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Obama aide Anita Dunn, who started the White House war against Fox, is leaving her post. ... Meanwhile, Obama will give an interview to Fox's Major Garrett. ... Did Fox win? ... Or was it an October fundraising ploy all along? ... If Obama won, his communications shop certainly knows how to magnanimously make it look like he lost. ... Is that what Sun Tzu would do? ... 11/13 Update: Dunn a) declares victory on her way out the door("People took a step back and said, ‘Hmm, am I really wanting to go chase those stories?’”) b) lobs a few more shells c) suggests she had a White House pre-clearance to launch the war ("White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and perhaps even the president himself gave her the green light," says Sam Stein.) d) says “There are no confirmed television interviews in China," where the Major Garrett interview was reported to be planned. Won't that make it a bit embarrassing if it happens? ... P.S.: Still looks like a retreat to me, even if I agree with Dunn's underlying premise--that Fox News is in essence a different sort of animal from even MSNBC. ... 6:20 P.M.
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BriarPatch.org: From ABC's Note:
MoveOn.org is launching a round of TV ads this week targeting Democratic House members who voted against the health care bill over the weekend.
Thirty-nine Democrats voted against the bill, though MoveOn is starting by targeting only six fiscally conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats: Rep. Mike Ross, [D-Ark.]; Rep. Jason Atlmire, D-Pa.; Rep. Glenn Nye, D-Va.; Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va.; Rep. Larry Kissell, D-N.C..; and Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C. ...[snip]
A spokesman for the group said MoveOn plans to spend $500,000 on the ads, which come as liberals seek to pressure moderate Democrats in the Senate to support President Obama in his quest for health care reform.
Alert reader T. emails:
If you were a Democratic House Member from a relatively conservative district (especially if you've already taken a bad vote on cap and trade) how much would you pay MoveOn to come into your district and publicize your vote where you stood up to Pelosi and Obama on government-run health care?
True. But doesn't MoveOn know this? They still get to look tough, and raise money. Conservative Dems get to triangulate. It's win-win. ... 7:41 P.M.
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A very pretty mid-50s FIAT with a body by the late Elio Zagato. Note subtle grille graphics. ... 7:41 P.M.
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Pajama-Baiting: 1) You have to wonder if the unnamed Obama aide's "take off the pajamas" jibe was not a self-pitying expression of frustration but rather an intentional attempt to goad the liberal blogosphere, giving Obama some anger on the left to push back against, translating into a rise in the polls. Insta-Triangulation whenever he needs it--is that what the left bloggers do for Obama now? ... 2) The worst thing they could do, from this point of view, is to calm down. Don't cut him slack! Go wild. ... 3) This pajama-baiting, near-gaslighting strategy--bloglighting!--would fit the Obama White House pattern of attempting to set up superheated fringe figures as opponents--e.g. establishing Limbaugh, and Beck, and the Birthers as GOP leaders; ... 4) Don't assume it's Rahm! Early in the Clinton administration an inflammatory blind quote from an administration official predicted that the White House would "roll right over" Sen. Moynihan if necessary. It inflamed Moynihan, anyway. Many in the press assumed the quote came from foul-mouthed Clinton aide Rahm Emanuel. My understanding is it didn't. [Update: Moynihan apparently thought it was Rahm--his diaries indicate reporter Michael Kramer told him as much. I'd heard Bentsen. Update II: Kramer has said it was Bentsen, in print.]... Given point (3), I'd suspect Axelrod of the anti-pajamatism.. ... 11:27 A.M.
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GM Bailout II Watch: Signs are just so darn "good" for New! GM that the company is backing off its commitment to the 2010 IPO that might get the government back some of its money before the midterms, says TTAC. ... Robert Farago suggests a get-past-the-election solution that might hold some appeal for Dems desperate to show progress:
Sure, as mid-term elections approach, the feds may try to game the system, offering some kind of IPO-enabling investor “protection.”
Do you think that will fly--i.e. politically be worth the controversy that making it happen would engender (as opposed to simply delaying the IPO until 2011 and issuing an updated round of optimistic projections)? Me neither. ... :8:12 P.M.
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Expectations: Low! ... Expectations: Exceeded. A moderately effective speech. ...
1) Triangulation: Almost always works! Obama pushed off, most notably, against single payer but also against Dems who demand a public option. Didn't emphasize that the public option is itself a fairly centrist solution--as opposed to systems that would deny the private option. ...
