Monthly Archives: March 2010

Filibuster Reform on the Horizon?

This sounds like welcome news to me. Via Ezra Klein and Sam Stein of HuffPo, there is starting to be some serious talk about filibuster reform. Yesterday at a reporters’ briefing, Harry Reid had some interesting comments about the present and future of Senate procedure. From The Huffington Post:

“The filibuster has been abused. I believe that the Senate should be different than the House and will continue to be different than the House,” Reid said. “But we’re going to take a look at the filibuster. Next Congress, we’re going to take a look at it. We are likely to have to make some changes in it…”

Reid’s embrace of filibuster reform comes after he previously threw cold water on the likelihood of getting the rules changed. His reference to the “next Congress” stands out. To change Senate rules in the middle of the session requires 67 votes, which Democrats clearly don’t have. But changing the rules at the beginning of the 112th Congress will require the chair to declare the Senate is in a new session and can legally draft new rules. That ruling would be made by Vice President Joe Biden, who has spoken out against the current abuse of the filibuster. The ruling can be appealed, but that appeal can be defeated with a simple majority vote.

Granted, this would have no impact on the health care debate, but the Senate’s problems are far greater than the passing of one piece of legislation. The thing basically doesn’t work very well. What we have is a previously rarely-used tactic that used to be invoked only when Senators had a strong objection to the matter at hand. Now, as everyone knows, it takes 60 votes to do anything. If you think this is an exageration, look at how many votes got filibustered, delayed, then ultimately passed with overwhelming, sometimes almost unanimous, majorities. 

As Stein points out, the likeliest way to reform Senate procedure and restore majority rule is to change the body’s rules at the beginning of the next session. Unlike the filibuster, the Senate and House’s ability to make their own  rules actually is in the Constitution. When Congress reconvenes in January of odd years, it is considered to be a new Congress, and each house is able to make its own rules by majority consent. This seems to be what Reid is implying.

There was no mention of how the rules might be changed, but my favorite is the idea proposed several times by Tom Harkin of Iowa. Basically, the first vote would require 60 votes, but then three days later the threshold would drop to 57, then three days later to 54, then finally after another three days, a simple majority of 51 would be sufficient for passage. This still allows the minority to extend debate, just not indefinitely.

The other big thing that needs to be addressed is the number of executive branch positions that require Senate approval. Cabinet heads and senior officials — fine. But there’s no need for the Senate to approve the Assistant Deputy Undersecretary of some department that 15 people outside of DC have ever even heard of. If you want to stem the “Czarist tide”, this is the way. Whatever ends up happening, just the fact that this stuff is being talked about openly, and seriously, is encouraging to me.

WDEL News Listens to Rick Jensen Too Much

WDEL, in its story on Carper’s not-shocking-at-all-to-anyone-paying attention announcement that Senate Democrats will be using reconciliation, WDEL wrote this:

Senator Carper says Democrats will be opting for a rarely used practice to push a health care reform measure through.

Rarely used?

Congress and the Exchanges

No, it’s not a new indie band, it’s an aspect of the health care reform debate that just might end up being important. Remember back to last summer? Of course you do.  Tiger Woods was a respected public figure, Beau Biden was going to announce his candidacy any day now, and teabagging wingnuts were screaming all sorts of nonsense at Congressmen. One of the not-so-nonsensical things they were yelling, though, was the challenge of, “If the public option/exchanges is so great, why don’t you use it?” Well, this time the Senate listened.

As Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic points out, there is an interesting and little known section in the Senate bill entitled “MEMBERS OF CONGRESS IN THE EXCHANGE”. This was originally an amendment introduced by Chuck Grassley (R-IA) of all people, probably as a game of legislative chicken that he lost. To put it simply, the amendment states that the government may only offer to members of Congress and their staffs, health plans that are either “created under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act)” or are “offered through an Exchange established under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act)”. I think the first part would refer to a public option, so this basically means that Congressmen are going to get their health insurance through the exchanges.

The significance, as Cohn says, is that Congress now has “a skin in the game.”  The exchanges, although initially affecting relatively few people, will end up being very important, because they hopefully will be the basis for getting us away from the idiotic employer-based insurance system we have now. And with members of Congress getting their insurance off of the exchanges, we can be pretty sure they won’t let them get too bad. It’s like mandating that the school board and administrators eat only cafeteria food. You know “mystery meat” and cardboard-flavored pizza won’t last very long.

