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American Politics MDCLXVIII - Warning! May contain non SB1070 posts


lokisnow

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To follow up on my last point, I realize that I repeated myself a little bit; so let me make a broader point: basically, it seems to me that the Mitch McConnell strategy of endless obstructionism during this session of Congress has been a giant failure. McConnell may be in a better political position than if Obama had signed a HCR bill that passed the Senate in 75 votes. But essentially conservatives are permitting a lot of primarily progressive bills pass in what's turned out to be one of the most productive sessions of Congress in history, leading to a bunch of progressive accomplishments that they'll be hard-pressed to repeal. In exchange, they've received a moderately better chance of taking over the House in November, at which point they'd only be able to shut the barn door after the cows have left anyway.

Conservativism would have been better served if Republicans had negotiated a stimulus package more weighted to tax cuts, a HCR bill without a large expansion of Medicaid, and a more conservative financial reform bill. All of these things were possible, and HCR in particular could have been greatly malleable as long as Obama could claim a victory; but that Republicans decided to forgo that path is one of the great strategic errors of the conservative movement, up there with the decision to pursue impeachment against Clinton.

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I don't think anyone here is denying that George W. Bush is a complete fuckup. But to praise Barack Obama for being only 99.8% of a fuckup is to curse him with the, ah, soft bigotry of low expections, no?

I thought there was going to be another thread? Anyway, the number of deportations increased almost every year from 2002 on under the Bush Administration as well, helped by the passage of a law in 2004 to double the number of agents to 20,000 by 2010. President Obama's 2011 budget is going to reduce the number of agents along the southern border, when we clearly do not still have effective control over that border.

http://www.numbersusa.com/content/news/february-2-2010/pres-obama-proposes-cut-180-border-patrol-agents.html

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To follow up on my last point, I realize that I repeated myself a little bit; so let me make a broader point: basically, it seems to me that the Mitch McConnell strategy of endless obstructionism during this session of Congress has been a giant failure. McConnell may be in a better political position than if Obama had signed a HCR bill that passed the Senate in 75 votes. But essentially conservatives are permitting a lot of primarily progressive bills pass in what's turned out to be one of the most productive sessions of Congress in history, leading to a bunch of progressive accomplishments that they'll be hard-pressed to repeal. In exchange, they've received a moderately better chance of taking over the House in November, at which point they'd only be able to shut the barn door after the cows have left anyway.

Conservativism would have been better served if Republicans had negotiated a stimulus package more weighted to tax cuts, a HCR bill without a large expansion of Medicaid, and a more conservative financial reform bill. All of these things were possible, and HCR in particular could have been greatly malleable as long as Obama could claim a victory; but that Republicans decided to forgo that path is one of the great strategic errors of the conservative movement, up there with the decision to pursue impeachment against Clinton.

Okay, I understand your point better now. I think we disagree over the actual impact Republicans could have had in the final bills. The Democrats had the votes, and they knew it. The Democratic leadership was also getting pressure from the left that would have made any non-essential compromises with the GOP very difficult. Had they actually needed any GOP votes, they'd have given away the absolute minimum necessary to pry away the one or two Senators they needed. But the stimulus was really Pelosi's baby, and I don't think she'd have given up much. health care was going to include, at a bare minimum, an entitlement component and the exchange. Maybe the GOP would have gotten some tort reform, but that was probably it. To me, it would have been putting frosting on a turd.

I normally might agree with your point about compromising a bit to get something in return, even if you don't like the overall package. But something else you said really sort of illustrates the point I'd like to make:

But essentially conservatives are permitting a lot of primarily progressive bills pass in what's turned out to be one of the most productive sessions of Congress in history, leading to a bunch of progressive accomplishments that they'll be hard-pressed to repeal.

IF the GOP is (or was) going to have hope of slowing that progressive tide in the face of a charismatic President, it can only do so by drawing sharp, principled lines with the Democratic majority to give voters a clear choice. I think that strategy paid off in some respects with Scott Brown, where an exit poll showed that his opposition to the health care plan was the dominant issue among voters.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31708.html

Anyway, I think the GOP has decided to go "all-in", probably because the alternative of overwhelmingly progressive legislation wasn't something most of them were willing to accept. Had they supported those progressive bills because they managed to get the proverbial scraps from Longshank's table, they'd have surrendered the ability to present that clear choice in November.

