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Health

Opposition To The Health Law And Tradition

By Igor Volsky on Dec 15, 2010 at 8:00 pm

David Leonhardt has a new column highlighting how the historical tension between the two American traditions of laissez-faire and progressivism have led conservatives to oppose every expansion of the social safety net from Social Security to Medicare, and of course, the Affordable Care Act:

The federal income tax, a senator from New York said a century ago, might mean the end of “our distinctively American experiment of individual freedom.” Social Security was actually a plan “to Sovietize America,” a previous head of the Chamber of Commerce said in 1935. The minimum wage and mandated overtime pay were steps “in the direction of Communism, Bolshevism, fascism and Nazism,” the National Association of Manufacturers charged in 1938.

After Brown v. Board of Education outlawed school segregation in 1954, 101 members of Congress signed a statement calling the ruling an instance of “naked judicial power” that would sow “chaos and confusion” and diminish American greatness. A decade later, The Wall Street Journal editorial board described civil rights marchers as “asking for trouble” and civil rights laws as being on “the outer edge of constitutionality, if not more.”

This year’s health care overhaul has now joined the list.

In this sense, the 20 or so legal challenges and the conservative opposition to reform is in no way unusual. But what’s still unique about this effort, I would argue, is how Republicans are still re-litigating the health reform debate after losing the legislative struggle.

As James Morone — a professor of political science at Brown University — told Lester Feder back in June, “interest groups always continued to fight to get the best deal possible in implementation. But that’s very different from it being Democrats versus Republicans or liberals versus conservatives.” “I’m not sure the Democrats have been quite this insistent after losing legislation. To have the Republican Party be this forceful about a position after the normal political process has run its course is pretty extraordinary.”

And, Republicans are doing all of this with an incredible amount of passion. Repealing the law has become the GOP’s top priority and if you speak to Republican staffers on the hill, they’ll tell you that their bosses will never, ever, accept that reform has become law and will work very hard to repeal the measure. “Why should we accept something that’s unconstitutional,” they ask. There may be a long history of opposition to progressive ideas, but I don’t’ think it’s ever been this well pronounced or coordinated after a major legislative victory.

Politics

Sen. Thune Admits Bush Tax Cut Extensions Are More Of A Priority Than 9/11 Workers’ Health

By George Zornick on Dec 15, 2010 at 7:15 pm

On Fox Business Network this morning, Don Imus aggressively questioned Senator — and possible presidential hopeful — John Thune (R-SD) about Republican obstruction of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010, which would provide desperately needed health care to those who volunteered to help at Ground Zero in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. Imus raised Daily Show host Jon Stewart’s recent point about Republicans who frequently invoke 9/11 imagery, but refuse to help the workers, and asked Thune how he could defend this refusal. Thune explained that preserving the Bush tax cuts was more of a priority:

IMUS: It seems to me and it seems to others that if we’re going to help anybody, we would certainly help these Americans who were the first responders to 9/11.

THUNE: The difference I think with the tax bill is there is a deadline, Jan. 1, we have to get this done, taxes go up on Jan. 1, that’s a matter of law. We need to get the issue addressed for the firefighters and the 9/11 victims and we will. But again there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this, and there’s a way in which you can pay for these things, and try and get this thing to where it doesn’t cost quite as much, where it doesn’t provide as much exposure, as much liability – there are some things in this bill that we think can be improved upon. We need an opportunity to do that.They want to rush through all these things at the end of the year, without debate, without amdendments, with the opportunity to go through a normal process. And I think we can do that, we can do many of these last-minute initiatives they’re trying to push through, we can do them next year.

IMUS: I know there’s a deadline on the tax situation, but there’s also a deadline on the health of these firemen and these police officers.

Watch it:

Thune’s admission that tax cuts are a higher priority is stunning, as are his admonitions against “rushing” the Zadroga bill. As Imus correctly notes, there’s a very real deadline on the health of 9/11 volunteers who are desperately awaiting health care assistance from the country they served over nine years ago. For example, just this fall, Joe Picurro, a 9/11 volunteer who was central to the push for health care assistance — and who himself suffered for years with little or no health care — passed away. As the New York Daily News reported:

Joe Picurro volunteered to cut steel at Ground Zero more than nine years ago. It cost him his life Friday morning. [...]

“He fought up until the day he went,” said wife Laura Picurro. “I’m going to miss him, like unbelievable.”

