Happy Iranian New Year to everyone. Hopefully, spring will bring good things for the Iranian people.
Meanwhile back in Stoogeland, I headed to the House today and on the way back got stuck in traffic as the President's motorcade went pass. Besides the Batmobile, he has several SUVs, a bomb disposal truck and an ambulance as well as a phalanx of police motorcycles. He had been up to the House to speak to members on the Health Reform Bill.
Since it's the Year of the Tiger, we should expect good news but things are still tight. Dennis the Menace did the manly thing and endorsed the bill. A few of the Stupak gang also have signed on. Yet, the remaining Democrats are facing a blitz of corporate ads in their home district. The Chamber of Commerce announced in addition to their $25 million this week, they will devote $55 million for the mid-year elections and target those wafflers who vote for the bill in the end.
Tea Baggers expressed disgust with Dick Armey's effort yesterday and thought he had more resources to bear on the final health care event. Oh, I'm sure he did but it's for himself.
Conservatives are now threatening to take the health care bill to the Supreme Court. That is very intriguing. We know the corporations own the majority of the court--let's not pretend anymore. But the constitutional issue would center around mandates to buy health insurance. Progressives have criticized President Obama for omitting a public option. If the present bill passes, it is a type of TARP bailout for an industry that is currently operating on a failed business model. So the industry would be faced with the new regulations, but then if the Court ruled mandates were unconstitutional they would essentially go bankrupt and enter into a financial meltdown mood. It would be interesting to see where the insurance industry actually came down on such a court case. Currently, they are playing high-price chicken over the bill but at the end of the day they stand to gain over 30 million new customers. Do they want to lose them?
The right-wing radios keep telling people the bill doesn't take effect until 2014. But here's a list of things that start immediately:
*35% immediate tax break for small businesses who provide insurance for employees;
*Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all plans;
*Lowers senior prescription drug prices;
*Eliminates lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits on all plans;!!!!
*Requires plans to cover dependent children until the age 26;
*Requires new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;
*Provides immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans because of pre-existing conditions;
*Ensures consumers have access to an internal and external appeals process to appeal insurance plan decisions;
Requires premium rebates to enrolees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and requires public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.
The Democrats also created a website at the House where one can see the benefits of the bill for each congressional district. It actually works great.
The Republicans are miffed that if the bill passes they aren't being invited to participate in the signing ceremonies at the White House. They hope they can get the simulus effect--voting no but showing up with the stimulus check for the project in their districts.
As of late afternoon today, the Senate has already drafted their bill, which accepts the House changes. This was a confidence-building measure for House Democrats, who were afraid the Senate would renege on their promises. The draft copy of this reads well and improves everything rather dramatically.
After seeing about a dozen representatives today performing their functions on other issues, I have severe doubts any of them would understand anything about the health care bill. It was a sorry bipartisan bunch. If you deal alot with young democracies, you forget that the first generation produces the best, most finely-tuned talent available. Thereafter the gene pool starts getting diluted.
The Senate actually passed an anemic $18 billion jobs bill with some Republican support. The bill is almost entirely tax cuts. What the Senate is really excited about is increasing the threshold for estate taxes to $10 million, instead of the Bush $7 million. Here we have alot of energetic Senators.
If the Health Bill passes, it will only provide a temporary halt to the slide of health care in the United States. For instance, Arizona, facing critical budget shortfalls and run by a neanderthal, will cut 42,000 children from the SCHIP program and another 376,000 from the health insurance rolls. The devastation of the current economy is blowing holes through almost every state's budget resulting both in health care cuts but also the wholesale closings of schools.
Apparently, the President is continuing his healthcare fight in the hustings. He's appearing a few miles away on Friday to fire people up.
On another military front, Leon Panetta testified that the Obama campaign against Al Qaeda has forced the organization deeper underground and that the group no longer has any systemic command and control. Intercepted communications had lesser Al Qaeda officials pleading with Bin Laden to show some leadership as the group has been devastated. Panetta indicated a drone killed Hussein al-Yemeni, the Al Qaeda operative thought responsible for the attack on the CIA outpost. He also served as their explosives expert for all the affiliate organizations. Panetta claimed that Al Qaeda no longer could plan large sophisticated operations against the United States. Instead, they were looking for recruits who had no arrest records or ties with terrorist organizations and who did not fit the traditional Muslim profile.
In another hearing, General Petraeus claimed that recent Israeli actions have been exploited to recruit new people to Al Qaeda. This was a bombshell on the Hill because most members were attacking the administration for the misunderstanding with Israel. He also went further and said that continued Israeli-Palestinian tensions also gave Iran greater influence in the Middle East through their relationships with Hamas and Hizbullah. He further said that the conflict fueled anti-American sentiments because of perceived favoritism and has acted to limit the degree to which the United States could form partnerships with the Arab world and build relationships with moderate countries. In a later blog I'll try and reconstruct the briefing of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that went further in-depth on this issue. But, with a strong caveat, the biggest client of Centcom right now are Arab states so the discussion obviously tilted in the direction of Arab national interests, which are not ours.
