denials.

People will have the right to go to the emergency room--and women the right to see an obstetrician/gynecologist--without prior approval.

The list goes on. [....]
As they say, read the whole thing.

--Jeff Weintraub
==============================
New Republic (The Treatment)
January 20, 2010
Dear Nervous & Frustrated House Democrat...
Jonathan Cohn


Dear Nervous and Frustrated House Democrat,

It’s up to you.

A few days ago, after a year of debate, you were on the verge of achieving a goal that’s eluded progressives for nearly a century: Creating a national health insurance program. But now the whole effort could fall apart.

When Scott Brown takes his seat in the U.S. Senate, the Republicans will have 41 members in their caucus--enough to stop passage of any bill if they stay united. They’ve promised to do just that when and if they get to vote on the final version of health care reform--the one that recent House-Senate negotiations produced.

You’re depressed: Brown inherits the seat that once belonged to Ted Kennedy, who had made health care reform a lifelong crusade.

You’re angry, either for taking politically difficult votes or compromising your ideals in order to move the process along.

And, let’s face it, you’re scared. If a Democrat can lose in Massachusetts, any Democrat can lose anywhere. That includes you.

Now you have a choice.

The temptation will be to drop health care, change the subject, and hope for the best. After all, the voters clearly don’t like what they’re hearing and seeing out of Washington. And health care is all they’ve been hearing and seeing for the last few months. The polls suggest more people oppose the plan than support it. And the right wing is having a field day with it.

But is it the product the voters don’t like--or the process? Truth be told, most people don’t even understand the basics of what this bill would do. (Truth be told, neither do a few or your colleagues.) But in the one state that has implemented a similar set of reforms--Massachusetts, it so happens--voters support the idea by large margins. That’s why Brown went out of his way to endorse the Massachusetts system, even as he criticized its analogue on the national level.

True, shelving the bill would end the dithering. But it would also solidify the public perceptions that are destroying you now. Listen to the complaints: You’re feckless. You don’t follow through on your promises. You don’t deliver progress. Giving up on the idea that’s been your primary preoccupation for the last year--and, by the way, a primary focus of the last presidential campaign--is not exactly a way to challenge these conclusions.

You'll have less political capital, making it hard to deliver progress on the economy or anything else. As for reelection, well, ask the congressional Democrats running in 1994 how failing to deliver health care reform worked for them.

Remember, Republicans will blame you for this bill anyway. Unless you’re among the few Democrats who opposed it on the first go-round, you’ve already voted for health care reform. And you can bet the Republicans will let voters know that come November. You’ll be the representative who voted for that awful liberal boondoggle that, thankfully, the Senate blocked at the final stages of deliberation. Or maybe you want to explain to constituents why you were for health care reform before you were against it.

On the other hand, if you find a way to pass legislation, then you have something to show for your efforts--an accomplishment you can tout, legitimately, as making people's lives better. Thanks to this bill, you’ll be able to tell people, insurance will become both more affordable and more reliable. Coverage will be there for people who don’t have it, and it will be better for people who have it already. The uninsured will benefit, for sure, but so will the insured--with a guaranteed benefits package, caps on out-of-pocket spending, cost control to slow down rising premiums, and more.

There's a problem, I know. These benefits will be abstractions when you run for reelection in the fall. The big structural changes to health care--the ones that guarantee good, affordable coverage for all--wouldn’t happen for several years. And without tangible benefits, voters will remain easy prey for Republican misinformation--the kind that nearly derailed reform over the summer and, undoubtedly, helped elect Brown on Tuesday.

But the people who constructed this reform plan aren’t stupid. They knew voters would be anxious to see results. And they designed the reform plan to produce such results. Health reform is full of what wonks call “deliverables”--tangible benefits scheduled to take effect mere months after the bill becomes law. Among them:

Seniors will see the Medicare “donut hole” start to shrink.

Families will get to keep kids on their policies past high school, until the kids are 26.

Preventative services will have "first-dollar" coverage, meaning you'll pay nothing out-of-pocket--that's right, nada, zilch--when you get a regular checkup.

People who are uninsurable because of high medical risks will get access to catastrophic policies, as a stopgap until full coverage becomes available in a few years.

The government will set up a website with information about different insurance plans, letting people compare benefits in standardized, plain English terms.

