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TTAC asks: Will today's recyclable cars fall apart? ... 5:36 P.M.
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Are you as sophisticated as Politico? Spot the weak point in Carrie Budoff Brown's optimistic health care reform report:
Reid also said he will deliver a final bill to the president by Christmas, meeting the White House deadline.
"We sure hope so," Reid said.
2:18 P.M.
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"Abortion Dispute Could Derail Health Bill": Do you really think an abortion dispute will derail the massive health bill? Me neither. I think if the Democrats are scared to pass the health bill they will let an abortion dispute derail the massive health bill. If they aren't too scared, the abortion issue can be finessed with a variety of possible compromises. (Sample: The Stupak Amendment with an opt-out for states that vote explicitly to allow private insurance premiums (on federally subsidized policies) to fund abortions.)
That goes for all the allegedly difficult House/Senate sticking points. Timothy Noah lists four, in addition to abortion: the public option, the government's ability to negotiate drug prices, the size of the lower-income subsidies, the tax that will pay for it all. I'm not impressed. It would take a conscientious conference committee, working in secret, maybe, what, two days to split the difference on most of them? Even if differences can't be split, they can be finessed, or kicked down the road. And even if that's impossible--well,nobody really believes that the left is going to sabotage a once-in-a-lifetime chance at health care reform over abortion, or the "robustness" of the public option, or the ability of illegal immigrants to get insurance.
The problem facing health care reform, as Dick Morris and others have been arguing for months, isn't these tediously subtle legislative complications. They're what we see on the surface. The problem is the crude, primal politics underneath them--the legislature's' "id." It's the fear, among power-lusting Democratic Congresspersons, that if they vote for health care they won't be Congresspersons much past November, 2010 (or that even if they win, they will no longer be in the majority party). They're not worried about Cadillac plans. They're worried about castration.
Note that Obama's House pep talk, according to John Dickerson, focused on the primal politics:
Before the House vote last Saturday, Obama made two key political points to Democratic House members. First, they needed to vote for health care because it would motivate the party base in 2010. Second, those who think they can run away from the president by voting against his signature legislative effort are kidding themselves. The president believes that a key lesson of the Republican rout of Democrats in 1994 was that Democrats who oppose their president can never get far enough away to survive politically. So if you're going to get stuck defending the president, you should get behind his plan and benefit from the political cover he'll work to give those who support him.
Of course, if the fate of health reform in fact turns on such non-wonk, non-policy analysis, reform supporters couldn't help but notice at least two danger signs:
1) The size of the House majority. 220-215 votes. It's hard to believe it was this close--that Pelosi didn't have more votes she could have called on in a pinch. But if (as reported) she really needed to agree to the anti-choice Stupak amendment in order to get past 218, maybe she did pull out nearly all the stops. If so, yikes! The thinness of Pelosi's House majority is a very bad sign--not because it shows the House doesn't have any room to negotiate with the Senate. (If the bill moves to the right by, say, dropping the public option, they'll cave.) It's a bad sign because it shows that even in the heavily Democratic, disciplined, liberal House the primal drive for health care reform just isn't that high. There is no room for more fear.
2) "[Y]ou should get behind his plan and benefit from the from the political cover he'll work to give those who support him," Dickerson has Obama saying. You mean like the cover he gave Jon Corzine in New Jersey? ...
Update: Matt Yglesias clarifies some of the Kabuki--
[I]nsofar as there are members who don’t want to take the political risk of voting “yes” on a comprehensive health care reform bill, but also don’t want to be seen as spiking the initiative, then developing a hard line position on abortion can be convenient. Like say Ben Nelson and Bob Casey say they can’t vote for health care unless it contains Stupak language, and then Joe Lieberman (Freedom of Choice Act cosponsor!) and Olympia Snowe say they can’t vote for health care unless it doesn’t contain Stupak language. Well, then health care dies. And yet nobody has to take the blame for having killed it if a constituent gets mad. [E.A.]