The way some of the polls are looking now, with over 60% supporting repeal of the health care bill, it may have been the correct strategy. They don't need to repeal it, though. If the GOP wins the House, they can refuse to fund unspent stimulus money, and also refuse to fund any money for the implmentation of the health care bill, effectively derailing it and making it a massive issue for 2012.

To me, the agenda was so strongly progressive that a slight watering down wasn't going to make it acceptable. For that reason, I'm glad they decided to fight rather than be complicit in enacting legislation I think is bad for the country, and would only have been marginally less bad had they compromised.

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The way some of the polls are looking now, with over 60% supporting repeal of the health care bill, it may have been the correct strategy. They don't need to repeal it, though. If the GOP wins the House, they can refuse to fund unspent stimulus money, and also refuse to fund any money for the implmentation of the health care bill, effectively derailing it and making it a massive issue for 2012.

I don't think it's as easy as that. They can refuse to fund discretionary spending, but I believe that they'd need to pass repeal in order to prevent spending ordered under HCR and the stimulus, just like they'd need to pass a law to stop Social Security payments.

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To me, the agenda was so strongly progressive that a slight watering down wasn't going to make it acceptable. For that reason, I'm glad they decided to fight rather than be complicit in enacting legislation I think is bad for the country, and would only have been marginally less bad had they compromised.

but it hasn't been a strongly progressive agenda, it's a been a very watery moderate progressive agenda. It's been portrayed as a strongly progressive agenda because of the obstructionism of republicans and the fact that if a democrat proposes it, it must be nazi-communist-socialist-fascist propaganda that's going to destroy America. if you do a very moderate thing than half the population screams its a nazi-communist-socialist-fascist propaganda at the top of their lungs while plugging their ears and jumping up and down its hard for anyone to remember how moderate the thing is in the first place.

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Also, I seriously doubt the polls that say that 60+% of Americans support repeal of the health care bill. Since only 45% of Americans actually oppose the health care bill, that would mean that a sizable number of Americans support repeal without opposing the bill they supposedly want to get rid of, which would be illogical. And indeed it's not hard to find support for repeal melting away when another alternative is available. I wouldn't be surprised if the poll result depended strongly on how the question was worded, like how Americans support rights for gays and lesbians, but not for homosexuals.

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I don't think it's as easy as that. They can refuse to fund discretionary spending, but I believe that they'd need to pass repeal in order to prevent spending ordered under HCR and the stimulus, just like they'd need to pass a law to stop Social Security payments.

There are enough discretionary components in that bill that they could essentially shut it down. The simplest approach would be refusing to fund salaries for any of the people required to implement the bill.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/88867-boehner-gop-majority-would-not-fund-healthcare-reform

But there are a ton of things in the bill that are essential, yet discretionary. Just as one example, there are $5-10B in "administrative costs", for things like computers, equipment, etc., that Congress can refused to fund and essentially kill the bill.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/114xx/doc11490/LewisLtr_HR3590.pdf

My guess is that a lot of Republicans are going to run in November on exactly that issue.

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Also, I seriously doubt the polls that say that 60+% of Americans support repeal of the health care bill.

Well, I suppose it depends on which poll you favor. I think Rasmussen's generally pretty good, but opinions differ, and the only real poll that matters is in November anyway.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/march_2010/health_care_law

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Okay, fair enough. But even so, you have Republicans threatening to shut down the government if the President doesn't accept their budget proposal. We know how this story went last time, and Obama's more popular than Clinton was.

They don't have to shut down the whole government, like in 1995. Back then, the GOP was trying to get Clinton to agree to cuts in non-discretionary spending, which is a different thing entirely. The only way to stop those was to get the President to sign a law changing those payments, or refusing to raise the debt ceiling and shutting down the whole government. They did the latter. I think it was probably doomed to failure anyway, but Gingrich really screwed up the dymanic by making some really stupid personal comments.

