AZspot

Now that health care reform has been signed into law, the right-wing myths haven’t stopped. But it becomes much easier to refute them or at least challenge them. If nothing else, it is now easier to ask, “Given that this is all about private health insurance to obtain medical care through private providers, where is the ‘government takeover” part?” Or, “Point out to me what in this new law is going to result in unplugging granny or free health care for illegal immigrants or health care provided through government ministries.” Or, “What parts of the new law do you want to repeal? daggatt ☀

…Democrats just passed the Republican health care reform plan — without a single Republican vote. Bear in mind, the bill that was signed into law this week was endorsed by the AMA (which has never before supported any health care reform effort), the AARP (I’m pretty sure they’re not out to “kill granny”), the American Hospital Association, the American Nurses Association, the Catholic Hospital Association, a group representing 59,000 Catholic nuns, and way too many other groups to list. But it didn’t get a single Republican vote out of 198 Republicans in the House and 41 Republican Senators. Among those who helped design the Romney plan was the conservative Heritage Foundation. It’s principal architect was MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who also advised the Obama administration. Although Republicans are now decrying the “individual mandate,” it was the centerpiece of Romney’s “Personal Responsibility” plan. daggatt ☀

The more important point is that the filibuster is not in the Constitution. As a constitutional expert who wrote a book on the filibuster notes, the filibuster is actually something of a historical accident that came into being after the Constitution was ratified and only discovered as a tool of obstructionism long after that. The Founders considered the idea of supermajority requirement and rejected it except for a few purposes specified in the Constitution like overriding presidential vetoes, ratifying treaties and impeachment. As I’ve noted a couple of times previously, it was rarely used prior to the 1970’s. But in the year since President Obama took office there have been more GOP filibusters than there were in the twenty years between 1963 and 1983. Republican use of the filibuster in the current Congress is on pace to triple the previous record. This isn’t a matter of seeking greater deliberation. It is an attempt by Senate Republicans to thwart any successful action by Senate Democrats – who despite losing the Massachusetts Senate seat still have the largest Senate majority in over 30 years (the last time either party had Senate majority larger than 59 was in 1979). Republicans are even filibustering measures that they co-sponsored. daggatt ☀

In late January of last year, President Obama took office facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression (and with two wars going badly and a trillion dollar deficit). He sought bipartisan support for legislation to help turn around the economy. Since interest rates were already at the “zero bound,” representing the limit of traditional monetary policies, primary reliance would have to be on fiscal policy. Despite analyses from his own Council of Economic Advisors that a fiscal stimulus of roughly $1.2 trillion was necessary, President Obama cut it back to less than two-thirds of that size in an effort to accommodate Congressional Republicans. Over one-third of the stimulus ($288 billion) took the form of tax cuts for over 95% of all Americans. This was done to appeal to Republicans, despite warnings that those tax cuts would likely be saved rather than spent, diluting their stimulative effect. It constituted the largest two-year tax cut in US history. Despite those efforts at bipartisanship, not a single Republican in the House voted for the bill and only three Republican Senators voted for it (one of whom, Arlen Specter, later became a Democrat after being ostracized by his former party for that treasonous act of bipartisanship). Less than a month into the new administration, in the middle of a national crisis, Congressional Republicans had already settled on a strategy of total opposition and obstruction. So despite the ARRA being too small and too tilted toward tax cuts – in the name of bipartisanship – how has the economy done during President Obama’s first year? daggatt ☀

At the 2008 Future in Review Conference, Harvard professor James McCarthy, former co-chair of the IPCC, was asked how many of the world’s top 1000 climate experts would disagree with the basic scientific consensus that the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations over the last 50 years to levels not seen in 650,000 years is primarily anthropogenic and is the cause of an increase in global temperatures. He replied, “Five.” He told a story about a colleague being asked the same question at a conference and answering, “Ten.” McCarthy went up to him later and asked how he got to ten. The guy replied that he could only think of five – the same five as McCarthy – but doubled the number to provide a margin of error. That is about as solid a scientific consensus as you are ever likely to get for such a complex set of phenomena. Yet it is almost an article of faith in Republican circles these days that the threat from global warming is at best greatly exaggerated and at worst a “hoax. daggatt ☀

