By now, most anyone who's been paying attention has seen that the 'conservatism' wing of the Republican party is threatening primary against any Republican candidate who doesn't serve the conservative cause (read Tea Party). The RNC has floated a list of 10 'principles', of which any candidate must support at least 8, or face the wrath of the Republican base. A decent Montana discussion of that list is at Missoulapolis. This strategy for ensuring party purity is quite obviously called the "litmus test". It generally speaking works best with those who value the authority of central control, or fear its absence, and it's a small wonder why the Republican base is eating it up.
The lesson is that, for some, ideological purity, or at least the appearance of it, is very safe and desired.
Amidst the usual generic polls comes a startling bit of information on the latest Research 2000 poll. Alongside the usual tepid marks for Democrats (41/54 favorable/unfavorable for Congressional Dems) and bottom-sucking marks for Republicans (14/70 favorable/unfavorable for Congressional GOPers), comes this question: "In the 2010 Congressional elections will you definitely vote, probably vote, not likely vote, or definitely will not vote?"
Two in five Democratic voters either consider themselves unlikely to vote at this point in time, or have already made the firm decision to remove themselves from the 2010 electorate pool. Indeed, Democrats were three times more likely to say that they will "definitely not vote" in 2010 than are Republicans.
The results aren't a total surprise. President Obama, working with a Democratic Congress, generated high hopes. As the year progressed, the GOP base was worked into a frenzy, based on little but rage, ignorance, and confusion, while the Democratic base grew frustrated and impatient. They did their part on Election Day, and there's a sense that Democratic leaders aren't doing their part now. Policymakers have gone the better part of nine months without any major legislative accomplishments. That, coupled with a still-struggling economy, is not a recipe for widespread satisfaction.
Benen says the solution to Democratic woes is for party leaders to pursue an aggressive reform policy in health-care, climate change, union legislation, etc & co, that will reawaken the base. Don't expect that, however. Expect the news that Democratic voters are dropping out to spur politicians to again tack to the right to woo the voters that are planning to go to the polls. That is, of course, more in line with the actual record of many politicos.
I'm not sure if I have a solution to this as a voter and activist. At best, we can try to pressure politicians to do the right thing by lambasting from doing the wrong things, threatening primaries, or directing money, time, and resources elsewhere. Maybe we need to implement another long-term strategy to weed out the worst offenders and work to overturn the procedural roadblocks, like the Senate filibuster and seniority rules, that cause crucial legislation to fester in DC.
But really, this should serve as a wake-up call to Obama and other Democrats who rode in to office on a tidal wave of anger against the political status quo. Remember, a lot of your support came from young voters who actually expect you to fulfill your promises. You can't go back on the expectations you set, and then point to the unenthusiastic voters as reason you did so in the first place. You have to work to keep us engaged and on your side...
"I'll show you President Obama's birth certificate when you show me Sarah Palin's high school diploma." - Bill Maher
Don't look now. But, next year the state and national electoral bandwagon rolls though town again. Another election.
Man. I'm just getting over the last one. The feeling is one of fatigue or a hangover, but not the kind with a throbbing headache. More of a dull pain.
After all of these years, I am trying to figure out which is which is worse:
1.Working so hard and losing and feeling powerless while the whackos screw things up; or
2.Working so hard and winning and then watching so little be accomplished when those with white hats rule.
Remember election night in 2008? Soldier Field filled with tens of thousands of new faces. Euphoria. The articulate black guy with large ears, his wife dressed in a stunning red dress and two beautiful children. It was a stunning, electric political moment.
The margin was clear. No need for the Supreme Court to weigh in. So much promise. "Change you can believe in." "We're the ones we've been waiting for." Such promise.
While the nation celebrated, election results in Big Sky Country were close but, no cigar. Our electoral votes narrowly stayed red. And, in the midst of the so-called big wins that night, there were ominous signs.
Baucus surged to a win with a campaign war chest exceeding $10.0 million, but no one critically scrutinized its sources and the consequences.
Conflicted and sad sack D candidate, John Driscoll, actually voted for his opponent; and, Rehberg rolled to victory. The message here exactly?
The bright side? Schweitzer led a ticket of statewide candidates that, with the exception of Linda McCulloch, all won easily. And, for the fist time since 1948, the D's control all five offices.
1948?!?
In the Legislature, a net 5 seats traded hands. The D's increased their count in the House of Representatives from 49 to 50 (and earned a tie with the R's) and lost 4 seats in the Senate (27 to 23).
And, after a year, what has happened?
Nationally, real, meaningful health care reform appears dead, perhaps for another generation. Energy policy and climate change proposals languish. Too often, foreign policy still is measured in troop counts and trillions of dollars in defense spending.
