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Long and Deep

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 19, 2008 at 4:11 pm

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I’ve seen a certain number of news accounts trying to gin up basically fake tale of deep left-wing disgruntlement with the shape of the Obama transition. Other, more intellectually honest journalists, have written of their own personal frustration at the lack of awesome disgruntlement stories to write. To put that kind of thing in context, you just need to remember that ordinary people care more about policies than about politics and then read stuff like this:

Mr. Emanuel promised that a major economic stimulus would be “the first order of business” for Mr. Obama when he takes office Jan. 20. The focus of spending will be on infrastructure, specifically “green infrastructure,” which he said would include mass transit, upgraded electricity transmission lines, “smart” electrical meters that allow consumers to save money by using electricity at off-peak hours, and universal broadband Internet access, which he said would encourage telecommuting.

He stressed that the new administration would “throw long and deep,” taking advantage of the economic crisis to push wholesale changes in health care, taxes, financial re-regulation and energy. “The American people in two successive elections have voted for change, and change cannot be allowed to die on the doorsteps of Washington,” Mr. Emanuel said.

I think everyone understands that Emanuel isn’t the most liberal Democrat in the universe. And it’s inevitable that any Democratic administration will include some folks who are to Emanuel’s left. And here’s Emanuel talking about the need to “throw long and deep,” provide major economic stimulus, and to overhaul the energy system. And that was during a talk whose subject was the fact that incremental health care reform isn’t good enough! That’s a lot of bold, ambitious policymaking and as long as we keep seeing progress toward these kind of bold progressive measures of course liberals will be mostly happy with Obama.

Politics

O’Reilly surrenders to the War on Christmas: Touts his ‘holiday reading list.’

By Satyam Khanna on Nov 19, 2008 at 3:46 pm

For years, Bill O’Reilly has been ranting about an alleged “War on Christmas,” claiming liberals are unjustly replacing “Christmas” festivities with “Holiday” festivities. News Hounds notes that O’Reilly isn’t practicing what he preaches, as he is showing off a “holiday reading list” on his website:

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Related Posts

Yglesias

Daschle

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 19, 2008 at 3:38 pm

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It doesn’t come as a shock to see that Tom Daschle will be tapped as HHS Secretary. The more interesting news is the notion that Daschle “will also reportedly be given a policy portfolio that stretches beyond the department in order to help shepherd health-care reform legislation in 2009.”

Needless to say, it makes a ton of sense to ask a former Senate Majority Leader to lend a hand on doing legislative work rather than thinking of him primarily as someone to run the HHS bureaucracy. I don’t, however, think you normally see roles formally designated in that matter, but it seems smart to do it. Of course the HHS bureaucracy is actually really big and important so this makes it important that the people around Daschle be well-suited to running the shop.

Yglesias

Waxman Wins Round One

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 19, 2008 at 3:14 pm

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Rep. Henry Waxman won a round in his quest to chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee as the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee recommended that he chair it. The issue is destined to go to the full caucus for a vote, since this is too important to be handled at this level, but for the challenger any kind of win can help build momentum.

As is always the case with congressional politics, the calculus facing individual members is very complicated. But to an outsider observer, it’s pretty clear that Waxman is a serious environmentalist who’s really committed to tackling the climate change issue. John Dingell isn’t a villain, and one gets the sense he’s really doing his best at this point to try to square the needs of the environment with the needs of the Michigan-based auto industry, but he hasn’t actually found a satisfactory way to do it.

Politics

Daschle’s Views On Health Reform: ‘Incremental Change In Our System Is No Longer A Viable Option’

By Igor Volsky on Nov 19, 2008 at 3:06 pm

tom-daschle-twn.jpgIn a sign that he may adopt a comprehensive approach to solving the health care crisis, President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

Ezra Klein points out, “you don’t tap the former Senate Majority Leader to run your health care bureaucracy. That’s not his skill set. You tap him to get your health care plan through Congress.” Earlier this year, during an address at the Families USA Action Conference, Daschle concurred with the need to ‘think big’ on reform:

Incremental change in our system is no longer a viable option. Instead we need comprehensive reform. In growing numbers the American people are demanding that we do something. Our goal should be to build what current and retired members of Congress have today, and make that available for all Americans.