Anyway, all they have to do for this bill is not appropriate money for that specific program, while still appropriating money for all the other programs.

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Peter, here's something interesting I saw about Corker:

In one of the most heated exchanges of the lunch, Corker accused Obama of acting duplicitous in his calls for bipartisanship, saying that he was trying to cut a deal on regulatory reform only to see the rug pulled out from underneath him. At one point, he said that the administration used him as a prop.

"I told him I thought there was a degree of audacity in him even showing up today after what had happened with financial regulation," Corker told reporters after Republicans met with Obama.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37746.html

But who knows what really happened. It may be that Democrats were talking to Corker, then ditched him during otehrwise good-faith negotiations when they figured out they didn't need his vote. Or, maybe they thought he was just playing them, and never had any intention of compromising at all, so they dropped him and moved on.

The tricky thing is that unless you were a bug on the wall, you can't be sure exactly what happened. Interesting, though, in light of you bringing up his name before.

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Rep. Alan Grayson introduces the "War is Making you Poor" act which forces the DoD to fund the wars out of its regular budget, then takes the amount used for "emergency spending" used to fund the war and uses it to pay down the deficit 16 billion and make the first 35,000 in income earned tax free (70,000 for couples).

this would mean the DoD would have to 'take it out of the hide' of their contractors.

Grayson points out that people have a hissy fit over the cost of entitlement programs, but not over the costs of wars, and cites someone who says that 91% of our long term deficits in this country are due to defense spending from WWI onward.

Good stuff all around.

http://www.alternet.org/story/146973/rep._alan_grayson_introduces_the_%22war_is_making_you_poor%22_act/

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Anyway, all they have to do for this bill is not appropriate money for that specific program, while still appropriating money for all the other programs.

Well, it would be a bunch of different programs, actually, including a high-risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions, money for fraud detection, subsidies for medical research, and presumably some of the initial administrative costs would go to enforcing regulations on private insurance that will begin to come into effect over the next year. By design, none of these things are themselves terribly controversial, and I'd be surprised if Republicans really want to start a long, drawn-out budget fight in opposition to fraud detection and medical research and insurance for people who are otherwise uninsurable.

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The way some of the polls are looking now, with over 60% supporting repeal of the health care bill, it may have been the correct strategy. They don't need to repeal it, though. If the GOP wins the House, they can refuse to fund unspent stimulus money, and also refuse to fund any money for the implmentation of the health care bill, effectively derailing it and making it a massive issue for 2012.

I hope they do. I'd love to hear the GOP state how they intend to throw 25-year-olds off their parents' insurance plans. How they want to enable insurance companies to discriminate against children with preexisting conditions. How they long to reopen the prescription-plan "doughnut hole." Perhaps after that they can propose invading Iraq again.

This talk of repeal, FLoW, is a fantasy trotted out to appease the Erick Ericksons of the party. Even if the Republicans won a House majority I am far from certain they'd muster the support from moderates needed to pass it. Even if they did, they'd never get it past the Senate, where they probably will not have a majority until at least 2013. Assuming they got that majority this year, the selfsame tool used to frustrate Democrats for the last year or so would be deployed by Harry Reid or whoever was leading the Democrats. And, supposing all this happened and cloture was somehow invoked, the president would assuredly veto any repeal. So...all the Republicans need is a majority in the House, along with some super discipline, plus a supermajority in the Senate, plus a Republican president, and then that reform law is history.

Honestly, I think that the various legal challenges underway, which are by most accounts doomed to failure, have a better chance of toppling insurance reform than some kind of harebrained attempt at repeal.

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Grayson points out that people have a hissy fit over the cost of entitlement programs, but not over the costs of wars, and cites someone who says that 91% of our long term deficits in this country are due to defense spending from WWI onward.

Good stuff all around.

http://www.alternet.org/story/146973/rep._alan_grayson_introduces_the_%22war_is_making_you_poor%22_act/

Heh, I wonder how many fiscal conservatives will jump on this? None, I'd guess.

