The great paradox of the age is that Barack Obama, the most riveting of recent presidents, is leading us into an era of Congressional dominance. And Congressional governance is a haven for special interest pleading and venal logrolling.
When the executive branch is dominant you often get coherent proposals that may not pass. When Congress is dominant, as now, you get politically viable mishmashes that don’t necessarily make sense.
The Fuzzy math behind the Massachusetts universal healthcare law is starting to add up – just as Washington studies the law as a possible model for the nation.
Because of a recession-related drop in state revenues and a surge in enrollment by the recently unemployed, the truth is emerging at an inconvenient time. Massachusetts doesn’t have enough money to pay for the coverage envisioned by the law.
In June, state officials announced they are cutting $100 million from Commonwealth Care, which subsidizes premiums for needy residents. The poorest residents, along with the newest – legal immigrants – will take the hit.
This outcome is not surprising, but it is instructive as President Obama pushes for a national healthcare plan.
President Barack Obama’s drive to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system may be back on track thanks to Senate efforts to cut the price tag to $1 trillion, but a bipartisan deal on the sweeping proposal still is far from certain.
Obama wants changes that rein in the escalating costs of healthcare in the United States and bring insurance to most of the 46 million Americans who currently lack it.
He also wants a bill that the Democrats who control Congress and the Republican minority can support to give a bipartisan stamp of approval to his top legislative priority.
Democrats narrowly passed historic climate and energy legislation Friday evening that would transform the country’s economy and industrial landscape.
But the all-hands-on-deck effort to protect politically vulnerable Democrats by corralling the minimum number of votes to pass the bill, 219-212, proves that there are limits to President Barack Obama’s ability to use his popularity to push through his legislative agenda. Forty-four Democrats voted against the bill, while just eight Republicans crossed the aisle to back it.
Despite the tough path to passage, the legislation is a significant win for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) and the bill’s two main sponsors ”“ House Energy and Commerce committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-Ca.) and Massachusetts Rep. Edward Markey (D) ”“ who modified the bill again and again to get skeptical members from the Rust Belt, the oil-producing southeast and rural Midwest to back the legislation.
We’ve built an entire health care system (maybe an entire government) on the illusion of something for nothing. Instead of tackling that basic logic, we’ve got a reform process that is trying to evade it.
This would be bad enough in normal times. But the country is already careening toward fiscal ruin. We’ve already passed a nearly $800 billion stimulus package. The public debt is already projected to double over the next 10 years.
Health care reform is important, but it is not worth bankrupting the country over. If this process goes as it has been going ”” with grand rhetoric and superficial cost containment ”” then we will be far better off killing this effort and starting over in a few years. Maybe then there will be leaders willing to look at the options staring them in the face.
Members of Congress are seriously considering proposals to rein in the growth of health spending by taking tens of billions of dollars of Medicare money away from doctors and hospitals in high-cost areas and using it to help cover the uninsured or treat patients in lower-cost regions.
Those proposals have alarmed lawmakers from higher-cost states like Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. But they have won tentative support among some lawmakers from Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon and Washington, who say their states have long been shortchanged by Medicare.
Nationally, according to the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, Medicare spent an average of $8,304 per beneficiary in 2006. Among states, New York was tops, at $9,564, and Hawaii was lowest, at $5,311.
Researchers at Dartmouth Medical School have also found wide variations within states and among cities. Medicare spent $16,351 per beneficiary in Miami in 2006, almost twice the average of $8,331 in San Francisco, they said.
Read it all from the front page of yesterday’s New York Times.
The president and his party in Congress face the terrifying prospect of being able to fulfill their campaign promises. They will have no excuse if there is no health-care reform or energy reform, or if there are and they are disasters.
The biggest shock, though, will probably be to the voters. For years they have called for “change,” generally unspecified, while enjoying the status quo more than they cared to admit. (They want health-care reform provided that they can keep their own doctor. They want congressional term limits, but they like their own member enough to reelect him again and again.) They have demanded alchemy from their representatives — expand our benefits and cut our taxes and balance the budget while you’re at it — and then staged hissy fits when the politicians didn’t produce.
Now, when the voters demand change, they may well get it. We’ll see how they like it.
The only thing sorrier than Obama’s effort at fiscal restraint is the reaction to it in Congress. Republicans derided Obama’s proposed cuts, but where were they when spending went out of control on their watch?
Democrats, meanwhile, built a hard-earned reputation for fiscal responsibility in the 1990s. Now they’re frittering it away. House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C., essentially told Obama to forget his cuts, saying that “Congress is unlikely to agree with” all of them. Democratic lawmakers immediately vowed to oppose some of the proposed reductions. To name just a couple, Rep Maurice Hinchey of New York protested cuts in the presidential helicopter fleet, and Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas sought to protect farm subsidies.