Because Picurro volunteered, he had to fight for years to get any aid after 9/11 charities closed.

Even as his lungs deteriorated and late-night rushes to the emergency rooms grew all too familiar, he and Laura still had to fight bureaucrats who refused to recognize the source of his problems. When he finally got workers’ compensation in 2006, he was down to his last nickel.

Laura had to scrimp, scrape and borrow to make ends meet, care for Joe – and stave off eviction. “I don’t know how we made it, still in this house, the lights still on,” she said, her voice cracking.

But Picurro’s tale made him one of the symbols of how the heroes of 9/11 were being forgotten. He joined the push on Congress to pass the James Zadroga Health and Compensation Act. His death was a blow to a community that has seen all too much tragedy, with hundreds of 9/11 responders having died over the years.

As the report notes, Picurro and other volunteers have been waiting for years for assistance from the federal government. Thune’s whining that Democrats are “rushing” the Zadroga bill through is patently ridiculous. The bill, or very similar versions, were first introduced in the House over four years ago, and have suffered repeated Republican obstruction ever since. Nevertheless, Thune apparently finds the preservation of low tax rates for the wealthy to be a more pressing matter.

Economy

Republicans Lay Out Plan To Slow Walk Derivatives Reform

By Pat Garofalo on Dec 15, 2010 at 7:00 pm

Incoming House Financial Services Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-AL) told the Birmingham News this week that “in Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.” And Bachus plans to provide that service by trying to slow down a whole host of measures being implemented under the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

One of the targets that Bachus has in his sights is derivatives reform, the title of the Dodd-Frank law that aims to bring some prudent regulation to the currently unregulated derivatives market, which played a significant role in the 2008 financial meltdown. During the debate over Dodd-Frank, Bachus had an utterly incoherent position on derivatives reform, but that hasn’t stopped him from saying that derivatives reform is “one of the job-killing provisions of Dodd-Frank that needs to be addressed.”

And Bachus is getting some help from his fellow Republicans, who are threatening to bog down rule-writing by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is charged with implementing derivatives reform. First, comes Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), who will be chairing the subcommittee on capital markets next year:

“The rule-making bodies, especially the CFTC, seem to be eager to move along at this faster than anyone can keep up with,” said Mr. Garrett, who will try to slow the process with heightened congressional oversight.

And then Reps. Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Frank Lucas (R-OK):

Republicans on the panel said CFTC should move more slowly. Frank Lucas, who will become Agriculture Committee chairman in January, said he was “willing to consider an easing of statutory deadlines.” Jerry Moran, who will become a senator in January, said CFTC was rushing to issue a rule before it has adequate information on market size or appropriate limits.

Michael Greenberger, a former CFTC division director and University of Maryland law professor, called these complaints “a red herring offered by Wall Street to delay implementation.” But it’s not only Congressional Republicans who are trying to slow-walk reform. Republican appointees to the CFTC itself are doing the same thing, according to the Wall Street Journal:

The CFTC’s two Republican commissioners say the agency is moving too fast. Commissioner Jill Sommers said she supports giving the agency another year to write the rules.

The derivatives title is one of the strongest in the Dodd-Frank law, and getting it into place will bring much-needed light to a market that is several times the size of the entire U.S. economy. But Republicans, who did nothing to contribute to the financial reform debate, are trying to throw as many wrenches into the gears as they can, while Wall Street reaps its second-highest amount of revenue ever.

Politics

House Approves DADT Repeal, Gohmert Warns Of ‘End Of Existence’

By Igor Volsky on Dec 15, 2010 at 5:54 pm

Moments ago, in a vote of 250 to 175 the House voted to approve a stand-alone measure to repeal the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, paving the way for Senate action in the coming weeks. Fifteen Republicans voted for repeal, 10 more than had supported May’s vote for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). During the debate’s more animated moments, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) spoke out against repeal by explaining that the military “isn’t the YMCA” and Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) warned that ending the policy would “drop the bomb of social experimentation” on the military. Rep. Louie Gohmet (R-TX) delivered the most impassioned speech against repeal, suggesting that the countries with open services were “near the end of their existence” and saying that homosexuality could be tolerated if gay people could control their hormones:

GOHMERT: To my friend who said that history would judge us poorly, I would submit if you would look thoroughly at history — and I’m not saying it’s cause and effect — but when militaries throughout history of the greatest nations in the world have adopted the policy that “fine for homosexuality to be overt” — you can keep it private and control your hormones fine, if you can’t, that’s fine too — they’re toward the end of their existence as a great nation.

