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Posts by Chris Bowers
The Problem With The Public Option Is That It Lowers The Cost Of Health Insurance
Posted by Chris Bowers on June 30, 2009 at 12:48 PM.
The main goal of health care reform is to lower the cost of health insurance. Apropos, Olympia Snowe thinks that the problem with a public health insurance option is that a public option would... wait for it... lower the cost of health insurance:
In an Associated Press interview in Portland, Snowe said it would be unfair to include a government-run health insurance option that would take effect immediately."If you establish a public option at the forefront that goes head-to-head and competes with the private health insurance market ... the public option will have significant price advantages," she said.
Well, duh. That is the whole point. You can't lower the price of health insurance unless you start offering lower-priced health insurance. It's a tautology.
So, naturally, during the fight to lower the price of health insurance, so-called moderate Senators think that the problem with the public option is that it would... lower the price of health insurance. While it may be news to so-called moderate Senators, protecting the crappy products of large corporations is not their job description.
It is pretty amazing that many moderates and industry figures are actually arguing that the problem with including a public option in health care reform legislation is that a public option would lower the cost of health insurance. Clearly, they have a different view of the purpose of health care reform than most Americans.
Right-Wingers Are No Longer the Problem; So-Called 'Moderates' Are
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on June 29, 2009 at 12:15 PM.
We have spent so long living under a government that is dominated by the right-wing of the Republican Party, that we are still having a difficult time coping with the new political reality. The right-wing is no longer the problem. The so-called "moderates" in Congress are.
From watering down the size of the stimulus, to weakening the climate change bill, to seriously threatening the public option, to blocking EFCA, cramdown and full voting rights for D.C., moderates have consistently blocked the truly transformative aspects of the Democratic agenda. Despite this, the full force of progressive media attacks remain focused on the right-wing, rather than upon these so-called moderates.
A perfect case in point comes from the climate change bill that passed the House on Friday. The bill had been consistently weakened from its original form. By his own admission, President Obama had originally wanted a 100% auction on the emission allowances, instead of 85% give-aways to polluting industries. Further, the renewable energy standards also plunged, and now barely surpassing the business as usual projections.
However, none of these concessions were made to appease right-wing global warming deniers, all of whom still voted against the still. Instead, the concessions were made for "moderates" in both parties, not a single one of whom would publicly deny the human role in climate change. While they claim to believe in the dangers of climate change, what they all really believed in were huge giveaways to corporate interests within their districts. Such giveaways,as Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill reminded us over Twitter immediately following the House passage of the climate change bill, is the real meaning of moderation:
I hope we can fix cap and trade so it doesn't unfairly punish businesses and families in coal dependant states like Missouri.
By which McCaskill actually means that she doesn't want the bill to do anything to Peabody Energy, the largest corporate user of coal in the world, which happens to be headquartered in Missouri. Clearly, she plans to engage in the same weakening tactics at which "moderates" in the House proved so adept on this bill.
These so-called moderates are the real barrier to the progressive change that the country needs right now. As such, we should be directing our fire at them, rather that at the right-wing. Currently, the right-wing has no power whatsoever unless the moderates in Congress choose to side with them. And yet, it is the right-wing that progressive media keep aiming most of their attacks. For example, consider Paul Krugman's column on the passage of the climate change bill, where he characterizes the main opposition to the bill as climate change deniers:
So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement.But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases.
And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn't help thinking that I was watching a form of treason - treason against the planet.
To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Why Arlen Specter's Health Care Defection is Still Kind of Depressing
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on June 26, 2009 at 11:00 AM.
In a validation of the progressive primary challenge strategy, Arlen Specter today reversed his position on a public health care option.
Here was Arlen Specter on May 3rd when he was up by 40 points in his primary campaign against Joe Sestak:
MR. GREGORY: Let me--I just want to turn, then, to the issue of health care. You would not support a public plan?SEN. SPECTER: That's what I said...
MR. GREGORY: OK.
SEN. SPECTER: ...and that's what I meant.
Specter meant it so much that now, seven weeks later, with his lead over Joe Sestak reduced to 20 points (see polling trends here), that he has completely reversed his position:
Speaking moments ago to a large and animated crowd of union organizers and health reform advocates in a brewing house just North of the Capitol, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) said he supports a public insurance option."Schumer has it right about having a public component," Specter said.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has taken a lead role on negotiations over the public option in the Senate Finance Committee, and earlier this year proposed a compromise: the committee's health care bill should include a public plan, he said, but one that competes on a level playing field with other insurers.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Congress: Back-Room Deals and Inexorable Slides to the Right
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on June 23, 2009 at 2:49 PM.