This sort of reflexive parochialism leaves us deeply concerned about whether either party, or Congress as an institution, is capable of addressing the nation’s dire fiscal circumstances, which will only worsen as Baby Boomers hit retirement age. Radical deficit reduction isn’t desirable at a time when the administration is spending massive amounts of money in an effort to stimulate the economy. But this is exactly the right time to hunt down serious savings from weak and wasteful spending programs ”” and to signal the financial markets that huge deficits won’t be tolerated once the economy recovers. Instead, Obama’s budget predicts deficits topping $500 billion for each of the next 10 years, adding almost $7 trillion to the national debt.Perhaps by forecasting godawful deficits now, the administration is positioning itself to claim credit for cutting them to slightly less awful levels down the road. If that’s the case, it’s cynical game playing. If that’s not the case, then it’s simply irresponsible.
Advocates of cap-and-trade argue that it is preferable to a simple carbon tax because it fixes a national cap on carbon emissions and it “hides the ball” ”” it doesn’t use the word “tax” ”” even though it amounts to one. So it can get through Congress. That was true as long as no one thought cap-and-trade could ever pass, but now that it might under Mr. Obama, opponents are not playing hide the ball anymore.
In the past two weeks, you could hear a chorus of Republicans, coal-state Democrats, right-wing think tanks and enviro-skeptics all singing the same tune: “Cap-and-trade is a tax. Obama is going to raise your taxes and sacrifice U.S. jobs to combat this global-warming charade, which many scientists think is nonsense. Worse, cap-and-trade will be managed by Wall Street. If you liked credit-default swaps, you’re going to love carbon-offset swaps.”
Some of the refrains from this song have a very catchy appeal. They could easily kill this effort. So, if the Obama team cares about the “ends” of a stronger America and a more livable planet, as much as the “means,” I hope it will consider an alternative strategy, message and messenger.
U.S. Rep. John Campbell readily admits something not often heard from politicians in this economic crisis. When it comes to rewriting the rules of the financial system, the California lawmaker says he’s not sure where he stands.
“I’m not sure even in my own mind,” he says. “If I were king, I’m not sure what I would do at this point. And I don’t think I’m alone. This stuff is not easy.”
The Democratic-controlled House approved a budget blueprint drawn to President Barack Obama’s specifications Thursday and the Senate hastened to follow suit after administration allies rejected alternatives from liberals and conservatives alike.
The vote in the House was 233-196, largely along party lines, for a $3.6 trillion plan that includes a deficit of $1.2 trillion.
The country wants “real change, and we have come here to make a difference,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said as both chambers worked on plans to boost spending on domestic programs, raise taxes on the wealthy in two years’ time and clear the way for action later in the year on Obama’s priority items of health care, energy and education.
With a bit of bookkeeping legerdemain borrowed from the Bush administration, the Democratic Congress is about to perform a cover-up on the most serious threat to America’s economic future.
That threat is not the severe recession, tough as that is for the families and businesses struggling to make ends meet. In time, the recession will end, and last week’s stock market performance hinted that we may not have to wait years for the recovery to begin.
The real threat is the monstrous debt resulting from the slump in revenue and the staggering sums being committed by Washington to rescuing embattled banks and homeowners — and the absence of any serious strategy for paying it all back.
The Obama administration will detail on Thursday a wide-ranging plan to overhaul financial regulation by subjecting hedge funds and traders of exotic financial instruments, now among the biggest and most freewheeling players on Wall Street, to potentially strict new government supervision, officials said.
The Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, will outline the broad revamping of the regulatory system, which goes further than expected, in a hearing on Thursday. He is expected to say that the new rules are necessary to prevent a repeat of the excesses that nearly wrecked the global financial system and plunged the economy into a recession.
The plan, which would require congressional approval, would give the government vast new powers over “systemically important” banks and other financial institutions that are so big that their collapse would jeopardize the economy as a whole.
But asked twice whether he would accept a budget that did not include provisions for additional tax cuts for the middle class, or that did not launch a cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Mr. Obama demurred. Instead, he called for “a serious energy policy that frees ourselves from dependence on foreign oil and makes clean energy the profitable kind of energy” — implicitly suggesting that cap-and-trade, though he supports it, might have to wait. As for the middle-class tax cut that Mr. Obama would pay for with revenue from a cap-and-trade program, the president said, “we already had that” in the stimulus package. “We know that that’s going to be in place for at least the next two years. We had identified a specific way to pay for it. If Congress has better ideas in terms of how to pay for it, then we’re happy to listen.”
