Now that health care reform has passed the Democrats are arguing amongst themselves about how ambitious they should be in the remainder of this Congress. As Pelosi told the president during the health care debate, it’s probable that Obama has bigger majorities in this Congress than he will have in the next three. So, there is a certain logic to trying to pass the hardest stuff now. The hardest stuff is immigration reform and climate change legislation. Exhausted moderates are begging off such ambition this year and asking that the administration stay focused on jobs. In all honesty, both sides have a lot to bolster their arguments.
The first thing to keep in mind is that this is an election year. Not only is it an election year, but the Republicans have had a very good recruiting effort and are looking strong in a lot of head-to-head congressional matchups. There is no question that our moderate members in tough districts are at great risk of losing their seats. Any smart strategy needs to respect that fact and try to mitigate the potential damage. Yet, those marginal seats must serve some purpose, and what better purpose is there than to pass the hard stuff that won’t be possible at all with diminished majorities?
So, setting a course for the rest of this Congress is a real strategic and tactical challenge. The White House also has to consider their reelection effort in 2012. What do they want to debate and pass in 2012?
Here are my thoughts on some of the big ticket items.
I don’t think we can do both climate change and immigration reform this year without really wearing out the moderates and putting them at unnecessary risk. If I have to choose just one, I choose climate change. There are three main reasons for this. First, we need to show the world that we’re serious about climate change and can do something about it domestically because other nations are being asked to make their own tough decisions on the issue. Second, legislation has already passed the House, so half the work is done. And, third, immigration reform can be used as an effective wedge to solidify the latino vote in the 2012 election. The Republicans make such a racist spectacle of themselves whenever immigration is discussed that the Democrats reap huge rewards. Timing the debate for the next election year may be cynical, but it is also a deadly weapon.
Financial reforms should be worked on this spring and summer in the Senate (they have already passed the House) but the debate over final passage should wait until the fall, just before the midterms. The midterms should become a referendum on why the Republicans want to protect Wall Street against accountability and retain too-big-to-fail institutions.
The Senate is going to take up a Small Business bill after the Easter recess. That’s good. We need to keep rolling out small jobs bills in order to maintain the impression that we’re focused on the unemployment problem. When we focus on energy, or health care, or education, we can look like we’re out of touch and not concerned about people who are out of work. Rather than passing one big comprehensive jobs bill, it is better politically to pass three or four small bills that different members can take credit for. For example, Mary Landrieu will be pushing the Small Business bill.
I don’t know what the timing is on the Pentagon’s review of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, but that should be repealed if at all possible before the elections. Another base-boosting effort could be the Employee Free Choice Act in the best form that it can be passed (without card check, obviously).
I don’t think there are enough legislative days to do much more. But passing health care reform, financial services reform, and climate change legislation, plus the Employee Free Choice Act, several small jobs bills, and repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will mark an incredibly successful congress, and should have Democrats motivated to turn out to vote.
There is one other item that needs to be pursued and it relates to appointments. The Democrats need to build momentum for modifying the filibuster rule in the next Congress. To do that, they need a high profile fight. They could do this by putting forth a financial reform bill in the fall that the Republicans find objectionable and filibuster. Politically, that would be the best. But they can also do it over the backlog of appointments. The American people will be outraged at the prospect of a president entering his third year in office without having all his appointees confirmed into his government. One way or the other, there needs to be a mega-showdown over the Republicans’ obstruction before January, so that the Democrats are united in the belief that the filibuster must be modified and so the public agrees with them.
Any other items you think we should or can work on this year?
What progressive or liberal cannot agree with all of these projects. But is HCR really over? There is much to do, and if we never get to the public option, the first step to single payer, it will be ages before it really happens.
In the meantime, what is stopping the health insurance corporations from raising their premiums in a way that would benefit them far in access of past profiteering?
when the exchanges are set up, each state insurance secretary will have to provide a set of regulations for the approval of the HHS, and any rate increases will have to be justified to the HHS.
I don’t know if there is any statutory language to prevent the insurecos from raising rates in the interim, but the public option will probably be offered as a stand alone bill this year, although it may not make it to the floor before next year. With the mandate under challenge in the courts, the insurecos will not want to help build momentum for a PO by jacking rates.
Do you understand why insurance companies jacked rates recently, when reform was nearly but not quite dead? It was so obviously poor timing.
If they figured it was going to be poor timing whenever they raised premiums, should they not have at least waited until the next Congress, when they could hope that Democratic majorities would be less?
Since I don’t understand their recent strategery, I don’t have much confidence that they’ll take the course you suggest, which seems rational.
shergald, I think Ezra Klein addressed this as part of a series of posts he’s done on the impact of HCR.
