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Think Progress: OBAMA: Now I just want to be clear if you actually saw the movie, they did drive over the cliff. So, just want to be clear, that’s not our intention. (Laughter)
Highly recommended. Yglesias: Why We’re Summitting About Health Care
Given that there’s no particular health care plan that’s yet got nearly the level of legislative momentum behind it for anyone to be worried about it passing or failing, it may not be immediately obvious to people why the White House is bothering to hold a health care summit today. The reason is that securing agreement on the meta-issue that “there should be large-scale health care reform in the near future” is more important than it might seem. Specifically, the prospects for any particular reform measure passing get much better if the budget resolution can pass with an adequate level of headroom for a plan to fit into. Consequently, there’s not only no need to discuss particular reforms but in many respects it would be counterproductive to do so. Instead, we’re talking about “reform” and the need for it.
...Then we have the people in the middle. These are people, and you find them in both parties, who happily concede the need to reform the health care system. But they think the time isn’t right. Maybe we should wait until we solve the economic crisis, end the war in Iraq, stabilize Pakistan, and balance the budget and then sometimes in the dim mists of the future we can reform the health care system. Maybe we “can’t afford it” right now.
The problem with this view is that we can’t afford not to do it. ...
Ezra Klein: THE BANALITY OF PROGRESS.
The speech ended. "Let's get to work," the President said. The attendees -- a mixture of congressmen, advocates, stakeholders, and analysts -- filed down the long hall to their breakout sessions. Another reporter turned to me. "What did you think of the speech?" He asked. "Pretty banal, right?"
And maybe it was. We've heard Obama say that "our goal will be to enact comprehensive health care reform by the end of this year." We've heard him say that ... There was nothing new here.
But this is the banality of progress. It is no longer a scoop to report that Obama plans to pass health reform by the end of 2009. There is no surprise when he emphasizes the fiscal necessity of change or the moral urgency of reform. Today's summit, so far, has provided for few easy headlines. It is just another step on the road to a bill. It's the process. That may be banal, yes. But when the President of the United States pushing forward on health reform becomes banal, then that, in itself, is news.
The President's full remarks follow the fold. ...
Benen on BUILDING ON A SENSE OF COMMON PURPOSE....Since I just got finished highlighting the health care idiocy of one far-right Republican lawmaker, I guess it's only fair that I also point to some surprisingly encouraging comments from another far-right Republican lawmaker on the same subject.
Elana Schor noted Rep. Joe Barton's (R-Texas) appearance at today's health care event at the White House. Now, Barton, the senior Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is not exactly a "moderate." So when he made these remarks, it was a very pleasant surprise.
This is a different approach [than the one embraced by the Clinton White House]. [Sen. Chuck] Grassley and [Sen. Max] Baucus working together in the Senate is great ... we can get a different result. You can't oppose the president's principles. It's in the details, though, and how you put the plan together. But this is a good step." [emphasis added]
I don't doubt that Barton will have some significant concerns about the eventual plan, but his concession effectively means that even conservative Republicans are prepared to accept the need for a reform initiative, and work towards a solution.
This may not sound like much of a breakthrough, but .... ... It's a foundation -- Democrats and Republicans can at least agree that there's a problem and it needs a solution, soon. It's not much, but given Republican obstinacy of late, it's something to build upon.Speaking of republican obstinacy, here's Maddow: GOP vs. Steele? March 5: A leaked memo from an active member of the Republican National Committee called for Chairman Michael Steele's resignation. Rachel Maddow is joined by Dr. Ada Fisher, the woman who wrote the memo.
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Important question, inspired by Cohen's lame One France Is Enough column in the Times, from Kevin Drum, "Is there something about having a New York Times column that makes you lose your mind? Obama wants to push taxes on the super wealthy back up to 2001 levels. He wants to move in the direction of carbon pricing and universal healthcare, just like he promised repeatedly during the campaign. He wants to increase defense spending, but increase it slightly less than the Pentagon would like. Stimulus outlays aside, the budget as a whole is up only moderately compared to two years ago. If you object to this, fine. But Cohen doesn't."
DougJ Memewatch: too fast, too furious
It’s interesting to watch these things evolve. Brooks last week:
But the Obama budget is more than just the sum of its parts. There is, entailed in it, a promiscuous unwillingness to set priorities and accept trade-offs. There is evidence of a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor — caught up in the self-flattering belief that history has called upon it to solve all problems at once.Roger Cohen ...
... Is he biting off too much? Should we just go, ‘All right, let’s fix the economy; next year we’ll talk about health care or energy.’ Should you pick one and focus on that? It’s like we’re doing everything all at the same time.”Broder yesterday: ... Brooks today: ...
All of these critiques have one thing in common: they offer no substantive criticism of any particulars of any policy but rather an overall pessimism about the possibility of doing anything. In that sense, this is a classic example of a Beltway meme. It has no basis in any definable or quantifiable reality, but instead exists only as an unspecific reaction in the guts of various Beltway wisemen.
- Attaturk thinks the beltway Thinks Small
OMG! The President, he's...
1. Too ambitious! (David Gergen)
2. Doing too much! (David Brooks)
3. Working too hard! (NY Times)
4. Too mean to Rush Limbaugh (John Boehner)
All of which apparently make him...
5. Too popular!
Meanwhile, how is the GOP doing?