This certainly won’t allay the fears of all the skeptics, but it might help an important piece of the reform puzzle from being neglected.

Please Welcome Scott P to Delaware Liberal

Many of our regular readers will recognize Scott P as a thoughtful, intelligent and regular commenter here. He also has his own fantastic blog, The Palmer Lyceum. If you have been reading the Lyceum this week, you may have been in on a secret: Scott P is the newest contributor to Delaware Liberal.

Scott in his own words:

The Lyceum was a center of learning and athletics in ancient Athens, associated with Aristotle. The Lyceum Movement of the 19th Century was concerned with the dissemination of information on the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs through lectures and public discussion. […] I am a Progressive, a sports fan, and a married father of one. [At this Lyceum,] I am looking to air my views, educate, and maybe spark a discussion or two.

We always look to bring new and interesting voices into the fold here, and we are very pleased to welcome Scott P. But he better be a Phillies fan or the deal is off. 😉

Tom Carper Trying to Help Kill Public Option Effort in the Senate

According to this article in The Hill, Dick Durbin is thinking that the entire caucus needs to come to grips with the idea of voting down any amendments to the HCR reconciliation fix, even the Public Option. And here is Tom Carper — working on his centrist cred, no doubt — egging this on:

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a leading centrist, suggested Democrats should be able to avoid blowing up a reconciliation package if there is ample negotiation on it before it hits the floor. But Carper appeared to warn his Democratic colleagues that any move to amend the reconciliation bill, however noble the policy aims, would only lead to chaos.

“If we have an agreement with the administration and the leadership of Senate Democrats and House Democrats on what should be in the reconciliation package, I’m sure I could think of plenty of ways to change it, and I’m sure every one of my colleagues could as well,” Carper said. “But that’s a slippery slope I don’t think we want to get on.”

Carper said this week he would likely vote against the public option if it was offered to a reconciliation bill.

“For those who somehow suggest this is going to happen now, they’re just deluding people,” Carper said.

It is a pity that Durbin would get to this point — within 9 or so votes and then announce a strategy to oppose all amendments. Even more of a pity for Tom Carper to trot out his effort to make some Guinness world record of representing more special interests than the number of people who actually voted for him.

What is especially galling here is that repubs will be offering plenty of amendments to try to further weaken and to kill the legislation, and you know that Carper will find at least ONE of these repub-sponsored amendments to vote for. Just so he can keep polishing up his centrist cred at the expense of Delawareans who voted for him.

(h/t to the GOS for the article)

Kaufman Takes on Too Big To Fail

I really wish Senator Kaufman made no Shermanesque statements upon accepting former Governor Minner’s appointment. He is experienced, passionate, more than capable, intelligent, and has served Delaware well over the last year and a half as our junior Senator. And I say that because I want Senator Kaufman to remain my Senator. I want to vote for him. Not only for what he has said today, but for what he has said and done over his tenure. Because, quite frankly, we Democrats in Delaware are not used to being represented by a someone is Congress who wants to break up big banks, regulate and hold corporations to task, and push for a public health insurance option. I say that with all due respect to Vice President Biden, normal respect to Senator Carper and no respect to Congressman Castle.

Since I will not be able to vote for him, I will have to enjoy the moments when a Delaware Senator rails against mega banks on the Floor of the Senate.

I start by asking a simple question: Given that deregulation caused the crisis, why don’t we go back to the statutory and regulatory frameworks of the past that were proven successes in ensuring financial stability?…

Mind you, this is a financial crisis that necessitated a $2.5 trillion bailout. And that amount includes neither the many trillions of dollars more that were committed as guarantees for toxic debt nor the de facto bailout that banks received through the Federal Reserve’s easing of monetary policy…

Given the high costs of our policy and regulatory failures, as well as the reckless behavior on Wall Street, why should those of us who propose going back to the proven statutory and regulatory ideas of the past bear the burden of proof? The burden of proof should be upon those who would only tinker at the edges of our current system of financial regulation…

Congress needs to draw hard lines that provide fundamental systemic reforms, the very kind of protections we had under Glass-Steagall. We need to rebuild the wall between the government-guaranteed part of the financial system and those financial entities that remain free to take on greater risk…

The notion that the most recent crisis was a “once in a century” event is a fiction. Former Treasury Secretary Paulson, National Economic Council Chairman Larry Summers, and JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon all concede that financial crises occur every five years or so.