A deal has been nearly reached on the climate change bill:
House Democratic leaders late last night released a revamped, 1,201-page energy and global warming bill (pdf), clearing the way for floor debate Friday even though it remains uncertain if they will have the votes to pass it.
Collin Peterson, and his Amalgamated Brotherhood of Climate Change Isn't Our Damn Problem, appears to have won just about all of his desired concessions:
The House bill posted on the Rules Committee Web site has grown from the 946-page version adopted last month in the Energy and Commerce Committee. Sources on and off Capitol Hill said the bulk of the changes largely reflect requests from the eight other committees that also had jurisdiction over the bill, including the Ways and Means Committee and Science and Technology Committee.
While environmental groups and climate change activists have repeatedly vowed that the bill needs to be strengthened, no amendments will be allowed on the floor debate that will actually allow the bill to be strengthened. Instead, the backroom deal means that coal and agribusiness get their concessions, but there isn't even a chance for green groups to try and make the bill better. Everything will be thrown together in a single manager's amendment:
Sponsors expect to draft a manager's amendment later this week that reflects additional deals reached among lawmakers, according to several House Democratic aides.
And if you want to know what the final language of the bill is before it is voted on, good luck with that.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Pelosi: Health Care Reform Without Public Option Will Not Pass the House
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on June 11, 2009 at 1:04 PM.
It appears that progressives are holding a hard line on the public option in the House. Speaker Pelosi has now stated, on consecutive days, that there are not enough votes in the House to pass a health care reform bill without a public option:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the Huffington Post Thursday that a health care overhaul that did not include a public option wouldn't make it through the House because it "wouldn't have the votes."(...)Asked by HuffPost if she would allow a reform package without a public option out of the House, she responded: "It's not a question of allow. It wouldn't have the votes."
Good. This is exactly the sort of line progressives must draw.
Also, this almost certainly means that health care reform will be passed through the reconciliation process. There simply are not 60 votes in the Senate to pass a public option. Since there are not enough votes in the House to pass health care reform without a public option, going through reconciliation is the only conceivable path at this point.
Stop Being Distracted by Loudmouths Like Limbaugh: The Real Problem Is Lousy Democrats Like Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on June 10, 2009 at 3:27 PM.
Sign up now to fight for the public option
Here is a message that progressive organizations and media outlets need to start sending to all Democratic party committees and members of Congress:
We are done attacking Republicans until you pass a public option for health care.
Until a public option is passed, I don't want to hear about the latest hate and idiocy spewing from Limbaugh, or Tancredo, or Palin, or Gingrich, or whoever. And to tell you the truth, I don't want to attack them for it, either. Because, right now, Republicans are not the obstacle to progressive governance. Instead, Democrats who refuse to support a public option are the obstacle.
More in the extended entry.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
The Future of News Is Nonprofit
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on June 4, 2009 at 3:24 PM.
All of the discussions about the future of newspapers and journalism are never going to get anywhere until more people come to the realization that there is no future for profit-maximizing news outlets. There are simply too many media outlets, especially online, that are willing to produce and distribute quality news information either for free, or for prices and that will never lead to profitability, for profit-maximizing organizations to successful, and sustainably, compete with them. As time goes on, these media outlets will only continue to expand in number and audience, undercutting for-profit news outlets all the way.
The lack of a viable, profit-maximizing model for news outlets is probably obvious to most proprietors of media outlets. In the online world, for example, most full-time bloggers know they must rely on free content produced by readers (virtually every large blog already does this), procure alternative sources of income, and work ridiculously long hours (not to mention wonderful donations by readers!), just to scratch by. As Yglesias writes, it is hard to compete with free:
The startup costs of a decent website are pretty small in the scheme of things. And there are lots of people and institutions-academics looking to bring their research to a wider public, think tanks and advocacy organizations looking to influence the public debate, corporations like Google looking to express their views on policy debates, students trying to get an edge in the job market, authors hoping to promote a book-with perfectly good incentives to run websites that don't aspire to maximize profits.(...)
[L]ots of people want to write about political issues for reasons that have nothing to do with profit-maximization. And my sense is that organizations are increasingly doing this. CAP/AF was a think tank early adopter in terms of building robust in-house new media capacity, but to the best of my knowledge just about every think tank and advocacy shop in town would like to get in on the action. And ultimately, a proliferation of content that's not supposed to make money is going to make it even harder than it already is for those trying to make profits to do so.
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Obama Receives Large Sotomayor Bump
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on May 29, 2009 at 10:19 AM.