It will be interesting to see what General Petraeus has to say when he receives AEI's Irving Kristol Award. He is supposed to give a lecture that accompanies the presentation of the award. This was all decided before Petraeus came out for a repeal of DADT, criticized Israel and said today that the Iran nuclear project has gotten sidelined for a while.
Meanwhile Hillary Clinton was scheduled to talk to Mr. Sunshine, Bibi. The quick reactions by AIPAC and others in Washington has been undercut as more and more career people like Petraeus who have strong Republican support are continuing to speak out on this issue and elaborating in full detail some of the deeper issues. Here, I believe the Pentagon is pushing their own agenda, which is too favorable to Arab states. But once Bibi decided to play with fire, expect this debate to start opening up in ways it never has in Washington before. And, frankly, I am very sorry that it has.
Showing posts with label Health Care Bill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Health Care Bill. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Batten Down the Hatches--The Final Offensive
The House bill cleared the Finance Committee today by party-line vote. At this point, any discussion on votes is psyops.
The Chamber of Commerce has $25 million to spend this week on some 40 Democratic representatives in a last attempt to stop it. Millions more are coming through front organizations. Fox News has a little graph up of the so-called kickbacks--most of which get pulled from the bill. One was particularly interesting--they still insist on $10 billion to Vermont. This is Senator Sanders' little earmark for a nation-wide network of health care clinics. The best earmark I have ever seen.
My colleague here in the office says that, despite the noise level and the talking heads, he notices the Republicans have stopped lying about the Bill. When press secretary Gibbs appeared on Fox News and declared that by next weekend health care reform would be the law of the land, the comment section exploded not with attacks on President Obama but on Republicans for failing to kill it. Republicans in their Sunday appearances spoke as if the bill would pass.
Progressive networks and the labor unions are pulling a full-court press. Labor is explicitly telling Democrats that vote against it they can expect absolutely no support in the mid-terms. The White House itself has put members on notice about this--financial assistance in 2010 depends on cooperation is passing health reform.
The President went out to Cleveland today and gave his final healthcare rally with about five congresspeople there. It was his usual barnburner of a speech.
The Sunday New York Times printed an article about what it means for Obama if healthcare fails. Let's ask another question--What does it mean for lobbyists if the bill passes? Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent for over a year to kill this bill. What do you say to your clients when you fail? If you are a corporation looking at a tax bill, would you not think twice about hiring thse guys?
Relatively sane Republican former Tom Davis says that Republicans have an open field in 2010. But he warns Republicans not to be provocative or else they will draw out Obama's surge voters. Also, he cautioned candidates not to get into a debate on governance so the voter can compare. That is precisely what Democrats need to do--get down and force the comparisons.
Virginia's Attorney-General is not just a homophobe but he is also a brither and discussed how to challenge Obama's eligibility legally. We have our own Orly Taitz, one of the Republican candidates for Secretary of State in California. Also speaking of wingnuts, Michelle Bachman obviously thinks the health care bill will pass because now she is saying that voters just won't obey it and refuse to pay taxes. This is a women who took an oath of office to uphold the Constitution.
Tomorrow the FCC unveils its plans to increase American internet speeds by 25 times and to increase broadband in rural areas. A real Zedfest. I happen to think this is as big as FDR rural electrification plans in the New Deal. And it plays into Obama's overall plan to transform the United States so it can be competitive again in the foreign arena. We are now limping along about 15th in the world in terms of speed and interconnectivity. In healthcare we are 37th and dropping down to our nearest competitor Cuba. Thank God, we're still number 1 in persons incarcerated and spending on national security.
Tan Man Boehner talked on the Sunday shows about not closing Gitmo. How yesterday! Let's close it and give the facility to the Richard Cheney Vice Presidential Library. Marc Thiessen can be the administrative director, welcoming tourists to this great monument to American strength.
The US-Israel flap is serious. AIPAC, Eric Cantor and Joe Lieberman attacked the Administraion for their criticism of Israel in its plans to erect more condos on Palestinian land. Hillary Clinton gave Bibi a 43 minute earful about the decision and the treatment of Joe Biden. Now friends of Israel say Bibi apologized and is reconsidering the decision so enough is enough. Sounds good but what was at stake was serious. The Obama Admiistration gave Israel its largest increase in aid in years. At the same time, State Department envoys were rounding up Arab states to recognize Israel the minute it agreed to open talks again with the Palestinians. Just open up talks. 22 countries signed on. So the State Department was reacting to the fact that Bibi caved to an extreme-right member of his coalition at precisely the time the Vice President was there to start the talks again and trigger the multiple recognition. Bibi lit an exploding cigar, which he will regret, not the Obama Administration.
Also, rumors are rushing around the Middle East that Honi Mubarack is dead after surgery in Germany. I don't how true but it will happen sooner rather than later. He's 81 and in poor health. That triggers a fight between his family and the Muslim Brotherhood, which is picking up more support because of the issues in Gaza.
More later when I get up to date.
The Chamber of Commerce has $25 million to spend this week on some 40 Democratic representatives in a last attempt to stop it. Millions more are coming through front organizations. Fox News has a little graph up of the so-called kickbacks--most of which get pulled from the bill. One was particularly interesting--they still insist on $10 billion to Vermont. This is Senator Sanders' little earmark for a nation-wide network of health care clinics. The best earmark I have ever seen.