If I read him correctly, there’s a provision in the law mandating that insurance companies spend at least a certain percentage (80%? 85%?) of revenues on medical payments. If they fail to do so, then they’re required to send rebates to their customers.
The big loophole there is that investigative costs are included in the 80%. So, the more they delay , demand more documents, review, review, review, the more profit they can make.
It reminds me of a story my father told me about working in a defense plant during WWII. The contract was a cost plus percentage fee. They deliberated wasted material and scrapped rejects that could have been fixed in order to run the cost (and profit) up. Cost plus percentage fee was later banned, but I believe Reagan or Bush I brought it back.
There are two mechanisms in the bill that control costs and limit the amount that insurance companies retain for internal operations and profit.
The first is the minimum medical loss ratio, which requires insurance companies to spend at least 80% (individual and small business market) and 85% (large corporation market) on actual patient care (charges from providers).
The second is the high-risk reinsurance pool that reinsures insurance companies for losses from payment for high-risk patients (i.e. those with pre-existing conditions).
Given these two, it would be difficult for insurers to honestly argue to state regulators for the sorts of premium increases they have been getting.
Finally, rating can be done only by age and geographic region (regulations yet to be defined). This creates two large pools in each geographic region — one for those above a certain age and one for everyone else. This will benefit most of all the small business and individual markets, which could very well see some reductions in premiums.
Not all of the provisions happen at once. There is a lot of time for legislative action before 2014 gets here.
And like BooMan says, not behaving well causes political pressure for a public option or single-payer or tighter regulations (like exist in Switzerland, Germany, and Netherlands).
Another thought related to what I posted above. If they play softball on their contracts with providers, they can run the cost and profit up. Remember, most states only haave two or three big insurers so mega-caps have to deal with them. Actually, the mega-caps are self-insured so there is even less incentive to save money. That’s why big company insurance plans are always easier to deal with than individual plans.
The whole medical insurance system is rotten and needs to go away. I still say this
billlaw is the equivalent of TARP.One major issue with that strategy (which I mostly agree with) is that it totally drops immigration reform. That’s a large piece of the Dems base which are already pretty peeved at the Administration.
It’s a great problem to have, trying to decide which of the many major policy reforms you can fit into a legislative calender to pass, but it’s a problem none the less.
true. I don’t like feeling like we need to drop it this year, but I think we do. Pushing it back from next year to 2012 would cause some problems and certainly could not be announced as a strategy. But I don’t like doing it in an off-election year because it allows the Republicans to recover. If the Republican nominating process takes place during the debate over immigration, their candidate is doomed.
My thought was to basically “hide” climate change legislation within the smaller jobs bills. Break down overall climate change legislation into parts, and then gear them more towards the job creation side of things – green energy economy is real anyways. You can pay for it with much smaller taxes/fees per bill too, which might make it easier to get something like a carbon tax through the Senate. Make it tiny and on only a small portion of the industry, then expand it through the next bill.
This would basically combine the jobs bills and the climate change bill – which does two things. It focuses climate change on building a “green economy”, which is going to fuel growth for the next half century while at the same time taking on global warming. Also, it opens up a slot for immigration reform.
Immigration reform can be risky for Democrats, too. There are a lot of people from all parties who would be uncomfortable with giving amnesty to people they view as lawbreakers. This view is often associated with racism, but not always, and immigrants who came here legally aren’t necessarily sympathetic to those who didn’t.
In the other direction, compromises on the legislation could make a lot of immigrant communities unhappy.
I think the strength of the economy is a key factor in how the public responds to immigration reform. From that point of view, delay is better. But thinking that immigration reform is electorally an easy win for Democrats is dangerous, in my opinion.
Since getting out the base is important in mid-term elections, it could make political sense to work on immigration reform this year, to rev up the Latino, Asian, and other parts of the base (and their friends) to turn out in November.
There is probably going to be a Supreme Court selection this summer and a confirmation this Fall. This, too, could become a campaign issue in 2010. Should Obama go “moderate” to demonstrate that he is not the anti-Christ but instead is someone who is in touch with the middle? Or should he go “liberal” to fire up the base?
Both of these, if done right, are gamechangers, In additional to being overdue policy reforms, they make the country much more progressive, solidify our base and improve the electoral prospects of dems in every election at every level (further entrenches latino dem loyalty; more labor = more dem votes).
I think climate change can wait, mainly because Obama has a lot of reforms and actions he can take without congress through the EPA and other regulatory agencies directly under his control. The world knows Obama is serious about climate change- getting 60 senate votes isn’t really going to change that.
As for your comment on the filibuster, I think the dems need to stop using that word, or any mention of arcane senate procedures that we already know through polling most people don’t understand, even though its been mentioned on MSNBC every day since 2006. Instead of campaigning on abolishing the filibuster, campaign on “Political Reform” Call it “Fixing Washington” “Ending gridlock” and “Fighting Corruption”. Party leaders should work with otusiders like Lessig and come up with a dozen or so institutional reforms, including campaign finance reform and abolishing the senate. Every dem should then campaign on this set of reforms and agree to enact them if elected.
