Budget Reconciliation and Health Care Reform

Despite the assumption by Republicans that they represent a majority of the American people, the Democrats hold a majority of the seats in Congress. Up until now, buoyed by the lavish spending of health insurance companies, the Senate Republicans have been able to stall health care reform. Lately, however, there has been a shift in the polls. The public is increasingly indicating support for health care reform and for President Obama.

One major distortion spread by the Republicans is that the bill will vastly increase budget deficits. The Congressional Budget Office has ruled, however, that the Senate bill will actually reduce budget deficits. This is because the bill is essentially a budget bill. Due to Republican recalcitrance, the Democrats are now forced to use a procedure designed specifically for budget matters. It is called “Budget Reconciliation.” Now that they’ve passed a health care reform bill, the Senate Democrats plan to use budget reconciliation to pass the final changes to the bill.

Republicans threaten that if the Democrats use budget reconciliation to pass the health care reform bill it will be “all-out war.” I would like to know what they consider their wall-to-wall obstruction, distortion, and filibustering to be if not all-out war against President Obama and the Democrats.

Budget reconciliation is a legislative process of the Senate intended to allow consideration of a contentious budget bill without the threat of filibuster. Reconciliation generally involves legislation that changes the budget deficit. Any senator may raise a procedural objection to a treating a bill as a reconciliation bill. His objection will then be ruled upon by the Presiding Officer, who is officially the Vice President. The Presiding Officer customarily rules on the advice of the Senate Parliamentarian, but need not follow that advice. A vote of 60 senators is required to overturn the ruling of the Presiding Officer. Once the presiding officer rules that a bill is a budget reconciliation matter, the bill cannot be filibustered and requires only 51 votes of the full senate, or a majority of those present, to pass.

In case you question whether the health care reform bill is a budget measure, consider the fact that there are a large number of provisions in the bill dealing with revenue. There are several provisions imposing additional taxes on high-income individuals and couples, including Section 1905, which increases the Medicare tax on wages of individuals making in excess of $200,000 and married couples making over $250,000. There is an excise tax on voluntary cosmetic procedures, an increase in the adjusted gross income threshold for claiming an itemized deduction on medical costs, and a tax on the health insurance industry. These and other taxes will not only cover the cost of health care reform, but will actually reduce the overall deficit.

It is with ill grace that the Republicans object to the use of budget reconciliation to pass bills affecting the budget. They made repeated use of it when they were in power. Republicans used it to pass the 1996 Welfare Reform bill. They used it to pass the Jobs Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, in which Bush cut taxes for the rich and helped abolish the surpluses created during the Clinton years. Those tax cuts were strongly opposed by the Democrats, and by 450 economists, including 10 Nobel Prize Laureates. Another reconciliation bill by the Republicans was the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which slowed the growth in spending for Medicare and Medicaid, and changed formulas for student loans and other programs.

President Obama tried to change the environment in Washington and to work with the Republicans. He honestly believed that the relationship between the parties was far too poisonous and that this was bad for the country. The Republicans decided to rebuff his every effort. Now the Democrats have to act alone.

Senate Needs to Change Rules

The U.S. Senate needs to change its rules. Although I have been critical of the abuse by Republicans of the filibuster, I can understand the protection it provides to a political minority. But recently, we have been treated to examples of how the tyranny of a solitary senator can gum-up the works of government.

Two weeks ago, Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky single-handedly blocked a bill that would have extended unemployment benefits, along with Cobra health benefits, for over a million-and-a-half people. Bunning’s maneuver also, among other things, halted construction work across the country and cut Medicare payments to doctors.

Because of Republican filibusters, the spending bills needed to fund these essential programs were put-off until they were about to expire. It became necessary for the Democrats to use expedited procedures to continue the programs. Bunning’s objections denied the Senate the “unanimous consent” that Senate rules require for expedited procedures. Finally last week, under pressure from fellow Republicans, Bunning relented.

Bunning, who is retiring, has long been considered a loose cannon and a thorn in the side of the Republicans in Congress. Bunning’s frequent absences from important senate votes and numerous loony statements have led some to question his sanity. He attacked fellow Kentuckian, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, accusing him of being responsible for lost GOP seats in Congress. When Bunning learned that Republicans would not support his reelection bid, he threatened to resign and let the Democratic governor of Kentucky name his replacement.

This is the problem. One nutty senator has the power to block legislation, even bipartisan legislation, simply by refusing to agree to unanimous consent for the frequently used expedited procedures. The act of halting legislation has not, however, been confined to head-cases like Bunning. Lone senators routinely put holds on legislation and presidential appointments. Perhaps the most egregious case is the recent act of Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama.

Shelby placed a hold on all of President Obama’s nominees in an apparent protest over earmarks. This stopped Senate approval of 70 appointees nominated by the President, including a critical top Defense Department position overseeing deployments to the war in Afghanistan.