It's also true that if you don't want to take the political risk of voting "yes" on a comprehensive health care reform bill and also don't want to take the political risk of developing a hard line position on abortion then it's in your interest that others, like Ben Nelson, develop that hard line position and cause a train wreck. You can't be blamed, of course. You supported health care! You were nowhere near the scene of the crash! It just kind of happened. Terrible thing, just terrible. ... But maybe you will quietly thank Nelson in your prayers. ... Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, of course, was accused of engineering just this kind of train wreck on "comprehensive immigration reform" in 2007. ... 2:23 A.M.
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Is it an accident that Rep. Alan Grayson, despite his respectable resume, turned into a flamboyant hey-look-at-me bombthrower after hiring famously intemperate blogger Matt Stoller as "policy adviser"? (Here's Stoller displaying his laid back personality on bloggingheads.tv.) The NYT, which puzzled on Grayson's transition a week ago, missed this angle. ... Or was Grayson intemperate before--and that's why he hired Stoller (and why Stoller went to work for him)? Hard to see which way causality runs. Could run in all directions, of course. A vicious circle of hotheadedness. ... 1:48 P.M.
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The Obama Administration will find a way to blow health care reform yet. Mere Rhetoric notes a report that Obama aides plan to address Tuesday's election defeats by resurrecting Orszagism, the doctrine that health care reform is the way to control the deficit because it will enable the government to "bend the cost curve" down without compromising care. From Josh Gerstein:
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs insisted Wednesday that the White House plans no changes whatsoever in its legislative strategy or agenda as a result of this week’s contests. However, a White House aide told ABC that the administration will seek to bolster moderates by returning to an argument that health care reform will curb the deficit—a talking point Obama aides have de-emphasized in recent months in favor of a focus on making the insurance system more secure and predictable. [E.A.]
If I recall, the White House had"de-emphasized" Orszagism because those who heard the argument tended to fall into roughly two camps: 1) Voters who thought it was at best pie-in-the-sky and that the government probably couldn't "bend the curve" over the next two decades--the way it hasn't been able to do with Medicare, for example; and 2) Voters who thought the government could indeed "bend the curve" and were terrified by the prospect, because the argument seemed to be that only if the government controlled virtually the entire health system could it really turn the screws start denying treatments initiate a "very difficult democratic conversation" over which treatments were really cost-effective, including treatments at the end of life. ...
It was only when the Orszagism was in fact de-emphasized (over the summer) that opposition to health care reform stopped its relentless upward rise and actually fell for a brief period. Why go back to the debacle of last Spring? Vague policyspeak about curve-bending has already, unnecessarily, cost health care reform the support of the elderly. Does Obama want to give reform's opponents the ammo to drive opposition above the 60% line? Go ahead. Make Dick Morris' day. ...
P.S.: I should make it clear that I am in camp #1--I don't think Americans will tolerate draconian, or even semi-draconian, denials of service. As a result I don't think the curve (which is driven mainly by advances in medicine that yield expensive treatments) will be bent. That's why I'm for health care reform. But Orszagism is still lousy politics, because lots of voters will fall into Camp #2. ...
For more: See kf's extensive fall Orszagism collection. ... 12:06 A.M.
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Another seemingly grim health care poll--49/39 against, compared with 42/40 earlier in the month by the same pollster (Ipsos/McClatchy). The new poll eerily resonates with Rasmussen's increased margin of 54/42 against. But, again, part of the drop in support could come from erstwhile reform supporters worried about the status of the "public option." I'd be interested in the breakout of independents and Democrats--but I can't open the file. If you can, feel free to let me know. Mickey_Kaus at msn dot com. ... Mickey's Assignment Desk: Mark Blumenthal--maybe you can help. Why are the health care polls going south? Unaffiliated voters worried about the deficit? Libs worried about the public option? Seniors worried about death panels overzealous cost containment measures? Everyone worried about rising premiums? ... Or any combination of the above (including voters betraying their stereotypes--e.g. liberals worried about overzealous cost controls or deficits?) ...
