Obsidian Wings

Corner, Backed Into

by publius

The Obama campaign has a problem -- it needs more revenue for health care coverage reform.  But increasing revenue is politically problematic.

One potential source of funding is to tax employees' group health benefits by imposing a modest cap on the amount that can be excluded.  It raises revenue, and it's actually good progressive policy.  The problem, however, is that Democrats are terrified to do it.  And as Jon Cohn reports, Reid has apparently vetoed the proposal.

Hopefully, we'll find money elsewhere - the reform is too important.  But a lot of the blame here falls squarely on the Obama campaign's demagoguery.  They bashed McCain over the head with this, and now they've penned themselves in.  McCain's proposal wasn't bad because of the tax per se, but because it would have thrown people out of employer health care and into a not-regulated-enough individual market where they lack bargaining power, information, low deductibles, good coverage, etc.

It's just another a reminder that what you say before the election matters.  If you say the things you want to do, you have a mandate and political cover to do them.  If you don't, you won't.

And one last general point -- the campaign attacks also reinforced the broader anti-tax narrative that is hurting progressive priorities and, by extension, the nation.  At some point, that narrative has to change.

Cloture Votes

by hilzoy

Yesterday, Sen. Durbin said this about Senate Democrats and the filibuster:

"If they will stick with us on the procedural votes, we at least know that we can move forward," he said of his Democratic colleagues. "They may vote against final passage on a bill, they may vote with Republicans on an amendment. That's entirely their right to do. But this idea of allowing the filibuster to stop the whole Senate. ... We ought to control our own agenda."

Ed Kilgore adds:

"Yesterday's statement by Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin defining party discipline not in terms of support for the "public option" or cap-and-trade or any other substantive position, but in terms of unity on cloture votes, was potentially very significant if it represents the beginning of a serious and sustained effort. It serves as a reminder that 60 votes are not in fact required to enact legislation in the Senate, and that supporting cloture is not in fact the same as supporting passage of a given bill. Inversely, a vote against cloture is (except in the rare circumstances of a rushed Senate bill) a vote to do nothing--to obstruct any and all legislation in favor of the status quo. And unless I am missing something, no senator has ever been defeated for re-election solely on the basis of voting for cloture on a bill they intend ultimately to oppose.

Insisting on these forgotten facts day in and day out could have an effect, if only to undermine the sixty-votes-myth and force wavering Democratic senators to explain why heterodox views require them to obstruct any action on major challenges facing the country, as though their constituents pay any real attention to procedural votes (news flash: they don't). That should be a given. The harder question is whether the next step should be to impose real sanctions on senators who rebel on cloture votes. My personal feeling is that supporting a filibuster against your own party and your own party's president should be treated as a serious and rare measure on major issues of conscience where the sacrifice of some of the prerogatives of seniority are a small price to pay. So maybe that price really should be paid. But at a minimum, the practice of thinking of cloture votes as identical to substantive votes, and tolerating defections on the former as just the same as the latter, needs to come to an end. There is no sixty-Senate-vote requirement for the enactment of regular legislation in the Constitution or in the Senate rules. We don't need lockstep Democratic unity on policy initiatives. We just need unity on the simple matter of allowing the Senate to vote."

I agree completely. It's one thing to vote against something, and quite another to vote against the proposition that a majority should be able to determine whether or not it passes in the Senate. There are rare occasions when I could see doing that. (I would have filibustered the Iraq war, for instance.) But voting to sustain a filibuster ought to be very serious, and wholly different from simply not supporting a bill. 

Democrats ought at least to be able to insist that their members should not obstruct the agenda that the party as a whole has embraced. Absent some very compelling reason, voting to sustain a filibuster on any important piece of Democratic legislation ought to be seen not just as a way of not supporting a bill, but as undermining both the Democratic Party and the Senate as a body. And it should be punished. When Senators vote to sustain a filibuster of a bill that's a Democratic priority, they should absolutely lose seniority.

I, for one, will certainly be taking names, and remembering them when Democrats who filibuster their own party run for reelection. We should not allow it to become routine that 60 votes are required to pass anything of substance in the Senate. With sixty votes in the Senate, we have the power to prevent it.