Last sentence should be “abolishing the filibuster,” not the senate.
This is the exact strategy that I proposed as well, but with climate change I think we’re better suited to small energy bills coupled with the EPA initiating a carbon tax. I don’t see a comprehensive climate bill making it out of this Senate.
Um. If Obama takes your advice to kick immigration reform down the road, there will be a lot of pissed off Latino voters. Over 200,000 marched on Sunday in D.C. to demand action now. It is one of those issues that is destructive to our families, moreso because the Administration has ramped up the raids and deportations beyond Bush levels. The Latino community is already suspicious that our votes are taken for granted, the Dems would be stupid to prove that suspicion true.
And despite Teabaggery lies, an overhaul of the immigration system would actually create jobs and improve the economy for everyone. I’m not impressed by the Dems’ track record on making the case, and it makes me bitter that I have to choose between their enforcement-heavy approach to the batshit insane views of the GOP.
yeah, I agree with all of that. But I don’t advocate taking your concerns for granted. I advocate addressing your concerns in a way that causes as much consternation and damage to the Republicans as possible. I’m fine with tackling immigration next year, but I’d hate to let the Republicans off the hook by doing it prior to their primary season. But this year looks like too heavy a lift, unless we drop any effort at addressing climate change. I also forgot, in my list of big items, that Obama plans to sign a re-write of NCLB this year, and that adds another big ticket item to the calendar. With the way the Republicans obstruct, there is a real limit on how much can get done. And every new bill that takes weeks to complete means fewer nominees get confirmed. Something has to give. Either it’s immigration or it’s something else equally large.
the perception of being taken advantage is very real, though. The GOP was able to win midterms in 2002 and 2004 by delivering big to their base, if the Dems were smart they would do the same ::cough::
yeah, there is a cost when you delay, but I think if you compare the impact on congressional vs. presidential years, the congressional is very mixed, and it actually makes it harder to pass. In a presidential year, downticket races can expect a bump, assuming we wind up with the kind of mismatch I expect in 2012.
speeches at the signing sounded like they were segueing immediately into education reform (don’t recall precisely when or what phrasing, my bad, I was busy studying the tie colors)
If we don’t pass Rush Holt’s bill, HR 2894, on election reform, we may lose the House anyway, even if we would have won, because vote theft is becoming easier than ever.
And now that Diebold and ES&S, which separately counted over 70% of the votes in this country, have merged, we’re at more risk than ever of a handful of people determining the future course of this nation.
Seriously.
This is a bill that if sold correctly would make Republicans as happy as Democrats. Both sides know an honest vote is necessary for the functioning of our democracy.
The real obstacle to reform in that area are the activists who have made this their sole form of income. If the vote is fixed, their orgs have no more fundraising to do.
More info on the bill is here: http://holt.house.gov/voting.shtml
Seriously. The Dems ignore this at very serious, game-changing peril.
Let’s look at it from the point of view of maximizing advantages in November. For the moment, this exercise is about politics driving the legislative agenda.
You want the vote on financial reform to come up around October 3 (I picked the timing of the Iraq AUMF vote to select this date). This is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t vote for Republicans. In order to do this there needs to be Democratic unity on the bill. Blue Dogs should not be able to get away with letting the reforms seems scarier to the public than they are. And the bill has to dodge a fight over accountability of the Fed–which potentially unites populists from left and right on this issue.
So September is the runup to this vote. Which means that your messaging during the August recess better be good and highlight corporate malfeasance.
Without substantial progress in jobs or relief experienced on the main streets and in the cities, there is the risk of violence during July or early August. Therefore a major effort of funding temporary summer employment opportunities for folks aged 16-32 must be a jobs bill brought forward immediately after the Easter break. Oh, and tack on a “workforce education” component (how to get a job, how to keep a job) just to make it a “job training” program.
One issue is what to put in a reconciliation authorization this year and roughly when to exercise it. Most likely the best use of this is to put the funding in the climate change bill that has not passed and likely will not into reconciliation of the DoE budget. Neither cap-and-trade nor a carbon tax (both market-oriented solutions) are likely to pass; however, there might be a risk tax on certain types of future projects that wind up causing large cleanup expenditures. Mountaintop removal coal mining is one of the activities that might be taxed, for example; there are other types of activities that could be taxed.
That leaves the TVA and rural electric approach to alternative energy. A number of states are gearing up for coastal wind generation projects.
