CT Progressive

Not to give a platform to a lame duck, but Rell’s outrage over the healthcare reform bill is ridiculous on two fronts:

A provision written into the massive bill will allow the federal government to pick up 100 percent of the cost of Medicaid expansion in Nebraska to court U.S. Senator Ben Nelson’s vote.

“The inequity of this provision is astonishing,“ Rell wrote in her letter to Blumenthal. “The doling out of favors for senators is appalling. The cost of this federal health care bill is beyond comprehension because of all the special provisions included to garner the 60 votes for passage.” [...]

“While everyone has received something, Nebraska’s “gift” is particularly galling,” Rell wrote in her letter. “In this time of extraordinary fiscal challenge, when states are facing record budget deficits and are seeing HUSKY and Medicaid case loads growing, all could use 100 percent reimbursement.”

First, while Nelson secured an additional grant of $45 billion for Nebraska’s Medicaid expenses over the next decade, our own Senator Dodd laid claim to more than twice that for the UConn Health Center. So it’s not obvious that Connecticut got the short end of the deal by any measure.

But more to the point, that Rell is jumping aboard a conservative protest to see 100% Federal Medicaid funding in all 50 states is bizarre, since liberals inside of Congress and out would love to see Medicaid become a fully Federal program. As it stands, with Medicaid structured as a matching-funds programs, benefits are significantly less generous in states with a smaller tax base – arguably, the states that have the greatest need for Federal support for low-income healthcare coverage. As Tom Harkin says (c/o Ezra Klein):

“When you look at it, I thought well, God, good, it is going to be the impetus for all the states to stay at 100 percent [federal funding],” Harkin told reporters. “So he might have done all of us a favor.”

While Connecticut is not short on poverty and polarization, we’re also not one of the states that’s unable to afford our share of the matching dollars. While funding services for the poor apparently has less electoral upside in the state than cutting taxes for the wealthy, Rell’s demand to federalize Medicaid nationwide would not, I imagine, do very much to cut the taxes of the state’s top-income-bracket residents. But I’m sure someone sent Senator Harkin of Iowa her letter, and that he’s got a little smile on his face thinking of the day when he’ll be able to pull her protest out of the file as evidence that even wealthy Connecticut’s Republican Governor supports this massive expansion of Federal spending.

When that day comes, even Rell’s harshest critics will have to acknowledge that she’s done some good for the country, however tangentially.

I’ve been following the debate over Himes’ vote against the House “Jobs Bill” with some interest. The measure, according to Himes, is “a $75 billion Democratic spending plan which largely expanded programs in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”

The first interesting debate is one over whether the vote was principled or politically opportunistic. I lean towards the latter, but have to admit that the technocratic argument against Himes’ position comes off a lot better in print than the political one, as you can see in this CT Post article. And once a consensus starts to gel that constituents can’t really “reach” their elected representative with their concerns (this quote from the Post article – “While I think of everybody I represent, I don’t cast votes according to what any particular small minority agitates for” – gets at what a lot of activists and DTC people are perceiving), then you may as well design your criticisms to sound good when they’re picked up in local media instead of targeting them to what you might perceive that electeds’ perspective and priorities to be. And it’s certainly better to make a Congressman argue with Paul Krugman than My Left Nutmeg.

But that characterization of the spending package kept ringing out in my mind – the idea that the bill was an extension of the early 2009 stimulus measure. If you remember, the House passed a package heavily tilted towards the more effective spending measures, which were then shifted dramatically towards less-effective tax cuts by the Senate. (A comparison of differences between the two bills can be seen here – definitely worth checking out).

In a way, redirecting TARP money towards local governments, direct aid to the unemployed (extended healthcare and unemployment), housing, and transit (as NYC commuter rail faces service cuts due to budget shortfalls) asserts that the House was correct in its original proposal, which Himes seems to acknowledge when he complains that too large a part of the original stimulus has yet to be spent. A more detailed list of the supplemental bill’s programs (which actually add up to a little over $150 billion) can be seen at Pelosi’s legislation blog, and, minus the highway spending, sounds relatively fast-acting.

These institutions being what they are, I understand that “The House Was Right” is not going to be at the top of any Pelosi press releases on the subject. Still, as both a policy and politics matter, it seems a tragic mistake for Representatives of any stripe (and Democrats in particular) to advance the notion that our government has done all it can or should to restore stability at all levels of the economy.

“My fellow Americans, it’s true that we bailed out the banks, hedge funds, and insurance companies that made such serious errors in recent years. We did it because we had to – our livelihood depends on a healthy financial services industry. But their livelihood depends on the health and well-being of the American people, and that’s why we will be introducing a financial speculation tax to provide healthcare to every uninsured American starting next year.”

