Let It Snowe

Maine GOP Sen. Olympia Snowe is out on Obamacare.

...nobody cares, of course.  She had her chance, but it means Republicans will line up against health care reform...every single one of them.

So be it.

Reconciling The Truth

Nate Silver makes the argument for why passing health care reform under budget reconciliation was never an option as he looks at FDL's Jon Walker's assumption that Dems should go that route.

Nor have we discussed the political fallout from using reconciliation, which in my view could be enormous:

The Bush tax cuts were popular; health care is not. Moreover, the filibuster actually polls well, so use of [reconciliation] would be unpopular. If you intersect an unpopular policy with an unpopular process, I don't know what you're going to get, but the downside risk would seem to be fairly profound -- as in, I'd take even money at that point that the Democrats would lose the House.

Also, tax cuts are a relatively straightforward application of the reconciliation process -- health care is not, and the resulting procedural debate would last weeks if not months, giving the public plenty of time to stew over it.

None of this is to say that the reconciliation strategies are impossible. They might work. But the hurdles are much more significant than what Jon has implied, and reconciliation might also "work" but produce a worse, perhaps much worse, policy outcome. Even if one were willing to ignore the political fallout, it would be a fairly poor strategy. And when the consequences for the Democrats' electoral fortunes are taken into account -- as well as their compromised ability to pass policies like a jobs bill and financial reform next year -- it seems like a very poor risk.

My impressions of the reconciliation process, just like my impressions of the health care bill itself, are formed based on a combination of extensive reading in an area in with which I'm not so familiar (Senate procedure), coupled the expertise I've developed in politics and public opinion. It's a view that reflects the "consensus" that most others who have earnestly considered the issue have come to.

Maybe my view -- the broad consensus view -- is wrong. I'm sure the kill-billers will be ready to accuse me of being trapped within the confines of Beltway conventional wisdom (this would be an odd accusation, since 538 is a completely independent blog, is based in Brooklyn rather than Washington, and does not rely to any material extent on "insider" access). But I have not seen a robust and persuasive attempt to rebut the arguments that I and others have made about reconciliation. And I think, indeed, it forms something of a crutch: a convenient excuse not to have to commit to the question of whether the Senate's bill really is worse than the status quo, and a vehicle to direct one's anger at the White House, Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and the rest of the usual suspects, instead of getting beyond it and working to facilitate the best policy.

There's a segment out there of the Left that's always hated Barack Obama.  But then again, you can't please everybody.

Zandar's Thought Of the Day

This week's Bobblespeak Translations are instant classics.

I've Come To Praise You Like I Should

Jon Chait argues that the health care reform legislation would not have been possible it if wasn't for...the Republicans, who shot themselves in the foot and forced the Dems into passing a plan with no Republican support, instead of turning it into a large bi-partisan affair where all the Republicans could have gotten their cut and the bill would have been much smaller.

And so Democrats found themselves all alone. It seems to be around August when the party realized that bipartisan dealmaking was not at hand, and it had to pass a bill or face the same calamity as it did in 1994. Politically speaking, there were no good options left, but passing a bill offered the least bad option. The unified partisan front of the Republican Party forced the Democrats to adopt their own unified partisan front, something that appeared impossible as recently as this last summer. This passage from the New York Times is telling:

Faced with Republican opposition that many Democrats saw as driven more by politics than policy disagreements, Senate Democrats in recent days gained new determination to bridge differences among themselves and prevail over the opposition.

Lawmakers who attended a private meeting between Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats at the White House on Tuesday pointed to remarks there by Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, as providing some new inspiration.

Mr. Bayh said that the health care measure was the kind of public policy he had come to Washington to work on, according to officials who attended the session, and that he did not want to see the satisfied looks on the faces of Republican leaders if they succeeded in blocking the measure.

Evan Bayh! When you've turned the somnolent, relentlessly centrist Indiana Senator into a raging partisan, you've really done something. The Republicans eschewed a halfway compromise and put all their chips on an all or nothing campaign to defeat health care and Obama's presidency. It was an audacious gamble. They lost. In the end, they'll walk away with nothing. The Republicans may gain some more seats in 2010 by their total obstruction, but the substantive policy defeat they've been dealt will last for decades.

It's nice to think the Party of No lost this round, but unless improvements are made to the plan within months of passing it, it's the Democrats who are going to be in trouble.

David Axelrod's indication today that re-importation will be put back in this measure later is a start.

Right Fight, Wrong Target

Progressive action groups like the Progressive Change Campaign Committee are going after Senators on the left, wanting them to scuttle the bill for lack of a real public option.