Watch his remarks:

The bill will now move to the Senate as a privileged “message.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will be able to call up the measure without voting on a motion to proceed, saving some 30 hours of debate in the Senate, and will have to hold firm against Republican efforts to filibuster or attach amendments to the legislation. Under this scenario, the Senate bill would have to be identical to the House version or else it would have to return to the House for another vote. Reid has pledged to keep the Senate in session as long as possible to bring repeal to the floor, but his office has not yet issued a possible time frame for floor consideration.

Yglesias

Do Conservatives Have a Problem With Fiscal Stimulus?

By Matthew Yglesias on Dec 15, 2010 at 5:28 pm

(cc photo by LateNightTaskForce)

I liked Scott Sumner’s National Review article about why conservatives should embrace level-targeting of nominal expenditure as monetary policy, but this paragraph left me sort of scratching my head:

This sort of policy regime addresses many of the liberal arguments for big government. Right now conservatives don’t have good counterarguments to Paul Krugman’s insistence that all the laws of economics go out the window when we are in a “depression.” Classical economics assumes full employment; how credible are classical arguments against federal job-creation schemes when unemployment is 9.8 percent? Yes, government intervention doesn’t even work very well when there is economic slack. But with NGDP futures targeting, there is no respectable argument for fiscal stimulus, as the money supply would already be set at the level expected to produce the desired level of future nominal spending.

As a way of surveying the political scene, this seems very shortsighted to me. Yes, it happens to be the case that in January 2009 Barack Obama was President of the United States, Susan Collins was the pivotal member of the US Senate, Paul Krugman had a New York Times column, and David Obey was chair of the House Appropriations Committee. Consequently, we got a stimulus bill oriented around progressive objectives and a lot of Krugman columns about the virtues of stimulus. But if you think back to January 2001 when George W Bush was President, the GOP ran the House, and Dianne Feinstein was the pivotal Senator as I recall our response to the recession was a large debt-financed tax cut. A large debt-financed tax code sold, mind you, with Keynesian arguments about the need to fight the recession.

And here, thanks to Google, is David Ignatius plumping for the Bush tax cuts:

Bush made his remarks at a motorcycle plant — hardly a Keynesian venue — but the British economics sage himself couldn’t have put the argument for fiscal stimulus any better. [...] That’s what Bush has been doing, with his tax cut and rebate and — perhaps by accident — it turns out to be precisely the right policy. Anyone who bleats about the effect of this fiscal stimulus on the future budget surplus or the Social Security trust fund is, in my view, missing the point. We have a spreading economic crisis, and right now “saving Social Security” is a secondary worry.

Whatever the merits of stimulus in general, or tax cuts versus spending, I think there’s no serious argument against the proposition that economic conditions in 2001 were much less dire than those of 2009. And yet there was huge embrace of Keynesian logic on the part of folks who liked the idea of cutting taxes.

That’s not to say Sumner is right or wrong about NGDP targeting, but I think he’d have a better understanding of some of the reasons why it’s hard to persuade people of his view if he had a more realistic look at the political landscape.

Related Posts

LGBT

House Approves DADT Repeal By Vote Of 250 To 175, Gohmert Warns Of ‘End Of Existence’

By Igor Volsky on Dec 15, 2010 at 5:27 pm

Moments ago, in a vote of 250 to 175 the House voted to approve a stand-alone measure to repeal the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, paving the way for Senate action in the coming weeks. Fifteen Republicans voted for repeal, 10 more than had supported May’s vote for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

This afternoon’s debate was also generally more reserved than when the House first approved DADT repeal, with Republicans hiding behind the process under which the motion came to the floor and cherry picking the most negative aspects of the Pentagon’s report on the policy. Interestingly, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) was the only member of the House Republican leadership to speak out against the policy.

During the debate’s more animated moments, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) spoke out against repeal by explaining that the military “isn’t the YMCA” and Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) warned that ending the policy would “drop the bomb of social experimentation” on the military. Rep. Louie Gohmet (R-TX) delivered the most impassioned speech against repeal, suggesting that the countries with open services were “near the end of their existence” and saying that homosexuality could be tolerated if gay people could control their hormones:

GOHMERT: To my friend who said that history would judge us poorly, I would submit if you would look thoroughly at history — and I’m not saying it’s cause and effect — but when militaries throughout history of the greatest nations in the world have adopted the policy that “fine for homosexuality to be overt” — you can keep it private and control your hormones fine, if you can’t, that’s fine too — they’re toward the end of their existence as a great nation.