With the health care industry and pharmaceuticals and heavy-industry lobby calling the shots, not much has changed.
Statewide, for progressives, everything is, well, ho-hum. Yes, the Governor can boast about being one of two governors operating a budget in the black. But, hundreds of millions of state tax dollars freed up by then infusion of stimulus monies that could have been directed to health care and education, instead went to "shovel ready" projects (most of which, because of the comparatively small amount of money involved, are cosmetic in nature). High unemployment and chronic underemployment persist. Once again, the legislature gutted environmental laws (and Schweitzer signed most of them), neglected the University System and (Brian says he's the System's biggest ally in several generations) and sent the Governor a piss-poor bill to guide the ways property is valued and taxed (and he allowed it to become law without his signature).
It is often said that the R's hate government and, for that reason, are not very good at governing. But, with working majorities nationally and statewide, when they were in power they delivered their agenda items. By way of comparison, the D's are timid and spineless and when they are in charge produce results much like those of their dreaded opposition.
It could be worse, I suppose. But, we worked hard for what?
Nate Silver looked at historical poll numbers for Congressional approval broken down along party lines and discovered that, typically, since 2000, Republican support for Republican-controlled Congress is higher than Democratic support for Democrat-controlled Congress.
Is the dissatisfaction because Congressional Democrats are less responsive to their base?
In a second post, Silver gives two possible systematic reasons why Democratic support for their party's representatives is lower.
First, Democrats actually want to implement policy:
Pollster Celinda Lake spoke to first, and perhaps most crucial point in her email reply to me. "It's easier to unify Republicans because mostly they want to stop things. It's harder to unify people when you want to do things." (emphasis added) Therein lies the broader asymmetry: Doing nothing is a single thing, whereas doing something implies many options. And it is easier to build consensus around a "nothing" menu of 1 than it is for a more variegated menu of limitless options of "something."
Meh. Republicans certainly do things while in office. Huge tax subsidies for corporations and the wealthy, for example. Start wars. Implement a systematic program of torture, say. But the right side of the political spectrum has a funny way of approving and defending what their "leaders" do. The right's outrage over English park rules never would have surfaced if it were Republican leaders implementing the policy. Just as the end of habeas corpus and the Fourth Amendment were brushed aside because they were inconvenient to Republican policies, concerns about background checks at playgrounds would likewise be brushed away if Dick Cheney said they were necessary.
Which brings us to the Democratic coalition's diversity:
Uniquely compounding this problem for Democrats is the nature of their coalition, which is of course more heterogeneous in demographic terms. Pollster Karl Agne: "The other dynamic here, of course, is the relative diversity of Democrats (age, race, region, ideology) and the relatively monolithic nature of the Republican base, as covered in our focus group report." I think it's a factor as well, but impossible to quantify.
It's not just diversity of race, religion, and gender represented by the Democratic party, there's also a gaping psychological and perceptive divide between the small, monolithic, and like-thinking bloc that comprises the Republican base, and everyone else. In short, the Republican base is a self-isolating and paranoid group who see themselves as members of a small, persecuted minority who are defending themselves and their country from a hidden, liberal agenda; the Democratic base is intellectually diverse, and its supporters span across a variety of beliefs and worldviews. In short, Democratic supporters don't agree on everything...or anything?
Silver's conclusion is that "we ought to be careful not to overstate Democratic disgruntlement and its significance." The nature of the party's support spawns natural dissent. It also means that Democrats "are [not] headed for a colossal collapse in a way that the Republicans would be if their approval of a Republican-led Congress were at the same levels." Silver also thinks Democratic approval will rebound after healthcare passes and the Congress tackles other legislation that addresses Democratic concerns.
I'm not so optimistic. While I agree with the premises about the composition of the Democratic party, the issues that the Democratic Congress is currently rejecting or delaying or gutting - the public option, say, or climate change legislation, or Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell - are overwhelmingly popular, not just among Democrats, but among independents, too. In short, it's hard to argue that the dropping numbers for Congressional Democrats are the result of natural political forces, when that party's "leaders" are retreating on the few principles that tie the party together.
I do, however, agree that this is no indication that Democrats will collapse, and that's because the GOP is heading towards crazy. Just as the Republican base is psychologically homogeneous helps keep the bloc together, it also prohibits Republicans, seeking to appeal to their base, to actually communicate with the rest of the world...
So we got a public option in the Senate bill. The bill and its version of the public option is far from perfect - that it's opt-out at the state level is the least of its problems. For one, it'd be available - along with the community standard provisions - to only a handful of consumers. And that's critical, for in order for the public option to be successful it needs to be national, and it needs to be big. Still, if this is the most conservative, weakest version of the public option that could make it to the final Congressional bill - the worst-case scenario, if you will - that's not a bad thing.
