Winning Fealing

What a difference a day makes. And, you know, the signing of a sweeping health care bill.

Last week, the atmosphere in the Capitol–and indeed, all across political Washington–was tense, and ominous. Democrats hadn’t rounded up all the votes they needed (and ultimately found) to pass health care reform, and Senate Republicans knew it. They kicked up as much dust as they could to scare House members into killing their own bill. Fixing the health care bill with reconciliation would fail, they warned over and over again, and Dems would be stuck having enacting an unpopular reform.

Today, that’s all gone.

It started last night when Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin sided with the Democrats over the Republicans’ first major objection to the reconciliation bill. Republicans tried to get a major tax amendment stripped from the package on the grounds that it violated the Byrd rule…and they failed.

Today, Democrats are more confident than they’ve been in months. And while the Republicans haven’t completely surrendered, they’re clearly not the hard charging health care kamikazes they were weeks ago, when Democrats were ready to wave the white flag.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA)–one of the chief architects of the health care law–characterized the Democrats’ newfound confidence by characterizing the difference between Republicans and Democrats in campaign terms. Republicans, he said, want to take away all the goodies in the bill

“I can’t wait for this debate to happen. I look forward to it. I will relish it,” Harkin said, on his way into a weekly Democratic caucus lunch. “Now the bill is passed, its signed into law. Now the American people have something. They own it. It’s theirs. And the Republicans are saying they want to take it away from them.”

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/game-changer-dems-health-care-success-blunts-gop-momentum.php?ref=fpa

Rush the Bozo

In the course of the health care debate, right-wing pundits and politicians regularly made use of inflammatory rhetoric to fearmonger about the consequences of passing reform legislation. Now, following the historic vote by the House of Representatives last night that will extend health insurance coverage to tens of millions of Americans, conservative talkers have exploded with rage:

– Right-wing radio host Neal Boortz tweeted that “Nancy Pelosi will be grinning and laughing” following the health care vote, which “will do more damage than 9/11.” [3/21/10]

– Conservative blogger and and CNN contributor Erick Erickson bemoaned that “Democrats voted to put people in jail who have no insurance, raise the costs of health care, destroy the federal government’s bond rating, [and] keep unemployment high.” [3/21/10]

– Libertarian blogger Megan McArdle warned that “we wake up in a different political world” following the health care vote. She lamented, “Are we now in a world where there is absolutely no recourse to the tyranny of the majority?” [3/21/10]

– Fox News host Glenn Beck said on his radio show today that “Jesus Martinez” might support the health care bill, but “not the Jesus of Nazareth I know.” [3/22/10]

– Bill Kristol compared the passage of the health care bill to Napoleon Bonaparte’s Russia campaign, in which the former dictator was initially victorious but eventually beaten back. Kristol predicts that Obama’s “Waterloo will be November 6, 2012.” [3/22/10]

– Conservative talker Rush Limbaugh said on his show this morning that America is now “hanging by a thread” and that “our freedom has been assaulted.” [3/22/10]

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum wrote on his website last night that passage of the health care bill is a “win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.”

Think Progress » Right Wing Reacts With Rage: Health Care Will ‘Do More Damage Than 9/11,’ ‘Freedom Has Been Assaulted’.

Summit

President Obama challenged Republicans to do some “soul searching” on whether they will support the Democratic health care plan, using the final moments of his health care summit to ask them to put up or shut up. If they don’t want to cooperate, the two parties can battle it out at the polls this November, the president said.

Obama’s statement and Democratic reactions after the summit were the clearest signal yet that the majority party is charging ahead and abandoning attempts at bipartisanship.

Interest groups closely watching the summit said as much, and Republicans confirmed they won’t be voting for any Democratic plan that doesn’t start with a blank sheet of paper.

The attendees at the summit read statements about the need for reform and complained about process, but came to no agreement and spoke little about the substance of the bill up for consideration on Capitol Hill. The seven-hour marathon refereed by Obama gives Democrats political cover to press ahead and finish this up.

“We are going to move forward, the ball is in everybody’s court,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters after the summit.

At the summit, there was minor tension and some talking point smackdown, but Republicans raised no new objections and presented no new ideas, giving the Democrats the clear path ahead to go their own way.

“I’d like the Republicans to do some soul searching,” Obama said. “We cannot have another year-long debate about this.”

He said if there was “significant movement and not just gestures” from the GOP there would be no need to start over because there is so much agreement on the broad issues.

Obama said:

So the question that I’m going to ask myself and I ask of all of you is, is there enough serious effort that in a month’s time or a few weeks’ time or six weeks’ time we could actually resolve something?And if we can’t, then I think we’ve got to go ahead and some make decisions, and then that’s what elections are for. We have honest disagreements about — about the vision for the country and we’ll go ahead and test those out over the next several months till November.

He admitted that “politically speaking, there may not be any reason for Republicans to want to do anything,” but said he would sure like to try.

“I don’t need a poll to know that most Republican voters are opposed to this bill and might be opposed to the kind of compromise that we could craft. It would be very hard for you politically to do this,” he said.

Obama said there won’t be another summit like this one in the interest of time.