Thursday Open Thread

Welcome to Thursday and welcome to your open thread. As usual, I’ll provide a couple of links for you to talk about if you wish but there is nothing that is off-topic in an open thread.

A story spread all over the rightwing news media about a ban on fishing by the Obama administration. The source appears to be an unsourced ESPN article (from Media Matters):

ESPN column: Federal strategy “could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.” On March 9, Robert Montgomery wrote for EPSNOutdoors.com: “The Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters. This announcement comes at the time when the situation supposedly still is ‘fluid’ and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force still hasn’t issued its final report on zoning uses of these waters.” Montgomery’s post, which was also featured on The Daily Caller, has since been updated to state that the strategy “could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation’s oceans coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.”

Of course, this is nothing close to the truth but it certainly feeds into the rightwing paranoia:

Task force plan seeks to “better manage,” not ban recreational fishing alongside other uses of ocean, coasts, lakes. In its September 10, 2009, interim report, the Interagency Ocean Policy task force recommended that the administration implement “coastal and marine spatial planning,” which has been described as ocean “zoning.” The interim report states that such a system “will allow for the reduction of cumulative impacts from human uses on marine ecosystems, provide greater certainty for the public and private sector in planning new investments, and reduce conflicts among uses and, between using and preserving the environment to sustain critical ecological, economic, and cultural services for this and future generations.” A December 9, 2009, task force report discussing coastal and marine spatial planning in more detail states that “CMSP provides an effective process to better manage a range of social, economic, and cultural uses, including” commerce and transportation, commercial fishing, conservation, mining, oil and gas exploration and development and recreational fishing, among many others. Nowhere in the September 10 or December 9 reports does the task force propose a ban on recreational fishing.

A lot of media attention has been turned to gropy-handed predator Congressman Eric Massa but Senator John Ensign may be in more hot water. His story about not being involved in trying to find a job for his mistress’s husband is not holding up to scrutiny:

Mr. Ensign, Republican of Nevada, suggested that a Las Vegas development firm hire the husband, Douglas Hampton, after it had sought the senator’s help on several energy projects in 2008, according to e-mail messages and interviews with company executives.

The messages are the first written records from Mr. Ensign documenting his efforts to find clients for Mr. Hampton, a top aide and close friend, after the senator had an affair with his wife, Cynthia Hampton. They appear to undercut the senator’s assertion that he did not know the work might involve Congressional lobbying, which could violate a federal ban on such activities by staff members for a year after leaving government.

The e-mail messages also hint at what Mr. Ensign’s office now says was an effort by the Las Vegas firm, a small energy investment business called P2SA Equity, to improperly link Mr. Ensign’s possible assistance to a promised donation.

So infidelity, corruption and bribery. Will this story get the attention it deserves?

A Bill We Should All Support – Medicare Buy-In

Progressive hero Alan Grayson has introduced a short 4-page bill to allow Americans to buy into Medicare coverage (without subsidies). Think Progress‘s Wonk Room describes the bill, called the “Public Option Act” or “Medicare You Can Buy Into Act”:

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) has provided the White House with a real opportunity to win back its disillusioned Democratic base and take the next logical step to reforming the health care system. Last night, Grayson introduced the “Public Option Act,” also known as the “Medicare You Can Buy Into Act,” which would give all citizens and permanent residents under the age of 65 an opportunity to buy unsubsidized coverage in the Medicare program. The bill instructs the Secretary of Health And Human Services to “establish enrollment periods and coverage” guidelines and requires the newly insured to pay premiums that reflect the “costs incurred for individuals within each age.”

This act would probably not have much of an impact initially because subsidized private plans would probably be cheaper for most people.

As Grayson himself admits, in of itself, the unsubsidized Medicare buy-in would wouldn’t provide an affordable option for most Americans. Clinton era reformers sought to expand the Medicare program but were never able to provide enrollees with affordable premiums on an unsubsidized basis. According to a CBO analysis of a Medicare buy-in for uninsured Americans between 62 and 64 — that group would have to pay a premium plus an administrative fee of 5 percent — “the annual premium for single coverage in 2011 would be about $7,600 (that figure includes the cost of Part D coverage).”