Or, we could just give them the money and not ask for anything back. Whatever.

Discussion has been ramping up this week over the Federal Reserve, as Ben Bernanke’s confirmation for another term as Chair begins. Progressive superhero Bernie Sanders has put a hold on the nomination, while our own Senator Dodd is apparently the point man for ensuring the confirmation goes smoothly.

Bernanke and many supporters appear to be claiming that politicizing the Fed’s policies in the context of the confirmation would undermine the independence of the Federal Reserve; Dodd seems to be leaning on the idea that the Fed has done a great job, and that it’s simply the regulatory system that needs updating.

I’m torn on the subject – while there’s been some fascinating left-right alliances forming, I can’t help but think there’s a tension between the differing philosophies, and I’ve seen progressives burnt by one or two of our own acting as “beards” for extreme conservative interests enough times to hesitate before jumping in.

It’s absolutely true that Bernanke has not done many of the beneficial things that it is in his power to do. The most persuasive criticism is that he has pursued the well-being of banking and trading institutions over the Fed’s stated policy of pursuing full employment. Put another way, we gave the money to the wrong people – stocks are up, and jobs are down. The big-picture critique from the left might be that the actions taken to stabilize the economy have only served to perpetuate the mugging of the poor and middle class by organized wealth, and that the current policy reinforces the offensive “trickle-down” theory of economic well-being at the same time that it illustrates “trickle-down’s” ultimate failure.

However, it seems to me that hanging some bureaucrat lets the people that really screwed the economy off the hook, and would serve those who want to eliminate government regulation entirely. Remember the argument from last fall that promoting minority homeownership caused the entire collapse of the American economy? I think the hard right – the Grover Norquists of the world – has understood from the first whisper of the word “collapse” that by the end of the day the public would demand a pound of flesh for all the suffering generated by these financial institutions, and I think they’re right. The thing is, they’ve been casting around for one that lets the traders and the idle billionaires that love them get off unmolested, and Bernanke is just the latest.

Of course, Dodd is right that the regulatory regime isn’t strong enough, but doesn’t seem to get that there’s something that isn’t being satisfied out here in the wilderness of public opinion. That doesn’t mean that he should kick over the podium and strangle Bernanke on the Senate floor – but being nice, being fair, and delivering a speech about how he supports this nominee and their independence without reservation (with some toughness down in the twenty-fourth paragraph) is not doing the job of communicating that our Senator is as unhappy as we are. (If you didn’t read it from the link above, here it is again: Dodd Supports Bernanke’s Confirmation, Calls for Improvements to the Federal Reserve).

It’s frustrating, since all the conditions for an epic shift in national priorities have been in place for a couple of years now: between Iraq, Katrina, and the financial sector meltdown, Americans seem to have gotten exactly how ruinous conservative policies are for our country. With Afghanistan, the ever-shrinking healthcare reform plan, and the sustained practice of treating criminals like princelings so long as they work south of Chambers, the Change We Need is not looking very much like the Change We Wanted in the First Place. When progressive activists start lining up behind initiatives from the Americans for Tax Reform, there’s some real trouble brewing – to me, that says that our ability to believe there’s real reform around the corner is just about exhausted.

From the uncanny metaphor department, a fine quote from an article about a newly-elected Green Party Constable in New Canaan:

Stangler said he was asked by the Green Party to run for constable in June, the same month he graduated from high school.

Now that he’s studying at Georgetown, the 300-mile commute between New Canaan and Washington, D.C. could make it difficult to fulfill his duties. Fortunately, constables are able to decide for themselves just how much or how little they are able to accomplish as an elected official.

“We have had constables who, I believe, have never served papers,” Claudia Weber, Town Clerk, said. “We had a constable who lived in Germany. Out of all the offices, constable is the one where, if you choose to, you don’t have to invest a lot of time into the position.”

Weber added that, in a town with an active police force, like New Canaan, the responsibilities of a constable may be fulfilled by the police force.

“[Constable] is one of these positions that the state of Connecticut holds onto even though it really has no useful purpose,” Mike DeRosa, co-chair of the Connecticut Green Party, said. “It’s sort of like pet rocks: there’s a subjective meaning to something that has no specific meaning.”

No useful purpose, subjective meaning to something that has no specific meaning? Sounds just like the Greens to me.

As a bonus, a description of the campaign:

While Stangler admits that he didn’t campaign very seriously, he and a friend walked around Waveny Park during the annual Family Fourth celebration and tried to shake hands with as many people as possible.