Rasmussen had been showing President Obama with lower approval ratings than other outlets. They are still doing so, but the trendlines and demographic crosstabs since Sotomayor's nomination are important (emphasis mine):
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 37% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Obama is performing his role as President. Twenty-seven percent (27%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of +10. That's the first time the President Index rating has reached double digits since March 31 (see trends).On Tuesday morning, just before announcing Sotomayor's selection, the President's Approval Index rating had fallen to the lowest level yet recorded, +1. Since then, the President's numbers have improved significantly among Hispanic voters and liberal voters. Hispanic voters strongly favor the confirmation of Sotomayor who is in line to become the first Hispanic Justice.
The Daily Kos / Research 2000 poll, some of which was conducted before hte Sotomayor nomination, showed President Obama improving to
from
among Latinos. Next week's results should be more enlightening, as will polls from other news outlets next week.
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Senate Republicans Won't Fight Sotomayor Nomination
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on May 28, 2009 at 10:02 AM.
It looks like the Sotomayor nomination fight is over before it began:
Top Senate Republican strategists tell POLITICO that, barring unknown facts about Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the GOP plans no scorched-earth opposition to her confirmation as a Supreme Court justice.More than 24 hours after the White House unveiling, no senator has come out in opposition to Sotomayor's confirmation.
"The sentiment is overwhelming that the Senate should do due diligence but should not make a mountain out of a molehill," said a top Senate Republican aide. "If there's no 'there' there, we shouldn't try to create one."
Barring something currently unforeseen, this one is over.
Even so, the process of the appearance of a fight still holds a lot of potential benefits for Democrats and progressives. First, a weak opposition to Sotomayor by Senate Republicans could open a real "rootsgap" between Republican Senate leaders and an activist base that has long rabidly focused on the judiciary. Second, Democrats can continue to concern troll the racially charged conservative media attacks on Sotomayor, which threaten both to drive a further wedge between Latinos and Republicans, and also to further the process story of "Republicans in series electoral trouble."
Confirming Sotomayor will be a substantive victory for Democrats (at least compared to the sort of nominee a Republican would have picked, if not over Souter's rulings). Right now, however, with that victory all but guaranteed, we need to keep hammering on the process of the fight, because it can do real long-term damage to the conservative movement and the Republican Party.
Conservatives' Crazy Reactions to Obama's Supreme Court Nominee
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on May 26, 2009 at 12:22 PM.
The negative reaction from conservatives on Sotomayor is the best indication that her nomination is a good thing for progressives. Here is a sampling:
Mitt Romney, hairdo and conservative movement suck-up:
The nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is troubling.
Ed Whelan, President, Ethics & Public Policy Center
President Obama abided by his dismal and lawless "empathy" standard and, in his selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, picked a nominee whom he can count on to indulge her own liberal biases.
Mike Huckabee, Republican gaffe-master (yes, his PAC really said "Maria" Sotomayor in their first release):
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The Climate Bill Will Continue to Be Watered Down
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on May 18, 2009 at 9:24 AM.
When the original draft of the The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES), was introduced on March 31st, it was considered good, though far from perfect, by most progressive climate change analysts and organizations. Climate Progress gave the bill a B+ (whatever that means). Greenpeace wrote that the bill was a first good step, must that it must be strengthened. The Sierra Club called it a "strong start." Friends of the Earth issued a more mixed reaction.
Last week, as part of a pre-markup deal, the already imperfect ACES was watered down a bit more. In response, Climate Progress lowered its grade, and several environmental groups issued an angry joint statement. The Sierra Club has vowed to "strengthen" the bill. Dave Roberts hoped that it can be strengthened in the Senate.
However, in all likelihood, the ACES will never be strengthened beyond its current form. All of the progressive climate change groups listed above would do extremely well just if the bill did not get any worse. This is because there are several more hurdles for the bill to leap, which I attempt to describe in detail in the extended entry.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Is President Obama Putting Net Neutrality At Risk?
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on May 2, 2009 at 9:31 AM.
There is a disturbing possibility that President Obama has put his excellent open media and network neutrality platform at risk with his latest--and last--Democratic FCC appointment, Mignon Clyburn.
There are five seats in the FCC, and "only three commissioners may be members of the same political party." For the next five years, the FCC will have a 3-2 Democratic majority, once the remaining Republican open seat has been filled. That makes this appointment by President Obama the key swing vote that will largely determine FCC policy and regulation over the next five years.