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I hope they do. I'd love to hear the GOP state how they intend to throw 25-year-olds off their parents' insurance plans. How they want to enable insurance companies to discriminate against children with preexisting conditions. How they long to reopen the prescription-plan "doughnut hole." Perhaps after that they can propose invading Iraq again.

This talk of repeal, FLoW, is a fantasy trotted out to appease the Erick Ericksons of the party. Even if the Republicans won a House majority I am far from certain they'd muster the support from moderates needed to pass it. Even if they did, they'd never get it past the Senate, where they probably will not have a majority until at least 2013. Assuming they got that majority this year, the selfsame tool used to frustrate Democrats for the last year or so would be deployed by Harry Reid or whoever was leading the Democrats. And, supposing all this happened and cloture was somehow invoked, the president would assuredly veto any repeal. So...all the Republicans need is a majority in the House, along with some super discipline, plus a supermajority in the Senate, plus a Republican president, and then that reform law is history.

Honestly, I think that the various legal challenges underway, which are by most accounts doomed to failure, have a better chance of toppling insurance reform than some kind of harebrained attempt at repeal.

I wasn't talking about repeal, which would be impossible any time in the next couple of years. I was talking about a refusal to pass an appropriations bill that included money for HCR, which is a different thing entirely. They don't need the Senate or the President. They just don't approve the appropriation. And they could cherry-pick the bill if they so chose so that only the parts they liked would be funded.

But if you think the legislation is popular, and that this will backfire on Republicans, then you should be happy to see the GOP self-destruct if it gets control of the House. Personally, I think an action predicated on NOT spending money is likely to resonate with a majority of voters, but you could very well be correct.

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I wasn't talking about repeal, which would be impossible any time in the next couple of years. I was talking about a refusal to pass an appropriations bill that included money for HCR, which is a different thing entirely. They don't need the Senate or the President. They just don't approve the appropriation. And they could cherry-pick the bill if they so chose so that only the parts they liked would be funded.

See, that I find entirely plausible: I wouldn't be surprised if Boehner picked some minor feature of the bill and cuts funding for it under the guise of attacking the bill as a whole. But there's nothing that Boehner could do to seriously put the structure of the bill in jeopardy in 2011 without passing repeal, which you agree is impossible.

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I wasn't talking about repeal, which would be impossible any time in the next couple of years. I was talking about a refusal to pass an appropriations bill that included money for HCR, which is a different thing entirely. They don't need the Senate or the President. They just don't approve the appropriation. And they could cherry-pick the bill if they so chose so that only the parts they liked would be funded.

Right. And which parts would they de-fund without destroying the rest? The mandate, for example, is designed to ensure that people don't game the system by waiting until they're sick to enroll. However, if the GOP cares to allow people to game the system...well, I'm happy to go along in boning the private insurance industry. As GWB might say, bring it on.

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But there's nothing that Boehner could do to seriously put the structure of the bill in jeopardy in 2011 without passing repeal....

I guess we just disagree on that. I think it would be relatively easy to do legislatively. Politically, it would be easier if the GOP had control of both houses, but it's not essential.

Right. And which parts would they de-fund without destroying the rest?

Potentially, any parts that require some discretionary spending to function. But just as one example, they could refuse funding for any personnel whose job duties include setting up the exchanges. Without the exchanges, the core of the plan is gone. If you don't think that's possible, fine. That's more of a factual/legal disagreement rather than a disagreement on policy, so we can just wait to see how it plays out. And if Democrats retain control of the House, none of that will matter anyway.

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I guess we just disagree on that. I think it would be relatively easy to do legislatively. Politically, it would be easier if the GOP had control of both houses, but it's not essential.

It's not a question of political will. The things that Boehner would need to defund to actually kneecap the basic structure of the ACA, like the insurance exchanges, won't come online until 2014. Discretionary funding for that won't be on the budget until after the 2012 elections. At best, Boehner can go after the temporary high-risk pool or enforcement of the insurance regulations, but that would both be unpopular in itself and irrelevant to the long-term performance of the PPACA.

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