2) Rebranding: Virtually none that I could see, despite a lot of talk among commentators (including Keith Hennessey). No attempt to pretend that this isn't the same bill and being sold as the same bill. ...
3) Orszagism: Still there, but gets an image makeover. In it's new, airbrushed form, we're told that "our health care problem is our deficit problem" (which it is) but not that Obama's reforms are necessarily the solution to the deficit problem (which they aren't, even if they'd work--you could also raise taxes or cut spending elsewhere). The content of those long-term structural reforms is redefined along free-lunch, non-grandiose lines: Obama no longer insists that the bill "reduce health-care inflation" or transform the "health care delivery system." Only "waste and abuse" that does "nothing to improve your care" will be targeted. That's a relief! Only "common sense best practices" will be encouraged by the new cost-cutting panel. All building up to the central iffy policy pitch
[W]e've estimated that most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings within the existing health care system
Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan ..
a) Does anyone really believe this--that is, if you define waste and inefficiency as things that don't actually help improve your health, as opposed to things that might improve your health marginally but aren't worth the cost? b) Specifically, does the average Medicare recipient feel that the system that he enjoys is rife with waste, inefficiency, fraud, and abuse? I suspect not. This seems like the greatest point of vulnerability in the speech. ... Faced with the need to choose between a) alarming centrist budget hawks concerned about deficits driven by rising health costs and b) alarming seniors concerned about the measures that might be taken to control rising health costs, Obama chose to pretend the problem didn't exist (though he did throw budget hawks a crude procedural bone--see #9 below). ...
4) "This-is-the-moment-ism: Why, after posing as a practical moderate, go on and on about the need to avoid timidity and do "what the moment calls for" and "history's test." Obama couldn't let a speech slip by without veering into grandiosity--but this very grandiosity undercuts his attempt to appear like a reassuring centrist who wants to disrupt existing arrangements as little as possible. Makes kicking the can "further down the road" suddenly seem vaguely appealing. Instead of "this is really a big deal like 1935 and 1965," why not say "this really isn't such a big deal"? ... In particular, couldn't Obama somehow make the point that a trillion dollars over 10 years isn't such a big deal. He tried, by comparing it to expensive things the Dems didn't like (the Iraq War, tax cuts). More effective would be comparison to effective things the Dems and the voters do like (i.e.,"that's less than a sixth of the cost of Social Security" or "one fifth as much as Medicare now costs each year"). It's only $100 billion a year, people!
5) Heckling: Effective, I thought, outweighing the disrespect effect. Showed that there was some dissent about Obama's flat assertions about, for example, no coverage for illegal aliens. (The dissent involves whether there is any verification mechanism that will actually stop illegals from getting coverage, whatever the law says.) But then I'm the guy who thought Rick Lazio taught Hillary Clinton a lesson. Brian Williams was clearly upset, but he only has one vote. (I normally ask my mother about issues like this, but she was watching Federer.) ... Assignment: This can't be the first time a President has been heckled. ...
6) Specificity: "This exchange will take effect in four years ..." Confident assertions of specifics suggest that Obama is in control and laying down the law. Needed more of these....
7) Kennedy: This section surprisingly effective, given that everyone knew it was coming. I'd prefer an appeal to social equality as opposed to "large heartedness," but then the Kennedys--or at least Teddy--don't precisely stand for social equality, do they? ...
8) "[T]here is something that could make you better, but I just can't afford it." A good description of the need for health care coverage expansion. But why not broaden it into a general principle--that we don't say, as a society, "there is something that could make you better but we can't afford it." Because then it could be used as an argument against rationing in the future? And that would be a problem because.....
9) Veto threat: The clearest veto pledge Obama made was: "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future." Is Obama really going to veto a plan because if nothing is done it will add to the deficit in 15 years? And if so, why? The other problem with this pledge, which he repeated for effect, is that it tethers Obama to the deficit-estimating methods of the CBO, which in turn leads him to endorse a plan for mandatory "spending cuts if the savings we've promised don't materialize." That won't reassure voters worried about, you know, spending cuts, and it doesn't make any policy sense. If the savings don't materialize, why not raise taxes, or cut the HUD budget, or Social Security? Why do the savings have to come from medical care? But the CBO loves such mandatory fallback cuts, so they're in. ... Keep in mind, these are cuts that go into effect after the administration's plans to pick the low-hanging fruit of "waste" that doesn't impact care have been exhausted. Doesn't that imply that the mandatory spending cuts will come at the expense of care? ... Update: Hennessey seems to think the fallback spending cut plan is an attempt to muscle the CBO into saying"the bills don’t increase the long-term budget deficit" without doing the things that would make the cuts actually automatic. If that's true, I don't quite understand--why set up a big fight with the CBO that you might lose, after you've pledged to veto the bill if you lose it? Seems as if CBO holds all the cards in that one, no? ...