My colleague here in the office says that, despite the noise level and the talking heads, he notices the Republicans have stopped lying about the Bill. When press secretary Gibbs appeared on Fox News and declared that by next weekend health care reform would be the law of the land, the comment section exploded not with attacks on President Obama but on Republicans for failing to kill it. Republicans in their Sunday appearances spoke as if the bill would pass.
Progressive networks and the labor unions are pulling a full-court press. Labor is explicitly telling Democrats that vote against it they can expect absolutely no support in the mid-terms. The White House itself has put members on notice about this--financial assistance in 2010 depends on cooperation is passing health reform.
The President went out to Cleveland today and gave his final healthcare rally with about five congresspeople there. It was his usual barnburner of a speech.
The Sunday New York Times printed an article about what it means for Obama if healthcare fails. Let's ask another question--What does it mean for lobbyists if the bill passes? Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent for over a year to kill this bill. What do you say to your clients when you fail? If you are a corporation looking at a tax bill, would you not think twice about hiring thse guys?
Relatively sane Republican former Tom Davis says that Republicans have an open field in 2010. But he warns Republicans not to be provocative or else they will draw out Obama's surge voters. Also, he cautioned candidates not to get into a debate on governance so the voter can compare. That is precisely what Democrats need to do--get down and force the comparisons.
Virginia's Attorney-General is not just a homophobe but he is also a brither and discussed how to challenge Obama's eligibility legally. We have our own Orly Taitz, one of the Republican candidates for Secretary of State in California. Also speaking of wingnuts, Michelle Bachman obviously thinks the health care bill will pass because now she is saying that voters just won't obey it and refuse to pay taxes. This is a women who took an oath of office to uphold the Constitution.
Tomorrow the FCC unveils its plans to increase American internet speeds by 25 times and to increase broadband in rural areas. A real Zedfest. I happen to think this is as big as FDR rural electrification plans in the New Deal. And it plays into Obama's overall plan to transform the United States so it can be competitive again in the foreign arena. We are now limping along about 15th in the world in terms of speed and interconnectivity. In healthcare we are 37th and dropping down to our nearest competitor Cuba. Thank God, we're still number 1 in persons incarcerated and spending on national security.
Tan Man Boehner talked on the Sunday shows about not closing Gitmo. How yesterday! Let's close it and give the facility to the Richard Cheney Vice Presidential Library. Marc Thiessen can be the administrative director, welcoming tourists to this great monument to American strength.
The US-Israel flap is serious. AIPAC, Eric Cantor and Joe Lieberman attacked the Administraion for their criticism of Israel in its plans to erect more condos on Palestinian land. Hillary Clinton gave Bibi a 43 minute earful about the decision and the treatment of Joe Biden. Now friends of Israel say Bibi apologized and is reconsidering the decision so enough is enough. Sounds good but what was at stake was serious. The Obama Admiistration gave Israel its largest increase in aid in years. At the same time, State Department envoys were rounding up Arab states to recognize Israel the minute it agreed to open talks again with the Palestinians. Just open up talks. 22 countries signed on. So the State Department was reacting to the fact that Bibi caved to an extreme-right member of his coalition at precisely the time the Vice President was there to start the talks again and trigger the multiple recognition. Bibi lit an exploding cigar, which he will regret, not the Obama Administration.
Also, rumors are rushing around the Middle East that Honi Mubarack is dead after surgery in Germany. I don't how true but it will happen sooner rather than later. He's 81 and in poor health. That triggers a fight between his family and the Muslim Brotherhood, which is picking up more support because of the issues in Gaza.
More later when I get up to date.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
THE ALEXANDRIA AGENDA
Today conservatives release their Mount Vernon Declaration. They argue that our understanding of the Constitution has been distorted by our politics, culture and universities--in short by all America. I lack the literary imagination to envision our Founding Fathers as conservatives or imagine our current conservatives would have to the balls to rebel against Britain. The constitutional world they envision is agrarian,pre-civil war and equal rights for everyone regardless of race, creed or ethnic group. Their efforts were paid for by Coors Beer; I guess in honor of our great brewer George Washington.
Instead of blaming America first, the Alexandria Agenda is written a few blocks down from George Washington's survey office, Gadsby's Tavern, where the founding fathers ate and drank, and near the grave of the unknown revolutionary soldier, and accepts America as it is. There are no large corporate or foundation grants funding this historic enterprise. Since our Constitution does provide for the "general welfare", our Agenda is modest in scope and lacks all ideology. Our guiding founder is Benjamin Franklin, who believed in solving practical problems.
What kind of society do we want?
Health Care. We are the only advanced country without universal health care. Medical bills are the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in this country. The equivalent of all the Vietnam War dead die every year from lack of health care. This is obscene and beneath our dignity. Health care costs are soon to become 20% of our GDP, a severe handicap to any future economic growth. We propose Medicare for all. Howard Dean has explained at great length how including the younger population in Medicare will dramatically lower its costs. However, given the political realities of Washington, we would accept passage of any of the health reform bills with the proviso that all lacunae be filled in later. Presidents starting with Theodore Roosevelt have tried unsuccessfully to adopt universal health care measure for the United States. It is a large unfulfilled piece of the national agenda.