“Many people didn’t want to talk to me. They thought I was delusional,” he said, who also added that he was wearing a straw cowboy hat donning an American flag. “I’d say I shook about 15 to 20 people’s hands. That was basically my only true campaigning, (besides) word of mouth and telling my friends and what not.”

Stangler’s July 4th campaigning efforts were followed by the Green Party’s Independence Day celebration on the steps of the Ferguson Library in Stamford where he joined members in playing music like Bruce Springsteen and the Grateful Dead while 2008 Green Party candidate for Congress Richard Duffee (who Stangler also campaigned for in 2008) read the Declaration of Independence out loud.

Commentary from John Cohn:

The ritual is becoming familiar. Health care reform passes a major political hurdle. And progressives don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Last time, the occasion was a vote in the House of Representatives. Health care reform passed by the slimmest of margins, but not before conservative Democrats had extracted a major concession on abortion rights.

This time, it was a vote in the Senate–not on whether to pass a bill, but whether to begin debating one. This measure, too, passed by the slimmest of margins, but not before conservative Democrats and one notorious independent made clear they were prepared to shut things down later if legislation includes a public insurance option.

It’s no fun to watch this unfold. And yet this is the exactly the sort of drama you should expect for the next few weeks, as the Senate deliberations play out. [...]

For progressives, victories are more likely to come in the form of ground not conceded than ground gained. Every day that legislation doesn’t get worse is a day to cherish.

This was the exact problem that the healthcare advocacy community and bloggers foresaw in July – and why so many people were angry when Congress decided to wait around until after the August recess to schedule their vote. And when our Democratic Representatives lack the grasp of basic politics displayed by some blogger on the internet (all due respect), it’s easy to see why their base of supporters don’t see a good reason to come out and vote next year.

Via Matthew Yglesias:

I wondered yesterday how serious David Obey was about the idea of paying for the Afghanistan war with higher taxes. Today the answer seems to be that he’s pretty darn serious, with Ways & Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel and Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank joining Obey, who chairs the Appropriations Committee, and also picking up Conference Chair John Larson and Jack Murtha who chairs the Defense Appropriations subcommittee. That’s a blockbuster leadership lineup and a clear signal that any House backbencher who feels like jumping on this bandwagon is safe to do so.

The details of the proposal:

Dubbed the “Share the Sacrifice Act,” the six-page bill exempts anyone who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan since the 2001 terrorist attacks as well as families who have lost an immediate relative in the fighting. But middle-class households earning between $30,000 and $150,000 would be asked to pay 1% on top of their tax liability today — a more sweeping approach than many Democrats have been willing to embrace.

Contrary to popular opinion, we actually have to pay for the wars we choose to wage: a dollar spent in Afghanistan costs just as much as a dollar spent improving health care domestically. Congressman Murphy committed some time ago to bringing war funding under PAYGO rules:

I’m obsessive about putting all the war funding under the budget. The fact is, no one is having to sacrifice for this war except the soldiers who fight it, the families they leave behind, and the working men and women in the U.S. who have seen their safety net gutted in order to fund it. Paygo rules don’t apply to emergency funding, but the fact is that this funding can’t be considered “emergency” any longer. You are absolutely right - paygo rules should apply to this bill and all other supplemental requests.

by: Chris Murphy @ Thu Nov 15, 2007 at 19:49:51 PM EST

It’s good news that Congressional leadership has caught on to this idea. Of course, it’s not great news, since it reinforces the expectation that we’re about to see the war in Afghanistan expanded – but getting to a place where we Americans understand the costs of war (in dollar terms, at least) is a huge leap towards returning to sane political debate in this country.

Think Progress found this delightful right-wing press kit, issued from local conservative crank Robert MacGuffie:

We here in Fairfield County Connecticut conducted an action at Congressman Jim Himes’s [sic] Town Hall meeting in May 2009. We believe there are some best practices which emerged from the event and our experience, which could be useful to activists in just about any district where their Congressperson has supported the socialist agenda of the Democrat leadership in Washington. [...]

– Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: “Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington.” [...]

– Be Disruptive Early And Often: “You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.” [...]

– Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate: “The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”

You can see the whole document, including some documentation of the madness from local news reports, as a PDF here.

Now, I’ve been keeping an eye on Bob’s efforts a little, ever since his PAC showed up on the FEC website, and it turns out he’s exactly the kind of furious-at-everything crank that you’d expect, from his neighbors’ shrubberies to Senator Dodd right on up to the world. But I don’t need to hassle him for that — what’s interesting is that he sees himself as something of a leader in the “Tea Party movement,” but his group was most agitated not about the national debt or taxes, but rather, about the (ahem) tremendous fraud of climate change. This summer, they’re after health reform town halls. And that’s the fascinating thing about the conservative movement: not just the disorganization, but the ability to summon a full-blown, entirely personal outrage over literally anything at the drop of a hat.