It will also make investments in the health care workforce--spending money to train or hire new primary care doctors, nurses, and direct care workers.

Insurers will have to fess up about how much money they divert from patient care to overhead and profits--and to set up systems for appealing coverage denials.

People will have the right to go to the emergency room--and women the right to see an obstetrician/gynecologist--without prior approval.

The list goes on.

You can do a lot with these ideas on the campaign trail. Visit a senior citizen home and talk about how their drug bills are coming down. Go to a community college, and chat with kids staying on their parents insurance. Shovel dirt at the construction site for new community clinics. Kiss babies while talking up the waived restrictions for OB/GYN care. Give speeches at job fairs for health care workers.

That last part should be particularly appealing--because, after all, jobs are really where you should be focusing your energy now. It’s important to pass health care but, for the political good of yourself and your party, it’s important to do it quickly. And that probably limits the ways you can proceed.

In theory, you could drag out negotiations--trying to reach an accommodation with a moderate Republican in the Senate to recapture the sixty vote majority you’d need to break a filibuster. Or you could rip up the bill, try to write and then pass a new one through the reconciliation process, figuring that whatever you got with just 51 votes was bound to be better than what you’d get with 60. If you can do that, hey, I'm all for it.

But count me as extremely dubious. There are no guarantees you’d get a better bill than what either house has already passed. In fact, given the constraints on what can and can’t be done through reconciliation, you’ll probably end up with worse. There’s no sign that any moderate Republican Senators, including the ones from Maine, are willing to start up negotiations again. The only thing certain about either of these strategies is a few more weeks of debate--which seems like certain doom politically.

But you can pass health care reform very quickly if you want. All you have to do is vote for the Senate bill, as written. Yes, I’m aware of its flaws. But it’s also far better than nothing. (Heck, if you're a centrist, you may think the Senate bill is even better than the original House one.)

Once the main bill is passed, you can always revisit it--perhaps right away, by passing a “patch” through the reconciliation process. If you're clever--and you are--you'll extract some sort of promise from the president and Senate leadership to make sure the patch gets enacted.

(Once that's done, well, maybe you can start building support for another important cause: Ending the filibuster and restoring majority rule to the Senate.)

I don’t want to mislead you: You could pass the Senate bill, which you may really not like, and still lose reelection. But passing health care reform would seem, if anything, to improve your odds of political survival. And if it doesn’t--if you’re doomed to lose anyway--enacting health care reform would give you a meaningful accomplishment in your record.

Think of everything you could do while serving in Congress. Would any single act be bigger than this? However imperfect, it will make a huge difference in people’s lives--and, quite likely, the evolution of the American social welfare state. You’ll be sparing financial or physical hardship for thousands of Americans every year, while delivering peace of mind--and safer, higher quality medicine--to literally millions of others. You’ll be saving the American economy and, along the way, helping people to stay healthy.

You can be a part of this moment in history--and, if you play your cards right, stick around in Congress long enough to enjoy it. It just takes some common sense--and maybe a little mettle.

Do you have those qualities? I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Shmuley Boteach tells his fellow social conservatives to cut the crap on the so-called "defense of marriage"

The campaign against same-sex marriage in the US has been ideologically framed by its proponents as a struggle for the "defense of marriage"--exemplified by the federal "Defense of Marriage Act" and the 2008 referendum on Proposition 8 in California, which billed itself the "California Marriage Protection Act". But there's something bizarre about this "defense of marriage" sloganeering, since (as far as I know) no one has offered any plausible argument explaining how or why allowing homosexual marriage would undermine heterosexual marriages or threaten heterosexual marriage as an institution. People might have other reasons to oppose gay marriage (including, let's be frank, straightforward homophobic bigotry, though that's not the only possible reason). But the claim that this is a matter of protecting heterosexual marriage falls somewhere between mentally lazy confusion and fraudulent propaganda.

All this is an open secret, but it's clear that the transparent absurdity of this claim is not obvious to everyone. Why this might be so is a topic for a longer discussion. But I suspect that for many people who accept the notion that opposing gay marriage is somehow a way to protect heterosexual marriage, criticisms of this sloganeering are most likely to be effective if they come from serious, religiously grounded social conservatives.