Update: Thanks to all who sent the numbers. Opposition to reform appears to have held steady among GOPs. but risen among independents by 15 percentage points (from 38% opposed to 53%) and also among Democrats by 7 percentage points (from 18% to 25%). Less clear is what could have provoked these drops. It's hard to say "lack of a public option," given that the public option seems to be in better shape today than early in October--though the poll was taken immediately following Sen. Lieberman's filibuster threat. ...
More: CNN is out with another grim survey-- 53/45 against, a sharp change from the 49/49 tie CNN reported in mid-October. ... On the other hand, Rasmussen has moved slightly in the pro-reform direction (it's now 7 points down instead of 12). The Rasmussen poll is fresher, by a week, than CNN's. But it also was taken the very weekend the House passed it's version of the bill (with an anti-abortion amendment)--so it may record a potentially short-lived bounce. ... 4:27 P.M.
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Attention, "Fait Accompli" Brigade: This chart seems to be going in the wrong direction for health care reform, even if you discount the lopsided FOX poll (for Nate Silverish reasons--they only get the big support/oppose question after asking a series of spoiling questions). ... P.S.: Does this suggest that the much-derided insurance industry study (suggesting premiums would rise after reform) had an impact? ... It could also reflect increased dissent on the left, from public-option supporters, as hinted by the new WaPo survey. (See, for example, question 13.) ... 9:55 P.M.
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On Sunday, William Kristol argued it was "reckless" for Obama to delay surging in Afghanistan while he waits to see how legitimate our "Afghan partner" will be:
If the president issued the order now, he could always delay or revoke it later, if the political situation seemed truly insupportable....
Why do I get the feeling that if Obama ordered a surge of troops today and revoked it in two weeks, Bill Kristol would be among the first to savage him for being indecisive and prone to sudden reversal? There's a virtue in making the decision once, and then being able to stick with it, as Kristol surely knows. ... P.S.: I would suspect Kristol of adding his bad faith argument so he'd have three bullet points, but he already had his three. So no excuse! ... P.P.S.: Won't Kristol's post--which sneers that the White House had "failed" to improve the election process--look awfully silly if Obama's delay turns out to force Karzai to accept a cleaner runoff? ... 10:21 P.M.
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Gawker got hold of the first few words of ex-President Clinton's private twitters, including this entry:
Twitter / Bill Clinton: John Edwards ... why did you ...
You'd think Clinton, of all people, would know that answer to that one. ...
Update: In a slyly invisible, joke-ruining revision, Gawker's Anthony De Rosa now says the twitters were probably captured from the account of a Bill Clinton imposter. ... P.S.: Is De Rosa the new night guy or the new ex-night guy? ... 10:50 P.M.
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Odd sloppiness in Monday's big N.Y. Times story with possible dirt on GOP N.J. gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie:
1) The Times writes that
interviews with federal law enforcement officials suggest that Ms. Brown [to whom Christie had loaned $46,000] used her position in two significant and possibly improper ways to try to aid Mr. Christie in his run for governor. [E.A.]
Motive is very hard to prove. The Times doesn't come close to showing that Brown was trying to aid Mr. Christie's run for governor if (as alleged) she a) supervised a FOIA request by the Corzine campaign of her and Christie's travel records and b) argued for making a big corruption arrest before Christie left office. In (a), she might have been trying to cover her own a--, since the FOIA request included her own records, no? In (b), maybe she just thought her friend and boss (rather than his successor) deserved to get full props for his hard work. I suppose the facts do "suggest" that Brown was trying to aid Christie's political run, but it's still a weird, easily abused way to write a lede. The first arrests at the Watergate suggested that the White House was a lawless operation headed by a crook who was trying to spy on his Democratic rivals, but I don't think that's how Woodward & Bernstein's nut graf read. The allegation about Brown's motive was hardly necessary to make a good story--all the Times had to say was that in both cases Brown seems to have taken actions that actually helped Christie's campaign.
