If we agree that Paul Ryan’s proposals for Medicare more-or-less amount to turning it into ObamaCare, then the stage is set for a potential bargain. That would be—Republicans stop trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act and in turn Democrats agree to phase Medicare out on Ryan’s schedule. You can further sweeten the deal by throwing in a public option and the replacement of ACA’s Medicare tax hikes with something more regressive.
This is basically “everyone takes a shot of poison” and I don’t expect it to happen, but it would better-align policy with the things people claim to care about. The underlying principle would be to shift to a system where the US government subsidizes your consumption of health care services according to how poor and sick you are, rather than primarily according to how old you are.
(PS: This is not optimal policy in my view, but it would be better than the status quo and much better than endless rounds of fights over ACA repeal).
Obviously a huge win for equality today in terms of military service. It’s good for national security, it’s a question of principle, and it’s the right thing to do. In broader terms, it also means that in the near future we’ll have openly gay war heros which will be important in terms of the larger quest for full social and political equality.
At the same time a frustrating, though not-unexpected, result for the DREAM Act.
The important thing to recall here is that DREAM Act supporters did what you normally ask political activists to do. They got the majority of the American people on their side. They get the majority of the House of Representatives on their side. They got the President on their side. And they got a majority of Senators on their side. For the vast majority of American history, that would have been good enough. And with luck, in the near future it will be good enough again.
David Roberts: How urgent a problem is climate change in John McCain’s mind?
Douglas Holtz-Eakin: Senator McCain has a very serious sense of urgency about moving on [climate] legislation, directly from his hearings and his travel to Antarctica to the Arctic. It is augmented by the national security component. Given his strong beliefs on the need to make America safe, the idea that we’re sending $400 billion to nations where it is actively turned into financing for terrorists — and other nations who are simply not supportive of democracy — he finds that incredibly troubling.
The good news is that John McCain and Douglas Holtz-Eakin are still influential figures in Republican Party politics. The bad news, of course, is that they’ve both completely abandoned these views and never so much as attempted to justify the change.
Moments ago, by a 65-31 vote, the Senate acted to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the policy banning gays from openly serving in the military. The same six GOP senators who broke with their party during the cloture vote earlier today also voted for repeal: Sens. Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Scott Brown, Lisa Murkowski, George Voinovich, and Mark Kirk. Two more Republicans — John Ensign and Richard Burr — joined with Democrats in final passage.
Earlier this week, the House had passed the same legislation by 250-175 vote. More than 14,000 servicemembers have been dismissed because of the DADT policy.
For many Democrats, including President Obama, today’s final passage (and the signing of the bill, which will occur in the near future) marks the fulfillment of a promise that they made repeatedly. In a speech to the Human Rights Campaign in October, Obama said, “I will end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. That’s my commitment to you.”
And in perhaps the most memorable moment of the Netroots Nation liberal bloggers conference this past July, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was presented with Lt. Dan Choi’s graduation ring from West Point. Choi, a prominent DADT repeal advocate and Arabic-speaking linguist, was discharged from the military after he came out as gay on The Rachel Maddow Show. At the time, Reid said he would return Choi’s ring when DADT repeal is signed. “When we get it passed, you’ll take it back, right?” Reid said to Choi. “I sure will, but I’m going to hold you accountable,” Choi responded. Watch it:
Moments ago, by a 65-31 vote, the Senate acted to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the policy banning gays from openly serving in the military. The same six GOP senators who broke with their party during the cloture vote earlier today also voted for repeal: Sens. Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Scott Brown, Lisa Murkowski, George Voinovich, and Mark Kirk. Two more Republicans — John Ensign and Richard Burr — joined with Democrats in final passage.
Earlier this week, the House had passed the same legislation by 250-175 vote. More than 14,000 servicemembers have been dismissed because of the DADT policy.
For many Democrats, including President Obama, today’s final passage (and the signing of the bill, which will occur in the near future) marks the fulfillment of a promise that they made repeatedly. In a speech to the Human Rights Campaign in October, Obama said, “I will end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. That’s my commitment to you.”