That's why I was pleased to run across a recent column (below) by Shmuley Boteach, the interesting and generally admirable Orthodox/Chasidic rabbi-without-a-synagogue, author, and cultural commentator, who has consistently been willing to address this issue head-on. Those of you who read the whole column may agree or disagree with some parts of his discussion more than others. To be honest, some bits strike me as dubious, problematic, and/or in need of clarification. But I commend this passage, which cuts through to the heart of the matter in a clear, cogent, and unambiguous way:
Whatever your views on gay marriage - whether you are a supporter who believes that gays should have the same rights as heterosexuals or whether you are more religiously inclined and object to gay marriage on biblical grounds - one things is for sure: This has absolutely nothing to do with rescuing the institution of marriage.
Instead, those who believe that the institution of marriage is under threat, and that this is a serious problem, need to get real:
We straight people don't need help from gays in destroying marriage, having a done an admirable job of it ourselves, thank you very much. And the reason that marriages continue to decline in the United States is that rather than discussing how we can shore up this most vital of all social institutions, we have instead chosen to focus on a convenient scapegoat: gays. [....]
I assume that last sentence was carelessly written, since this is obviously not the reason.

But it's certainly true that if people really are worried about protecting or strengthening the institution of marriage, for them to focus on gay-bashing is a distraction from actually addressing the difficult issues--in addition to being being pernicious and unfair in itself. Instead, as Boteach correctly suggests, any serious and honest discussion of these matters from a socially conservative perspective should focus much more strongly on the pervasive effects of a mainstream culture that too often exalts selfish individualism and material success above all other values. Amen.

Yours for reality-based discourse,
Jeff Weintraub

==============================
Jerusalem Post
January 18, 2010
Focus on marital decline, not homosexuality
By Shmuley Boteach

The Jewish community in the United States has an opportunity to lead the country in a true values renewal by shifting the focus away from the country's obsession over gay marriage and onto marital decline and divorce.

Whatever your views on gay marriage - whether you are a supporter who believes that gays should have the same rights as heterosexuals or whether you are more religiously inclined and object to gay marriage on biblical grounds - one things is for sure: This has absolutely nothing to do with rescuing the institution of marriage.

We straight people don't need help from gays in destroying marriage, having a done an admirable job of it ourselves, thank you very much. And the reason that marriages continue to decline in the United States is that rather than discussing how we can shore up this most vital of all social institutions, we have instead chosen to focus on a convenient scapegoat: gays.

The facts are straightforward. Not even 10 percent of the American population is gay, but more than 50% of all marriages end in divorce. And this was happening years before gays came out in significant numbers, let alone demanded the right to marry. In fact, the only men who seem to still want to get married in America are gays. While they are petitioning the Supreme Court to tie the knot, the straight guys are breaking into a rash and running to the hills every time their live-in girlfriends of five years push for a ring on their finger.

The real cause of marital breakdown in our time is the redefinition of success to encompass only the professional and almost never the personal sphere. We Americans are an ambitious lot. We want to succeed in everything we do. What we fear most in this country is being a failure, a loser. But being a winner has come to mean having money, power and being famous.

In Hollywood, you can be on your fourth marriage and have all your kids in rehab. But so long as people are still paying 10 bucks to see your movies, you're a success. On Wall Street, you can be a 30-something trader who takes the American taxpayer to the cleaners and pursues a life of endless womanizing, all fueled by gargantuan, government facilitated bonuses. But as long as you still drive a Ferrari and live in that $25 million Hampton estate, you'll be invited to every cocktail party around.

Who then has a real incentive to be a good man? We are all encouraged today to have a career rather than a calling, a focus on our own ambition rather than a cultivation of gifts for the benefit of others. And success is defined not by quality of your relationships but by the quantity in your bank accounts.

Marital decay these days begins with the easy hook-up culture of teen-hood where young people are trained to see the opposite sex as a commodity to be exploited. It reaches dizzying heights with the positively rancid culture of male womanizing and female drunkenness that has become so common on the American university campus.

In essence young men and women learn how to master business and how to write a legal brief. But the only thing they learn about selfless love is that it is subordinate to selfish sexual pleasure and is an old-fashioned idea strangely out of place in a culture where you are always number one.

Is it really surprising, then, that the youth have delayed marriage well into their 30s and even then marry only when forced to "settle down." They see nothing exciting in the domestication of marriage or the energy it takes to raise children. And living in a disposable society, as soon as marriage hits a snag or two, it is so much easier to discard the institution than work to save the relationship.