The "Crucifixion" of Sarah Palin

by publius

Steve Benen notes that Palin's abrupt resignation has actually increased her standing a bit among Republicans according to a recent Gallup poll.  Steve writes:

Inexplicably quitting, for less-than-clear reasons, has managed to endear Palin to her party more.

I think these numbers vindicate the Ed Kilgore theory of Sarah Palin.  The upshot of his theory is that the rank-and-file activists like Palin because they see themselves in her.  More precisely, they see her "persecution" as part of the broader persecution that they themselves allegedly face at the hands of the hated elite (both liberal and Republican establishment elite).  Here's Kilgore:

And all the personality traits she later exhibited--the folksiness, the abrasive partisanship, the hostility towards the "media" and "elites," the resentment of the establishment Republicans who tried to "manage" her, and the constant complaints of persecution--almost perfectly embodied the world-view, and the hopes and fears, of the grassroots Cultural Right. ... Sarah Palin was the projection of these activists onto the national political scene, and exhibited the defiant pride and ill-disguised vulnerability that they would have felt in the same place.

In a sense, she's Jesus -- she's standing in for them, and being crucified for being true to their cause.  And so the media criticism (even though totally justified) will help her with this activist base, even if it destroys any chance she might have had to win a national election. 

But make no mistake -- in a world of plurality-takes-all primaries, she's still very much in the hunt for the 2012 nomination.

Like A Grizzly With Cubs, If By "Grizzly" You Mean "Quitter", And By "Cubs" You Mean "Kids You Can't Be Bothered With"

by hilzoy

Sarah Palin, January 22, 2009:

"When I took my oath of office to serve as your Governor, remember, I swore to steadfastly and doggedly guard the interests of this great state like a grizzly with cubs, as a mother naturally guards her own. Alaska, as a statewide family, we’ve got to fight for each other, not against and not let external, sensationalized distractions draw us off course."

Sarah Palin, July 3, 2009:

"Productive, fulfilled people determine where to put their efforts, choosing to wisely utilize precious time... to BUILD UP.

And there is such a need to BUILD up and FIGHT for our state and our country. I choose to FIGHT for it!  (...)

But I won’t do it from the Governor’s desk."

The Juneau Empire:

"Palin veiled her announcement as something much more noble, but the fact is that she's quitting less than three years into her tenure. And, given her meteoric rise to national political stardom last fall, Alaskans are shocked and appalled by her decision to quit midstream.

We say good for her, however, because it's been nearly a year since the first-term governor has acted like she actually wanted the job."

On reflection, what bothers me most about Sarah Palin resigning is how fundamentally unserious it is. Being a governor is a real job with real responsibilities. It gives you a tremendous opportunity to affect your state, for better or for worse. In some ways, you can do more as a lame duck than at other times: you don't have to worry about re-election, fundraising, and so forth, so you can spend all your time trying to make your state government more effective. 

Often it's clear what a governor ought to focus on: crises happen, issues reach a point where they have to be dealt with. At other times, a governor gets to be more proactive: giving some troubled agency the attention it doesn't normally get and trying to really turn it around, trying to put programs on solid foundations before their problems become urgent, making government work better and more efficiently for all your citizens.

But to do that, you'd have to actually care about governing. Sarah Palin plainly does not. If she did, she would never, ever have resigned her position, especially not in order wander around giving speeches.

As an example of what she might have done if she cared about governing, consider Alaska's foster care system. As of 2007 (the most recent data I could find), Alaska was the fourth worst of 45 states reporting when it came to keeping kids from being abused in their foster homes -- the homes they're given to keep them safe from abuse and neglect. Alaska's child protective services were the fifth worst in the nation at keeping kids from undergoing repeat abuse, the third worst in response time, and the sixth worst in terms of the time from an initial report of child abuse to receipt of services. 

Alaska was 42nd in the country in the percentage of foster kids who had two or fewer placements, which means that a lot of kids spent a lot of time bouncing from one home to another. It doesn't have enough caseworkers, and the turnover among those it does have is too high. (It does do a good job at placing siblings together and maintaining community ties, though.)

Moreover, services for kids who age out of foster care are not very good:

"Nearly 38 percent of foster care alumni in Alaska said they were homeless at some point after leaving their foster homes, according to a 2005 study from the UAA School of Social Work -- much higher than the 12 to 25 percent for foster care alumni in other states."