The president criticized Republican charges the bill is too long, saying he would have done something uncomplicated if that were possible. “We’d love to have a 5-page bill,” he said.

Charge! With Bipartisan Hurdle Cleared Democrats Will Finish Off Health Care VIDEO | TPMDC.

Arnold calls Republicans bogus

While Republican leaders in Washington are urging President Barack Obama to start from scratch on a health care bill, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday dismissed the idea as “bogus talk.”

It marked the second day in a row that Schwarzenegger strayed from his party’s positions.

On Sunday, he defended Obama’s economic stimulus plan and chided elected officials, most of them Republicans, who oppose the overall stimulus but are quick to trumpet individual projects in their states that are paid for by the stimulus.

Standing outside the White House after meeting privately with Obama on Monday, Schwarzenegger touted the economic stimulus plan yet again.

“I think the stimulus package has been very successful so far and I think California has benefitted tremendously,” he said.

Schwarzenegger also said it’s good that the president is reaching out to Republicans as he prepares for this week’s health care summit with congressional leaders.

“Since half of the people are Republicans, why would you exclude Republicans?” he asked. “Then half of the people hate you for having done health care reform.”

And he sided with Obama, saying it would be wrong to start all over in preparing health care legislation for Congress to consider.

“I think any Republican that says you should start from scratch, I think that’s bogus talk, and that’s partisan talk,” the governor told reporters.

Obama met with the governors as a group Monday morning. Schwarzenegger was the only governor to get a private meeting later with the president.

Schwarzenegger said he discussed a wide array of issues with the president, including roads and bridges, high-speed rail, education and creating new tax incentives for energy-efficient homes.

But he said the economy was the top issue.

“It was truly encouraging to see him being so interested in talking about job creation being his number one priority,” Schwarzenegger said.

via Schwarzenegger breaks with GOP on health care, stimulus | McClatchy.

A Trap? What? Really?

First he called congressional Democrats’ yearlong march toward health care overhaul an ugly process. Now President Barack Obama wants to talk directly with Republicans, the very people his Capitol Hill allies call obstinate and uncooperative.

It’s no wonder Democratic lawmakers are less than enthusiastic about Obama’s overture to the GOP.

The president has blamed special deals cut on Capitol Hill for the public’s skepticism about health care legislation, distancing himself from what he’s called “this Congress,” even though his White House was closely involved in the process. For their part, some congressional Democrats clamored for stronger leadership from Obama after an upset loss in a special election last month denied Democrats their filibuster-proof Senate majority, plunging the health overhaul into disarray.

But with the legislation languishing, the bipartisan health care summit Obama has set for later this month almost has to break the logjam, even if neither Democrats nor Republicans are particularly excited about it. Either the two parties come together against all odds or the event demonstrates that no bipartisan outcome is possible, spurring Democrats to act alone. Or, the summit is a bust and the entire health care overhaul falls apart.

“I think this is sort of his last-ditch effort” at a bipartisan deal, said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.

“Unless there’s a dramatic change by the Republicans, I don’t think that we’ll see much change,” Miller said. But, he added, “the president believes this is important. I don’t disagree with what he’s trying to do.”

Democrats see a few scenarios that could emerge from the Feb. 25 event, planned as a half-day televised forum. Details on attendees and format remain scant.

via Obama Health Care Summit: Democrats Skeptical Of Meeting With GOP.

Aides who shaped Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 1990s plan to cover all Americans, then labored in vain to pass it into law, are adamant that the Democrats can’t afford another health care disaster. But they’re divided on whether scaling down Obama’s plan would be an acceptable solution.

The Clintonistas – now in think tanks, universities, serving in the Obama administration or lobbying – are a potent voice in the furious debate within the Democratic Party over how to salvage health care. Listened to because they’re the veterans of the last health care policy war, they carry the scars of intense striving reduced to utter futility.

“If Bill Clinton couldn’t get it done, and Barack Obama can’t do it, no Democrat will ever try again,” said economist Len Nichols, health policy director at the New America Foundation. A Clinton White House health budget aide, Nichols has been operating as an unofficial adviser to lawmakers and administration officials wrestling with details of the current legislation.

“History is written by the victors, not the vanquished,” said Chris Jennings, congressional liaison for then-first lady Hillary Clinton during the 1990s debate. “Failure would serve as the ultimate judgment as to whether this effort was worth doing.” Jennings, now a lobbyist, replaced Ira Magaziner, principal architect of the Clinton plan, as White House health policy adviser.

The former first lady, now secretary of state, says “it’s really hard” watching the travails of Obama’s plan. Hillary Clinton has been giving advice, as requested, to lawmakers in Congress and administration officials, and says she’s still hopeful. “I’m not sure that this last chapter has been written,” she told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

For most of last year, the health care debate was among Democrats. Republicans were left heckling from the sidelines. That changed when Republican Scott Brown pulled off a Senate upset in Massachusetts, winning the seat held by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and depriving Democrats of the 60-vote majority they were counting on in the final push.

“Many of us thought we were really at the 1-inch line, then literally it was like being hit by a freight train with about 10 seconds’ warning,” said Ken Thorpe, a senior Health and Human Services official during the Clinton-era debate. Now a health policy professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Thorpe has proposed a scaled-back alternative in case Obama’s plan can’t get unstuck.