Donald Trump summed it up best when he said of his current marriage that it's happy because, unlike his previous attempts, this one requires no work. The poor man works at the office, where the real success is found. Why would he want to work at home? And who says that any woman is worth the effort?

Now, are we really going to blame all this rot on gays? And if we stopped gay men and women from even having civil unions, would the astronomical American divorce rate suddenly drop?

Here is where Jewish values and a Jewish voice can come to the rescue. As many of our Christian evangelical brothers and sisters have largely led the California effort on behalf of Proposition 8 and have, for 20 years, identified opposition to gay marriage as the foremost American family value, how many rabbis - even the most Orthodox - have followed suit? How many Jewish leaders have given sermons saying that gays, rather than divorce, are the real culprit behind the disintegration of the American family?

While the Torah's teachings on homosexuality are clear, the Jewish community has wisely told gay men and women to come to synagogue, keep a kosher home, honor the Sabbath, affix a mezuza and come to classes on Judaism as clear equals to everyone else. Even if we cannot agree with the lifestyle choices of every member of our community, we do not make this a laser-like focus to the exclusion of overall Jewish responsibility, inclusion and commitment.

My parents divorced when I was eight. I feel the pain of every divorced man and woman which Judaism, unlike Catholicism, allows because, though we always try to save a marriage, the institution is not a prison. I know that the men and women who divorce are good people, loving parents, and would have wished the marriage to have continued. But they are immersed in a culture where the lie of professional achievement as more important than personal success is beamed at them from every broadcast medium 24 hours a day.

But more than the parents, my heart goes out to children of divorce who are deeply affected by the turbulence of two parents who no longer love each other. And if we really cared about the American family, we would cease talking about gays and instead push a measure through Congress making marital counseling tax-deductible so that families who are hard-pressed can get the help they need to try to keep the family intact.

I run an organization devoted entirely toward the dissemination of Jewish values in the culture. You can assist us by signing up for our "Turn Friday Night Family Night" campaign (www.fridayisfamily.com) and by getting in touch to offer your support (www.thisworld.us). Together we can show our children that love is not fiction but something tangible and real.

The writer is the author of more than 20 books on relationships, the most recent being The Kosher Sutra, which has just been released by HarperOne in paperback. www.shmuley.com

Sunday, January 24, 2010

What the Democrats need now

Pretty juvenile ... but not entirely off-base. --Jeff Weintraub

Were there ever any Senate Republicans open to good-faith compromise on the health care bill? - A small reality check from George Packer

Kevin Drum quotes a dumbfoundingly stupid passage from one of the anonymous contributors to the Economist's "Democracy in America" blog:
Suppose you had just woken up from a year-long hibernation [....] You would come to one of two conclusions: [JW: We'll skip the first one....] 2) The country has been paralysed by party politics, such that not even one rogue or idiosyncratic or centrist or mischievous Republican would cross party lines to support the Democrats' bill. Option two strikes me as more unlikely, but we're all operating as if it were the case.
That conclusion strikes him as unlikely? To quote Barney Frank's lapidary question to a LaRouchite Town Hall lunatic last summer, "On what planet do you spend most of your time?"
I see an opportunity, however miniscule, for the Democrats to take this time to re-work the bill in a way that would have broader appeal [....] Optimistic, or dangerously naive?
I wish all questions were so easy to answer. "Dangerously naive" captures it perfectly. This person is supposed to be a journalist. Does he or she take the trouble to consider the available evidence, or even to read the newspapers?

=> On this planet, despite some propaganda, political spin, and gullible punditry to the contrary, the obvious fact is that the Congressional Republicans, who have achieved a level of party discipline usually restricted to parliamentary parties, have pursued a systematic strategy of monolithic rejectionism and all-out obstructionism to defeat the Democratic effort to pass a health care reform bill, without proposing any serious alternative of their own or being willing to bargain in good faith for constructive compromises. (For some fleshing-out of the picture, one place to start would be a recent analysis by the skeptical Republican columnist David Frum.) It looks possible that this uncompromising rule-or-ruin approach may turn out to have been tactically successful in derailing health care reform (as it was in 1993-1994), though that remains uncertain. Whether or not that would be substantively good for the country is another matter.