Foster care is one of those issues that liberals and conservatives ought to agree on. Kids are not responsible for being abused or neglected. They can't just take care of themselves. And someone like Sarah Palin, who is forever talking about fighting for our children, might be expected to work at this. If she was looking for a way to spend her time other than taking junkets at taxpayer expense, it might have occurred to her to fix Alaska's foster care system so that it really took care of Alaska's kids.

But no. Here's the legislator who has worked hardest for Alaska's foster kids on Palin's record:

If anything ought to count as a higher calling, taking care of kids who need help should. Sarah Palin was in a position to really do right by Alaska's foster kids. Instead, she walked away.

Barracuda

by hilzoy

I just watched Sarah Palin's announcement that she will step down as governor, which was surreal even by her standards. It's hard to pick just one favorite moment, though this has to be on anyone's list:

"Life is too short to compromise time and resources... it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "Sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and "go with the flow".

I also liked the quote from General MacArthur: "We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction." It takes a certain something to say that without apparent irony.

The part I couldn't get past, though, was the basketball analogy:

"Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me - sports... basketball. I use it because you're naive if you don't see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket... and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can WIN. And I'm doing that - keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities - smaller government, energy independence, national security, freedom! And I know when it's time to pass the ball - for victory."

The thing is: though Palin said several times that she explained her reasons for resigning, she didn't. Specifically, she never explained why right now, she has to pass the ball in order for her team to win. Why not just head in for the layup, or take an outside shot? Why does she have to pass the ball to her Lieutenant Governor?

I have no more idea than anyone else, but hey: what's the point of blogging if not to amass a record of your unfounded speculations so that you can go back and see how wrong you were? My unfounded speculation: I do not believe for a moment that this is about taking time off to prepare for 2012. Nothing I know about Sarah Palin leads me to believe that she would give up power voluntarily, let alone for something that is such a long shot, and in such a transparently self-destructive way. 

I think that there's something we don't know about: either a serious health problem or a serious scandal. In either case, it would, I think, have to be a really big deal to make her react in this way. She has shown herself to be more than capable of brushing off smaller scandals, national embarrassment, and a whole host of other things. She did not step down from the governorship when she gave birth to a child with special needs, or when she was asked to be McCain's running-mate. She did not decline McCain's offer because of the potential embarrassment, either to her or her family, of her daughter being unmarried and pregnant. She is no shrinking violet.

Nor, as I said earlier, does she strike me as someone who would give up power without a very, very compelling reason. I didn't actually get a lot from the recent Vanity Fair piece on Palin, but I did like this quote:

"Remember, says Lyda Green, a former Republican state senator who once represented Palin's home district, and who over the years went from being a supporter of Palin's to a bitter foe, "her nickname in high school was 'Barracuda.' I was never called Barracuda. Were you?"

Well, no, I wasn't. She was. Resigning in the middle of her term is not a barracuda-like thing to do.

I await further news with fascination. I'm also taking bets on who the next imploding Republican Presidential hopeful will be. Speculate away in the comments.

Sarah, We Hardly Knew Ye

by publius

Well, this should end the whole "Sarah Palin is bizarre and erratic" meme. 

Honestly, I don't know what to make of this.  My first thought was that she's obviously gearing up for 2012.  But now I'm not so sure.  Today's announcement was so ill-timed and rambling that it's hard to believe she's seriously considering a presidential run.  Why not wait a few months, and announce the presidential run along with the resignation?  Why not, you know, push a coherent story to the press?

Today only makes sense if she either (1) is done with politics entirely, or (2) is a looney toon.  The whole thing was just so poorly timed -- and the press narrative so bad -- that it's hard to believe a credible presidential candidate would do it.

And lest we forget, this is the person the 72-year John McCain selected to be the Vice President of the United States.

Coleman Finally Concedes

by hilzoy

From the NYTimes:

"After nearly eight months of waiting, almost 20,000 pages of legal briefs, and millions of dollars in election costs, Al Franken emerged Tuesday as the next United States senator from Minnesota, ending one of the most protracted election recount battles in recent memory.