Watch his remarks:

The bill will now move to the Senate as a privileged “message.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will be able to call up the measure without voting on a motion to proceed, saving some 30 hours of debate in the Senate, and will have to hold firm against Republican efforts to filibuster or attach amendments to the legislation. Under this scenario, the Senate bill would have to be identical to the House version or else it would have to return to the House for another vote. Reid has pledged to keep the Senate in session as long as possible to bring repeal to the floor, but his office has not yet issued a possible time frame for floor consideration. Minutes before the measure passed the House, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) — who had filibustered the NDAA last week — issued a statement announcing that she would vote for repeal in the Senate. “After careful analysis of the comprehensive report compiled by the Department of Defense and thorough consideration of the testimony provided by the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the service chiefs, I support repeal of the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ law,” Snowe said in a statement

Meanwhile, a new Washington Post released earlier today found that 77% of Americans support ending DADT, the highest level of support since the Post and ABC began polling the policy.

Security

Vote Shows New START Has Enough Support For Ratification

By Max Bergmann on Dec 15, 2010 at 5:14 pm

Ratification of the New START treaty received a huge boost today as it received two-thirds support of the voting Senate on the motion to proceed to debate. While only 51 votes were needed to begin debate, this vote demonstrates that Republicans are divided on the treaty and that it has enough support to achieve ratification. The super majority vote also serves as a significant blow to Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) who was forced to back down from making the Senate clerk read the text of treaty.

Nine Republicans voted to support the motion to proceed — including Sens. John McCain (AZ), Lindsey Graham (SC), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Susan Collins (ME), Olympia Snowe (ME), George Voinovich (OH), Richard Lugar (IN), Scott Brown (MA), and Bob Bennett (R-UT). The final vote was 66 to 32. While this was short of the magic number of 67, two senators did not vote, including Democratic Senator Evan Bayh who is expected to support the treaty. In other words, this vote indicates that treaty will likely have the 67 votes needed for ratification.

Moreover, this was a procedural vote, not a vote on the final treaty. Republicans have often voted to filibuster legislation that they claim to support. For instance, Brown, Snowe, Lugar, and Murkowski all voted to filibuster Don’t Ask Don’t Tell for procedural reasons even though all claimed to support its repeal.

On START, Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA) both voted for the treaty in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but voted no on the procedural vote. Furthermore, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) has spoken previously about how he supports the treaty. So if anything, support for the treaty is likely to increase not decrease when it comes for a full vote. One would also expect this to be the case when senators can no longer hide behind a procedural justification (such as wanting to vote next year) to vote no and are forced once and for all to vote for a treaty supported by the U.S. military, every living Republican Secretary of State, the bipartisan foreign policy establishment, the nuclear lab directors, and all of our allies.

Today’s vote is also a big blow to Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ), who just yesterday questioned whether Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had the votes and threatened to work to make sure START failed. As Jeffrey Lewis of Arms Control Wonk noted, “This is the worst outcome for Kyl: irrelevance.”

Cross-posted at ThinkProgress.

Security

Vote Shows New START Has Enough Support For Ratification

By Max Bergmann on Dec 15, 2010 at 5:07 pm

Ratification of the New START treaty received a huge boost today as it received two-thirds support of the voting Senate on the motion to proceed to debate. While only 51 votes were needed to begin debate, this vote demonstrates that Republicans are divided on the treaty and that it has enough support to achieve ratification. The super majority vote also serves as a significant blow to Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) who was forced to back down from making the Senate clerk read the text of treaty.

Nine Republicans voted to support the motion to proceed — including Sens. John McCain (AZ), Lindsey Graham (SC), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Susan Collins (ME), Olympia Snowe (ME), George Voinovich (OH), Richard Lugar (IN), Scott Brown (MA), and Bob Bennett (R-UT). The final vote was 66 to 32. While this was short of the magic number of 67, two senators did not vote, including Democratic Senator Evan Bayh who is expected to support the treaty. In other words, this vote indicates that treaty will likely have the 67 votes needed for ratification.

Moreover, this was a procedural vote, not a vote on the final treaty. Republicans have often voted to filibuster legislation that they claim to support. For instance, Brown, Snowe, Lugar, and Murkowski all voted to filibuster Don’t Ask Don’t Tell for procedural reasons even though all claimed to support its repeal.