Still, that it got in the bill is a huge victory for the progressive activists who fought for it. Huge. Despite being outspent by industry lobbyists, despite not garnering the frenzied media coverage that the Teabaggers did (memo to self: blog while armed), despite the attempts at marginalization by both Congressional and White House Democrats and the open hostility of some single-payer advocates, a lot of good people stirred up a big fuss, and a public option will be in the final bill.
We were wanted for door-knocking and phone-calling and t-shirt-buying and our votes, but we weren't wanted when it came time to craft policy. Well, despite the public option's relative insignificance (compared to say, real health care reform in the form of a single-payer system), we've forced a place a the table. And we're not going away. We'll be there for climate change legislation, immigration reform, bank regulation, Net Neutrality, consumer protection legislation, gay rights, tax reform, and on and on and on.
As if the striking defeat of abortion bans in South Dakota and Colorado last year (and the failure of a ban in Montana to even get on the ballot) weren't clear enough, out-of-state zealots are headed for Montana this week for what they call a "Personhood Conference." (This thing is sure to be a fascinating bunch of out-of-state total extremists--reporters won't want to miss it.)
Why us? National groups are focusing their attention on the states because Congress wants no part of something this extreme. They are coming to Montana because our low population and cheap media rates make us the perfect target to force their extremist experiment on the nation without spending a lot of money. Also, we actually elected a member of the Constitution party to our state legislature who backed previous failed bans.
The thing is, they don't have local support - the Montana Right to Life, Montana Catholic Conference, and the Montana Family Foundation have all said in the press that they want no part of this.
Even Republicans are starting to come out against these efforts to force their big government extremist agenda on the rest of us though state ballot initiatives.
Women in Montana (and especially Native women) don't want to give the government control over whether and when we have children. In addition to the out-of-staters, it will be interesting to see if any local officials actually show up. The personhood conference website touts Senator Jonathan Windy Boy (D-Box Elder) as supposedly attending.
Why would Windy Boy attend? He may be confused. When asked what the reason is for his anti-abortion rights votes in the legislature Windy Boy has said "my uncle had 23 children and he told me to go forth and multiply."
I love kids as much as the next gal. However, 23 kids! That's five more kids than the Duggars. What if each of those kids all had 23 kids, how much is 23 x 23? 529 I think. And 529 x23 = 12, 167. In just three generations this family could be 12,000 strong. Two hundred eighty thousand strong in four generations.
The conference website lists Senator Windy Boy's phone number--give him a call and tell him that if he's against abortion, he should vote to increase access to affordable birth control and medically accurate sex education in his district to prevent unintended pregnancy in the first place instead of aligning himself with wing-nuts.
The country's political landscape changing right under our feet. Did the shift occur while we were sleeping? Or, did anything actually change as a result of last year's elections?
In 2008, the rallying cry was for Democrats. "Let us govern and we'll show you."
After 8 years of Bush II, we had enough, and the country elected a D President and returned D's in larger numbers to serve as the majority party in their respective chambers, including a then near-filibuster proof Senate. When the Coleman-Franken recount stretched into tax season, D's reassured America that with the magic number of 60 Senators, all things are possible. Just believe.
Well, as we've seen, the 60 votes in the Senate aren't working out that well. I'd say the guy hunched over his breakfast at the diner in Circle would tell you the R's are still running the country (or doing a tremendous job of keeping the D's from doing so).
And home, let's face it: Montana is still a red state.
When it came to the US Senate race in 2008, one could argue that Max was the more Republican of the two. Max didn't even break a sweat. (By the way, has anyone ever seen Max sweat?)
Schweitzer was re-elected overwhelmingly over the hapless Roy Brown.
And, yes, the D's won all of the other statewide offices (attorney general, secretary of state, superintendent of public instruction, auditor) for the first time in 60 years. But, there's been a few blue moons in the meantime and it was bound to happen sooner or later. After all, look at the quality of some of the R opposition: Brad Johnson? Ellie Sollie Hermanson?
Even in the lean years during the 1990's, the D's managed to win most of these statewide offices, but the R's repeatedly produced trifectas, with lopsided wins for governor and 2 to 1 majorities in both houses of the legislature.
In 2008, the D's picked up a seat on the Public Service Commission and now hold 4 of the 5 seats.
But, despite unparalleled campaign resources, D's lost a total of 3 seats in the Senate and scratched out enough seats (a net gain of 1) to earn a tie in the House.
Incidentally, for the benefit of younger readers and immigrants of a progressive persuasion, D's haven't controlled both houses of the legislature at the same time since 1991.
So, where does that leave Montana progressives at the cusp of the 2010 election cycle?