I do recognize that some people may find this Republican strategy entirely justifiable, on the grounds that the Democrats' proposal--as it took shape over the course of 2009 in the context of the usual legislative sausage-making combined with unrelenting legislative trench warfare--is so radically defective and potentially disastrous that it had to be killed at all costs, so that doing nothing really is a superior alternative. I believe that such a position is dramatically wrong, and that its success would be very harmful to the country, but at least this is logically coherent position that faces up to the political realities.

On the other hand, to pretend that the Congressional Republicans have not been pursuing a monolithic strategy of rejection and obstruction, that they have been willing to bargain in good faith, and that the Democrats are the ones who haven't been open to reasonable compromise--yes, there are people who have made, or implied, all these claims--is simply to lose contact with reality. I realize that a few readers will have sincere disagreements with me on this point, so I hope they will pardon me for being blunt.

Want some empirical evidence? George Packer, in a recent post on his New Yorker blog, suggests that we should all try to face the facts in this matter, however painful or discouraging that might be.

--Jeff Weintraub
==============================
George Packer
January 20, 2010
The Lonesome Death of Post-Partisanship

The other day, I was lighting a fire with a copy of the Times from June 27, 2009 when my eye fell on an article about Republican objections to the health-care reform bill. Back then, the public option troubled Susan Collins, who also “said she would like to see the legislation ‘put more emphasis on health promotion, disease prevention, end of life care', as well as tax credits for small businesses and self-employed Americans to ease their access to health insurance.” Her fellow Mainer Olympia Snowe “said she was striving to produce a plan ‘that does not undo the current system in terms of employer-based coverage or the quality of our health-care system’.”

It occurred to me that these might be grounds for negotiation if Democrats end up needing to pick up a few Republican votes (a need that came to pass yesterday). And then, as the paper went up in flames, it occurred to me that pretty much every one of these objections and conditions was met in the bill that passed the Senate last month, without the benefit of Ms. Collins’, Ms. Snowe’s, or any other Republican’s support.

Post-mortems and reality checks from the Massachusetts election - First, don't panic! (Paul Hogarth)

The upset victory of Republican Scott Brown on January 19 in the Massachusetts special election to replace Senator Ted Kennedy has hit the political landscape like a bomb. To a certain extent, this effect was understandable and even appropriate. But there is an air of unreality about much of the reaction, nicely captured by a witty Village Voice headline: "Scott Brown Wins Mass. Race, Giving GOP 41-59 Majority in the Senate".

Of course, the Voice headline was supposed to be a joke, since in normal arithmetic 59 (the number of Senators in the Democratic caucus) is still more than 41. But much of the post-election commentary has been unfolding as if this assessment were serious--and, more to the point, too many of the Congressional Democrats have been acting as if it were correct.

During the last week before the election, Brown's victory was increasingly looking like a plausible outcome, making the intensity of post-election shock and paralysis on the Democratic side all the more peculiar. On the eve of the Massachusetts vote, Josh Marshall of TPM sensibly pointed out that losing that Senate seat would certainly be a blow, but the crucial factor would be whether or not Democrats responded by going into a panic. If they kept their nerve and acted intelligently, there would still be various ways that they could use their solid majorities in both the House and the Senate to pass a reasonable version of their health care reform bill. Fat chance! For most of the past week the Democrats have been running around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off, while the Obama White House has been oddly passive and equivocal.

Perhaps they're starting to calm down a bit. They'd better. Josh Marshall's assessment was correct a week ago, and it's still correct. It's true that the monolithic party discipline of the Congressional Republicans, combined with their unprecedentedly routine and promiscuous use of filibuster threats and other obstructionist devices to block action in the Senate, has created a peculiarly difficult situation. But before the Democrats and the punditry conclude that a mere 59-41 Democratic majority is equivalent to Republican political ascendancy, it's important to put all this in some reasonable perspective.

Even with the loss of Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts, the Democrats (including for this purpose the two independent Senators who belong to the Democratic caucus, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and, perhaps more ambiguously, Joe Lieberman) still have a Senate majority of 18 seats, which by any reasonable standard should be considered pretty decisive. As the relevant US Senate website makes clear, the last time the Republicans had a majority this large was in 1923 (with 59 Republican Senators vs. 37 Democratic Senators), and the last time there were 60 Republican Senators was in 1911.