I hope this is a plan that most Democrats can get behind. It allows an option for people who are opposed to paying premiums to for-profit insurance companies. It’s also something that can be built upon and expanded into the future. Best of all, it’s deficit neutral.

Republicans Want To Raise Your Taxes

Paul Ryan is a Wisconsin Republican and a rising star in the party. He’s the ranking member of the House Budget Committee and several weeks ago he unveiled his plan for balancing the budget. It was a Republican plan on steroids – huge tax cuts for the wealthy, elimination of Social Security and Medicare and replacement of them with vouchers. A group called the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities examined Ryan’s budget and found it’s worse than we thought:

The tax cuts for those at the very top would be of historic proportions. A new analysis by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center (TPC) finds:

  • The Ryan plan would cut in half the taxes of the richest 1 percent of Americans — those with incomes exceeding $633,000 (in 2009 dollars) in 2014.
  • The higher one goes up the income scale, the more massive the tax cuts would be. Households with incomes of more than $1 million would receive an average annual tax cut of $502,000.
  • The richest one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans — those whose incomes exceed $2.9 million a year — would receive an average tax cut of $1.7 million a year. These tax cuts would be on top of those that high-income households would get from making the Bush tax cuts, which are due to expire at the end of 2010, permanent.

To offset some of the cost of these massive tax cuts, the Ryan plan would place a new consumption tax on most goods and services, a measure that would increase taxes on most low- and middle-income families. TPC finds that:

  • About three-quarters of Americans — those with incomes between $20,000 and $200,000 — would face tax increases. For example, households with incomes between $50,000 and $75,000 would face an average tax increase of $900. (These estimated changes in taxes are relative to the taxes that would be paid under a continuation of current policy — i.e., what tax liabilities would be if the President and Congress make permanent the expiring 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and relief from the alternative minimum tax.)

  • The plan would shift tax burdens so substantially from the wealthy to the middle class that people with incomes over $1 million would face much lower effective tax rates than middle-income families would. That is, they would pay much smaller percentages of their income in federal taxes.

The Republicans will call this a tax cut because overall tax revenue will be smaller. Because of the massive tax cuts in this plan, it doesn’t even begin to address the deficit for 50 years – long after Paul Ryan and the Republicans that would vote for this plan have left office. It’s the culmination of 30 years of magical Republican thinking, which in reality rewards wealth over work. I doubt this plan will go anywhere but people should know – this is what the Republicans want to do when they talk about taxes and entitlements.

h/t Washington Monthly

Christine O’Donnell Announces — A Good Look at the Hypocrisy Train

So have you had a chance to see this announcement? (Link opens up to WDEL video.)

It is completely choice: nonstop wingnut dog whistles and none of it made any sense. AND we see Ms. O’Donnell try to spank Mike Castle for his age, his liberalism, and for not being a real conservative. The best bit, though, is when she takes questions. In the first you can see her run through the rehearsed name calling before settling in to say something sort of coherent. She was asked about her previous money issues –had to clarify if the reporter was asking about the country or her issues — and decided to wade through the “arrogance of Mike Castle” and the “Lords of the Back Room” (Get.Out. This is a definite drift into David Vitter territory — nudgenudge, winkwink) and “the Party Bosses are scared” rehearsed (badly) talking points. Lots of bluster and not much sense. Another questioner reminded her that she said she would not run unless she could get the right money and asked about her progress on that. This resulted in another blustery answer — with a reference each to exceeding and meeting goals; getting support and funds from supporters and national leaders everywhere and telling the questioner that only the numbers available on June 30 will count for evaluation. WTF.

The entire thing could have been phoned in from repub talking point central. But it was completely choice to see the manufactured outrage over government spending. Not only because here would be another repub who never cared about this when BushCo was spending money like it was going out of style but because apparently she can’t even manage her own funds! It’s pretty damned nuts to listen to her have on about spending other people’s money wisely and the evils of overspending in light of her own issues.

According to this account from the Community News, there was even a little intrigue at the event:

Aside from members of the media, the room was filled with campaign supporters except for former senior campaign staffer David Keegan, who said he worked for O’Donnell in 2008 and planned to ask O’Donnell about her finances. Keegan, of Hockessin, was escorted out of the press conference by campaign officials, who told him only those with press credentials were invited, while he loudly proclaimed that he was responding to a Facebook invitation.