2) In its tour of anti-Christie accusations, the Times refers to
reports that [Christie] discussed a run for governor with Karl Rove in 2006 led Democrats to assert he had violated the Hatch Act, which forbids candidates from “testing the waters” for a run for office. [E.A.]
The Hatch Act forbids candidates from "testing the waters"? There's your story! A whole lot of politicians are going to jail if that's the case. But maybe the Times "computer assisted reporting team" should hit the keyboards to find out what the Hatch Act says first. (And is talking to Karl Rove "testing the waters"?)
3) "$20,000 in mileage reimbursements during his seven-year tenure" is less than $3,000 per year--not that much. Even if it does include $79 to see a Mets game.
It would be wrong of me at this point to mention the famous Howell Raines Spike (of reports damaging to Democratic New Jersey Senator Robert Torricelli when he was running for reelection) as evidence that the NYT is trying to elect Dems in New Jersey. It certainly "suggests" that! But we're in the age of partisan media and if the NYT wants to try to elect Dems the way Fox wants to elect GOPs, that's their right. ...
P.S.: If you believe the Feiler Faster Thesis, this story was dropped way too soon. Plenty of time before November 3 for Christie to change the narrative. But maybe in New Jersey Feiler is slower. ... 10:52 P.M.
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Good for the Juice? The prospects for health care reform have been looking up. I've now seen it described by two separate non-complacent pundits as a "fait accompli." The only problem is this. That part's not still going so well! ... P.S.: I was going to write a post saying that Democrats in Congress are likely to ignore the polls (and the survivalist id those polls awaken) simply because they won't want to have to go through this whole tedious process again. Then I thought, have they really hated the process? Legislation like this is a good "juice" bill--it motivates all sorts of lobbyists--for insurers, hospitals, drug companies, unions--give a Congressman lots of money to try to make sure the fine print goes their way. Suddenly even backbenchers are worth millions. Meanwhile only a few Senators and Representatives have, so far, been put on the spot and forced to make difficult votes, no? Unless you are one of those unlucky pols (e.g., Blanche Lincoln) what's not to like?
Someone who knows more about the culture of Congress might be able to better answer that question: Is Congress hating the health care reform slog or happily wallowing in it? ... 12:07 A.M.
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Funding for 300 miles of actual (not "virtual") fence along the Mexican border appears to have been killed in a House-Senate conference, after the Senate voted for it 54-44. So Senators from California, Arizona and Texas get to say they voted for the fence, but it doesn't get built. That's how Kabuki is done! ... [Tks to alert reader M] 12:06 A.M.
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Bending the curve both ways: Obama is planning to require a "Project Labor Agreements" on big federal construction projects, which will force non-union workers "to pay union dues and pension contributions for which they likely will never receive benefits," complains the Washington Times. But if that's what "delivering" for labor comes to mean, we'll have gotten off easy. Really delivering for labor would be applying Davis-Bacon-style government-set "prevailing wage" requirements to, say, all health care workers who are paid with federal money, no? ... [via Going Rogue] 12:05 A.M.
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It's Only a Draft: The prestigious Atlantic's Chris Good--perhaps as exhausted by the magazine's time-consuming Corporate Lobbyist Moneysuck as prestigious Atlantic columnist Andrew Sullivan after a "marathon twelve-hour session of passion"-- lectures Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal for saying that polls show "the people don't want" the Democrats' health care reform:
... [T]he polling doesn't say Americans oppose Democratic reforms. At best, we can say it's a mixed picture. Of the most recent, reliable, non-partisan major polls--a Sept. 12 Washington Post/ABC survey, an Economist/YouGov survey released Sept. 15, and a Sept. 25 NY Times/CBS poll--only the first shows Americans opposed to Democratic plans (48 percent to 52 percent); the other two show Americans in favor, though NY Times/CBS found that 46 percent say they don't know enough to decide. [E.A.]