The mere mention of settling for less is causing consternation among former Clinton aides. Obama’s health care plan – denounced as a government power grab by critics – is already scaled back from the ambition of the Clinton years.

more….Clinton-Era Aides Watch Health Care Debate In Horror.

He told his kitchen story at a House Democratic caucus after Republican Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts sent Inslee’s colleagues into paroxysms of dismay, chaos and fear. Brown’s triumph reduced the Democrats’ majority in the Senate to “only” 59, and this led many in both houses to want to give up on health reform altogether. Even Obama was sounding an uncertain trumpet.

This made no sense to Inslee, a Democrat from Washington state. First elected to the House in 1992, he was swept out of office in the 1994 Republican landslide that followed the collapse of Bill Clinton’s health-care efforts. Four years later, Inslee returned to Congress.

“I introduced myself as a fella who was defeated in 1994, the last time we didn’t pass meaningful health-care reform,” Inslee recalls saying. “I said it was a painful event, and I didn’t want them to go through that pain.” In politics, he told his colleagues, assuming the “fetal position” can be the most dangerous thing to do.

And then he recounted all the grief he and his family went through while work on their kitchen renovation dragged on and on and on. “During that time, I had blood lust against my contractor,” Inslee said. “Six months went by, and he was still arguing with the plumber. Eight months went by, and there were still wires hanging down everywhere, and he was having trouble with the building inspector.”

But eventually, the job got done. “And now I love that kitchen,” Inslee recalls saying. “I bake bread in that kitchen. My wife cooks great meals in that kitchen. The contractor’s now a buddy of mine, and I’ve had beers with him in that kitchen.”

Inslee looked at his colleagues and declared: “We’ve got to finish the kitchen.” His point was that Americans won’t experience any of the benefits of health-care reform until Congress puts a new system in place.

I called Inslee about his kitchen oration after Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) told me it was one of the turning points in calming Democrats’ nerves. “Now,” Wu says, “people run into him in the hallway, smile and say, ‘Finish the kitchen.’ ”

Despite the president’s recent calls for bipartisan consultation, the task of finishing the kitchen will ultimately fall to congressional Democrats. The House needs to pass the Senate bill, and both chambers need to approve amendments to it. At least two amendments are essential to getting the bill through the House. They involve reducing the burden of the tax on “Cadillac” health-care plans, which is wildly unpopular with House members and voters; and getting rid of the special Medicaid subsidy deal for Nebraska, which just about everyone hates. Even Nebraska’s Ben Nelson, the senator for whom that deal was put together, wants it out.

The House and Senate disagree over the order in which these things should be done, but they can resolve this. The real problem is that some Senate Democratic moderates are petrified that Republicans will make terrible trouble if the amendments are passed through the “reconciliation process,” which is fancy congressional talk for majority rule. Reconciliation bills require a simple majority of the Senate, not the 60 votes that, wrongly, have come to be necessary to get any bill through.

more…..

E.J. Dionne Jr. – On health care: ‘Finish the kitchen’ – washingtonpost.com.

David Plouffe, now current and former campaign guru, to ABC’s Jake Tapper on “GMA” Monday: “The health care plan has become a caricature. And if we walk away from it now, everyone who supported it is going to have all of the downside and none of the upside.”
Unless it’s time for the president to pick up the fight: “I want him to issue a call to arms… A lot of us are waiting for him to join the fray and lead the fight,” Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Pa., told Tapper.

Or re-think it all, post health care: “I think he’s allowed the left wing to pull him too much in that direction,” said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

via Sen. Bill Nelson Attributes Health Reform Failure To Non-Existent Pressure From ‘The Left’.

dingell to dems

The longest serving member of the House of Representatives says Democrats need to act quickly to pass reform, and that the best way forward may be “Plan B”: to pass the Senate health care bill along with a separate bill amending it in a variety of ways. But after conversations with his colleagues he thinks members aren’t quite ready to settle on any course of action.

Rep. John Dingell (D-MI)–the Dean of the House–thinks Democrats should first put Republicans on the spot opposing the bill, then move ahead without them.

“They can go to conference,” Dingell told me in an interview this afternoon. “Bring the Republicans in. They’ve been whining about the need to have transparency, let them get up there and say that they oppose this bill before the people.”

Once that exercise is over, though, Dingell says Democrats should bare down and pass the Senate bill. “I don’t foreclose the utilization of the adoption of the Senate bill, accompanied by an agreed to piece of legislation to be embodied in the reconciliation package,” Dingell says. “And just tell the Republicans that you have a chance to co-operate with us, and if you don’t we’ll be proceeding.

“I’ve discussed it with members–everybody’s talking about it,” Dingell added. “Right now nobody is agreeing to anything, because we’re all trying to make up our minds what the facts are to support a particular course of action.”

That’s understandable, but will have to end soon. Ultimately, he says, members need to move urgently.

“There is only a limited amount of time to address this,” he said.

Dingell To Dems: Time Is Of The Essence On Health Care | TPMDC.