The executives said the political attacks are having a broad effect on their business — even though the restrictions are intended to apply only to recipients of federal bailout money — and cancellations have been increasing as the rhetoric heats up.
“We’ve seen companies cancel meetings last minute, leaving 100 percent on the table just to avoid criticism and ridicule,” said Frits van Paasschen, president and chief executive of White Plains, New York-based Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., the third-largest U.S. lodging company, who attended the White House meeting.
Bankers on Wall Street and in Europe have struck back against moves by US lawmakers to slap punitive taxes on bonuses paid to high earners at bailed-out institutions.
Senior executives on both sides of the Atlantic on Friday warned of an exodus of talent from some of the biggest names in US finance, saying the “anti-American” measures smacked of “a McCarthy witch-hunt” that would send the country “back to the stone age”.
There were fears that the backlash triggered by AIG’s payment of $165m in bonuses to executives responsible for losses that forced a $170bn taxpayer-funded rescue would have devastating consequences for the largest banks.
“Finance is one of America’s great industries, and they’re destroying it,” said one banker at a firm that has accepted public money. “This happened out of haste and anger over AIG, but we’re not like AIG.”
I ran into an Indian businessman friend last week and he said something to me that really struck a chord: “This is the first time I’ve ever visited the United States when I feel like you’re acting like an immature democracy.”
You know what he meant: We’re in a once-a-century financial crisis, and yet we’ve actually descended into politics worse than usual. There don’t seem to be any adults at the top ”” nobody acting larger than the moment, nobody being impelled by anything deeper than the last news cycle. Instead, Congress is slapping together punitive tax laws overnight like some Banana Republic, our president is getting in trouble cracking jokes on Jay Leno comparing his bowling skills to a Special Olympian, and the opposition party is behaving as if its only priority is to deflate President Obama’s popularity.
I saw Eric Cantor, a Republican House leader, on CNBC the other day, and the entire interview consisted of him trying to exploit the A.I.G. situation for partisan gain without one constructive thought. I just kept staring at him and thinking: “Do you not have kids? Do you not have a pension that you’re worried about? Do you live in some gated community where all the banks will be O.K., even if our biggest banks go under? Do you think your party automatically wins if the country loses? What are you thinking?”
…Congressional Quarterly covers the story of former Murtha aide Paul Magliocchetti, whose PMA Group lobbying firm s now reportedly at the center of an FBI probe following the search of its suburban Virginia office in late 2008. The firm is slated to disband at the end of March 2009.
While charging nearly $107 million in lobbying fees, and growing from a start-up to the 11th largest lobbying firm in the USA at one point, the firm reportedly dispensed more than $1.5 million in political contributions via Magliochetti, 9 of his close relatives, and a Political Action Committee he controlled. Those contributions were made to key House Appropriations committee members John Murtha [D-PA], James Moran [D-NJ], Peter J. Visclosky [D-IN], and to John Sununu [then R-NH]. Contributions were also made to Mike Doyle [D-PA], Tim Holden [D-PA], Michael Capuano [D-MA], Sen. Bill Nelson [D-FL], and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
In 2007 alone, PMA clients received some $100 billion in government contracts, an amount that is about 20% of all federal contracts that year. PMA clients also got nearly $300 million in earmarks in a the House Defense Appropriations panel’s spending bill for FY 2008.
Supporters regard the threat of a mortgage modification in bankruptcy as a crucial tool to prod banks to negotiate with homeowners for more affordable terms. Critics argue the measure will create a flood of bankruptcy filings that ultimately will drive up mortgage rates and further destabilize the battered housing market.
Most members of Congress and lobbyists are delighted that the White House has surrendered so much authority to Capitol Hill. Everybody is working on a way to push their own particular vision of reform through the muddle.
There are good plans on offer, but it won’t take long for this to get ugly. We’ll either get an irresponsible bill produced by the Old Order or no bill at all. It could be that even with a thousand “conversations,” no consensus will automatically emerge from the hundreds of players who have produced the gridlock of the past 30 years.
Even though the budget is not all one would have hoped, I’d trust the folks in the Obama administration to craft a decent health care plan before I’d trust the Congressional Old Bulls.
Obama blew a mighty trumpet Tuesday night, but after you blow the trumpet, you actually have to charge.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican Wednesday morning, but may not have had a meeting of the minds if the two statements from their offices are any indication.
No journalists were at the 15-minute encounter and the Vatican and the speaker’s offices have not released any photos. However, according to their statements it appears the pope and the politician attended two different get-togethers.