Anyway, the plan put together by MacGuffie seems entirely likely to work – if you wanted to prevent an elected official or candidate from getting any benefit from interacting with the public in a face-to-face setting, their tactics will do it. And that’s just what conservatives do: Connecticut’s genteel political style doesn’t change the equation.

Over at MLN, tparty (who’s written three articles since I’ve started this one) has been following the ramp-up in conservative fury, from GOP Chairman Chris Healy cheering the efforts to shut down the town hall meetings to on-camera calls from Tea Party activists for Dodd to commit suicide. This isn’t the first time Healy has gone out of the way to bridge the divide between the GOP proper and the extremist fringe: his discussion with the Connecticut Conservative Congress (kind of the embryonic stage of the conservative movement between the “dittohead” phase of the 90s and the “tea partier” phase of today – they’re the people who carried the torch on Clinton and Vince Foster for all those years before they could fabricate an issue from Obama’s birth certificate).

But it’s important politically for the cranks to get the sign of institutional support when they’re seeking credibility, just as it’s important for the Republicans for the most insane smears to circulate in the news without their clear fingerprints. Add in the potential for a truly disastrous display of extremism — Congressmen lynched in effigy, Mexican immigrants killed by Minutemen — and the appearance of a group like this does wind up looking like news.

I mention this because Ezra Klein brought up an excellent point earlier today, and I wanted an excuse to link it into this post:

I’ve been attending health-care panels and events on a pretty regular basis for four or five years now. [...] But one thing is perfectly predictable: The Q&A session will be dominated by single-payer activists asking about HR 676.

There’s not a mystery as to why this happens: Single-payer activists are very well organized, and they make a point to dispatch their people to these events and get their members to the microphone and ensure that their perspective is heard. But as the bills under consideration suggest, politicians have had no problem ignoring the single-payer grassroots. Max Baucus ruled out their participation on day one. The media hasn’t shown the slightest inclination to cover their presence at event after event after event.

That’s worth keeping in mind as people begin to focus on the anti-health-care tea parties. The political system does not have some sort of consistent reaction to grassroots pressure. Rather, it picks and chooses when it wants to listen to the views of the very, very non-representative groups of people who sit through at town halls and panel discussions.

I think the aura of insanity and outright dangerousness is actually a big part of why conservatives get through with these kinds of efforts, while millions of protestors in the street for Iraq and healthcare activists nationwide earnestly appearing at forums with statistics at the ready are so easily marginalized. Despite last year’s complaining and guilt-by-association campaigns, conservatives have learned a great deal from the Vietnam-era domestic terror groups like the Weathermen, and have mainstreamed tactics that progressives now find repugnant.

Of course, on the flip side, the organized left of this decade has adopted a “free market” approach to promoting causes, subsidizing preferred mass-media messages through OFA and DFA and PCCC and MoveOn with five- and ten-dollar contributions. So while this story about a local kook and the astroturf operation working off the same playbook has gotten the blogosphere jumping, it may be that the best response is to play to our strengths: since we’re not interested in matching the right for sheer offensiveness in the service of shutting down debate, supporting the groups like DFA and PCCC – and adapting their model to deliver focused, factual, and respectful messages to voters and representatives on the local level – might be the best way to come out of the summer Congressional recess with health reform stronger than when it started.

A thought-provoking article from James Surowiecki at the New Yorker:

Think about the $787-billion federal stimulus package. It’s built on the idea that during serious economic downturns the government can use spending increases and tax cuts to counteract the effects of consumers who are cutting back on spending and businesses that are cutting back on investment. So fiscal policy at the national level is countercyclical: as the economy shrinks, government expands. At the state level, though, the opposite is happening. Nearly every state government is required to balance its budget. When times are bad, jobs vanish, sales plummet, investment declines, and tax revenues fall precipitously—in New York, for instance, state revenues in April and May were down thirty-six per cent from a year earlier. So states have to raise taxes or cut spending, or both, and that’s precisely what they’re doing: states from New Jersey to Oregon have raised taxes in the past year, while significant budget cuts have become routine and are likely to get only deeper in the year ahead. The states’ fiscal policy, then, is procyclical: it’s amplifying the effects of the downturn, instead of mitigating them. Even as the federal government is pouring money into the economy, state governments are effectively taking it out. It’s a push-me, pull-you approach to fighting the recession.