10) How Much Government is Enough? Just as Obama's winding up, he drifts off into locker dorm room musings about whether "the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little." Why, in a speech that's already too long? We're not debating philosophy. We're fixing the health care problem. ... Ditto the airy discussion of civility that follow, which seemed like a bone thrown to those who wanted a condemnation, but which only got in the way of an effective "I hear you" pitch. ... 6:49 P..M.
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What would be the best thing that could happen to Obama? Losing Congress in 2010, argues Red State's Erick Erickson of Red State. It worked for Bill Clinton! Think how popular Obama would be if he was standing up against mean GOP legislators instead of trying (or pretending to be trying) to pass unpleasant bills like cap & trade, immigration legalization and "card check." ... Even better: Pass a health care bill and then lose Congress in 2010. ...
Minor Hmms: 1) As things stand now, Erickson says, "Barack Obama cannot work the center." Hmm. I'm not so sure about that. He could be working the center a lot harder than he has been on education, welfare, the auto bailouts and the CIA, to name four. (And he probably thought he was working the center when he focused his health care pitch on curve-bending cost-control. Goes to show it's not enough to mindlessly triangulate.) ...
2) Erickson speculates that if Obama lost Congress he'd still get immigration reform through, thanks to moderate GOP senators like Grassley and Bennett. Hmm, again. Isn't immigration more likely to remain another one of those Washington Mirage Issues where you can technically count enough votes for legalization, but (because legislators are rightly skittish) the vote somehow magically never takes place? ...
3) Erickson even speculates that Obama, recognizing the utility of a loss in 2010, will "start" to undermine the Blue Dogs in swing districts. Really? "Start"? What would he do to undermine the Blue Dogs that he's not doing already? ... Hmm. 6:21 P.M.
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Barack got your tongue? Yesterday's post by formerly prolific OMBlogger and kf Designated Fall Guy Peter Orszag was his first in three weeks. ... 6:52 P.M.
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Jon Alter's latest column--calling for health care to be treated as a "civil right"--brings up an underdiscussed question: In a single payer plan, would health care be treated as a constitutional entitlement that couldn't be taken away without "due process" under the Warren Court's so-called "New Property" doctrine? My Con Law knowledge is a few decades out of date--but the doctrine covered welfare benefits, guaranteeing a hearing to individuals before they could be denied. Why not health benefits? ...
Isn't it possible, then, that rules produced by Orszag's cost-cutting IMAC board preferring some treatments over others, or some patients over others, would be hamstrung by constitutional proceduralism? Maybe sick patients who want disfavored Treatment X would sue and demand an individualized hearing before their "right" to that treatment could be denied.
And if the "New Property" operated to constitutionalize treatment rights in a single payer system, would the same doctrine apply to a so-called "public option" plan that competed with private plans in a health insurance "exchange"? If not, maybe a government-run "public option" would have an efficiency advantage over government-run single-payer. It wouldn't have to worry about all those hearings.
In fact, the more I think about the "public option" idea, the more it appeals to me--not because it's the "thin end of a wedge that will move the system" towards single payer, as Clive Crook summarizes it, but because it seems superior, in some respects, to single-payer.
1) Obama sells the "public option" as a way to "keep the private insurers honest." But the converse effect might be more important: the private insurers in the "exchange" would keep the "public" plan honest. Sure, in this marketplace the government plan will probably get the lion's share of customers. It will offer more security, for one thing. But if it starts to provide lousy service, or excludes too many treatments, the private plans might start to lure some of those customers away. Private insurers would provide an escape valve--an "exit"--unavailable in single-payer government monopoly. The obvious analogy is to private "charter" schools competing with public schools.