Housing. There are an estimated 18.6 million empty homes in the country since the subprime mortgage crisis. There are now over 3 million homeless in the country with an increasing number of suburbanites. These empty homes have been written off by banks and now are a blight in our towns and cities. Local governments should make provisions for the homeless to occupy these dwellings to prevent further deterioration. A new Homestead Act should be passed to encourage younger people to re-settle the cities that have been devastated by the Great Recession. Sweat equity could form the down payment and suitable payments could be made to allow a younger generation to acquire some wealth.
Jobs. For those Americans over the age of 55 ,who have been unemployed for a prolonged period of time,they should be able to draw social security because the odds are great that they have paid in enough to qualify. This should apply to those who have held jobs that will not come back because of globalization. We must concentrate on the younger generation, which actually may experience a lost decade. The federal government should create FDR-like WPA to employ the young so that they are not lost for a generation.
Education. When state governments can not afford their obligations for public education, the federal government must intervene to stave off the sharp cut-backs in education funding and in education facilities. The government should adopt the Obama proposals to underwrite federal loans to college-age students and keep these loans out of the hands of bankers. The level of debt acquired by college age students is simply not sustainable, plaguing the young for years to come. Every nation, including developing ones, understands that education is the absolute key to progress and economic advancement.
Science. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson both were committed to the development of American science. Where the private sector fails to invest in scientific research and development, both the Federal and State governments must be obligated to underwrite such efforts. In this case, science must be kept free from politics and religious interference.
Debt. The most fortunate of us have profited from living in this country.The grave disparity of wealth in this country is a threat to the national welfare and stability. Efforts must be made to increase revenues from the top 2%, who have been the sole beneficiaries of the economics of the last ten years. Clearly, these people did not obey the "visible hand " Adam Smith wrote about, a prudent morality and self-control over the acquisition of wealth.
The manufactured alarm over Social Security can be alleviated by ending the cap of social security taxes and by making social security means-tested. With my proposal on 55 and older unemployed becoming eligible, these measures are needed. As it is, Social Security has the means to fully fund obligations until 2047. With my added measures, it will be permanently solvent.
Medicare will remain an issue but depending on whether it is extended down to younger people the means for solving it will be complex. With a passage of any of the present legislation, there will be significant savings in costs particularly in the second ten years.
The large remaining issue of debt is the national security budget that has been running over $1 trillion a year for the last several years. A national debate is necessary about our military commitments abroad and the role of the United States in the 21st Century. At our present rate, the United States resembles Brezhnev's Soviet Union bristling with military power but an empty shell of economic development. The United States will have to eschew its current imperial delusion if it is to adopt a balanced foreign policy that is within its means. Another aspect is to make defense procurement based on market-based economics. Currently, three major corporations dictate the costs of military procurements and have the advantage of veto power over cost-savings.
These modest proposals will have the long-term advantage of cutting our national debt and making us more secure against foreign domination.
Energy Self-Suffiency: Since the Nixon Administration, the United States has been acutely aware of its massive consumption of foreign oil and the foreign policy ramifications of such a dependency. Because of technological advances, there is no further reason for us to remain in this situation. Solar, geo-thermal, wind, nuclear and natural gas allow us the possibility of independence. Nano-technology is advancing so fast that solar costs will drop dramatically in the years ahead. Perhaps, there will be a day for nuclear fusion but even so energy indepedence can be achieved within ten years. For proponents of domestic oil exploration, additional reserves would only represent another year of our total needs. It simply is not an option. Whether one holds to climate change or is a skeptic, our national interest demands we advance in the use of alternative energy use.
Immigration Reform: With the exception of American Indians, we are all immigrants. Currently, there is an estimated 15-20 million people in the United States without legal status. They pay taxes and social security and provide cheap labor for American businesses. To imagine expulsion as the nativist dream is to envision a scale of human rights violations that would bring permanent shame on the country. An immigration reform bill already exists--the one proposed by Ted Kennedy and John McCain during the Bush years--that would provide the means that these people can regularize their status. However, imperfect, it should be passed as soon as possible so that we can clean up this national disgrace.
If these issues are addressed, the United States can make the transition back to its past position as an economic power in the world. The country is for all us. It is not just for some people with obscure ideologies that festihize our Constitution and privately harbor dreams of going back to a time before the New Deal and the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s. The sooner we fight back against the new revisionism the better off we will be in advancing to a more prosperous, just future.
E Pluribus Unum
Instead of blaming America first, the Alexandria Agenda is written a few blocks down from George Washington's survey office, Gadsby's Tavern, where the founding fathers ate and drank, and near the grave of the unknown revolutionary soldier, and accepts America as it is. There are no large corporate or foundation grants funding this historic enterprise. Since our Constitution does provide for the "general welfare", our Agenda is modest in scope and lacks all ideology. Our guiding founder is Benjamin Franklin, who believed in solving practical problems.
What kind of society do we want?
