Saturday Open Thread [3.7.15]

The Los Angeles Times reports that President Obama “is laying out plans for a post-presidential period that his friends envision as a busy third act of his life, using his public prominence to try to address socioeconomic challenges in the world.” I think Obama is going to be a hybrid of Carter and Clinton, but I think he will actually stay focused on America and not the third world / Africa.

“Economic empowerment for the disadvantaged, expanded opportunities for girls and the programs that help young men in the project that he calls ‘becoming a man’ all are likely to figure in the agenda of the last two years of his presidency and afterward, according to people close to him.”

Delaware’s unemployment rate dropped at even 5 percent.

Over the past year, Delaware has added more than 8,000 net jobs outside of agriculture. Much of that growth comes from professional and financial services, as well as transportation. […] Delawareans’ take home pay every week continues to grow slowly, standing at just under $740 per week. That’s still well below January 2009 when weekly earnings totaled about $770 every week.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) “maintains unwavering control over Democratic members of the House on legislation — in contrast to the House speaker, John A. Boehner, who continues to struggle with his cacophonous caucus — and she may be a surprisingly vital tool for the White House at the end of President Obama’s tenure.”

“Her lasting authority was demonstrated this week when she helped pass a measure from the Senate to avoid yet another government shutdown. That vote ‘strengthened our hand,’ Ms. Pelosi said, a sentiment that many Republicans, who are eager to show that they can effectively govern, agree with, teeth clenched.”

I dare say Pelosi has been the most effective congressional leader since Tip O’Neil or perhaps Lyndon Johnson before him.

The Economist, that huge bastion of liberalism, has this to say about Obamacare and Supreme Court (emphasis added):

This week the Supreme Court heard yet another legal challenge. In King v Burwell, the law’s opponents argue that its subsidies for individuals buying health insurance on the federally organised online exchanges are illegal. They are unlikely to prevail but, if they do, the law will be gutted and the insurance market thrown into turmoil.

That would be a terrible shame, for Obamacare appears to be working better than expected. First, despite the incompetent rollout of healthcare.gov (the website that allows people to use the federal exchanges), the proportion of Americans who lack cover has fallen from 16.2% to 12.3% since 2009. Second, the previously terrifying pace of medical inflation has slowed. The amount that America spends on health care grew by 3.9% a year in nominal terms between 2009 and 2011—having grown by 7.3% a year in 2000-08. […]

As Americans age and Obamacare continues to extend coverage, federal outlays on health will probably start to grow again as a share of GDP over the next decade. America still spends far more than it needs to on health care, as the gap with other nations shows. But there is hope at last that health inflation can be made more manageable. Scrapping Obamacare and starting again from scratch would make this harder. Far better to build on what appears to be working. For the Supreme Court to rule for the challengers would be a woeful outcome.