Daschle is a Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Center for American Progress and is the author of Critical: What We Can Do About the American Health-Care Crisis.

The book lays out Daschle’s vision of achieving reforms through a framework shared responsibility, in which “every player in the health-care arena — the government, employers, doctors and hospitals, insurers, and individuals — should help support a rational, sustainable system.” Some of Daschle’s proposals:

- Expand the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), or create a group purchasing pool like it: Participants could choose their own provider and would have the security of knowing they could never lose their coverage. Employers could let their employees get coverage through a FEHBP plan only if they enrolled all of their workers, not just ones with health problems. The FEHP pool would also include a government-run insurance program modeled after Medicare and would have tremendous clout to bargain for the lowest prices from providers and push them to improve quality of care.

- Subsidize coverage for those who need it: The government would provide financial help on a sliding scale so nobody has to pay more than a certain percentage of their income for health insurance. Administered as a refundable tax credit, this protection would apply to employer-based health insurance as well as private insurance obtained through the pool.

- Strengthen Medicaid: Simplify and extend Medicaid to cover everyone below a certain income level. The federal government should pick up the tab for this expansion, and ensure that states don’t’ cut off people when the budget gets tight.

- Concentrate on the value of care: Strive to get more for our health care money by promoting research that compares drugs and treatments to determine which ones deliver the best bang for the buck. Daschle also proposes promoting prevention that would reduce the number of chronic conditions.

- Improve health care infrastructure: Adopt health information technology to lower expenses and allows rural residents to connect electronically with medical providers. Increase the number of community health cetners and government-funded clinics that provide basic care for the poor and uninsured.

Aside from supporting the basic principles of progressive reform, however, Daschle also proposes a Federal Health Board that “would resemble our current Federal Reserve Board for the banking industry.”

The Board would ensure harmonization across public programs of “health-care protocols, benefits, and transparency” and would set “evidence-based standards for benefits and quality for federal programs” in the hopes of lowering the complexity of different insurance regulations and ultimately lowering costs. “These standards would apply to federal health programs and contractors and serve as a model for private insurers,” Daschle writes.

Cross-posted at the Wonk Room.

Update

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council, President-elect Barack Obama’s incoming White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, “challenged chief executives and other business leaders Tuesday night to join the new administration in a push for universal health care, saying incremental increases in coverage won’t be acceptable:”

When it gets rough out there, a lot of business leaders get out of the car and say, ‘We’re OK with minor reform.’ I’m challenging you today, we’re going to have to do big, serious things.“

Health

Daschle’s Views On Health Reform: ‘Incremental Change In Our System Is No Longer A Viable Option’

By Igor Volsky on Nov 19, 2008 at 3:05 pm

tom-daschle-twn.jpgIn a sign that he may adopt a comprehensive approach to solving the health care crisis, President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

Ezra Klein points out, “you don’t tap the former Senate Majority Leader to run your health care bureaucracy. That’s not his skill set. You tap him to get your health care plan through Congress.” Earlier this year, during an address at the Families USA Action Conference, Daschle concurred with the need to ‘think big’ on reform:

Incremental change in our system is no longer a viable option. Instead we need comprehensive reform. In growing numbers the American people are demanding that we do something. Our goal should be to build what current and retired members of Congress have today, and make that available for all Americans.

Daschle is a Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Center for American Progress and is the author of Critical: What We Can Do About the American Health-Care Crisis.

The book lays out Daschle’s vision of achieving reforms through a framework shared responsibility, in which “every player in the health-care arena — the government, employers, doctors and hospitals, insurers, and individuals — should help support a rational, sustainable system.” Some of Daschle’s proposals:

- Expand the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), or create a group purchasing pool like it: Participants could choose their own provider and would have the security of knowing they could never lose their coverage. Employers could let their employees get coverage through a FEHBP plan only if they enrolled all of their workers, not just ones with health problems. The FEHP pool would also include a government-run insurance program modeled after Medicare and would have tremendous clout to bargain for the lowest prices from providers and push them to improve quality of care.