The reason Mignon Clyburn is such a worrying pick is that she is the daughter of South Carolina Representative James Clyburn, who has an anti-Net Neutrality record:
In 2006, Representative Clyburn voted against H. Amdt. 987 to ensure that network neutrality clauses be added to the Title VII of the Communication Act of 1934. The amendment required all broadband service provides to "operate its broadband network in a nondiscriminatory manner so that any person can offer or provide content, applications, and services through, or over, such broadband network with equivalent or better capability than the provider extends to itself or affiliated parties, and without the imposition of a charge for such nondiscriminatory network operation."
While Mignon might not have the same views as her father, what we do know about her ranges from unclear to unpromising:
Here's what we do know. Clyburn serves on the South Carolina public service commission (which is considered very pro-Bell). She is virtually unknown by knowledgeable telecom people. And, she seems to have focused more on energy issues than telecom, if early accounts are to be believed. Plus, Verizon and the cable trade association are very happy. All in all, not good.
And check out this creepy comment that appeared below the Washington Post story on Clyburn's appointment:
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Republicans Threaten to Become Bigger Assh*les
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on April 24, 2009 at 9:48 AM.
If Democrats provide cheaper and more accessible health care to Americans, Republicans have promised to publicly turn themselves into the biggest partisan assholes of the last forty years.
Seriously. That is the actual political calculation Senate Democrats face on health care reform right now. It is the most obvious win-win political calculation Democrats have been presented with during my entire lifetime.
If Democrats use the budget reconciliation process, which denies Republicans a filibuster option, to invest two-thirds of a trillion dollars into health care, Republicans are "threatening" to do the following:
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Getting Serious About Holding Democrats Accountable
Posted by Chris Bowers on April 21, 2009 at 6:19 AM.
Hold conservative Democrats accountable--contribute to BlogPac now.
Just in case anyone had their doubts about whether progressive groups are serious about holding Blue Dogs, conservodems, and other center-right Democrats accountable for supporting Wall Street and conservative groups instead of supporting their own constituents, doubt no more. The following video is the first paid media campaign from a large progressive coalition designed to hold Democrats accountable on mortgage bankruptcy reform, otherwise known as "cramdown."
Here are some details on the ad buy:
More in the extended entry, including how this ad fits into a broader accountability strategy and effort in which you can take part.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Who Supports Secession?
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on April 17, 2009 at 5:05 AM.
Governor Rick Perry of Texas continued to make veiled threats to secede yesterday. The only thing that is really unusual about these threats is that they are coming from a Governor, rather than the guy sitting next to you in the local bar. After a political power shift, empty threats about emigration and / or secession are fairly common. It is a safe bet that everyone in America has either a family member or a close friend who has made such a threat at some point over the past decade. In the days immediately following the 2004 election, in my West Philly neighborhood, talk of secession and emigration was rampant to the point of becoming standard ambient noise. Eventually, as time passes, both the tempers, and the empty threats accompanying them, begin to recede.
But, now that the Governor of the second largest state in the country has brought secession talk into the mainstream, it is worth investigating national support for secessionist. The only poll I could find on the subject was from Zogby (a telephone poll) from July of last year. The results indicated surprisingly high support for secessionist movements in America, and that support was significantly higher among Democratic-leaning demographics than among Republican-leaning demographics. From the poll
One in five American adults - 22% - believe that any state or region has the right to "peaceably secede from the United States and become an independent republic,"(...)
The level of support for the right of secession was consistent in every region in the country, though the percentage was slightly higher in the South (26%) and the East (24%). The figures were also consistent for every age group, but backing was strongest among younger adults, as 40% among those age 18 to 24 and 24% among those age 25 to 34 agreed states and regions have secession rights.
Broken down by race, the highest percentage agreeing with the right to secede was among Hispanics (43%) and African-Americans (40%). Among white respondents, 17% said states or regions should have the right to peaceably secede.
Politically, liberal thinkers were much more likely to favor the right to secession for states and regions, as 32% of mainline liberals agreed with the concept. Among the very liberal the support was only slightly less enthusiastic - 28% said they favored such a right. Meanwhile, just 17% of mainline conservatives thought it should exist as an option for states or regions of the nation.
Asked whether they would support a secessionist movement in their own state, 18% said they would, with those in the South most likely to say they would back such an effort. In the South, 24% said they would support such an effort, while 15% in the West and Midwest said the same. Here, too, younger adults were more likely than older adults to be supportive - 35% of those under age 30 would support secession in their state, compared to just 17% of those over age 65. Among African Americans, 33% said they would support secession, compared to just 15% of white adults. The more education a respondent had, the less likely they were to support secession - as 38% of those with less than a high school diploma would support it, compared to just 10% of those with a college degree.
While not very high in an absolute sense, support for secession is only just below where approval for Bush was during his final few months in office.
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