PCCC sent an email to members in states with progressive senators and asks if they would support "pressuring" those senators to be stronger during the final conference negotiation period between the House and Senate.

If members say yes, it could result in a new PCCC campaign with television and online ads pressuring senators to "block any final bill without a public option."
From the email:

The House has a public option in their bill, but advocates for the Senate bill will have all the power in negotiations unless progressive senators like Russ Feingold stand up now and publicly threaten to block a final bill unless it has a public option. But when push came to shove the last couple weeks, where was Feingold? Progressive senators allowed themselves to get rolled by Lieberman -- but it's not too late to fight back.

A similar email went to members in Vermont, Ohio and Minnesota to target Sens. Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown and Al Franken. Earlier in the health care debate, PCCC went after President Obama on the public option.

Really?  We're going to dump Al Franken and Russ Feingold over the edge for not being progressive enough?

Didn't anybody learn the lessons of the 2000 election, or do we need President Palin and a Teabagger Congress to finish destroying America for good first?  Because that's the "unintended consequences" of killing this from the left.

Last Call

Politico is saying Dem Rep. Bart Stupak is playing the Judas ace in the hole:  working with Senate Republicans to kill the bill.

An aide to Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) coordinated opposition to the Senate health bill’s abortion compromise this morning with the Republican Senate leadership, according to a chain of frantic emails obtained this morning by POLITICO.

Stupak, in an interview with POLITICO, called the Senate bill’s abortion position "unacceptable" – but disavowed his staffer’s collaboration with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“I never talked to McConnell about the health care bill,” said Stupak, adding that “I did not authorize the email [which] “was sent without my knowledge.”

Stupak said that he has discussed the Senate’s abortion position with Democratic senators Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Robert Casey (Penn.), who both hold conservative views on abortion.

Stupak's continued opposition to the Senate plan, despite those conversations and intense pressure from the White House, suggests that reconciling it with the House bill may prove politically challenging.

Lieberman and Nelson and Mary Landrieu got their 30 pieces of silver.  Now Bart Stupak and the Blue Dogs want their cut or else.

And these are the Democrats.  Apparently, since Democrats are really, really bad at being sneaky assholes, they're turning to the GOP for advice on this.

In Which Zandar Answers Your Burning Questions

John Cole laments on Republican complaints that health care spending will increase as a result of the Reid bill:

Spending in health care is going to increase no matter what happens. It is going to increase at a completely unsustainable rate if we do nothing. Which is why we’ve been talking about reforming health care for the last couple of decades, and precisely why we’ve been talking about it intently for the last two. It is why we have been talking about “getting health care costs under control” for years. It is why Republicans, for all my lifetime, have been screaming that Medicaid and Medicare are going to bankrupt us- that is, until a couple of weeks ago when in an act of sheer political cynicism, the RNC and the Republicans decided to guarantee unlimited and unchecked Medicare benefits forever.

It is almost like these Republicans are so damned stupid they have no idea what the hell we are even debating. How are they supposed to have a coherent response or be constructive participants if they can’t even figure out the debate?

Glad you asked.  The answer is simple:  the low-information voter counts exactly the same as the high-information one. Confusing the low-information voter is infinitely easier than logically trying to convince the high-information one.  Ignorance in politics is therefore far more worthwhile than intelligent debate.  Period.

Nelson On Board

His price:  a Medicaid bribe for Nebraskans.

Nelson has recently complained that the proposed expansion of Medicaid to those earning below 133% of the Federal Poverty Line (FPL) would burden his state of Nebraska and suggested that states should be able to opt-in to the program.

Under the current merged legislation (the version unveiled on November 18th), the federal government fully finances care for the expanded population for two years and increases its matching funds (known as FMAP) thereafter. Page 98 of the managers amendment specifically identifies Nebraska for higher federal matching funds, fully funding its expansion for an additional year.

That supposedly gets us to 60 votes.

[UPDATE 11:10 AM]  As expected, Ben Nelson is now being pillaged by the Wingers as "Judas" and "Just another liberal".  What, did you think the Republicans were going to want you to keep your job, Ben?

What's the lesson here, I wonder.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Dems are hitting back against the GOP's delay tactics in the Senate with a new series of political ads.
• As many as 1 in 110 children in the U.S. may be autistic according to a new study.
• Pakistan's current government is in doubt as a judicial coup to rid the country of corrupt ministers is causing anarchy.
• Seven more U.S. banks failed on Friday bringing the total to 140 this year.
• A class action suit against Netflix charges its film recommendations can be used to cause harm through the airing of privacy data.
  

