Democrats in Disarray

My friend and frequent interlocutor Mac, a fervent Obama fan, takes me to task for never having anything good to say about our President. In fact I do occasionally have something good to say. I defended his speech on Palestine, where other conservatives were writing scathingly about it. But in fact I honestly think that Obama's legislative agenda is a mess.

One of the most respected political analysts, Michael Barone, thinks so too.

Disarray. That's one word to describe the status of the Obama administration's legislative program as Congress heads into its final four weeks of work before the August recess. A watered-down cap-and-trade bill passed the House narrowly last month, but Sen. Barbara Boxer has decided not to bring up her version in the upper chamber until September.

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, who promised a health-care bill last month, still isn't delivering, and neither is the Health Committee's Christopher Dodd. They're both trying to nibble down cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, which has put the price tag at a trillion or more. But their latest ploys -- broad-based tax increases, transferring more of the Medicaid burden to the states -- sound like sputtering.

Meanwhile, Majority Leader Harry Reid says he's taken off the table one approach that has potential bipartisan support -- ending the tax preference for employer-provided insurance.

Let's review. The President pushed for a major stimulus package and got it. So far it has not achieved what he said it would achieve. His other two major legislative proposals, health care reform and cap and trade, are seizing up with major engine sludge. Bear in mind that this is a Congress dominated by the Democrats, and Barone points out that seasoned legislators are in charge. So what's the problem?

On health care, the problem is that the President has not been clear (and perhaps not honest) about what he is trying to achieve. Is he trying to reduce health care costs? If so, then why is his proposal going to cost a trillion dollars? That's an odd way to save money. Or is his purpose to spend more on some folks than we are now spending? That may be a good and just thing to do, but it is at odds with the cost cutting angle. And it may be a very difficult deal to close on, as it means that the most productive and politically active Americans will pay more for less.

Of course, it may be possible to do both things. But that would mean making hard choices that the neither the President nor Congress seems willing to make. Ending the tax preference for employer-provided health insurance is one of those things that makes sense if you really want to fix what's wrong with the American medicine. The Senate majority leader isn't interested. Why not? Because it would threaten too many vested interests.

Meanwhile, the astoundingly deficit spending that is the hallmark of Obama's early tenure is starting to weigh down on everything Washington tries to do. We now have a trillion dollar deficit for the first time in history. Such a thing might make sense if it were a onetime necessity. But similar deficits are projected into the foreseeable future. About a trillion in the hole for every year one of the next ten years. Are you worried yet? You shouldn't be. Those projections are based on optimistic scenarios involving strong growth in coming years.

Here is Jeanne Cummings at Politico:

President Barack Obama's economic forecasts for long-term growth are too optimistic, many economists warn, a miscalculation that would mean budget deficits will be much higher than the administration is now acknowledging.

The White House will be forced to confront the disconnect between its original, upbeat predictions and the mainstream consensus about how the economy is likely to perform in a new budget forecast to be unveiled next month.

If "many economists" are right, the deficits are going to be much larger than projected. It's no wonder, then, that the Democrats in Congress are finding it hard to move and breathe. All the oxygen is being sucked out of the air by the economic singularity that Obama's spending is creating. Already foreign investors, like China, who have in the past funded America's deficit spending, are wondering whether they are buying space on the Titanic. Maybe this is what we should be worrying about. Instead the Democrats are struggling to legislation for which the resources were spent dozens of times over the last year.

Comments

[A.I.]

The Senate Health Committee just passed their reform measure today. The House passed their's yesterday. If Baucus quits cow towing to Republicans on his committee and the health care related special interests that pump millions into his campaigns, he will get something out of committee soon.

Obama gave bipartisanship a chance, but as with the stimulus, Republicans remain the party of no on health care. So, it appears his strategy is shifting to one of forcing the hands of "moderate" Democrats as he has launched TV ads in select states aimed at enhancing public support for reform. In short, it's a bit premature to write-off the reform effort.

If the treasury spends one trillion on reform, that does not necessarily mean there is a net loss to the economy. As you and I have noted earlier, most people do get care. There likely will be savings in other sectors if government picks up more of the tab because, for example, ER use could be reduced if people used insurance to go to clinics instead.

And I am bothered by your lack of clarification as to taxing employer-funded plans. I know of no proposal to tax all such plans. Only an amount above a certain level was to be taxed, perhaps anything over $12,000 for a family plan. In other words, only the so-called Cadillac plans and then only the portion above the Buick plans.

Whose numbers are you using to project $trillion deficits for the next ten years?

[A.I.]

I should have said House Democrats unveiled their plan yesterday. My bad.

The point is, there is movement. And as to disarray, isn't that pretty much the norm for congress--especially when confronting problems that involve fight big-money interests?

[Mac]

When has Washington D.C. never been in dissaray, KB? This is not news to me. There will always be chaos in the halls of Congress, it's politics as usual and it's how things get done.

[A.I.]

Please excuse resorting to the link, but this is my kind of disarray: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/16/gop-lawmaker-admits-congr_n_235357.html

[Mac]

KB, sounds like the "dissaray" you talk about in Congress is going to lead to both the confirmation of Sotomayor to the Supreme Court and passage of the Healthcare Reform Bill. Even Rep. Hoekstra (REPUBLICAN) admits the bill will pass. Have a wonderful day and keep bloggin' away 'cause I always enjoy reading your posts!

[A.I.]

You step out of the classroom for a day or two...
Oh, wait, I'm supposed to be making it a kitchen.

[William]

My only satisfaction, if one can call it that, is that if this debacle of "Health Care Reform" passes, it will be owned by the Democrat / Progressive majority. Hopefully, it will pass on a strictly party line vote.

Once the public truly realizes the impact this has on the economy, their communities and their freedoms, this may be a "tipping point" that will repudiate the "progressive movement" for at least a few generations...

My hope is that once the public becomes aware of the impact, that people realize that government, by its very nature, is not benevolent or wise but self-serving and corrupts itself with every increase in its power.

[KB]

A.I.: the Senate Health Committee passed the bill. The Senate Finance Committee now gets to figure Out how to pay for it. Senators skeptical of the bill and its costs are not the only ones who receive campaign contributions from interested parties.

President Obama's bipartisanship is a joke. He demonstrated that by redefining the term to include legislation that doesn't have a single Republican vote. Everyone is bipartisan by that standard.

You are right that a trillion dollar bill doesn't necessarily mean a drain on the budget or the economy. It is achieves comparable savings, it might be a wash or a benefit. The latter will depend on whether the Wizard of Oz lands his balloon, and one of the Obama girls shows up with the Witches broom. Name me one big expansion of the welfare state that has led to savings, rather than growing expenditures over time. But more on that in my next post.

My statement about trillion dollar deficits every year over the next ten is based on a chart laying out the President's own projections. He projects trillion dollar deficits this year and next, if I remember correctly. After that the deficits will decline, though they will will remain higher than ever before in our history. Since I have been paying attention to politics, deficits are almost always larger than projected. President's make rosy assumptions about savings that will always be achieved next year or the year after that. They manufacture savings by cutting imaginary spending. Obama has already shown that he is adept at that game. So even if his projections about economic growth are realistic, it is realistic to expect about a trillion a year for the foreseeable future.

Mac: you are quite right that legislation often looks like a mess. Laws and sausages. But sometimes legislation blows up in its author's faces, as health care legislation did under the Clintons. The Democrats suffered for that, but they figured they would suffer more if they had passed Hilary's Bill. I wonder about that again.