Then re-jigger the climate bill to force the nuclear industry into newer technology, safer, reactors that are less likely to be targets for terrorism. And penalize projects like Progress Energy’s movement and recycling into use of the Three Mile Island reactor that did not fail. And provide tax credits for investments that create certified measureable reductions in CO2 in processes and products. Yes, the tax credits are GOP bait just like proposing national Romneycare was GOP bait.
Immigration and DADT are going to be heavy lifts without all Democrats on board.
DADT easily goes into the Defense appropriations bill, but it must be in the pre-markup draft and leadership must fight to keep it from disappearing by amendment. This passes in October generally as the first of the appropriations bills to actually be passed.
Immigration reform is trickier. My guess is the best place to put this is in the Homeland Security appropriations bill.
It’s time to shun the bipartisan legislative approaches that the Senate has been toying with; not a one has meant real progress.
If Democrats can get their act together better than they did on healthcare reform, they can come into October with their legislation either passed or having it obvious that it is Republicans in Congress who are standing in the way of jobs, energy independence, DADT, and immigration.
Then let the campaign identify the issues in healthcare reform that have traction and outline reasonable solutions before the November election.
Did I say that the Democratic caucuses need to get their act together? No doubt the primaries will make this easier or harder depending on the results and the pissiness of the defeated.
Can the winter months between the election and the new Congress be used for more controversial legislation – i.e. distant from the next election but not putting new freshmen in a difficult position?
It’s generally used to finish up unpassed appropriations bills.
Yeah, my vague memory is that it’s traditionally not a time for major, new legislation. I’m just wondering whether there’s any reason it couldn’t be used differently and more advantageously.
Put the good stuff in the appropriations bills.
I’d almost be happier to see a whole slew of small Bills that could succeed and integrate Climate & Immigration on the edges. It would be great (after reading the Rolling Stone article on ‘Coal’s Toxic Secret’) to bring EPA to the forefront and use its hearings and findings to soften the ground some more for a push on Climate.
I’m still convinced more than ever that talking points based on successes/actions are going to be more important than ever come Fall. Since Rep/teapartyers don’t read, nuance, big & complex won’t translate well.
From a purely political view, in 2012, the issue should be the economy which will probably still not be all that great. So you can set yourself up for a distracting wedge issue like immigration in order to help out. That’s my more cynical side.
Really though, i think that if anything real change is going to happen, then it’s going to be this year. Immigration reform has a huge humanitarian impact. Keeping millions of people essentially as a slave underclass is just unconscionable. I’d rather see a smart immigration policy immediately.
Cap and trade i don’t much mind putting on the back burner because the EPA already has the power to regulate carbon emissions. As long as the white house has a spine and keeps the senate from taking that power away, they can eventually squeeze a good deal out of that, even without a 59 vote majority.
I vote for moving ahead on immigration reform. As a general rule, I don’t like comprehensive legislation and would prefer a series of measures approved. I would have a timeline to pass the series over the next year and a half. But, I would also target passing at least one meaningful immigration bill before the end of the year. I don’t know what the options are, but I think something that creates a path to citizenship achieves two important objectives: it provides as a means to reduce the number of undocumented workers and it starts to address some of the concerns from the health care reform bill.
Immigration reform this close to elections is a mistake. Regardless of actual voter backlash, Conservadems are going to be exceptionally wary of the issue. They barely passed HCR. No, banking reform is the issue. Republican opposition puts them on the side of the big banks and bonuses. Not the place to be going into an election.
We really need to pass it all, for both electoral and policy reasons.
The big lesson of HCR and the past is that you need big majorities to pass important legislation. It’ll be a while before we have such big legislation, so we need to pass everything we can while we can, and that very much includes immigration reform. In fact, if I had to choose because I was running out of time, I’d choose immigration reform over climate change reform – climate change reform doesn’t energize our base like immigration reform does. Long-term, climate change reform is more important – but if I were a political person, I’d choose immigration reform. I want those 200,000 people that showed up in DC voting and canvassing for us, not frustrated and staying home.
2010 is going to be a base election. The best way to get your base to show up is to pass as much important legislation as you can. Even better, crushing the GOP may demoralize their base, which is the only chance we’ve got.
We’re going to lose seats in 2010 because the economy is lousy. There’s not much we can do about that now, because any fiscal measures will take several months to improve the economy. We should do as much as we can to get jobs, but that won’t help us until 2012.
You will pass it..the main reason is you have choosen because you were running out of time, I’d choose immigration reform over climate change reform – climate change reform doesn’t energize our base like immigration reform does.
clock Singapore
Troll rated for commercial spamming.
Comments are appreciated, but lay of the commercial linking.
Notice that the big elephant in the room is totally ignored again.
There are two illegal, immoral, unethical wars going on that are going to bankrupt the United States. The bloated “defense” spending passes with less than one week of carving up the pie. You want change. Stop government waste.
Make the Republicans own this war, not reddish Blue Dog Obama.