That leads us to the other vote of the day. The senate voted on so-called “pay-as-you-go” budget rules that require that tax cuts or spending increases be matched by spending cuts or tax increases. In other words, Congress has to pay for what it enacts. It was these rules, which prevailed during the ‘90’s, that were largely responsible for the record budget surpluses inherited by President Bush. And it was Bush and a Republican Congress allowing those rules to lapse in 2002 that cleared the way for the record budget deficits that followed. The measure passed the Senate today 60-40, on a straight party line vote. Again, not a single Republican voted for this fiscal discipline. Not one. Not Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins or Mr. Fiscal Responsibility, Judd Gregg or “Maverick” John McCain. As I’ve noted before, over 75 percent of our national debt was racked up under just three Republican presidents – Reagan, Bush I and Bush II. That is the debt that we must pay down or continue to finance with interest. The interest (and the interest on the interest) just for that Republican debt will amount to trillions of dollars over the next decade. Is there some symbolic message that we are supposed to glean from the refusal of Republicans to allow the US government to finance the debt accumulated under their leadership? daggatt ☀

As an example of how it should be done: Vice president Gore – part of the team that produced unprecedented economic growth including the creation of over 22 million jobs in eight years, that left behind record budget surpluses, reduced federal civilian employment by over 400,000, led a NATO force that deposed a brutal dictator in Serbia without the loss of a single American life, and … (well, you get the idea) – gracefully left DC and stayed quiet for a respectable period of time despite having garnered over 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election. And, it is worth pointing out, neither Gore nor Clinton nor any other member of their administration made any attempt to turn the Bush administration’s massive intelligence failure resulting in the 9/11 attacks into a partisan issue. (You might recall from distant history that in May of 2001, Bush named a terrorism task force headed by none other than Dick Cheney. According to the 9-11 Commission, the Cheney Task Force, “was just getting underway when the 9/11 attack occurred.” Which is another way of saying that they never met. They were “dithering,” as some might say.) [Rather than following the example of Cheney between Bush administrations, retiring to a CEO gig at a company at the center of the military/industrial complex – like, say, Haliburton – Gore headed to Silicon Valley and joined the Google team long before their IPO and joined the Apple board when its share price was $7.47 – it closed today a few cents under $200. That is the kind of mojo that produced record budget surpluses.] daggatt ☀

Should the Democrats tackle deficit reduction even without Republican support? As the only party serious about governance, they don’t have much choice. But to shift the focus to deficit reduction now, while unemployment is still rising, would be economically unwise and politically suicidal. As it is, Democrats have reinstated the pay-as-you-go budget rules that Republicans abandoned and are working to ensure that new initiatives, like health care reform, don’t add to the deficit. And much of the deficit will turn around as the economy eventually recovers. But unemployment is likely to still be over 10% on election day next year. If Democrats don’t do a lot more to try to bring that figure down, the economy will still be in horrible shape and voters won’t care how much progress Democrats have made on long-term deficit reduction. Earning the praise of political pundits who see deficits as the bigger problem will be of little solace to Democratic members of Congress when they have joined the ranks of the unemployed. daggatt ☀

…the real explosion in the federal debt began under Ronald Reagan who cut taxes while increasing government spending to levels previously exceeded only during the four years of World War II. (After six years with spending over 22% of GDP and two years over 23%, Reagan left office with federal spending running at over 21%. By contrast, President Clinton left office with spending at 18.5% of GDP.) The result was that the national debt increased more than 400% from less than a trillion when Reagan took office to over $4 trillion when President Clinton and a Democratic Congress finally increased taxes again in 1993. The deficits during those years are even more dramatic when you state them in current dollars. In 2009 dollars (using the OMB year-end debt figures and the St. Louis Fed GDP deflator), Reagan and the first Bush ran up cumulative deficits of roughly $5 trillion. (This despite favorable demographics that resulted in entitlement spending to decline temporarily from 11.9% of GDP in 1983 to 10.1% in 1988. Last year, by contrast, the figure was 12.5%.) The turning point in this deficit story was the 1993 Budget Act, about which I have written before, which was designed to eliminate the record budget deficits inherited by President Clinton. It included a large overall increase in taxes and extended the pay-as-you-go budget rules. It passed without a single Republican vote in Congress by the closest possible margin – by one vote in the House and with Vice President Gore breaking a 50-50 tie in the Senate. Republicans predicted that the economy would collapse as a result. Instead, it produced record budget surpluses and the strongest economy in a generation. But the Democrats paid a price, as they were crushed in the 1994 elections and lost control of Congress. Unfortunately, the lesson that was learned in Congress was that fiscal responsibility doesn’t pay politically. daggatt ☀