Mr. Franken, 58, a former comedian and author, could be seated in the Senate as early as Monday, leaders there said, providing Democrats with something they had long hoped for: 60 votes, and thus at least the symbolic ability to overcome filibusters.

Norm Coleman, a Republican who had held the seat for a term, conceded on Tuesday afternoon, hours after the Minnesota Supreme Court issued a ruling in Mr. Franken’s favor, the latest in a series of findings that had left Mr. Franken ahead in the count. In weeks past, some Republican leaders had urged Mr. Coleman to press on to the federal courts if need be, but those calls faded Tuesday.

“Ours is a government of laws, not men and women,” Mr. Coleman, 59, said in a statement he read before reporters outside his home in St. Paul. “The Supreme Court of Minnesota has spoken, and I respect its decision and will abide by the result. It’s time for Minnesota to come together under the leaders it has chosen and move forward. I join all Minnesotans in congratulating our newest United States senator -- Al Franken.”

Wrong. It was time for Minnesotans to come together under the leaders it chose several months ago. Norm Coleman has dragged this out for nearly eight months. It has been clear that Franken would win at least since the three-judge panel ruled in his favor. That was on April 13th. Since then, Norm Coleman has just been trying to delay the inevitable, and denying Minnesota's voters the representation they are due in the process.

I'm glad he has finally decided to end it. But he's several months too late. 

ENDA (Again)

by hilzoy

A few days ago, Barney Frank introduced HR 2981, a new version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which bans employment discrimination against anyone on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Unlike last time, this bill includes protections for transmen and transwomen. That's the good news.

The bad news is that, according to drjillygirl at Pam's House Blend, not enough Democrats are on board to pass the bill. As of two days ago, 48 Democrats are undecided on ENDA. They are: 

Bobby Bright (AL), Parker Griffith (AL), Vic Snyder (AR), Dennis Cardoza (CA), Allen Boyd, (FL), Sanford Bishop (GA), David Scott (GA), Walt Minnick (ID), Bobby Rush (IL), Daniel Lipinksi (IL), Deborah Halvorsen (IL), Jerry Costello (IL), Peter Visclosky (IN), Joe Donnelly (IN), Brad Ellsworth (IN), Ben Chandler (KY), Frank Kratovil (MD), Dutch Ruppersberger (MD), Bart Stupak (MI), Mark Schauer (MI), Travis Childers (MS), Bennie Thompson (MS), Dina Titus (NV), Michael McMahon (NY), Scott Murphy (NY), Paul Tonko (NY), Daniel Maffei (NY), Earl Pomeroy (ND), Dan Boren (OK), Kathleen Dahlkemper (PA), Jason Altmire (PA), Christopher Carney (PA), Paul Kanjorski (PA), John Murtha (PA), John Spratt (SC), Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD), Al Green (TX), Solomon Ortiz (TX), Henry Cuellar (TX), Gene Green (TX), Glenn Nye (VA), Bobby Scott (VA), Thomas Perriello (VA), Rick Boucher (VA), Gerald Connolly (VA), Alan Mollohan (WV), Ron Kind (WI), David Obey (WI).

You can find their email addresses here. 

This should not be a hard bill to pass. The idea that people should not be able to lose their jobs because they are gay or transgender should not be controversial. For some reason that I do not understand, however, it seems to be. 

And it's really, really important. This might be our best shot at getting protection from employment discrimination for a lot of people who need it. It might also be our best shot at getting a bill passed that includes protection for transmen and transwomen. This really matters: my best stab at explaining why is here. Altogether too often, the burden of educating people about trans issues, and advocating for their rights, falls on trans people themselves. As I try to explain in that post, this is not fair. And now is a good time for those of us who are not trans to step up to the plate and explain to our representatives why this matters to us. 

It's not 1966 anymore. There is no excuse for the fact that it is still legal to discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. If your Representative is still on the fence, let him or her know how you feel.

Why I'm Happy about Waxman-Markey

by publius

Well, it’s certainly not perfect.  But at the end of the day, I think Waxman-Markey is a very good thing – and one that deserved a “Yea” vote.

The most significant achievement is simply that the bill would impose real limits on emissions.  And that’s what matters most – the reduction is more important than the distinct question of revenue allocation.  And while the emissions limits are not strong enough, they're a good start – and would give the country more credibility to work for meaningful international limits.