And in perhaps the most memorable moment of the Netroots Nation liberal bloggers conference this past July, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was presented with Lt. Dan Choi’s graduation ring from West Point. Choi, a prominent DADT repeal advocate and Arabic-speaking linguist, was discharged from the military after he came out as gay on The Rachel Maddow Show. At the time, Reid said he would return Choi’s ring when DADT repeal is signed. “When we get it passed, you’ll take it back, right?” Reid said to Choi. “I sure will, but I’m going to hold you accountable,” Choi responded. Watch it:
Update
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (WV), who has been evasive on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, was not in the chamber today for any of the votes. ABC News reports that he was instead attending a holiday party.
Update
,In a statement released this evening, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, “Once this legislation is signed into law by the President, the Department of Defense will immediately proceed with the planning necessary to carry out this change carefully and methodically, but purposefully. … It is therefore important that our men and women in uniform understand that while today’s historic vote means that this policy will change, the implementation and certification process will take an additional period of time. In the meantime, the current law and policy will remain in effect.”
Last night on the Senate floor, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) complained that it had been a “week from hell” due to having to work on “big issues.” He then grumbled that he had been too busy “stopping some bad ideas” and therefore had no time “to think about START.” Nevermind that the New START treaty was completed in April, giving Graham and his staff eight months to “think about” the treaty. Graham stated:
In conclusion to my colleagues, its been a week from hell. Its been a week where you are dealing with a lot of big issues from taxes to funding the government to special interest politics. And I’ve had some time to think about START but not a lot and its really wearing on the body…
Here we are a week before Christmas Eve and we’ve talked about a lot of stuff — some important some politics — and this is the first time I’ve really had the chance to talk about START so I’m not blaming anybody, but please don’t blame me that I’ve somehow just ignored START, because we’ve been pretty busy around here stopping some bad ideas or at least trying to.
Watch it:
Graham’s speech follows the admission of Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), indicating that the objective of the GOP is to simply obstruct on issue after issue.
On the New START treaty, Republicans demanded ample time because they wanted to offer amendments to the treaty — nevermind that for all intents and purposes treaties cannot be amended. Yet during the three days of debate, Republicans stalled and refused to bring any amendments forward, choosing instead to waste hours of floor time complaining about Senate process on other issues — all time that could have been devoted to amendments or actually discussing the treaty. It wasn’t until 4:00 pm on Friday that Republicans finally submitted an amendment for debate, which pushed the debate on START late into Friday evening.
Senate Republicans had complained that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was being “disrespectful” of Christians by possibly forcing them the hardship of working the week before Christmas. Indeed, Senator Reid has said he will provide the 6-7 days of debate on the START treaty that Republicans have demanded, which would entail working into next week. Since it is clear that the Senate will be in session for as long as is necessary, there is an easy way for Senator Graham and his colleagues to have a long and restful Christmas vacation: stop delaying and obstructing the business of the Senate.
One way to think about why a little utopianism in one’s thinking is okay is to think back to the state of public policy in 1960. Back then there was no Medicare no Medicaid no Environmental Protection Agency no SCHIP and no looming Affordable Care Act. There was also no schools were segregated, abortion was illegal, “miscegenation” was illegal, and gays and lesbians were in the closet. Private ownership of telephones was also illegal, a regulatory agency set airfares, the Pentagon was 9.3 percent of GDP, and a bank couldn’t have branches in more than one state.
Since that time, we’ve had a huge increase in personal freedom, a dramatic expansion of the welfare state, and yet a huge increase economic freedom. And policy improvements in the United States have been modest compared to those in China or Poland. I’m hoping to still be alive to see where we end up in 2060.
When it comes to wages, the basic story of recent decades is redolent of Scrooge. Real average hourly earnings (excluding fringe benefits) now stand roughly at 1974 levels. Yes, that’s right, no real increase in over 35 years. That is an astounding, dismaying and profoundly ahistorical development. The American story for two centuries was one of real wages advancing more or less in line with productivity. But not lately. Since 1978, productivity in the nonfarm business sector is up 86%, but real compensation per hour (which includes fringe benefits) is up just 37%. Does that seem fair?
Not to me. But I think that progressive discussions of this phenomenon wind up overcomplicating things when contemplating the causes. Over the past 30 years the Federal Reserve has proven itself to be much better at preventing inflationary episodes than at preventing recessions. There’s no long-term tradeoff between inflation and unemployment. A perfect central bank should be able to produce full employment and price stability all the time. But no real central bank is perfect. And what the Fed has done for 30 years is err on the side of letting aggregate demand get too low. Sluggish median compensation growth is a straightforward consequence of this decision.