The only problem with this paragraph is that in Good's highly selective survey of "the most recent, reliable" polls, he simply ignores the two YouGov polls taken after the Sept. 15 one he cites. Both showed a 51-49 majority opposed to health care reform. In other words, even if you ignore perfectly legit polls like NBC/Wall Street Journal and Rasmussen and use only the three polls Good picks, his sentence should read:
Of the most recent, reliable, non-partisan major polls--a Sept. 12 Washington Post/ABC survey, an Economist/YouGov survey released Sept. 29, and a Sept. 25 NY Times/CBS poll--two of the three show Americans opposed to Democratic plans. The only one showing even a plurality in favor is the wacky NY Times/CBS survey that managed to generate a 46 percent undecided number. [E.A.]
P.S.: Here's a handy page graphing recent polls for Good to bookmark in case he has to write about health care surveys again. It tends to support Jindal, if weakly. ... P.P.S.: This actually isn't a mistake you'd typically make if you set out afresh to look up the recent health care numbers. Maybe that's why I suspect someone fed Good this erroneous story, Dreidl style. Maybe someone he met at the prestigious First Draft of History conference! Who said it was a waste? [Update: Good's choice of polls seems based on an item he wrote about the 'public option' back on 9/29--ed. OK. But who fed him that, I ask you? Never explain by conspiracy what can be explained by laziness--ed Laziness is the Spoonfeeder's Friend!] ... 9:17 P.M.
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Lots of fuss lately about Toyota's troubles. ... I suppose there are two ways to look at it. 1) See, even Toyota's in trouble! Hah! ...2) Toyota is panicking and taking corrective action while there is still time as opposed to the Detroit/UAW traditional method of one step (or two, or three) too late. ... P.S.: I'm not saying that this too-little-too-late phenomenon is built into Wagner Act unionism. ... Oh wait. That's exactly what I'm saying. The Wagner Act sets up a clunky, rule-bound bureaucacy of tooth-pulling negotiation--especially when it comes to administering pain--that wouldn't have worked even in the WWII era of massive industrial behemoths if we'd had any competition. It certainly won't work today. ...
Of course, GM once tried to set up a subsidiary with a less clunky, less rule bound bureaucracy--with flexible shifts and profit sharing but many fewer work rules, etc.. The UAW killed it, lest all those efficiency-enhancing innovations spread to other GM factories (where they might have, you know, saved GM). That wasn't what unionism was all about, argued the UAW traditionalists. They were right. Paul Ingrassia has the grim details. [via Hit & Run via Insta]
Update: Fire Mickey Kaus helpfully documents kf's decade-long record of "fact-free-speculation" eerie prescience regarding the Plot to Kill Saturn. ...
P.P.S.: The Next GM/Chrysler Bailout (#2): Pelosi seems to be on board! [Detroit News]
Pelosi said Democrats want automakers to "thrive," and she hasn't ruled out additional support for automakers if they show that they are "viable."
Here's a striking chart suggesting why Bailout #2 might be needed sooner rather than later. ...Toyota is down 19%. But GM is down 45%. ... [via TTAC]
Update: Big Money's Matthew DeBord argues that "signs are actually good" for Detroit's Big Three because "[a]ll are seeing their market share increase," He's apparently referring to this chart, which shows GM's share rising (from about 18.8 percent in July to 19.46 in August to 20.87 in September) while Ford and Chrysler are essentially flat, Unfortunately, many more people bought cars in the cash-for-clunkers months of July and August, when GM's share was down. It doesn't do much good to have impressive market share in September if the market is puny. When you add up all the good and bad months in 2009 to date, in fact, GM's share has fallen from 22.3 in 2008 to 19.6 in 2009. Chrysler's down from 11 to 9.2, Meanwhile, Ford rose from 14.2 to 15.2 (and in the most recent three months is up at 16.4). Honda has gained a tiny bit and Toyota's share is flat. None of that convinces me that "signs" are "good" for GM and Chrysler. (It is suprising that Toyota hasn't capitalized on their distress, which may explain this.) ...12:21 P.M.