- Subsidize coverage for those who need it: The government would provide financial help on a sliding scale so nobody has to pay more than a certain percentage of their income for health insurance. Administered as a refundable tax credit, this protection would apply to employer-based health insurance as well as private insurance obtained through the pool.

- Strengthen Medicaid: Simplify and extend Medicaid to cover everyone below a certain income level. The federal government should pick up the tab for this expansion, and ensure that states don’t’ cut off people when the budget gets tight.

- Concentrate on the value of care: Strive to get more for our health care money by promoting research that compares drugs and treatments to determine which ones deliver the best bang for the buck. Daschle also proposes promoting prevention that would reduce the number of chronic conditions.

- Improve health care infrastructure Adopt health information technology to lower expenses and allows rural residents to connect electronically with medical providers. Increase the number of community health cetners and government-funded clinics that provide basic care for the poor and uninsured.

Aside from supporting the basic principles of progressive reform, however, Daschle also proposes a Federal Health Board that “would resemble our current Federal Reserve Board for the banking industry.”

The Board would ensure harmonization across public programs of “health-care protocols, benefits, and transparency” and would set “evidence-based standards for benefits and quality for federal programs” in the hopes of lowering the complexity of different insurance regulations and ultimately lowering costs. “These standards would apply to federal health programs and contractors and serve as a model for private insurers,” Daschle writes.

Cross-posted at ThinkProgress.

Update

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council, President-elect Barack Obama’s incoming White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, “challenged chief executives and other business leaders Tuesday night to join the new administration in a push for universal health care, saying incremental increases in coverage won’t be acceptable:”

When it gets rough out there, a lot of business leaders get out of the car and say, ‘We’re OK with minor reform.’ I’m challenging you today, we’re going to have to do big, serious things.“

Politics

Rep. Ackerman: Auto Execs’ Private Jet Travel Like Guy At ‘The Soup Kitchen In High Hat And Tuxedo’

By Ali Frick on Nov 19, 2008 at 2:23 pm

auto-execs2.gifToday, the CEOs of the Detroit Big Three returned to Capitol Hill to ask for $25 billion in loans. Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner insisted, “We’re all slashing back” on non-essential expenses, promising, “We’re going to be dramatically leaner.” The other executives echoed Wagoner’s pledge to be “leaner” in the future.

However, as ABC news reported last night, all three executives flew private jets to Washington, DC, for yesterday’s and today’s hearings:

Wagoner flew in GM’s $36 million luxury aircraft to tell members of Congress that the company is burning through cash, asking for $10-12 billion for GM alone. … Wagoner’s private jet trip to Washington cost his ailing company an estimated $20,000 roundtrip. In comparison, seats on Northwest Airlines flight 2364 from Detroit to Washington were going online for $288 coach and $837 first class.

Minutes after Wagoner claimed to be “slashing back” on expenses, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) evoked their private jet travel, calling it a “delicious irony.” Ackerman said the CEOs’ profligacy made Congress “a little bit suspicious” of their austerity pledges:

There’s a delicious irony of seeing private luxury jets flying into DC, and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hands, saying that they’re going to be trimming down and streamlining their businesses. It’s almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high hat and tuxedo. Kind makes you a little bit suspicious as to whether or not…we’ve seen the future. There’s a message there. Couldn’t you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled to get here? It would have at least sent the message that you do get it.

Watch a portion of Ackerman’s comments that aired on Fox News:

Later in the hearing, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) asked if any of the executives planned to sell their private jets; none raised his hand. Sherman was exasperated: “I don’t know how I go back to my constituents and say, ‘The auto industry has changed,’ if they own private jets which are not only expensive to own but expensive to operate and expensive to fly here rather than to have flown commercial.”