“She had me escorted out because she was afraid of what I would say,” he said after the press conference.

Wonder what Mr. Keegan wanted to ask?

Wednesday Open Thread

Welcome to Wednesday! Is anyone else finding this week incredibly long? It’s time for your open thread, so tell us what’s on your mind.

Hey, I love this news but with all news about diet take it with a grain of salt:

Led by Dr. Lu Wang, preventive-health experts at Brigham conducted the first long-term study of women’s drinking habits and weight gain. The study involved 19,220 women over the age of 38 who were of normal weight. Researchers asked the women about their alcohol consumption over the past year and recorded how much of four different types of alcoholic beverages they consumed — beer, red wine, white wine and liquor. The researchers measured the average ethanol content of each beverage and then calculated each volunteer’s average alcohol intake; they also weighed each woman five times over the course of the follow-up period.

After 13 years, women consuming the highest amount of alcohol per day (more than two drinks daily) were 30% less likely to be overweight and nearly 70% less likely to be obese than nondrinkers, the team found. “We certainly don’t want to encourage nondrinkers to adopt alcohol as a method for weight control, but we were surprised by the strength of the association,” says Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s and a co-author of the study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

…

The association led the team to consider several possible explanations. First, it could be that women who drink more simply substitute alcohol for other sources of calories — in essence adopting a form of the liquid diet. Indeed, when the researchers analyzed the data, it appeared that the women who drank the most got fewer of their total calories from nonalcoholic sources than other women, but also consumed the most calories overall. Women having one to two drinks daily, for example, consumed 1,738 kcal/day, compared to the 1,670 kcal/day of teetotalers, but they took in 177 fewer kcal/day from nonalcoholic sources. Whether or not this substitution is a conscious decision on the women’s part still isn’t clear and the study wasn’t designed to find out.

My thoughts on this study is that the source of calories is as important as the amount of calories. Now we shouldn’t all get excited and start drinking two drinks a day thinking this will cause us to lose weight. The best way to control weight is to eat less and exercise.

Pain-in-the-ass Congressman Bart Stupak is getting a lot of attention, not all of it good. Rachel Maddow has been investigating his membership in the Family and his residence at the C Street (Cheat Street House). He’s also got a primary challenger, one who is specifically citing his blockade of health care reform.

Connie Saltonstall, a former commissioner in Charlevoix County, told me this evening she’s challenging Stupak over his refusal to allow health care reform to move forward without abortion language attached.

Saltonstall told me her “two passions” are health care reform and choice. And after spending the last 20 years voting for Stupak, Saltonstall said he managed to run afoul of both of them.

“I’ve had to vote for him because he’s a Democrat and not a Republican — he was not as bad as the other side,” she said. But Saltonstall said Stupak’s stance on abortion in the health care debate “crossed the line” for her.

We’ll see if a primary challenger affects Stupak’s behavior.

John Carney Chosen For DCCC’s Red To Blue Program

Former Lt. Gov John Carney has been chosen in the first group of “Red to Blue” candidates by the DCCC. This is good news for John Carney, because that means his race is being placed in high priority by the Democratic party.

Chairman Van Hollen joined DCCC Vice Chair Bruce Braley (IA) and Red to Blue co-chairs Allyson Schwartz (PA), Patrick Murphy (PA), and Donna Edwards (MD) to announce the first 13 candidates who qualified for the Red to Blue:

Ami Bera (CA-03)
Paula Brooks (OH-12)
John Callahan (PA-15)
John Carney (DE-AL)
Suzan DelBene (WA-08)
Lori Edwards (FL-12)
Raj Goyle (KS-04)
Roy Herron (TN-08)
Bryan Lentz (PA-07)
Rob Miller (SC-02)
Steve Pougnet (CA-45)
Dan Seals (IL-10)
Tom White (NE-02)

The Red to Blue program highlights top Democratic campaigns across the country, and offers them financial, communications, grassroots, and strategic support. The program will introduce Democratic supporters to new, competitive candidates in order to help expand the fundraising base for these campaigns. The very successful fundraising effort helped raise more than $26 million for Red to Blue candidates last cycle.