You're looking at the narrative that will be written about this Democratic Congress, with Max Baucus as its figurehead, if the public option, and healthcare reform along with it, fails.
It may not be fair, it may show a lack of understanding of "how Washington works," it may even be pessimistic, but that's how it is. And I'm flabbergasted that this is surprising anyone, especially those that have the means to move the debate and change the narrative. And, oh yeah, pass meaningful healthcare reform.
With Max Baucus pledging to move forward on health insurance reform with or without Republican backing, the GOP may have backed itself into an interesting corner.
The strange thing about all of this negotiating has always been, for me, that the rules of the Senate actually allow for far better (and more progressive) reform with fewer votes, although you may end up having to lose some good ideas along the way. The reconciliation process, for example, actually requires a stronger public option over a weaker one, in order to get the cost savings that can justify using the reconciliation process.
In other words, the main thing the teabaggers and GOP leadership are gaining by forcing people like Grassley out of the process is a good chance that whatever passes will be even more progressive.
That also means that people like Lieberman who have threatened to oppose any bill with a public option may have some incentive now to agree to vote against a filibuster to support a bill that could include health insurance exchanges, meaningful insurance regulation, etc., as well as a weaker public option, in favor of ending up with a bill lacking exchanges but containing a Medicare-like public option.
If you're not at the table, you're on the menu. The right-wing has apparently opted for being on the menu.
Imagine if the Greeks had been so brilliant as to hide their Trojan Horse full of soldiers inside a second larger Trojan Horse!!!!1!1!
That's what Jon Kyl thinks co-ops are, in a Huffington Post story that laid plain, once more, what an indescribably ridiculous political party the GOP has become.
First, the public option was a terrible idea because it is supposedly a Trojan Horse for single-payer. Now private co-ops are a terrible idea because they are a Trojan Horse for a public option. I imagine soon we'll be outlying private insurance because it is just a Trojan Horse for health insurance cooperatives. Or something.
Bottom line, though, if the co-ops are off the plate because Republicans won't back them generally and Grassley won't back anything that a whole bunch of Republicans won't back and, don't forget, a whole lot of Democrats think the cooperative idea is kind of inane anyways since cooperatives are already legal and some currently exist, I think this just reemphasizes my earlier point: we're getting steadily closer to a good bill as we get a little closer to a chance of no bill at all.
After hearing about my foolishness and naivete regarding the forest bill, I was interested to see this article by Pat Williams.
I mean, I'll take it as granted that Pat Williams might be, like me, a malleable sell-out scoundrel. He might also be Montana's most progressive lawmaker of the modern era. Potato, potahto.
Since writing about the forest bill, I've gotten a couple notes and had conversations with people very familiar with the forest bill's content and the process behind it. My understanding is that the "talkers" of the critics are either deeply misleading or, in some cases, just not true.
I've been struck during this process how amazingly similar the health care, global warming, and forest debates are. With health care, the question is private/public or single-payer. With global warming, the question is cap-and-trade or carbon tax. With forest, the question is Tester bill or complete wilderness protection.
Except those really are all fake choices that really say that the choice is private/public or nothing, cap-and-trade or nothing, the Tester bill or nothing.
Perfect: enemy of the good.
Again, this isn't to say that there aren't devils in the details to focus on, but the question at this point for much of the left is whether we're ever going to take yes for an answer.
The health care bills under consideration institute important insurance regulations like community rating and guaranteed issue, subsidize coverage for low-income families, ease purchasing through exchanges, and (hopefully) bend the cost curve over the long-term.
Cap and trade actually worked better than anticipated when instituted for sulfur dioxide and, while imperfect, will reduce carbon output in this country. Action by the U.S. will help stoke other nations to take steps as well, creating a positive feedback loop.
I still know less about this forest bill, but so far the voices I trust on lands management and conservation are increasingly telling me thumbs up on the bill.
While reading up on Steve Kelly's, let's say quixotic, run against Pat Williams in '94, I came across this piece. Interestingly, the piece basically recounts how efforts to shore up Williams' left flank also resulted in Williams moving to the right to prove his independence from the Clinton White House. Some of the quotes are marvelous, though:
With progressive
congressmen like this, Kelly asked, who misses the likes of Ron Marlenee?
[...]
"The Clinton administration was retreating from its campaign pledges to protect our public lands and Pat Williams played a key role in pushing them in that direction," Kelly told me. "Williams repeatedly voted against mining reform, grazing reform and measures to end subsidies to multinational timber companies. Worst of all, from my point of view here in Bozeman, Williams sponsored anti-wilderness legislation that condemns 4 million acres in Montana to logging and mining. Cy Jaminson's record spoke for itself. He never pretended to be anything but what he was: a voice for pillage."
[...]