Last Call

Now Nelson is demanding states be allowed to opt-in to Obamacare only if they want to.

It is unclear whether Democrats will offer Nelson's proposal as part of their Manager's Amendment, which should be public by Saturday morning. Efforts to reach Nelson's office were unsuccessful.

But previous experience dictates the caucus is skeptical of healthcare reforms that permit states the ability to decide whether to implement them -- a fact that seemed most evident when the Senate's bill contained an "opt out" public option clause.

Nevertheless, Heineman is among a handful of governors who have railed against the upper chamber's healthcare bill, fearing an expansion of Medicaid could further dent their already holey budgets.

“The State of Nebraska cannot afford an unfunded mandate and uncontrolled spending of this magnitude," Heineman wrote to Nelson. "Additionally, Nebraskans are very concerned about the bill’s increase in payroll taxes. Rural hospitals are very concerned about their ability to survive. Seniors are very concerned about the cuts in Medicare."

“The bottom line is the current Senate bill is not in Nebraska’s best interest," the governor added. "Therefore, I strongly urge you to oppose the current Senate health care legislation."

However, Nelson may ultimately oppose that vote, regardless of Heineman's beckoning: The Nebraska senator still opposes the bill because its abortion language "isn't sufficient," he previously said.And even with the opt-in, it's still not going to be enough.

It never will be for Nelson.  And the Dems refuse to figure this out.

A Deal Just To Have A Deal

...is worse than no deal at all, apparently.

Leaders here concluded a climate change deal on Friday that the Obama administration called “meaningful” but that falls short of even the modest expectations for the summit meeting here.

The agreement still needs to be approved by the 193 nations gathered here.

The accord addresses many of the issues that leaders came here to settle — and if signed, will represent an unprecedented effort by the nations of the world to take concerted steps to address global warming.

But the agreement appeared to leave many of the participants unhappy.

Even an Obama administration official conceded, “It is not sufficient to combat the threat of climate change, but it’s an important first step.”

“No country is entirely satisfied with each element,” the administration’s statement said, “but this is a meaningful and historic step forward and a foundation from which to make further progress.”

The statement added, “We thank the emerging economies for their voluntary actions and especially appreciate the work and leadership of the Europeans in this effort.”

But many of those emerging economies are likely to express displeasure. Europeans said the deal does not require enough of the United States, China and other major emitters and could put European industries at a competitive disadvantage because the European Union is already subject to a carbon emissions constraint program.

The accord drops the expected goal of concluding a binding international treaty by the end of 2010, which leaves the implementation of its provisions uncertain. It is likely to undergo many months, perhaps years, of additional negotiation before it emerges in any internationally enforceable form.

.All indicators are the deal is one of those "suggestion" things.  That will do nothing.

Nice try however.  Pass the bill.  Improve it later.  Where have we heard that before, I wonder.

Zandar's Other Thought Of The Day

Nowhere in this CNN story entitled "GOP rips Senate health care timeline" does it mention the fact that the GOP plan has been and will continue to be to delay the plan in the Senate as long as possible, or that Congress has been fighting over this since the beginning of the year, or that every step of the way the GOP has refused to have anything to do with the plan at all.

Nowhere.

You see, the mean old Dems are trying to pass their fascist health socialist plan and will make the brave Republicans America elected in 2008 work on Christmas Day.

The bastards.  Why did we put the Republicans in power if the Dems are just going to treat them this way?

The Kroog Versus Helicopter Ben

Paul Krugman on Bernanke:

Right now, real interest rates are too high, on a PPE basis (that’s Proof of Pudding is in the Eating): the economy is clearly operating far below capacity due to insufficient demand. The cost of that insufficient demand is enormous — not just in dollars of wasted output, but in severe social and psychological damage to the unemployed.

While real interest rates are too high, however, the short-term nominal rate is as low as it can go. So there are only two ways real rates can be reduced. Either the Fed has to buy long-term assets, driving down the wedge between short and long rates — the Gagnon proposal, which comes out of Ben Bernanke’s own work — or it needs to raise expected inflation. Or it could and probably should do both.

But it is, in fact, doing neither. Why? Because of fear that the Fed would lose credibility as a staunch inflation-fighter.

Future economic historians will, I believe, see this as fundamentally absurd — as absurd as the inflation fears that paralyzed the Bank of England in the early 1930s even as the world went into a deflationary spiral. Yes, there may someday be a 1970s-type episode in which the Fed needs to fight inflation, not encourage it — but it’s a long way off. Furthermore, why on earth would we imagine that the Bernanke Fed, by showing itself willing to inflict gratuitous pain in 2010, would make it easier for whoever is running the Fed in, say, 2020 to control inflation then, let alone that the tradeoff of real pain now versus hypothetical pain much later, if it even exists, is worth making?