Health Care. We are the only advanced country without universal health care. Medical bills are the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in this country. The equivalent of all the Vietnam War dead die every year from lack of health care. This is obscene and beneath our dignity. Health care costs are soon to become 20% of our GDP, a severe handicap to any future economic growth. We propose Medicare for all. Howard Dean has explained at great length how including the younger population in Medicare will dramatically lower its costs. However, given the political realities of Washington, we would accept passage of any of the health reform bills with the proviso that all lacunae be filled in later. Presidents starting with Theodore Roosevelt have tried unsuccessfully to adopt universal health care measure for the United States. It is a large unfulfilled piece of the national agenda.
Housing. There are an estimated 18.6 million empty homes in the country since the subprime mortgage crisis. There are now over 3 million homeless in the country with an increasing number of suburbanites. These empty homes have been written off by banks and now are a blight in our towns and cities. Local governments should make provisions for the homeless to occupy these dwellings to prevent further deterioration. A new Homestead Act should be passed to encourage younger people to re-settle the cities that have been devastated by the Great Recession. Sweat equity could form the down payment and suitable payments could be made to allow a younger generation to acquire some wealth.
Jobs. For those Americans over the age of 55 ,who have been unemployed for a prolonged period of time,they should be able to draw social security because the odds are great that they have paid in enough to qualify. This should apply to those who have held jobs that will not come back because of globalization. We must concentrate on the younger generation, which actually may experience a lost decade. The federal government should create FDR-like WPA to employ the young so that they are not lost for a generation.
Education. When state governments can not afford their obligations for public education, the federal government must intervene to stave off the sharp cut-backs in education funding and in education facilities. The government should adopt the Obama proposals to underwrite federal loans to college-age students and keep these loans out of the hands of bankers. The level of debt acquired by college age students is simply not sustainable, plaguing the young for years to come. Every nation, including developing ones, understands that education is the absolute key to progress and economic advancement.
Science. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson both were committed to the development of American science. Where the private sector fails to invest in scientific research and development, both the Federal and State governments must be obligated to underwrite such efforts. In this case, science must be kept free from politics and religious interference.
Debt. The most fortunate of us have profited from living in this country.The grave disparity of wealth in this country is a threat to the national welfare and stability. Efforts must be made to increase revenues from the top 2%, who have been the sole beneficiaries of the economics of the last ten years. Clearly, these people did not obey the "visible hand " Adam Smith wrote about, a prudent morality and self-control over the acquisition of wealth.
The manufactured alarm over Social Security can be alleviated by ending the cap of social security taxes and by making social security means-tested. With my proposal on 55 and older unemployed becoming eligible, these measures are needed. As it is, Social Security has the means to fully fund obligations until 2047. With my added measures, it will be permanently solvent.
Medicare will remain an issue but depending on whether it is extended down to younger people the means for solving it will be complex. With a passage of any of the present legislation, there will be significant savings in costs particularly in the second ten years.
The large remaining issue of debt is the national security budget that has been running over $1 trillion a year for the last several years. A national debate is necessary about our military commitments abroad and the role of the United States in the 21st Century. At our present rate, the United States resembles Brezhnev's Soviet Union bristling with military power but an empty shell of economic development. The United States will have to eschew its current imperial delusion if it is to adopt a balanced foreign policy that is within its means. Another aspect is to make defense procurement based on market-based economics. Currently, three major corporations dictate the costs of military procurements and have the advantage of veto power over cost-savings.
These modest proposals will have the long-term advantage of cutting our national debt and making us more secure against foreign domination.
Energy Self-Suffiency: Since the Nixon Administration, the United States has been acutely aware of its massive consumption of foreign oil and the foreign policy ramifications of such a dependency. Because of technological advances, there is no further reason for us to remain in this situation. Solar, geo-thermal, wind, nuclear and natural gas allow us the possibility of independence. Nano-technology is advancing so fast that solar costs will drop dramatically in the years ahead. Perhaps, there will be a day for nuclear fusion but even so energy indepedence can be achieved within ten years. For proponents of domestic oil exploration, additional reserves would only represent another year of our total needs. It simply is not an option. Whether one holds to climate change or is a skeptic, our national interest demands we advance in the use of alternative energy use.
Immigration Reform: With the exception of American Indians, we are all immigrants. Currently, there is an estimated 15-20 million people in the United States without legal status. They pay taxes and social security and provide cheap labor for American businesses. To imagine expulsion as the nativist dream is to envision a scale of human rights violations that would bring permanent shame on the country. An immigration reform bill already exists--the one proposed by Ted Kennedy and John McCain during the Bush years--that would provide the means that these people can regularize their status. However, imperfect, it should be passed as soon as possible so that we can clean up this national disgrace.
If these issues are addressed, the United States can make the transition back to its past position as an economic power in the world. The country is for all us. It is not just for some people with obscure ideologies that festihize our Constitution and privately harbor dreams of going back to a time before the New Deal and the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s. The sooner we fight back against the new revisionism the better off we will be in advancing to a more prosperous, just future.
E Pluribus Unum
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Saturday Coffee--Zimbabwe
For months Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell taunted Barack Obama to create a bipartisan commission to deal with the deficit. Republicans like John McCain and Judd Gregg co-sponsored the legislation. And then when President Obama says he supports the plan, the Republicans abandoned ship and voted against it, killing the plan in the Senate. Today in his radio address, President Obama announced by executive order he was creating the commission.