"If these independent political campaigns cause some conservative Republicans to get elected, well at least we don't have to guess where they are on an issue," said Larry Tuttle, director of the Portland-based Center for Environmental Equity. "Frankly, when it comes to changing the incentives that lead to environmental destruction, evironmentalists often have more in common with the National Taxpayers Union than with many incumbent Democrats."
So that's the result of left vision, as near as I can tell: the '94 Gingrich revolution, Denny Rehberg, and George W. Bush.
I'm not interested in walking down that path. So, yeah, call me malleable.
Competition from the public option must be unfair because government does not need to make a profit and has enormous pricing and negotiating powers. Besides, unless the point of a government plan is to be cheaper, it is pointless: If the public option conforms to the imperatives that regulations and competition impose on private insurers, there is no reason for it.
Believe it or not, Will is actually using this point to attack a public option. Yet he never explains why cheaper health insurance is a bad thing.
(Will also explains away the nation's 45 million uninsured as a "'snapshot' of a nation" where workers often change jobs. That is, to Will, these folks are only temporarily uninsured. Of course, temporarily uninsured or no, it's still a financial kiss of death for these folks to be ill...not to mention that insurance companies use this "temporary" period to ensure they don't pay claims when they are insured, thanks to the ol' pre-existing condition clause...)
IMHO, that's the essential difference between a contemporary conservative and a progressive: a George Will conservative will always oppose something based on theoretical grounds, even if the proposal in question will actually improve things. A modern progressive is pragmatic. If having a government-run health insurance option means cheaper health insurance...let's have it!
As Nate Silver points out, there aren't many goods or services that government provides better than the private sector. But the insurance racket is unique:
he profits the insurance industry is making, of course -- profits artificially boosted by an enormous backdoor tax subsidy -- don't seem to be buying the customer much of anything in terms of improved service or cost savings. On the contrary, health care costs are rising by as much as 9-10 percent per year, without any concomitant increase in the level of service. If JetBlue were raising the cost of its fares by 10 percent per year, they'd be out of business.
The reason the insurers are staying in business, though, is because barriers to entry in the health insurance industry are in practice quite high. Insurers benefit from pooling risk. The larger the pool, the better in terms of the insurer's ability to hedge its risk and build negotiating leverage with its providers. That makes it very difficult for a Five Guys or a JetBlue type of start-up to compete: they'll have trouble getting together enough customers to pool their risk adequately, and even if they do, they won't have as much negotiating leverage as the big guys. Health care providers may demand a better deal or refuse to accept them. As such, they'll never get off the ground.
Insurance, in other words, is a volume business, the main requirements for which are that (1) you have a lot of money pooled together and that (2) you've been around for awhile.
I'd also add that insurers increase profits, not by streamlining the production of insurance or making it with cheaper materials, but by decreasing the amount of claims they pay out. That is, private insurance is only bound to get worse...for consumers, that is. So you have an industry whose nature prohibits new competition, and the existing players one up each other by providing an increasingly worse product to their customers.
Whatever. A public option, if robust enough, would probably provide better coverage at a cheaper rate than current private plans. Plus it'd be portable, allow small businesses to compete for workers with larger companies, and encourage entrepreneurship.
To blithely label this as an argument of "capitalism" versus "socialism" ignores the myriad flavors of capitalism. If your flavor of capitalism must needs be an economic system dominated by monolithic multinational corporations, you're probably against the public option. If, on the other hand, you prefer a system where small, local businesses and the self-employed thrive alongside (or, better yet, dominate) big corporations, you probably support the public option.
So it's good to see that Obama today say that a public option is "non-negotiable." Ezra:
There were two ways he could have responded to the press corps' queries. The first would be a procedural reply: "All ideas are on the table," or something of that nature. But that wasn't his approach. Instead, he defended the plan's substantive merits. His answer was, in other words, an effort at persuasion rather than diversion. The implication was that he, at the least, is genuinely convinced by the case for a public insurer.
It's also smart politically, as well as policy-wise. And now - finally - there's signs in Congress that a public option will be a part of reform. The question now is, what will it look like?
Kent Conrad, for example, has moved away from his idea of small co-ops towards a coalition of co-ops that could negotiate health care prices as a single, national body, which is becoming ever closer to a public option. And even Conrad had his "wake-up moment" about GOP Senators: when the Republicans feared a public option because it would be competing unfairly as a subsidized body, they still didn't like it when the idea of a co-op without a subsidies was suggested. "They really don't want a competitive model," admitted the North Dakota Democrat, "at least some of them."
As dday pointed out, Democrats are now realizing that, "...like in 1993, (the Republicans') mission is to kill health care reform, period. Why Why anyone would think that any alternative would be true is beyond me, but Senate Democrats obviously needed to play Tic-Tac-Toe with the computer endlessly until they realized what a strange game it all is, and that 'the only winning move is not to play.'" Apparently some Democrats had considered "nixing" the public option in hopes that they would find Republican support for reform.