“His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoins all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development,” the Vatican wrote, having released the statement moments before the two met.
Several hours later, Pelosi’s office gave her take on the tete-a-tete.
The criminal part of this boondoggle is divided into two parts. The first is the Democrats promised to post the bill a full 48 hours before the vote was taken to allow members of the public to see what they were getting for their money. Both parties voted unanimously to do this … and they lied.
It didn’t happen. Why am I not surprised? Congress lying to the American people has become part of their job description. They can’t be trusted on anything anymore.
I’m sure part of the reason there was no time for the public to read the bill was the 11th-hour internecine warfare between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
It was the biggest bill of the year, a giant expansion of government spending.
Top members of Congress were incensed that they were cut out of final negotiations between the House and Senate. They complained that the legislation was the product of just one party with only a few select members of the opposition invited to play a role.
But the Medicare drug plan passed anyway in 2003 when Republicans controlled the White House and Congress. So it was hardly novel this week when Republicans protested vigorously that their legislative rights had been violated as the Democratic-led Congress pushed through the $787 billion economic stimulus bill with just three Republican votes in the Senate. Only the party labels had changed.
In truth, regular order ”” as following the Congressional rule book is known on Capitol Hill ”” has not been occurring very regularly in the House and Senate for years. And both parties are to blame.
The Senate agreement on a roughly $827 billion economic stimulus bill sets up tough negotiations with the House primarily over tens of billions of dollars in aid to states and local governments, tax provisions, and education, health and renewable energy programs.
Congress is racing to finalize the legislation this week, with the price tag for the Senate plan now only slightly more than the $820 billion measure adopted by the House. Both plans are intended to blunt the recession with a combination of quick-acting tax cuts to help increase spending by consumers and businesses, and slower long-term government spending on public works projects and other programs to create more than 3 million jobs.
But the competing bills now reflect substantially different approaches. The House puts greater emphasis on helping states and localities avoid wide-scale cuts in services and layoffs of public employees, while the Senate cut $40 billion of that type of aid from its bill.
The Senate plan, reached in an agreement late Friday night between Democrats and three moderate Republicans, focuses more heavily on tax cuts, provides far less generous health care subsidies for the unemployed and lowers a proposed increase in food stamps. To help allay Republican concerns about cost, the Senate proposal even scales back President Obama’s signature middle-class tax cut.
By now, it’s clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression. Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone; millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished. People everywhere are worried about what tomorrow will bring.
What Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the urgency they feel in their daily lives — action that’s swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis.
Because each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes. And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.
That’s why I feel such a sense of urgency about the recovery plan before Congress. With it, we will create or save more than 3 million jobs over the next two years, provide immediate tax relief to 95 percent of American workers, ignite spending by businesses and consumers alike, and take steps to strengthen our country for years to come.
President Obama is stressing bipartisanship when it comes to the $900 billion economic stimulus plan being considered in the Senate, and he may get it — in unity of opposition.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he “can’t believe that the president isn’t embarrassed about” the stimulus packages that have passed the House and the Senate appropriations and finance committees.
The Senate is set to take up debate on the plan Monday afternoon. Republicans insist it won’t go through in its current form.
Throughout 2008, Larry Summers, the Harvard economist, built the case for a big but surgical stimulus package. Summers warned that a “poorly provided fiscal stimulus can have worse side effects than the disease that is to be cured.” So his proposal had three clear guidelines.
First, the stimulus should be timely. The money should go out “almost immediately.” Second, it should be targeted. It should help low- and middle-income people. Third, it should be temporary. Stimulus measures should not raise the deficits “beyond a short horizon of a year or at most two.”
Summers was proposing bold action, but his concept came with safeguards: focus on the task at hand, prevent the usual Washington splurge and limit long-term fiscal damage.
Now Barack Obama is president, and Summers has become a top economic adviser. Yet the stimulus approach that has emerged on Capitol Hill abandoned the Summers parameters.
Loath to criticize a president who enjoys stratospheric approval ratings and the good tidings of most Americans, Republicans on the Hill are instead framing their overwhelming opposition to the stimulus bill as a vote against a congressional Democratic leadership that is far less popular than Obama.
“It’s not so much his effort, it’s what the House has done with this bill, what Pelosi has done with this bill,” explained Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), a veteran member of the Appropriations Committee.
Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), a young conservative firebrand, was more blunt when asked what happened to Obama’s honeymoon: “Ask Pelosi.”
Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), a senior appropriator, said that “several people” registered complaints to Obama that the GOP had not been consulted in the development of the bills now being marked up in the Finance and Appropriations committees.