Which leads to where we are in the state of the union. Presently over 200 House bills are languishing for action by the Senate. Taken together these bills would place adequate regulations on the financial industry, create a robust jobs bill, and give the American people a chance at an adequate health care system. Even if 50% of the provisions of these bills were implemented , America would be on the road to economic and social recovery from The Great Recession. The odds of them becoming law now are slim as Republicans in the Senate have officially embraced the idea that all major legislation needs a supermajority, something that even Senate rules do not agree on. Republicans have now used the filibuster a staggering 115 times--over twice the number of Democrats in the last year of the Bush Administration.
There is a method to their madness. By thwarting the President and the Democratic majority, Republicans want to present the image that Government is incapable to ameliorating the average American's problems. Unfortunately, they are succeeding because confidence in government after the Bush-Cheney years has fallen to a new low. To capitalize on the phenomenon they created, Republicans have embraced a radical right agenda against government itself.
President Obama has adopted many of the former Republican ideas. Tax breaks for the middle class, small business and the end of a capital gains tax on small businesses. Incredibly the Republicans have voted against all of these. As a result, polls show that only 15% of Americans believe Obama cut their taxes, more actually believe the Republican line that he has raised taxes. As he made it clear in his State of the Union address, he hasn't raised anyone's taxes, although he should.
President Obama signed into law the PayGo provisions that require Congress to either cut expenditures or raise revenues to pay for the programs they pass. The Republicans, who have blasted the President on fiscal irresponsibility, voted against this seemingly logical idea. We know it was highly successful during the Clinton years to produce large surpluses. The new Republican platform calls for balanced federal budgets, except in time of war. I always believed that post-9/11, to reinforce the idea of sacrifice Americans should have been asked to pay more taxes to fund the war effort and not for the rich to receive a large tax break. But no matter.
The new so-called bipartisan jobs bill was scrapped by Harry Reid for a more modest one. The $80 billion bill penned by Grassley and Baucus included such Republican favorites as the end to estate taxes. Right now, you have to pay taxes on an estate more than $7 million, an amount very few Americans will ever see. (Also added to the bill was a re-authorization of the Patriot Act.) The end of the estate tax will exacerbate the growing inequality of income distribution. Today, the United States has the most dramatic gulf between the richest and the poorest than any developed nation. We are actually falling into the realm of such discrepancy of wealth as El Salvador and other oil-producing states in Africa. For years, foreign policy analysts on both sides of the aisle ghave argued that such disequilbrium produces political instability.
The Harry Reid $18 billion effort looks puny and may not create any jobs.
So what's a poor guy do but create a rock-and-roll band? To overcome the Senate stalemate, President Obama will have to use the process of reconciliation to pass his highest priorities. The Health Care Bill is already passed. Even if it can not be massaged as would be normal in a functioning democracy, the Democrats must move it anyway. The whole financial reform package, which would prevent another meltdown, needs to be passed the same way. The Democrats have to understand that even if the Republicans come roaring back in the 2010 elections, the new Congress would not sit until early 2011. As I wrote when I started this blog, Obama has only the first two years to achieve his domestic agenda. The rest of his time he will be engaged in rear-guard action.
The past week we have seen a very curious resurrection of Republican attacks on the Obama Administration concerning his anti-terrorist policy. Normally, this would be attributed to Republicans trying to maintain their national security mantle, which they believe is their greatest electoral strength. But these attacks are much more focused and coordinated than the attacks at the beginning of his administration. The lines of argument have changed. The argument that the gonad bomber is not like the shoe bomber is that the Bush Administration did not have their splendid torture apparatus in place yet. Marc Thiessen, a speechwriter for the Bush Administration and former Jesse Helms aide, blasted Obama for killing too many terrorists too quickly in Foreign Policy and then went on national television to say that the gonad bomber should have been subjected to interrogation by the intelligence community, not the FBI. (As a note, the FBI has routinely outperformed both Defense and the Intelligence community in this function.) He pointed to the great success in waterboarding that prevented the Los Angeles terror plot. As I wrote at the beginning of this blog long ago, the Los Angeles plot was stopped a year before the waterboarding of Sheik Muhammed because the FBI arrested an Al Qaeda member on a tip from Canada as he cross into the United States from Vancouver.
But Kit Bond in the blizzard made it to the local television station to blast the Obama Administration on not sending the gonad bomber to a military tribunal and using the existing apparatus for interrogating him. He cited as his good authority Mike Mukasy who "Voila!" produced an op-ed in the Washington Post the next day, saying that cases like Richard Reid and Jose Padilla happened because the "apparatus" was not in place at the time. Senator Bond went out of his way to say that trying terrorists in civilian courts revealed too much intelligence to the enemy. He claims Bin Laden turned off his cellphones after a New York trial. Again, false. He turned them off when Bush administration officials, including the President, kept saying we were monitoring Al Qaeda's cellphones. None of the information from any civilian trial had any effect on Al Qaeda's defensive measures.
Then we are treated to Bush speechwriter Mike Gerson lamenting the cost of Gitmo to our prestige but saying the cost of closing it is also too high.
