The chief excuse used to justify the Democrats pending use of reconciliation to pass a supplemental health care bill–once the Senate’s version is presumably passed by the House–is that since Republicans used reconciliation in the past, Democrats can use it too. And specifically, since Republicans used reconciliation for things like “tax cuts for the rich!”, Democrats can use it to pass health care.
James Joyner points out that Democrats shouldn’t be allowed to get away with making this argument:
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
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Posted in Chequer-Board
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Also tagged Barack Obama, Congress, Democrats, health care, Health Care Policy, Health Care Reform, James Joyner, Megan McArdle, Politics, Reconciliation, Republicans
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Well, I’ve seen better.
The current poll standings are bad enough, but Patrick Caddell and Doug Schoen point out how much more unpopular the President and Democrats can become:
In “The March of Folly,” Barbara Tuchman asked, “Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests?” Her assessment of self-deception — “acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts” — captures the conditions that are gripping President Obama and the Democratic Party leadership as they renew their efforts to enact health-care reform.
Their blind persistence in the face of reality threatens to turn this political march of folly into an electoral rout in November. In the wake of the stinging loss in Massachusetts, there was a moment when the president and the Democratic leadership seemed to realize the reality of the health-care situation. Yet like some seductive siren of Greek mythology, the lure of health-care reform has arisen again.
March 11, 2010 – 11:17 pm
This ought to kill off some shibboleths . . . assuming, of course, that the mainstream press will do its job and point out the fact that the Obama Administration is peddling misinformation about the economy, and about its own efforts to rescue the country from recession and depression.
I will say that I am more sympathetic to Ben Bernanke than the article appears to be. But that’s about my only major difference with it.
More people should be outraged over the fact that the Obama Administration has settled into a default protectionist stance on the issue of trade. Restricting trade will do nothing whatsoever to improve our economy; if anything, protectionism only increases the chances that we will experience a double-dip recession. And yet, the Obama Administration does not seem to be willing to do anything in order to further the process of trade liberalization.
Building an economic Fortress America has never brought us prosperity in the past. It is impossible to see how it will bring us anything resembling prosperity in the future. And it is impossible to see how an administration that says it is committed to improving the economy could be taken seriously when it allows protectionism to run rampant in U.S. trade policy.
I am willing to bet my bottom dollar that if, hypothetically, George W. Bush criticized the Supreme Court Justices to their faces over a ruling that they made–and failed to explain that ruling properly in the process–he would have been excoriated by the pundit class. There is no reason, therefore, why Barack Obama should have been spared criticism by pundits, even though he played the role of George W. Bush in my hypothetical.
Fortunately, there has been pushback. Even if most pundits were unwilling to take on the White House over this issue, Chief Justice Roberts has decided to speak out. May his example encourage others, and discourage further White House bullying of the Supreme Court on this and other issues.
I see that a great many people are discussing this profile of Rahm Emanuel by Peter Baker. As profiles go, it is a good one. But a central point emerging from the profile needs to be emphasized.
I am not one of those who believes that we will see a much more persuasive U.S. foreign policy merely by having Barack Obama buddy up to other world leaders. Nation-states make their decisions primarily and overwhelmingly via a cold-eyed examination of their long term strategic interests, and irrespective of the President’s personal relationships with other world leaders, the countries those leaders lead will decide to ally–or not ally–with the United States on various issues by looking at factors that have nothing whatsoever to do with personal relationships with the President of the United States.
At this point, it really doesn’t matter whether Rahm Emanuel will go, or David Axelrod, or Valerie Jarrett, or Robert Gibbs, or some combination of the four. What really matters is the fact that “No Drama Obama” is now anything but.
But finances may cause the U.S. Postal Service to end Saturday deliveries. Over at his blog, Eric Zorn facetiously argues that we ought to get all of our mail on Saturdays, with every other day being mail-free. Of course, that argument is ridiculous, but perhaps only just barely ridiculous; it is difficult to imagine a monopoly as useless and value-less as the one that the Postal Service currently “enjoys.”
Remind me once again why I was supposed to think that government could effectively administer a public option for health care. As we can see, it can’t even competently manage its own finances:
A new congressional report released Friday says the United States’ long-term fiscal woes are even worse than predicted by President Barack Obama’s grim budget submission last month.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that Obama’s budget plans would generate deficits over the upcoming decade that would total $9.8 trillion. That’s $1.2 trillion more than predicted by the administration.
The agency says its future-year predictions of tax revenues are more pessimistic than the administration’s. That’s because CBO projects slightly slower economic growth than the White House.
The mother of all walk-backs:
President Obama’s advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, administration officials said, a step that would reverse Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City.
The president’s advisers feel increasingly hemmed in by bipartisan opposition to a federal trial in New York and demands, mainly from Republicans, that Mohammed and his accused co-conspirators remain under military jurisdiction, officials said. While Obama has favored trying some alleged terrorists in civilian courts as a symbol of U.S. commitment to the rule of law, critics have said military tribunals are the appropriate venue for those accused of attacking the United States.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t take note of the developing trend lines:
Embattled incumbents with ethics problems. Allegations of sexual harassment leading to a competitive open seat. Dems have seen this movie before — only last time, it happened to the other guys.
Now, a beleaguered Dem majority has to hope their party can withstand a building wave that favors the GOP, and that effort isn’t made any easier by countless, and mounting, self-inflicted errors.