On START, Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA) both voted for the treaty in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but voted no on the procedural vote. Furthermore, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) has spoken previously about how he supports the treaty. So if anything, support for the treaty is likely to increase not decrease when it comes for a full vote. One would also expect this to be the case when senators can no longer hide behind a procedural justification (such as wanting to vote next year) to vote no and are forced once and for all to vote for a treaty supported by the U.S. military, every living Republican Secretary of State, the bipartisan foreign policy establishment, the nuclear lab directors, and all of our allies.

Today’s vote is also a big blow to Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ), who just yesterday questioned whether Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had the votes and threatened to work to make sure START failed. As Jeffrey Lewis of Arms Control Wonk noted, “This is the worst outcome for Kyl: irrelevance.”

Security

Iranian Democracy’s Long Road Ahead

By Matt Duss on Dec 15, 2010 at 4:35 pm

Daniel Brumberg of the U.S. Institute of Peace and Barry Blechman of the Stimson Center have a good piece in Foreign Policy discussing some of the conclusions of the recent USIP/Stimson report on Iran.

Knocking down spurious claims that Iran is just a U.S. air strike away from a pro-American democratic revolution, the authors write that the best thing that the U.S. can do promote political reform in Iran “is to make détente with the Islamic Republic a top priority“:

Sustained U.S.-Iranian engagement would undercut the “threat” that ultra hardliners regularly invoke to legitimate their efforts to pummel or isolate their critics. The latter include prominent conservatives, many of whom are eager to deflect the efforts of Revolutionary Guard to undermine the autonomy of clerical institutions, private sector businesses, and the parliament. Fighting for their very political and economic survival, these conservative leaders are likely to push for a process of internal political accommodation that could open up some doors for reformists. While they face many hurdles, one thing is sure: an escalation of U.S.-Iranian tensions (much less a war!) will only harm the efforts of those Iranian leaders who favor internal dialogue to make their voices heard.

In the coming decade, Iran’s politics will be defined by a slow, agonizing struggle waged through rather than against the institutions of the Islamic Republic. If we indulge in the seductive dream of a sudden democratic revolution — whether delivered by bombs from above or by popular resistance from below — we will destroy the seeds of a political change in Iran. But if we we push for a process of engagement that moves Iran and the U.S. from conflict to diplomatic coexistence, we can help nurture Iran’s own capacity to change and transform from within.

While I’m a bit skeptical about the claim that the struggle will be “waged through rather than against the institutions of the Islamic Republic” — as I read things, it will probably be a bit of both — in terms of the effects that U.S. threats have on Iran’s democracy movement, this tracks pretty closely with what Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji told me earlier this year. Ganji said that fear of a U.S. attack causes Iranian democracy activists to scale back their rhetoric:

“Since Iranians, in particular opposition groups, do not want to see a repeat of Afghanistan or Iraq in Iran,” Ganji said, “they’ve actually had to scale back their opposition to the government in order not to encourage an invasion [by the U.S.]”

Ganji was adamant that talk of a U.S. military option was harmful to the cause of Iranian democracy. “If you do not have the threat of foreign invasion and you do not use the dialog of invasion and military intervention, the society itself has a huge potential to oppose and potentially topple the theocratic system,” Ganji said. “What I’m trying to get to is that jingoistic, militaristic language used by any foreign power would actually be detrimental to this natural evolution of Iranian society.”

In a November op-ed, CFR’s Ray Takeyh suggested that history offers a model to work with:

The Helsinki Accord of 1975 invigorated the moribund opposition groups behind the Iron Curtain and ensured a smooth transition to a post-communist reality. More so than arms races and arms control treaties, those accords defied the skeptics and cynics by contributing to the collapse of the mighty Soviet empire. An emphasis on human rights today can not only buttress the viability of the Green Movement but also socialize an important segment of the security services, clerical estate and intelligentsia to the norms to which a state must adhere in order to become a member of global society. The successor generation of Iranian leaders would then be more sensitive to their obligations to citizens and the international community. By linking its diplomacy to human rights behavior, the United States could mitigate Iran’s nuclear ambitions and pave the way for a peaceful transition from clerical autocracy to a more responsible and humane government.

For any of this to possibly work, of course, we have to rid ourselves of the illusion that we can just bomb our way out of the problem.

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