So what gives? As Janes Meyer documents in the latest New Yorker, the Obama administration has a tug of war going on between Rahm Emmanuel and Eric Holder on the civil trial of the 9/11 plotters. The Republicans, in my opinion, are trying to exploit this fight but for a precise purpose. If President Obama continues to be successful with his anti-terrorism program, he undercuts the reasoning of the Republicans or the Bush Administration. But, more precisely, civilian trials are not a threat because of Al Qaeda propaganda but what the American people may in fact learn about the failings of the past Administration and their use of torture. For instance, we now know that the three detainees who allegedly hung themselves alone and in separate cells in Gitmo were actually tortured to death at Camp No, a small facility on the grounds of Gitmo in 2007, at least two years after Bush supposedly outlawed torture. One of the victims was the young Saudi son of a police officer, who was scheduled to be released and who had no potential charges against him.
The Republican argument for military commissions is strange because of the only 3 cases tried so far, two of the defendents went free. Of the over 300 civilian trials of terrorist suspects, none have gone free and almost all have been sentenced to maximum security prisons for life. When Bob Gibbs raised this on television, Chuck Todd weirdly argued that none have received the death penalty. And then he criticized Gibbs for promising KSM would receive a death penalty, thereby saying civilian trials would be kangaroo courts. But so far the military commissions haven't sentenced anyone to death either. Missing from the Republican arguments this week was the recent trial of the MIT-educated woman member of Al Qaeda.
The issue of what to do with the Gitmo detainees who might face charges--probably 54 in total--provides the Obama Administration with a keen dilemma. No one can underestimate the mess the Bush Administration left behind here. The so-called apparatus really doesn't exist. The so-called military commissions, which may not even be constitutional, are barely up and barely functioning. The lack of notifying New York on the Al Qaeda trials led to unnecessary political blowback, which will hamper moving forward. The Obama Administration have bent over backwards to prevent the prosecution of Dick Cheney, the torture lawyers and the CIA personnel who were involved in the "enhanced interrogation" program. The Republicans have blocked the appointment of Dawn Johnson to the Department of Justice because she is on record saying these cases need to be examined and charges brought if need be.
The Bush Administration made a fundamental mistake from the beginning of their response to 9/11, which--for the record--they knew by 3pm that day Al Qaeda did it. They never consulted real national security lawyers, which exist in this town by the hundreds, about developing a process that was both constitutional and effective. By the time Bush admitted he wanted to close Gitmo, nothing had been done to even coordinate all the materials about the detainees so no cases could be made anyway.
Unfortunately, I am now leaning to supporting the idea expressed by the Washington Post of creating a national security court to handle terrorist cases. The immense damage done by the last eight years in this regard simply can not be overcome by the application of civilian courts. Such a court should have a limited duration.
Which leads to where we are in the state of the union. Presently over 200 House bills are languishing for action by the Senate. Taken together these bills would place adequate regulations on the financial industry, create a robust jobs bill, and give the American people a chance at an adequate health care system. Even if 50% of the provisions of these bills were implemented , America would be on the road to economic and social recovery from The Great Recession. The odds of them becoming law now are slim as Republicans in the Senate have officially embraced the idea that all major legislation needs a supermajority, something that even Senate rules do not agree on. Republicans have now used the filibuster a staggering 115 times--over twice the number of Democrats in the last year of the Bush Administration.
There is a method to their madness. By thwarting the President and the Democratic majority, Republicans want to present the image that Government is incapable to ameliorating the average American's problems. Unfortunately, they are succeeding because confidence in government after the Bush-Cheney years has fallen to a new low. To capitalize on the phenomenon they created, Republicans have embraced a radical right agenda against government itself.
President Obama has adopted many of the former Republican ideas. Tax breaks for the middle class, small business and the end of a capital gains tax on small businesses. Incredibly the Republicans have voted against all of these. As a result, polls show that only 15% of Americans believe Obama cut their taxes, more actually believe the Republican line that he has raised taxes. As he made it clear in his State of the Union address, he hasn't raised anyone's taxes, although he should.
President Obama signed into law the PayGo provisions that require Congress to either cut expenditures or raise revenues to pay for the programs they pass. The Republicans, who have blasted the President on fiscal irresponsibility, voted against this seemingly logical idea. We know it was highly successful during the Clinton years to produce large surpluses. The new Republican platform calls for balanced federal budgets, except in time of war. I always believed that post-9/11, to reinforce the idea of sacrifice Americans should have been asked to pay more taxes to fund the war effort and not for the rich to receive a large tax break. But no matter.
The new so-called bipartisan jobs bill was scrapped by Harry Reid for a more modest one. The $80 billion bill penned by Grassley and Baucus included such Republican favorites as the end to estate taxes. Right now, you have to pay taxes on an estate more than $7 million, an amount very few Americans will ever see. (Also added to the bill was a re-authorization of the Patriot Act.) The end of the estate tax will exacerbate the growing inequality of income distribution. Today, the United States has the most dramatic gulf between the richest and the poorest than any developed nation. We are actually falling into the realm of such discrepancy of wealth as El Salvador and other oil-producing states in Africa. For years, foreign policy analysts on both sides of the aisle ghave argued that such disequilbrium produces political instability.
The Harry Reid $18 billion effort looks puny and may not create any jobs.