Anyway, as far as I can see nobody is even trying to assess these alleged tradeoffs seriously. Instead, the notion of an unchanging inflation target — not to be revised even in the face of the worst slump since the Depression — has acquired a sort of mystical force; it has become identified with the notion of Civilization, in much the way that a previous generation assigned mystic significance to the gold standard.

Ben Bernanke, we’re told, is a great admirer of Liaquat Ahamed’s Lords of Finance; so am I. All the more irony, then, that Ben has, without realizing it, turned into Montagu Norman.

Shorter Paul Krugman:  "Helicopter Ben has gone from Old School George Lucas to Midichlorian George Lucas, and I hope you like 10% unemployment as a result."

Now, I'm not a Nobel-winning economist, but even I see our problem is deflation, not inflation.  Ben wants to fight inflation so much he doesn't give a damn about social programs or unemployment.

That's a problem.

A Bridge Too Far

Ben Nelson now is going for the brass ring, demanding to roll back the health care bill back beyond the Baucus Bill into GOP plan territory:

Nelson's key points:

1. Asked if he would vote for cloture even if his initiative to restrict abortion were adopted, Nelson flatly said "no."

2. Nelson not only said a vote before Christmas was not feasible, he joked about it taking until next Christmas.

3. Nelson said unless the bill's Medicaid expansion provisions were made optional he would oppose cloture.

4. Nelson said the bill's revenue provisions were unacceptable because the economy was bad.

5. Nelson said because the subsidies which provide the bill's coverage expansion couldn't be paid for without additional revenue, they needed to be "scaled-back"

6. Nelson also that unless cost control were addressed first, coverage couldn't be expanded.

In sum: unless Ben Nelson is bluffing, the only way he will vote for cloture is if abortion is restricted, the subsidies are whacked, the revenue provisions are nuked, and its Medicaid expansion is gutted. Oh, and he doesn't think there's any chance of it happening by Christmas.

As Bob Cesca puts it:

Enough is enough. It's time to slam the door in Ben Nelson's bulbous Flintstone face, lock down Olympia Snowe and pass this son of a bitch.

Bob, he speaks the truth.  Especially with this bit of news from Susie Madrak:

 I was pleasantly surprised to hear that they would be submitting an HHS bill in the near future – they’d “just this week” gotten funding to address any safety concerns, but more importantly, to start putting an infrastructure in place to import drugs.

Pass the bill.  Improve it.  You're going to have to.  But make it law, then fix the damn thing.  Either way, it's time to call Nelson's bluff and go for Snowe.  Otherwise we'll be right back here again in February.

Or April.

Or July.

Angry Johnny The Hypocrite

John McCain is getting a lot of traction from the village today, attacking Al Franken for moving along the debate.  McCain is bemoaning the loss of civility in the Senate.  His FOX News buddies are chiming in, calling Franken an angry clown.

And it took the Think Progress guys all of a couple hours to find John McCain cutting off debate in the same manner on the Iraq War eight years ago.

On October 10, 2002 — just ahead of the looming mid-term elections — the Senate rushed a debate on a war authorization giving President Bush the power to use force against Iraq. The resolution ultimately passed the Senate after midnight on an early Friday morning by a vote of 77-23.

During the course of the frenzied floor debate, then-Sen. Mark Dayton (D-MN) spoke in favor of an amendment offered by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) that would have restricted Bush’s constitutional powers to wage war against Iraq. After a minute and a half, Dayton ran out of time, prompting this exchange:

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator’s time has expired.

Mr. DAYTON. I ask for unanimous consent that I have 30 seconds more to finish my remarks.

Mr. McCAIN. I object.

Byrd stepped in to grant Dayton time to finish his remarks. But just moments later, Byrd asked for more time to speak for himself. Again, McCain objected, prompting Byrd to chide him for doing so. “This shows the patience of a Senator,” Byrd said. “This clearly demonstrates that the train is coming down on us like a Mack truck, and we are not even going to consider a few extra minutes for this Senator.”

After being publicly shamed, McCain acquiesced to Byrd’s request. But moments later, McCain added this disclaimer: “I wish to say very briefly that I understand people have a desire to speak. We have a number of Senators who have not spoken on this issue. It is already looking as if we may be here well into this evening. From now on, I will be adhering strictly to the rules.” In other words, he acted just like Franken did yesterday.

And of course, the Village will ignore McCain doing this and only continue to attack Al Franken.