2) Likewise, if the public insurers managed succumbed to cost-bloat--if all the people who washed the laundry in hospitals became unionized, for example, and politicized government plans blithely passed the giant resulting bill on to their customers (not wanting to anger the SEIU and other good Dem supporters)-- the private sector might underbid the public plan and 'bend the cost curve' down! Again, that's something that probably wouldn't happen in a single payer scheme; and
3) As discussed, "public option" might help avoid having every "we won't pay for this treatment" decision become a constitutional issue in a way a universal, single-payer entitlement couldn't.
I'm not saying all the differences between the two sorts of plans would cut against single payer--some days it seems completely appropriate to handle treatment decisions as a constitutional matter, since lives are at stake. If a single payer plan is, as a result, less able to deny treatments, that could be a feature, not a bug.
I'm just saying the differences between the two forms of "government" plan have been blurred (mainly by the right), that some of those differences may favor the "public option," and that Obama may be missing a bet in failing to defend the "public option" by pushing off against government-run single payer plans of the left rather than by pushing off against the greedy, evil private insurance companies.
Triangulation--something that lets Obama seem a centrist--helps at this point, right? Or are voters worried that he's insufficiently fond of unchecked government dominance? ... 3:18 A.M.
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Obama's Not-A-State-Of-the-Union Speech: a) Solid; b) No Sully? (That was probably a good call--focusing on the schoolgirl who wrote "We are not quitters" was fresher and highly effective. And her plane didn't crash! That wasn't Sullenberger's fault, but it's not the best metaphor for economic recovery.) c) Worst problem came right at the beginning, where Obama tried to link the economic crisis with failure to address long term problems in energy, health care, and education:
Nor did all of our problems begin when the housing market collapsed or the stock market sank. We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before. The cost of health care eats up more and more of our savings each year, yet we keep delaying reform. Our children will compete for jobs in a global economy that too many of our schools do not prepare them for. And though all these challenges went unsolved, we still managed to spend more money and pile up more debt, both as individuals and through our government, than ever before.
How, exactly, did failure to find new sources of energy cause the recession? Obama could be right, but he didn't make the logical link clear. After listening, it sure still seems to me the problems begin when the housing market collapsed and the stock market sank! The people who helped produce the collapse--e.g. Jim Johnson, plus whoever had the bright idea of securitizing risky mortgages and insuring everything through AIG--are more to blame than governments that failed to invest in wind power. ... Not that Obama's three long term crises aren't really long-term crises. But they seemed unconnected to the short-term crisis--they're just things he'd (rightly) like to address. d)
I understand that when the last administration asked this Congress to provide assistance for struggling banks, Democrats and Republicans alike were infuriated by the mismanagement and results that followed. So were the American taxpayers. So was I.
'That's why I made one of the men most responsible for the last administration's plan responsible for my plan, as Treasury secretary;' e) The flabby education section was saved by one sentence:
And we will expand our commitment to charter schools.
But if you are going to build effective support for charter schools, don't you have explain why they are important? Maybe a stealth strategy will work, as the number of charter school parents grows and they become an effective lobbying force. But it's more likely that making the "hard choices" requires some negativity about the resource-gobbling education establishment that would rather charter schools went away. ...f) Obama pitched his ambitious health plans as a way to "address the crushing cost of health care." Hmm. Weren't we told that the genius of Hillary Clinton's health care plan was that it deferred the cost-reduction issue and focused on providing coverage first? I think we were! That certainly seems like the easiest way to go (in part because, if you believe health care costs are driven by expensive and useful new technologies, universal coverage will never happen if you have to control costs first). That Obama wants to reverse Hillary's order--costs first, coverage later--becomes clearer when you parse the relevant section:
It includes an historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform – a down-payment on the principle that we must have quality, affordable health care for every American. It’s a commitment that’s paid for in part by efficiencies in our system that are long overdue. [E.A.]
So "comprehensive health care reform" isn't universal coverage at all. It's a package of cost-cutting measures that precede (are a "down payment" on) a "principle" of universal coverage. Yikes. ...g) In general, the speech had its usual effect on me, only amplified this year--which was to make me hate all the senators and representative gathered in the House to unctuously pretend on camera that they're supportive of the President. They're not the people who are going to help him succeed. They are the people who are going to conspire, probably successfully, to prevent him from succeeding. That goes for Pelosi's Democratic troops--who'll oppose education and entitlement reforms, who'll oppose ending "programs that don't work," who've already polluted the stimulus with bureaucracy-building measures- as well as Boehner's troops who will just oppose. Triangulation can't come soon enough. ... 7:41 P.M.