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A big 10-pt jump in relative support of health care reform in Rasmussen's latest poll, which either says something about public opinion or something about Rasmussen. Either way, it's good for Obama, since Rasmussen has been the most pessimistic of the health care pollsters.** ... Maybe everyone is calming down as familiar, boring Senate moderates take center stage. ... P.S.: But the Rasmussen progress is hardly enough to pacify the throbbing Congressional id--health care reform still loses by a 50-46 margin. ...
**--Update: Until this grim new FOX poll.. ...12:20 P.M.
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Always trust content ... : kf readers are not surprised Gourmet magazine is dead.. They're surprised that Bon Appetit isn't. ... 12:19 P.M.
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Congress' ego says the time to finish the health bill is now. Congress' id still says "We don't want to get killed in 2010." When the ego says 'yes,' politicians do dramatic things like cancel the Senate's scheduled Columbus Day recess. When id says 'no,' they slow down anyway. They oppose "arbitrary deadlines." They say things like, "We will vote on this when it is ready.”
It looks like the id is winning. From The Hill:
Senior Obama lieutenants, including Vice President Joe Biden, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, have all said recently they think Congress can get a bill to the president before the end of the Thanksgiving break.
The comments suggest the White House is trying to light a fire under congressional negotiators, but it doesn’t appear to be working. [E.A.]
The way to change the Congressional id's inclination--to "light a fire"--was for Obama's speech to move the polls dramatically in the direction of public support, especially among likely voters (e.g., seniors). It didn't--at least it didn't enough. ... 12:08 P.M.
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How defensive is Marc Ambinder about the Atlantic's pretentious, journalistically compromising** "First Draft of History" event? Yes, "[t]he company is making money off of this," he admits right off the bat. They are livestreaming it, to their credit, and you can listen to the "vital conversations" at the link above. ... It's going on right now! ... ... P.S.: Right now, Eric Cantor is saying nothing he hasn't said 100 times before and Chuck Todd is treading water. Not vital! I think I have to do some laundry. ... Update: Here are Thursday's breakout headlines! "Blackstone's Pete Peterson worried about the deficit." ...
**--Atlantic is "making money" by staging a conference at which the presence of powerful officials like Larry Summers, David Axelrod, and John McCain, plus businessmen like Citigroup's Vikram Pandit, creates an aura of prestige (and access) sufficient to attract sponsorship from companies like Boeing and Allstate and ExxonMobil. So are they really going to write something that pisses off Summers, Axelrod, McCain or Pandit so much that they don't come to the conference, or don't come to future conferences? At the very least they've engineered an obvious, gratuitous disincentive. ... Never mind pissing off Boeing and Allstate and ExxonMobil. ...
Remember, this conference obviously did not spring up to fill the need for more Washington conferences. It sprang up to fill the need for the Atlantic to finally start making some money. ... 12:29 P.M.
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Fire Up the Id! Now this is exciting: Over at OMB, Peter Orszag will be posting his "daily step count" as part of the OMB Pedometer Challenge! ... Finally they've figured out a way to make health care reform seem fun and appealing , as opposed to, say, a doomed, moralistic Carter-like attempt to get Americans to change their lifestyles in order to cut costs. ... [Thanks to alert reader J.] 1:10 P.M.
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kf in August, E.J. today.
kf Tuesday, Page Six today (Doris Kearns Goodwin style!) ... 2:17 P.M.
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There are two big Congressional health care stories:
The Ego Story: Will the Finance Committee hammer out a deal? What about the public option? Or a "trigger"? But Pelosi doesn't like the trigger! Can the competing plans ever be merged? Should the subsidy be increased? And how to pay for it: unions don't like taxing "Cadillac" health plans! The House vote is close too!
The Id Story: They're still scared to vote on the bill. It's not popular enough among people who vote. They don't want to die (politically).
As is so often the case, the ego story is in large part a cover for the id story. When Congress doesn't want to vote on a bill, there are lots of difficult issues to be negotiated. That turns out to take a lot of time. Sometimes, darn, those difficult issues just can't be resolved and the bill fails, even though everyone supports it in one form or another!
When the id says vote, the issues get resolved in a day or two. ... 1:02 P.M.
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