Now, state cutbacks have not been as severe as they might have been, thanks to the stimulus plan, which includes roughly $140 billion in aid to local governments. That aid, according to a recent study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, has covered thirty to forty per cent of the states’ budget shortfalls. Money for the states translates directly into jobs not lost and services not cut—which is why you can make a good case that more of the stimulus should have gone to state aid. Yet there’s no sign that those budget gaps are getting smaller, and, as the federal money runs out, state tax increases and spending cutbacks are only going to become more common. In the midst of this downturn, some of the biggest players in the economy—state and local governments together account for about thirteen per cent of G.D.P.—will be doing precisely the wrong thing.

This is the season to lament the lack of foresightedness of our elected officials – at the peak of the real-estate bubble, it would have been a trivial matter to build up a large enough surplus to weather the 2009-2010 budget cycle. And cooling down market speculation and the growth of exotic financial products (which padded the capital gains line on so many Connecticut tax returns) might have actually had a beneficial effect on our present economic situation.

Now, of course, tetchy Fairfield County Democrats are protesting tax increases – not because they’re wrong for this moment (which they are), but because they have the prospect of “growing the size of government” after the crisis has passed. Which just goes to show that the people who didn’t show foresight before a crisis aren’t going to produce a thoughtful structural reform in the middle of one.

An aside: I recognize the economic argument that the middle of a recession is the wrong time for anything that slows economic activity, and both cuts to services and increases in taxes qualify. But our electeds didn’t plan ahead, so the genie’s out of the box – and since we continue to experience a widening inequality gap in the state, increases on stored wealth and millionaire-level incomes is less harmful than the alternative.

So what is there apart from tax increases, service cuts, or “help us, Federal government”? The old plan contained about 18% borrowing and rainy day funds, which are the two most promising alternatives. Another idea, the introduction of a ten-year budget cycle would have forced long-term thinking into the process, but the bill didn’t go anywhere with only two speakers (neither of them elected) testifying in favor at the public hearing in March. But one piece of the testimony is relevant to this discussion:

SEIU supports this resolution, because we believe that increasing the budgetary sets could have a profound effect on the ability of the State to deal with an economic downturn such as the one we’re currently in. The current model leaves little room to maximize the effect of the federal stimulus package, as the money that is coming in is used to fill existing budget holes as opposed to increase spending, which is the intent of the stimulus package. (Inaudible) theory would suggest that to get the economic recovery kick-started, the federal money would have to have a multiplier effect, and once again, under our current budget and system, it just isn’t allowable.

If you look at — Paul Kruegmann (inaudible) had written on December 28 that we have 50 Herbert Hoovers in looking at the governors. And he said, “But even as Washington tries to rescue the economy, the nation will be reeling from actions of 50 Herbert Hoovers, state governors who are slashing spending in a time of recession, often at the expense of both their most vulnerable constituents and the nation’s economic future.” So we believe that this proposal has the ability to fundamentally change how government is run in this state and that it should at least be moved out of this committee and continue to be looked at.

As a question of principle, I wonder what our Governor and legislative leaders would say about enacting this idea through the back-door as part of the budget negotiations by simply bonding the deficit amount, or even scaling back taxes for the current and upcoming fiscal years by bonding a portion of the budget that would be covered by current revenues. There’d wind up being a penalty associated with the move (interest isn’t free), which is why bonding operating expenses is generally frowned upon – but I wonder if that might not be the least-worst option at this late stage. Bond the deficit amount plus 10%, introduce brackets into the income tax (not as the current rate plus 1% for high incomes, but as the current rate minus 1% for low to moderate incomes), and establish the expectation that the excess of the good years will be salted away to help us make it through the lean years going forwards.

Update: Also of note, whoever our Democratic supermajority has hired to staff the Government Administration and Elections Committee is apparently unfamiliar with the name “Krugman.” There’s a bad sign for you.

From a pre-Parker Brothers edition of Monopoly comes this brilliant description:

“Statement of General Theory - Monopoly is designed to show the evil resulting from the institution of private property. At the start of the game every player is provided with the same amount of capital and presumably has exactly the same chance of success as every other player. The game ends with one person in possession of all the money. What accounts for the failure of the rest, and what one factor can be singled out to explain the obviously ill-adjusted distributions of the community’s wealth which this situation represents? Those who win will answer ’skill.’ Those who lose will answer ‘luck.’ But maybe there will be some, and these, while admitting the elements of skill and luck, will answer with Scott Nearing ‘private property’.”

“Those who win will answer ’skill.’ Those who lose will answer ‘luck.’” Awesome.

Contrast this with the current rules in the game:

“The idea of the games to buy and rent or sell property so profitably that one becomes the wealthiest player and eventually monopolist.”