Security

The Three Nos From CNAS: Sloganeering Is No Substitute For Actual Policy

By Guest Blogger on Nov 19, 2008 at 2:22 pm

Our guest blogger is Peter Juul, a Research Associate at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

iraq-occupation.jpgIn a recent post, our good friend Ilan Goldenberg over at the National Security Network recommended the “three nos” on Iraq advanced by the Center for a New American Security as a guide to U.S. policy: no regional war, no al Qaeda safe havens, and no genocide. This of course has a lot of rhetorical appeal – who can be in favor of those three things? The problem is that the three no’s really aren’t very helpful when it comes to addressing the challenges posed by Iraq and examining ways to advance U.S. national security interests globally.

The overall problem is that the three nos framework constitutes mostly a wish list not unlike the Bush administration’s early fantasies of a secular, pro-Israel democracy on the Tigris. As the old saying goes, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Beyond this basic conceptual problem, there are three main problems with the three nos.

First, it ignores the fact that large scale sectarian cleansing, if not outright genocide, has already occurred in Iraq and is even occurring TODAY, with the U.S. troop presence at its likely maximum. Most people are aware of the Sunni-Shi’a sectarian cleansing that happened at the height Iraq’s civil war in 2006-2007, which led to the murders of tens of thousand and displacement of millions — even while the surge was being implemented. But less visible is the plight of Iraqi minority groups, particularly Christians. Just last month sectarian violence forced large numbers of Iraqi Christians from Mosul, their last major safe haven. Canon Andrew White, the vicar of St. George’s church in Baghdad, estimates only 200,000 Iraqi Christians of a population of 800,000 remain in the country. All of this has occurred despite the presence of 140,000-plus U.S. troops in Iraq; the three nos ignore the fact that massive sectarian cleansing has already occurred despite the presence of hundreds of thousands of American troops in Iraq –- and this of course raises the question of how useful the three no’s framework is beyond a rhetorical device and mantra Americans can repeat to make themselves feel better. The tough work is actually in crafting a policy that simultaneously advances U.S. interests and actually improves the situation for Iraqis. Read more

Yglesias

Budgetary Costs

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 19, 2008 at 2:12 pm

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CBO report makes the point that the budgetary cost of spending $X from the TARP fund on its original finance-related targets is less than the budgetary cost of spending $X on car companies, but the magnitude is unclear:

Consistent with the budgetary treatment of financial assets purchased under the TARP, the federal budget would record the cost of such loans using procedures similar to those specified in the Federal Credit Reform Act, with an adjustment to account for market risk. On that basis, CBO estimates that the expected cost of the proposed loans would be roughly 70 percent of the aggregate face value—or about $17.5 billion. That estimate takes into account the current financial condition of firms that would qualify for loans—as demonstrated, for example, by current market interest rates on outstanding
debt—and reflects historical data on defaults and subsequent amounts recovered. Under the legislation, the loans would have a maturity of 10 years
or longer, as determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, and would carry an interest rate of 5 percent for the first five years after disbursement and
9 percent for remaining years.

In view of the recent deterioration in the financial condition of the automobile industry, CBO expects that the net budget cost of loans to auto manufacturers
and suppliers would probably be higher than the cost of alternative uses of the TARP funds, which would likely involve firms whose credit risks are lower
than those of the automobile industry. As a result, CBO anticipates that requiring the Secretary to devote $25 billion of TARP authority to the
proposed loans for the automobile industry would likely result in a net increase in the federal deficit compared to current law. Because of continuing uncertainty surrounding the implementation of the TARP under current law, however, CBO cannot provide a specific estimate at this time of this legislation’s incremental impact on the federal budget.

Something to think about. The credit crunch is tending to obscure the issue of the extent to which the Detroit firms would or would not be creditworthy even absent a crunch. The CBO is saying here that their less creditworthy than the financial sector.

Politics

House Democratic Steering Committee approves Waxman over Dingell.

By Satyam Khanna on Nov 19, 2008 at 2:05 pm

The House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee voted 25-22 earlier today to recommend House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) take over as chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee from Rep. John Dingell (D-MI). A final decision “will most likely be made by the full Democratic Caucus Thursday,” according to CongressDaily. As the Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson noted, Dingell was supported by the oil and coal industries. Backers of the pollution industry raised fears that Waxman would be “scary” for polluters.

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