But now I think Democrats are realizing they own health care reform. They no longer have any incentive, or reason, to find common ground with Republicans. There can be none. And if the push for reform fails, it will be seen as a Democratic failure. The sooner Congessional Democrats realize this, the better. And if they do band together and implement a Democratic health care reform bill, they might actually realize they are the majority power and are calling the shots. This health care reform could be the issue Democrats...well...start acting like Democrats And it's long past time for them to start acting in concert in DC. Who knows? This could be the start of a beautiful friendship...
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa went off the handle a bit yesterday over the President having the temerity to go to commemorations of the D-Day landing while pushing Congress to continue working on healthcare reform.
Grassley is one of the major obstacles to a public health insurance option right now. He also is fighting employer responsibility -- a.k.a. pay or play -- in favor of exclusively an individual mandate.
I'm not sure where Sen. Grassley is on the financing of this thing, but I know this -- every change he is proposing to the Kennedy bill, the Obama framework, and Baucus whitepaper is a change to make it less effective, less popular, and ultimately less passable.
The key metric for passage over these next several months has more to do, I believe, with the popularity of the bill and less to do with the initial level of bipartisan support. Building a bill that can be sold by the President to the American people is far more important than building one in the backroom that starts with 60 votes.
A bill that starts with 60 votes will lose them if the right-wing can convince Americans that it is a terrible bill.
I'm getting more nervous about the chances of passing healthcare reform this year. The Republicans seem to be unifying in their opposition. Liberals seem to be content to see the system fall apart if they don't get their first-choice solution. Frankly, there's little grassroots support on either side for even a bit of compromise.
That's too bad, because the vast majority of conversations I still have while street canvassing and talking to all but the most engaged activists are in favor of finding solutions to this mess, even if all we make this year are some initial steps.
This report is a bit late because 1) I'm unemployed and had some job searching duties to do last week, and 2) I was waiting for my friend Connecticut Bob to put up the video he took at Connecticut's JJB dinner.
Here's the video
Or go to CTBob's web site and scroll down to his Saturday, June 6, 2009 post to see Gov. Schweitzer's speech. You can also check out interviews of some of Connecticut's politicians including 2 of the 3 gubernatorial candidates -- Susan Bysiewicz and Dan Malloy. Jim Amann is the other gubernatorial candidate and either CTBob could not get him or Amann's distaste towards CT Bloggers kept him away. CTBob also posted the video of Schweitzer's speech on YouTube.
Apparently, a number of hackles got raised the other day when the President had the audacity to stand by his campaign plan of supporting a public health insurance option in a letter to Congress. The resulting letter has Republican Senators Chuck Grassley, Mike Enzi, Orrin Hatch, John Ensign, and, apparently, others quite upset. After all, they don't like a public health insurance option and their 40-member caucus represents the vast minority of the country, so why wouldn't the President bend to their demands?
Bipartisanship is a good tactic and, often, even a good goal. It is better to pass good legislation with support from both sides of the aisle. But the bottom-line on this stuff, of course, has to be to pass good policy.
Somewhat ironically given Chuck Grassley's opposition is that Senator professes, at leastin this CNBC appearance alongside Max Baucus that "bending the curve" (e.g. reducing costs) is his top priority:
And if I could comment on that. You know, this is restructuring, as I said, and we need to have the Congressional Budget Office as an impartial person show us that over the long term, we are going to bend this curve so that this big increase doesn't come. Because if it isn't, you know, we aren't accomplishing our goal. We'd just be spending more money on a program that isn't good.
Now he says that we need to listen to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and figure out how to solve healthcare inflation. Ironically, he blames Medicare for cost increases in healthcare.
But here's the other thing -- every analysis I've seen shows a public option restrains health care inflation more and the more robust and open the public option, the greater restraint on healthcare spending.
So if the Senator from Iowa is being honest, he should favor a stronger public option, not a non-existent one.
Update -- Ezra, nearly simultaneously, makes a similar point:
What you're seeing here are people who fundamentally don't want a universal health care system, and are willing to be flexible in how they argue and advocate for that goal, fighting with people who fundamentally do want a universal health care system, and are willing to be flexible in how they argue and advocate for that goal. A lot of these relatively esoteric policy disputes are simply manifestations of those two underlying impulses.
I'm looking forward to attending my state's 61st Annual Jefferson-Jackson-Bailey dinner tonight and hear what Gov. Schweitzer has to say. I've been a fan of the Good Guv for about 5 years now.