If the Democrats keep their heads and act with some minimal degree of political courage, intelligence, and responsibility, there are various ways that they should be able to use their decisive majorities in the House and Senate to overcome Republican obstructionism and pass a worthwhile, albeit imperfect, version of a health care reform bill--as Jonathan Cohn, among others, has pointed out. Having 59 votes in the Senate rather than 60 is not a good excuse to simply give up.

Indeed, for most of 2009 the Democrats didn't have 60 votes in the Senate--the Republicans were able to use various stalling tactics to prevent Al Franken from being seated for 8 months (!), and although Lieberman has allegedly been a member of the Democratic caucus, he has been acting at least half-Republican from the start. A piece by Paul Hogarth in San Francisco's BeyondChron zeroes in on the key point here: "Democrats Never Had Sixty Votes; Sixty Votes Never Mattered". OK, perhaps the second half of that headline is a trifle exaggerated, but it's essentially on-target.
One year ago today, Barack Obama was inaugurated President – and the U.S. Senate had 58 Democrats. We didn’t have 60 votes, but nobody said that health care was doomed. Martha Coakley’s defeat in Massachusetts now means that Democrats have a 59-41 majority – or a net gain of one seat from last year. But judging by the media coverage, it sounds like Republicans have “taken over” the Senate.
They haven't. If the Democrats blow it now, that will simply prove that they really are terminally feckless, spineless, incoherent, and ineffective.
If Democrats care enough to save their hides for November, they must dump the 60-vote politeness – and pass a strong health care reform bill through the reconciliation process. [JW: "Reconciliation" may or may not be the right procedure to use, but that's a secondary matter.] Republicans proved a long time ago that they didn’t care about governing, and weasels like Joe Lieberman proved they are all too eager to enable them. The American public gave them a mandate to deliver, and they don’t care if it’s not a “bipartisan” effort.

Otherwise, Democrats will deserve to lose in a lot more states than just Massachusetts.
And if our political system is really so dysfunctionally paralyzed that it's impossible in practice to take serious measures to address the country's most pressing and important problems, then we really are in big trouble.

--Jeff Weintraub

==============================
BeyondChron: San Francisco's Alternative Online Daily
January 20, 2010
Democrats Never Had Sixty Votes; Sixty Votes Never Mattered
By Paul Hogarth

One year ago today, Barack Obama was inaugurated President – and the U.S. Senate had 58 Democrats. We didn’t have 60 votes, but nobody said that health care was doomed. Martha Coakley’s defeat in Massachusetts now means that Democrats have a 59-41 majority – or a net gain of one seat from last year. But judging by the media coverage, it sounds like Republicans have “taken over” the Senate. There hasn’t been this commotion since 2001, when Jim Jeffords’ party switch cost Republicans their majority.

Of course, Republicans control the Senate if they have 51 votes. We never see them held to a higher standard of 60 votes – and in fact, the G.O.P. has never had a 60-vote majority. [JW: Actually, as noted above, the Republicans did have 60 Senators once--in the 61st Congress, from 1909-1911.] We never saw moderates like Olympia Snowe join a Democratic filibuster – but Joe Lieberman killed the public option merely by threatening to do so. With Scott Brown now pledging to be the 41st vote to kill health care reform, Democrats cannot react by ramming through a bill before the Senate seats him. Republicans are not interested in governing; it’s time to pass a real bill through reconciliation.

Imagine if, on the eve of George W. Bush’s Inauguration, a liberal pundit – e.g., Keith Olbermann – had said that he wanted the President “to fail.” There would have been an outcry. He would have been called a “traitor” for insulting our Commander-in-Chief “while we’re at war” – and Democrats would not have hesitated to denounce him. I’m sure there would have been a quick unanimous Senate Resolution calling upon his ouster.

Twelve months ago, Rush Limbaugh said the same thing, but instead the Republican Party rewarded him by taking it to heart. It didn’t matter that they had just lost two elections in a row – after George Bush had destroyed their party label for decades. South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint vowed that health care would be the President’s “Waterloo” – determined not to give him the satisfaction of a victory.

And that’s where we’ve been for the past twelve months. In paralysis, because the Right refused to give Obama an inch – and now a product of that riot has Ted Kennedy’s seat.