Most of us came to the conclusion during the Bush years (if we hadn’t previously) that it was actually important that the people running our government be hitched to reality and base their policies on actual facts. I know this may sound unduly partisan, but it seems increasingly that Republicans believe that anything can be true if you just want it badly enough to be so. daggatt ☀

In particular, I think the populist anger is real and it is big, particularly against the financial bailout – and that is not necessarily partisan or right or left. If Democrats don’t deliver on meaningful financial reform, I think there will be a big backlash, including among Democratic voters. Democrats will also suffer if they don’t deliver on meaningful health care reform. But if Democratic members of Congress revert to form, get scared of their own shadows and pull back from any meaningful accomplishments, the story of the 2010 election could be all about turnout on the right (the Virginia governor race writ large). And that is not a pretty picture. daggatt ☀

Last week, the new Republican National Committee Web site was launched and it included in its “GOP Heroes” section a reference to Reagan as “Ronaldus Magnus” (that’s Latin for “Ronald the Great”). Now, I will confess to being among those who hold President Obama in high regard. But as far as I am aware the Democratic Party hasn’t taken to referring to him with a title befitting a Roman emperor. daggatt ☀

Today, right-wingers profess their hatred of our government. But it was that government that won World War II and the Cold War. It was our government that built the interstate highway system and the Internet. It was our government that harnessed the power of the atom and put a man on the moon. It was our government that brought about rural electrification and built the Western water projects that made it possible for millions of people to live in deserts like Southern California, Nevada and Arizona. It was our government that created the first national parks, setting aside special places like Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon for future generations to enjoy (and those were controversial decisions at the time, as “conservatives” thought the government had no business putting such places off limits to exploitation). It was the GI Bill after World War II that sent a generation to college and allowed them to own their own homes and laid the foundation for the post-War prosperity and the creation of a broad middle class. And, yes, our government enacted revolutionary social policies like universal public education, the 40 hour work week, repeal of child labor, the minimum wage, Social Security, and Medicare (the latter two allowing Americans to grow old without fear of living in abject poverty with no health care). We also gave women the vote and passed laws making it illegal to discriminate against minority groups and women. The Civil Rights laws had to be enforced by the Federal Government against states that had institutionalized racial discrimination. (The result, as we know, is that the Southern states went from being solidly Democratic to being solidly Republican because many citizens of those states resented – and to this day still resent – the federal government forcing them to stop their apartheid policies.) We also passed laws to clean up our air and water – something “free markets” left to themselves can’t do because individual and corporate polluters don’t bear most of the costs of their polluting activities. daggatt ☀

It’s been 97 years since Teddy Roosevelt ran for a third presidential term on a Progressive Party platform that included as a key plank universal health care. And it’s been 64 years since Harry Truman proposed a government-run national health insurance plan almost identical to the “public option” currently under consideration. (“The American Medical Association (AMA) launched a spirited attack against theTruman proposal, capitalizing on fears of Communism in the public mind. The AMA characterized the bill as “socialized medicine”, and in a forerunner to the rhetoric of the McCarthy era, called Truman White House staffers “followers of the Moscow party line”.) It’s been 16 years since the last attempt at health care reform was killed through a campaign of lies and distortions. Meanwhile, our “system” has only gotten worse. And this time around, even the AMA is on board with reform. The AMA is certainly not a radical organization bent on nationalization of the health care system. It is also essential to compare reform proposals with the alternative – which is an untenable status quo. That is, effectively, the Republican alternative. We are the only industrialized country in the world without universal health care. The number of Americans without health insurance is approaching 50 million. Our current system is bankrupting the country and American businesses. Let’s preserve the best of what works and fix what doesn’t. daggatt ☀

When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, he was said to have remarked to an aide as he put down his pen, “We have lost the South for a generation.” Alas, LBJ actually underestimated the backlash from his fellow Southern whites. The South, which had been solidly Democratic, quickly became solidly Republican. Almost two generations later, it still is. That solid block of Southern electoral votes has been the key to Republican power since Nixon adopted his “Southern Strategy” in 1968. To put it bluntly, Republican success over the past forty has been largely a function of its appeal to Southern whites alienated from the Democratic Party over racial issues. daggatt ☀