Like any legislation, there were a lot of smelly compromises required to get the bill out.  Some of them are really bad – particularly the ones involving the Department of Agriculture Keeping Americans Fat, Unhealthy and Cancerous (KAFUC).  But all that said, there are various reasons why I think the bill was nonetheless worth supporting.

First, there’s the inertia principle.  The real obstacle to major reform like this is setting up the initial institutional framework.  It takes a lot more cost and effort to set up the initial regime than to tweak it down the road.  (This concept is borrowed from Volokh’s “slippery slopes” paper). 

Second, it’s hard to imagine getting anything much better at this point given the political and institutional contexts.  Frankly, it’s something of a miracle that we’re even seeing it happen.  It seems to defy public choice theory* because the people who would benefit most are the diffuse public at large who don’t have an organized lobby with similar power as say the oil companies, KAFUC lobbyists, and other energy companies. 

And while the political norms have shifted a great deal on this issue in recent years, we’re not there yet.  Americans still don’t feel a sense of urgency about global warming (note the relative non-coverage of this bill).  And as Yglesias notes, the rotten and undemocratic institutional structure of Congress is practically designed to kill a bill like this.

Third, I think the bill will get better in time, not worse.  One strong objection I’ve heard from the left is that Waxman-Markey would be counterproductive because it would suck the wind of out of “real” reform efforts.  In other words, the bill would be a false comfort. 

Perhaps.  But my hope is that the politics on this issue is getting better, not worse.  In the years to come, one hopes that more and more Americans come around on issues like food policy and climate change.  And I’m also hopeful that we’ll see “greener” politicians on all levels of government.  Having this initial regulatory framework in place will make future grassroots efforts more efficient and effective – one hopes.

Last point – a big kudos to the House liberals.  I know that all the media attention gets lavished on the median Senate votes.  But they really came through here on an important bill that has real political risks and no immediate short-term benefits.  It was an act of principle.

Just think – if we got rid of the Senate entirely (which we should), Americans would currently be seeing some truly landmark progressive legislation on health care coverage and climate change.  Fortunately though, we have a system that ensures that Wyoming gets as much representation as California.

*Mark Thompson has a thoughtful post responding to my earlier public choice post that’s worth a read.

Cap And Trade Passes The House

by hilzoy

From the NYT: 

"The House passed legislation on Friday intended to address global warming and transform the way the nation produces and uses energy.

The vote was the first time either house of Congress had approved a bill meant to curb the heat-trapping gases scientists have linked to climate change. The legislation, which passed despite deep divisions among Democrats, could lead to profound changes in many sectors of the economy, including electric power generation, agriculture, manufacturing and construction.

The bill's passage, by 219 to 212, with 44 Democrats voting against it, also established a marker for the United States when international negotiations on a new climate change treaty begin later this year.

At the heart of the legislation is a cap-and-trade system that sets a limit on overall emissions of heat-trapping gases while allowing utilities, manufacturers and other emitters to trade pollution permits, or allowances, among themselves. The cap would grow tighter over the years, pushing up the price of emissions and presumably driving industry to find cleaner ways of making energy.

President Obama hailed the House passage of the bill as "a bold and necessary step." He said in a statement that he looked forward to Senate action that would send a bill to his desk "so that we can say, at long last, that this was the moment when we decided to confront America's energy challenge and reclaim America's future."

Think about it. Cap and trade is completely in line with standard market economics: you identify an externality that the market does not capture, design a market system to capture and price that externality, and rectify a market failure. The Democrats, who favor the bill, have a huge margin in Congress. They water it down in various ways to make it more palatable to various wavering people. And after all that, it still only passes by seven votes.

That's sad. I hate to think what will happen to it in the Senate.

It's also a testament to the power of special interests. Consider the bill's emissions credits. President Obama proposed to auction them all, which would have allowed them to be distributed to those businesses to whom they were most valuable; the proceeds from the auction would have gone both to rebates to consumers and to funding a continuation of the middle class tax cuts. Oh no! shrieked various utilities and other corporations that would have had to pay for those auctioned credits. And lo! our representatives caved, which means that the money that would have paid for our tax cuts is no longer there.

I'm really glad it passed: it's a lot better than nothing. But it could have been better still.