Politics may be the “art of compromise,” but how do you negotiate with opponents who care more about you failing than getting something done? And while Washington kept up its fetish with “bipartisanship,” the Beltway was oblivious that Republicans had been rebuked at the polls. It’s one thing to have bipartisanship when the Senate’s partisan split is 51-49, but Democrats holding both houses at supermajorities should mean something.

But the White House – and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid – never got that memo. Maybe they should have gotten a clue after Arlen Specter switched parties. At Netroots Nation, the Pennsylvania Senator claimed he “effectively became a Democrat” after being one of only three Republicans to vote for the federal stimulus bill. He had quit a party that no longer believed in governing, and simply deserved to be ignored.

The Republicans threatened to filibuster everything in the Senate – and they did mean everything But these were not the traditional filibusters where Senators stay up all night reading the phonebook, like that old Frank Capra movie. As Tom Geoghan described in a must-read piece for The Nation, these are just back-door threats where Senators can anonymously express their intention to not end debate – a motion that requires 60 votes to overrule.

“At least with the old filibuster,” wrote Geoghan, “we knew who was doing the filibustering. With the modern filibuster, senators can hold up bills without the public ever finding out their names. No one's accountable for obstructing. No senator runs the risk of looking like a fool. But while they're up there concealing one another's identity, the Republic is a shambles. And now, with a nominal sixty Democratic votes, the need for secrecy as to who has put everything on hold may be even greater than before.”

Reid and Obama could have called their bluff and let the Senate Republicans bloviate on C-SPAN about why we can’t have universal health care – which would have allowed everyone to see what kind of nutcases they are. Instead, they reacted by trying to cut backroom deals to get the crucial sixty votes. Suddenly, Senators like Olympia Snowe were elevated to sole decision-maker, as crucial parts of the health care plan were mollified to get her vote.

But the problem wasn’t just Republicans. After all, they were only 40 of them – so their threats to filibuster were toothless. No, it was conservative Democrats like Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu and Joe Lieberman – who threatened to filibuster if we did not cater to their every whims. You can’t negotiate with someone who opposes the public option because it’s “unfair to private insurance” (Landrieu). You can’t negotiate with someone who opposes any compromise that liberals find acceptable (Lieberman).

Of course, the Democratic Party is a “diverse coalition” – and we couldn’t expect all 60 Senators to vote for a progressive health care bill. But that’s not what we asked them to do – merely let a floor vote happen. And filibustering goes way beyond opposing a bill – it says you are willing to actively collude with Mitch McConnell and the G.O.P. minority to obstruct all debate. When Republicans controlled the Senate 55-45, some Democrats threatened to filibuster – but you never saw moderates like Snowe join their efforts.

Any Democrat who threatened to filibuster the public option was effectively declaring war on the President, war on his agenda and war on their Party. They were aiding and abetting the enemy – right-wing ideologues who want the President to fail. A proper thing would be to have them kicked out of the caucus and stripped of all committee assignments. But Joe Lieberman was allowed to keep his chairmanship – and Rahm Emanuel, pressured Reid to cave to whatever he – and Ben Nelson – wanted, just to get the 60 votes.

Which brings us to yesterday’s special election in Massachusetts. Coakley was a weak candidate who took the race for granted. But polling data shows that her numbers started going down right after the Senate passed the health care bill – stripped of all meaningful value by the extortion of right-wing Democrats. Voters do not want a law that forces them to buy private health insurance (without a public option to keep these greedy companies honest), fines them if they don’t and with no benefits until at least 2014.

“I voted for Obama because I wanted change,” said a Massachusetts voter who picked Scott Brown yesterday. “I thought he'd bring it to us, but I just don't like the direction that he's heading.” That’s what happens when you fail to deliver: old friends desert you, while your base is so depressed that they can’t bother to vote. Obama won Massachusetts by 26 points in last year’s election. A large chunk of those people didn’t come out again.

If Democrats care enough to save their hides for November, they must dump the 60-vote politeness – and pass a strong health care reform bill through the reconciliation process. Republicans proved a long time ago that they didn’t care about governing, and weasels like Joe Lieberman proved they are all too eager to enable them. The American public gave them a mandate to deliver, and they don’t care if it’s not a “bipartisan” effort.

Otherwise, Democrats will deserve to lose in a lot more states than just Massachusetts.