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Tuesday, January 13, 2009
UAW President Gettelfinger pisses on Steven Rattner's possible selection as "Car Czar." Has the union been rummaging around in NEXIS? ... P.S.: But then he'll have to go back to writing for Portfolio and losing money on Maxim. After all those contributions!. ... He still has my full support. ... P.P.S.: You'd expect to see this revealing controversy fully covered in the pages of the New York Times, right? Even though Rattner is the NYT publisher's friend, right? ... Hello? ... Correction: The NYT's oddly formal, bland, unbylined Tuesday story (which I missed) is here. If it wasn't written under special Pravda-esque constraints, it does a good job of seeming that way. ... Update: The NYT story was actually printed (at the bottom of page B3) in Wednesday's paper, which means there was plenty of time to have included the Gettelfinger comments, which seem kind of relevant. ... It's asking too much to expect Pinch's paper to mention, in its potted bio of Rattner, his recent business setbacks. According to the Wall Street Journal, Rattner's firm, Qadrangle, "has struggled as of late. Quadrangle closed down a poorly performing hedge fund late last year ...." ... Update: The Big Money goes where the NYT fears to tread. 11:10 P.M.
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Uh-oh: General Motors' talks with the UAW over bankruptcy-avoiding wage and work rule concessions have barely begun and already GM CEO Rick Wagoner is talking about asking for more bailout money from Congress, even after the alleged March "deadline." Getting billions more from the taxpayers is something the union and management can agree on! If Obama actually wants them to come up with a cost-cutting deal ... well, it's never too early for a second veto threat. ... P.S.: He'll need to control his own party, yet again:
A Democratic bill circulated last week included provisions that could alter the terms of the loan and ease the requirements on the union to lower labor costs. (WSJ)
None dare call it triangulation. ... 10:57 P.M.
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Sen. Voinovich won't seek reelection. So how are labor unions going to scare him into supporting "card check" with the threat of campaigning against him? Just asking! ... 10:46 P.M.
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Early Veto is Like Yeast: "I don't think that's the way you start out a presidency," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va, speaking of the possibility that newly-sworn President Obama would veto a Congressional resolution disapproving the second $350 billion bailout. Why not? A veto seems like a terrific way for Obama to start out his presidency, by showing Congressional Democrats that he won't be pushed around. Legislators will always claim that vetoes are negative "optics"--conflict!--because vetoes are what constrain them. They'd rather have their bloated budgets and other deals sail into law on a wave of backslapping Washington comity. George W. Bush didn't veto anything in his first five years in office--is his success at controlling his own party's Congressional majority's excess something Obama wants to emulate? ... The only veto Obama should be worried about is a veto that would be overridden, but that is said to be highly unlikely in this case. ... 10:40 P.M.
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Kevin Drum argues a tight labor market isn't an alternative to "greater unionization" when it comes to increasing wages at the bottom of the distribution, saying I've
never explained just how we're going to get to this paradise of perpetual high economic growth and tight labor markets — even though there's a Nobel prize waiting for him if he does. The dotcom bubble managed to accomplish it for three or four years out of the last 30, but that's about it. So until I hear the plan, I'll stick with my support for unions, flawed though they may be.
And Drum has a plan for "low-end wage growth" that doesn't involve restoring the economy? Good luck with that. There's a double Nobel waiting for him, I guess. A triple Nobel if he can boost wages at the bottom while simultaneously letting in millions of unskilled low-wage immigrants. ... P.S.: Drum seems to be explicitly embracing "pie-slicing"--redistributing shares of a non-growing economy--as an alternative to "pie enlargement." Nothing, at first glance, so terribly wrong with that. But can Drum point to a period in modern American history when low-end wages grew without an expanding economy? At least I've got the '90s (and the 60s). ... My crude default view: If we have robust economic growth, we don't need greater unionization to boost low-end wages. If we don't have economic growth, then greater unionization isn't going to do much to boost low-end wages by itself. And greater unionization will actually make economic growth less likely.**
**--Why? Because the litigious, adversarial, cumbersome everything-must-be-negotiated culture and structure of American unionism is incompatible with the flexible, rapidly changing workplace required to be globally competitive in the twenty-first century! (E.g., compare Toyota's production system with Detroit's model.) That's one reason why. ... Also, greater union power (at least until you get to near-universal unionization) promotes the wage-price spiral, requiring depressive Fed action to tame inflation. That's another reason. ... 10:04 P.M.
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