So what's a poor guy do but create a rock-and-roll band? To overcome the Senate stalemate, President Obama will have to use the process of reconciliation to pass his highest priorities. The Health Care Bill is already passed. Even if it can not be massaged as would be normal in a functioning democracy, the Democrats must move it anyway. The whole financial reform package, which would prevent another meltdown, needs to be passed the same way. The Democrats have to understand that even if the Republicans come roaring back in the 2010 elections, the new Congress would not sit until early 2011. As I wrote when I started this blog, Obama has only the first two years to achieve his domestic agenda. The rest of his time he will be engaged in rear-guard action.
The past week we have seen a very curious resurrection of Republican attacks on the Obama Administration concerning his anti-terrorist policy. Normally, this would be attributed to Republicans trying to maintain their national security mantle, which they believe is their greatest electoral strength. But these attacks are much more focused and coordinated than the attacks at the beginning of his administration. The lines of argument have changed. The argument that the gonad bomber is not like the shoe bomber is that the Bush Administration did not have their splendid torture apparatus in place yet. Marc Thiessen, a speechwriter for the Bush Administration and former Jesse Helms aide, blasted Obama for killing too many terrorists too quickly in Foreign Policy and then went on national television to say that the gonad bomber should have been subjected to interrogation by the intelligence community, not the FBI. (As a note, the FBI has routinely outperformed both Defense and the Intelligence community in this function.) He pointed to the great success in waterboarding that prevented the Los Angeles terror plot. As I wrote at the beginning of this blog long ago, the Los Angeles plot was stopped a year before the waterboarding of Sheik Muhammed because the FBI arrested an Al Qaeda member on a tip from Canada as he cross into the United States from Vancouver.
But Kit Bond in the blizzard made it to the local television station to blast the Obama Administration on not sending the gonad bomber to a military tribunal and using the existing apparatus for interrogating him. He cited as his good authority Mike Mukasy who "Voila!" produced an op-ed in the Washington Post the next day, saying that cases like Richard Reid and Jose Padilla happened because the "apparatus" was not in place at the time. Senator Bond went out of his way to say that trying terrorists in civilian courts revealed too much intelligence to the enemy. He claims Bin Laden turned off his cellphones after a New York trial. Again, false. He turned them off when Bush administration officials, including the President, kept saying we were monitoring Al Qaeda's cellphones. None of the information from any civilian trial had any effect on Al Qaeda's defensive measures.
Then we are treated to Bush speechwriter Mike Gerson lamenting the cost of Gitmo to our prestige but saying the cost of closing it is also too high.
So what gives? As Janes Meyer documents in the latest New Yorker, the Obama administration has a tug of war going on between Rahm Emmanuel and Eric Holder on the civil trial of the 9/11 plotters. The Republicans, in my opinion, are trying to exploit this fight but for a precise purpose. If President Obama continues to be successful with his anti-terrorism program, he undercuts the reasoning of the Republicans or the Bush Administration. But, more precisely, civilian trials are not a threat because of Al Qaeda propaganda but what the American people may in fact learn about the failings of the past Administration and their use of torture. For instance, we now know that the three detainees who allegedly hung themselves alone and in separate cells in Gitmo were actually tortured to death at Camp No, a small facility on the grounds of Gitmo in 2007, at least two years after Bush supposedly outlawed torture. One of the victims was the young Saudi son of a police officer, who was scheduled to be released and who had no potential charges against him.
The Republican argument for military commissions is strange because of the only 3 cases tried so far, two of the defendents went free. Of the over 300 civilian trials of terrorist suspects, none have gone free and almost all have been sentenced to maximum security prisons for life. When Bob Gibbs raised this on television, Chuck Todd weirdly argued that none have received the death penalty. And then he criticized Gibbs for promising KSM would receive a death penalty, thereby saying civilian trials would be kangaroo courts. But so far the military commissions haven't sentenced anyone to death either. Missing from the Republican arguments this week was the recent trial of the MIT-educated woman member of Al Qaeda.
The issue of what to do with the Gitmo detainees who might face charges--probably 54 in total--provides the Obama Administration with a keen dilemma. No one can underestimate the mess the Bush Administration left behind here. The so-called apparatus really doesn't exist. The so-called military commissions, which may not even be constitutional, are barely up and barely functioning. The lack of notifying New York on the Al Qaeda trials led to unnecessary political blowback, which will hamper moving forward. The Obama Administration have bent over backwards to prevent the prosecution of Dick Cheney, the torture lawyers and the CIA personnel who were involved in the "enhanced interrogation" program. The Republicans have blocked the appointment of Dawn Johnson to the Department of Justice because she is on record saying these cases need to be examined and charges brought if need be.
The Bush Administration made a fundamental mistake from the beginning of their response to 9/11, which--for the record--they knew by 3pm that day Al Qaeda did it. They never consulted real national security lawyers, which exist in this town by the hundreds, about developing a process that was both constitutional and effective. By the time Bush admitted he wanted to close Gitmo, nothing had been done to even coordinate all the materials about the detainees so no cases could be made anyway.
Unfortunately, I am now leaning to supporting the idea expressed by the Washington Post of creating a national security court to handle terrorist cases. The immense damage done by the last eight years in this regard simply can not be overcome by the application of civilian courts. Such a court should have a limited duration.
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