I wrote a diary at My Left Nutmeg, Connecticut's leading political blog, about what Connecticut's gubernatorial candidates can learn from Gov. Schweitzer. Connecticut's 3 gubernatorial candidates are Sec. of State Susan Bysiewicz (Buy-see-wits), Mayor Dan Malloy of Stamford, CT and former Speaker of the State House, Jim Amann.
Our current governor is a Republican and she has an extraordinarily high popularity number.
Please share your thoughts on what lessons Schweitzer's campaigns have for Democrats in other states.
Saw this linked to in a few places earlier, but I hadn't yet heard that the Obama Administration is bought and paid for by the insurance companies.
I've gotten a few emails and seen the single-payer protest clip that is below. I have to admit to being underwhelmed. If I was in Congress, I'd be inclined to give single-payer a look. But I'd probably also end up where I am now, supportive of a mix of public and private insurance options for people.
The strangest thing, though, is this idea, both here in Montana and nationally, that Max Baucus is thin line standing between America and single-payer health care. That if only Max Baucus would invite a single-payer advocate to a Finance Committee meeting that Chuck Grassley's perpetual frown would turn upside down and that we'd all move to candy mountain with Charlie the Unicorn and the healthcare would be free and have sprinkles.
But I digress.
The place we're at in health care reform right now is that there is some broad consensus among leading Democrats, ranging from Barack Obama to Kathleen Sebelius to Ted Kennedy to Max Baucus to Howard Dean, of what health care reform looks like. It includes some Medicare reform; a "connector" or "exchange" to help people navigate the insurance market; significant regulation of private insurance including guaranteed issue, community rating, and some guaranteed benefits package to be determined; and a public health insurance option in some form. To various extents, all of these players are negotiating with Republicans, pharmaceuticals, hospitals, doctors, insurance executives and others to work out something that can get passed. I'm not privy to all of those negotiations or strategy. In all likelihood, most of the readers of Left in the West aren't either.
But that's the consensus framework. There are other approaches we could, in theory, take. We could try the McCain plan. We could try single-payer. We could model the French limited multi-payer or the British NHS system. Or whatever. But we're not doing those things either.
Occasionally, people ask me why I'm supporting what I'm supporting, as though what Matt Singer supports is newsworthy in the slightest. I don't think what I support is either interesting or important.
To some extent, the constant "I have a plan" nature of policy discussions in America is good in terms of promoting serious long-term policy thought. But it isn't very useful in terms of actually getting something passed this year, which is what we're currently trying to do. For most of us, the relevant conversation on November 1st of last year was Barack Obama or John McCain, Denise Juneau or the crazy lady, etc., etc.
At some point in politics, the questions we face become binary. Healthcare reform isn't quite there yet where we crunch down to: vote to pass it or vote for the status quo. But we're at least to the later portion of the primaries, where the contestants have been winnowed down to a narrow field and, perhaps unsurprisingly, those candidates are marked more by their similarities than their differences.
Big changes in American politics take years and huge amounts of work. Even unsuccessful attempts at big changes in American politics take years and huge amounts of work. And the most incredible thing about is that even the most "powerful" players -- people like Barack Obama, Ted Kennedy, and, yes, Max Baucus -- are more caught in the storm than creating the winds.
That isn't to say we don't have power. All of us have a lot more power to kill reform than we do to get something passed. It is easier for Barack Obama to veto a bill than to pass one, for Ted Kennedy or Max Baucus to shut down an option than to get consensus for one, for a single Senator to help filibuster than to get cloture, and for activists decide that they would rather demand a full loaf than get 2/3 of one and as a result not even get a crust.
This has turned into a rant, so I'm going to stop. I'm more than happy to take feedback in comments here and, as folks may have noticed, the diary and comment options give even single-payer advocates (and even libertarians) the ability to write whatever the hell they want here (although the community can shut down comments). So by all means, let 'er rip.
Watching the national healthcare debate has been frustrating the last couple days, with both Democratic Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Arlen Specter (D-PA) coming out against the public health insurance option. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is pushing hard against it as well.
There is good news for healthcare reform advocates. Two big pieces of good news, actually.
The first is that reconciliation is on the table. Reformers don't necessarily need any of these three Senators' votes to pass a reform plan.
The second is that even though these Senators have made opposition to a public option a cornerstone of their argument on healthcare, a group of moderate and progressive Democrats have taken the opposite stance. Senators ranging from Sherrod Brown to Jim Webb have signed on. Even more U.S. Representatives have committed themselves to a public health insurance option.
This isn't the bottom-line issue in healthcare reform. We need to figure out a bunch of other stuff. But long-term cost containment and rethinking of our healthcare delivery gets MUCH easier with a public health insurance option.
Good news in the U.S. Senate, where an agreement has been reached to keep reconciliation available as an option on health care reform.