Four months after John McCain’s sweeping defeat, senior Republicans are coming to grips with the fact that the party is still...looking for the bottom.
They're not even trying to avoid punchlines anymore.
Speaking of lousy journalism, here's Aravosis: Since the media has now jumped to Rush's defense, let's revisit exactly what Limbaugh said
I'm reading more and more reporters making the ludicrous statement that Rush Limbaugh's words were taken out of context when we quote him saying he wants Obama to fail. Listen to Limbaugh for yourself. There are three different multi-minute audio selections of Limbaugh saying, outright, that he wants the stimulus package to fail. He says it repeatedly. He says it, not in a snippet - he says it in a multi-minute rant. You really need to hear this man speak - I know it sucks, but do it. Listen to the audio. Limbaugh is one of the leaders, if not the most prominent leader, of the Republican party. He outright says, repeatedly, that he wants Obama to fail, that he wants the stimulus package to fail. And yes, my reporter friends, it is despicable to suggest that anyone wants the stimulus package to fail when the stimulus' goal is to save 4 million jobs, and stop us from falling into a depression. When failure means possible economic collapse. The words aren't out of context, they're in context. And they are despicable. And typical, of the conservative wing that controls the Republican party today. For the corporate media to come running to Rush's defense, to claim that his comments are out of context, is beyond belief. Listen for yourself.Yglesias: Military-Industrial Complex Planning to Use Taxpayer Dollars to Lobby for Waste
Spencer Ackerman reports on defense contractors gearing up for battle with the Obama administration:
One Pentagon official expects much more of that as the services and the defense industry push back against reform. Their “ground game,” the official said, will be run from the services’ legislative outreach and public-affairs offices, feeding talking points and strategy information to sympathetic members of Congress ... An “air game” will feature “a lot of ominous whispers on background to the press and conservative think tanks and commentators about endangering the American people and costing lives in some future fight.”
Gates, whom Obama tasked with working closely with OMB, has told confidantes that he views a sustainable long-term rebalancing of defense priorities as one of his most important tasks now that Obama has given him the chance to continue on as Pentagon chief. His service under the Bush administration was more about supporting the immediate needs of the Iraq war after Bush fired Rumsfeld in November 2006. “The services are accustomed to reviews that start out with a lot of talk about setting priorities and making tough choices but in reality usually end with leaving everything more or less intact,” the Pentagon official said. “This time they have a secretary who really means it.”
Note that “the services’ legislative outreach and public-affairs offices” are technically part of the United States government. Indeed, they’re technically not supposed to be doing any lobbying at all. In fact, they regularly lobby congress against positions taken by the civilian leadership of the United States and on behalf of the defense contractors they’re hoping will employ them post-retirement.
- dday: The Contractors Strike Back
... The fact that the door between the Pentagon and the defense industry is constantly revolving means that a government official who steers contracts to the right company is simply fattening their own resume for the inevitable post-public service career. This is why it's called a military-industrial complex, after all.
And under the Bush regime, this kind of coziness between government officials and their cronies was simply rampant. In a little-discussed tidbit in yesterday's press briefing, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack mentions a $400,000 consulting contact with the USDA that he recently cancelled because career staffers considered it "inappropriate." There's a follow-up, and the information had to practically be dragged out of Vilsack, but the picture he eventually paints is one of a mob boss creating make-work jobs for his henchmen (Major Garrett is the questioner, trying to make some case for the necessity of useless contracts to avoid lawsuits, or something): ... As these things go, NCFAP doesn't even sound all that bad, but this is just one example of the insidious web of official Washington, between think tanks and contractors and politicians and journalists and staffers and hangers-on, that Obama is basically taking on with this effort. It's necessary, but it's going to be a very hard road that's bound to be more than a little disappointing along the way.
Josh Marshall asks Repuglicans to Please Grow Up
There's often a lot of game-playing in getting appointees approved by the senate. But this requires more attention. The senate Republicans are refusing to give a vote to two of President Obama's key (hopefully soon to be) economic advisors -- Austan Goolsbee and Cecilia Rouse. So for the moment they're barred from advising the president at all. The Republicans seem pretty candid about the fact that this is pay back for stuff that happened back in the Bush era. But aren't we in the throes of a catastrophic economic crisis?
- Hilzoy adds:
Meanwhile, Sen. Robert Menendez and other anonymous Senators have blocked two of Obama's science advisors. This isn't just bad for science, it's bad for the economic stimulus package, which contains a lot of science funding:
"The holdup could slow timely science and environmental policy work between Congress and the administration, particularly the spending of roughly $21.5 billion dedicated to science in the economic recovery package."
- via Drum, Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post:
Barack Obama made no secret of his feelings for "Washington lobbyists" during the campaign and vowed that they wouldn't be staffing his White House. The implementation of that rule, however, has led to a number of consequences that Obama could never have intended....Lobbyists who for years have fought for workers' rights, environmental protection, human rights, pay-equity for women, consumer protection and other items on the Obama agenda have found the doors to the White House HR department slammed shut.
Tim F. Times Change
It wasn’t that long ago that Republicans imagined themselves as defenders against moneyed elites. That was great.It is kind of remarkable to watch conservatives collectively pivot from Palinist elite bashing to Santelli-fueled Galtism in about three months. Figuring out how someone can do that is a challenge only if you’re the kind of person who cares about ideas.
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