The aggressive approach reflects the big political claim that President Obama is staking on health care, and with it his willingness to face Republican wrath in order to guarantee that the Democrats, with their substantial majority in the Senate, could not be thwarted by minority tactics.
While some Democratic senators were reluctant to embrace the arrangement, Mr. Obama made clear at a White House session on Thursday afternoon that he favored it, people with knowledge of the session said.
The reason for the reluctance is understandable. Reconciliation is not an ideal process and the Republicans are pledging holy war over the use of this tactic (such pledges are, of course, way ironic because Republicans have also used reconciliation for major policy changes).
That said, taking reconciliation off the table would be absolutely foolish. Former President Clinton said it was his biggest mistake. And taking reconciliation off the table leaves Republicans able to kill any reform bill simply by holding strong -- and they have every political incentive to kill reform.
Here's what our senior Senator had to say (in the NYT article linked above)
Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee, said Friday that he would prefer not to pursue health legislation through the reconciliation process.
"I think it gets in the way," Mr. Baucus said, explaining that his goal was to produce a health care bill that could "get significantly more than 60 votes."
"If we jam something down somebody's throat, it's not sustainable," he said.
Here's the good news for Republicans. The Senator responsible for writing the bill is wisely trying to avoid using the reconciliation process, take a broad array of input, and write a bill that can get bipartisan backing. But the Republicans can't just stonewall now, nor can they hold hostage a process and a bill demanding massive concessions that would render the bill worthless.
It is important that Republicans not be allowed to run amok on health care, especially considering their treatment of Kathleen Sebelius, the moderate Governor of Kansas nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services. The fact that Republican Senators are proposing filibustering Sebelius is another sign of how crazy the modern GOP has become. Sebelius only got two Republican votes on the Finance Committee -- a Senator from her home state of Kansas (where Sebelius is quite popular) and Olympia Snowe, the Senate Republicans' only true moderate.
I'm down in Helena for a few days of meetings. The feeling here is very much one of either cautious optimism or cautious pessimism depending on the conversation. The optimism mostly stems from progressive gains at the federal level, the possibility of renewed federal aid to states, the strong statewide victories for Dems, the victory of Bob Story (a reasonable, even if not particularly moderate) Republican as the President of the Senate. I've had slightly fewer conversations where the other speaker is happy about GOP gains in the legislature (yes, I do talk to Republicans every now and then) or talk to Democrats who are pleased for political reasons about Scott Sales' ascendance to the Republican leader role in the House.
The reasons for pessimism are perhaps greater. The budget is going to be tight this session. The downturn is starting to impact revenue projections, with pension liabilities and infrastructure investments waiting to be made, we'll be nowhere near a surplus this session. We also know the recession is likely to get worse before it gets better. Add it all up and the legislature needs to tighten its belt and sock away some savings for future years. On top of that, Scott Sales' election as GOP House Leader is an indication of potential arrogance (hubris) among House Republicans. Sales has been claiming a mandate for GOP lawmakers, despite the fact that GOP House candidates got 10,000 fewer votes than Dem candidates (you get a similar number if you look at senate races from '06 and '08 combined).
The regular refrain here is that virtually everything will die. That's especially true of anything that spends money that is in exceedingly short supply.
So what can be accomplished this session? And what should be attempted?
Here's a few thoughts:
Fund the Healthy Montana Kids Initiative (I-155). Montanans by a huge margin approved health care for little kids (they're just so damn cute). The state needs to make good on that. But finding $20 million is going to be like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. It is possible that the Governor is including this in his executive budget (which will be released tomorrow). Frankly, I have no clue. The Governor's budget will include the money for the initiative.
End the Oil and Gas Tax Holiday. Normally, raising taxes in a recession is not what is advised, but this isn't your normal tax and there may be some way to mess with it that makes it reasonable. The oil and gas sectors have been raking money in hand over fist while the rest of the country hurts. If the holiday was ended and the revenue was put to popular ends -- say health care for those damn cute kids and property tax rebates for homeowners -- you might see a deal. But even that is unlikely.
Voting Rights. Just a month after backing down on challenges to 6,000 Montanans' right to vote, some Republicans are calling for yet another restriction on Election Day Registration (EDR). EDR was used by over 5,000 Montanans, but the argument is that it is hard so we should get rid of it. Last I checked, the Montana Constitution contains a right to suffrage. I didn't know we limited rights 'cause they were hard. I must have missed that.
This list just scratches the surface of the topics to be addressed. What else will be/should be tackled?
Update -- This article has the Governor prioritizing I-155 funding. The Healthy Montana Kids Act will be funded in the executive budget. The question now is whether the Montana GOP tries to slash funding for health care for those cute little kids.