Shelby did not act on the basis of any conservative political principle or because he opposed the appointees. His objections were more basic. He believed that he wasn’t getting the amount of pork he deserved. He was frustrated over the Pentagon’s bidding process for air-to-air refueling tankers, which could lead to jobs in Mobile, Alabama. He was also “deeply concerned” that the Administration had not released funds already appropriated for a Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center to be built in Alabama.

As a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Shelby has built his career on steering earmarks to Alabama. He finally released his hold on most of the appointments. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said: "If you needed one example of what's wrong with this town, it might be that one senator can hold-up 70 qualified individuals to make government better because he didn't get his earmarks."

Senator Jim DeMint (R- S.C.) exercised his own form of protest by holding-up the nomination of the man nominated by President Obama to head the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). You would think that after the attempt to blow-up an airliner on Christmas day, appointment of an administrator for the TSA would be of paramount importance. Not to one demented senator. DeMint did not express any specific opposition to the nominee, a former FBI special agent and counterterrorism expert. He claimed that he needed further testimony to clarify the nominee’s stand on unionizing the TSA.

The Senate needs to change this strange rule that gives a single stubborn senator the power to bring the Senate and the government of the United States to its knees.

A Crack in Republican Obstruction

You would think that the public would be on to the Republican program of total obstruction in Congress, but it isn’t. The Republicans have decided to oppose, and in the Senate, filibuster, every single initiative of the Obama Administration regardless of the merits of the initiative and regardless of whether the initiative would benefit the American people and help the economy. The Republican leadership has speculated that the result of all-out opposition to Democratic legislation would make it look like President Obama and the Democrats are accomplishing nothing. They have assumed that this would lead to public disillusionment with the President and a renewed support for the Republicans. They have been right. The results of recent elections seem to reflect a belief on the part of the public that Democrats are ineffective and that the President does not have what it takes to improve the economy and relieve unemployment.

Of course, this policy of the Republicans is the product of profound cynicism. They do not care if millions of people go on being unemployed, uninsured, without housing, shelter, or food. They do not care if our states and localities are without sufficient money to fund education, health care, construction, programs for the homeless, and many other urgently needed projects. All they care about is winning-back Congress and defeating President Obama in 2012. This is very sad. A once proud party has become the party of despair.

There may, however, be a crack in the monolithic unity of the Republican Party. Recently, the Republicans were able to elect one of their own, Senator Scott Brown, to the Senate seat long held by Ted Kennedy. There was much rejoicing by Republicans at this coup, and much predicting that the Democrats were on the decline. But there was also a little fact that Republicans ignored. Their handsome new senator is also a fairly liberal Republican. This will not sit well with the Tea Party types who were instrumental in his election. Apparently, he supports freedom of choice on abortion, says same-sex marriage is “settled law” in Massachusetts, and is independent of the lock-step thinking imposed by Republican congressional leadership on Republican members.

The crack in the Republican front first appeared in a vote on the $15 billion job-creation measure put forward by Democrats. Senator Scott Brown was the first member of his party to cast his vote for overcoming the Republican filibuster on the measure. He was followed by Senators George Voinovich of Ohio, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Christopher Bond of Missouri, all of whom voted after it became evident that the Democrats would prevail. Nevertheless, 29 Republican senators voted against the bill.

You would have thought that such legislation, in this time of wretched, desperate unemployment, would have garnered 100 votes in the Senate. You would have thought that every senator would have compassion for the plight of the unemployed. You would have thought such empathy would have overcome all political considerations. And you would have been wrong. Nevertheless, there are some Republican senators who are willing to risk their future with the Republican Party and buck the demands of Republican leadership. One of them is Scott Brown. Our senator, George Voinovich, who is retiring, appears to be another.

There are now pending some items of legislation critical to this nation. More help is needed to improve the economy and overcome unemployment. Health care reform is essential for the future of American business and of the American people. Climate change legislation is essential for the future of the planet. The question is whether some Republicans will step up to the plate and put the interests of their country first, or whether they will revert to the nay-saying culture that is tearing us apart.

Tea Parties and Militias

Last May I noted the resurgence of the militia movement and the generous contribution they are making to the paranoia, fear, and stupidity of modern-day political dialogue. Now, it seems that militia types and their ideological allies have been inviting themselves to the Tea Parties.

The Tea Party movement represents a spectrum of ideas that runs from little old Republican ladies who enjoy tea cakes along with their politics to militia members who enjoy blasting effigies of President Obama with their AK47s. The resurgence of the militias and their crashing of the Tea Parties is a matter of some concern to civil rights organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
According to a recent report by the SPLC: “The situation has many authorities worried. Militiamen, white supremacists, anti-Semites, nativists, tax protesters and a range of other activists of the radical right are cross-pollinating and may even be coalescing" (under the Tea Party banner).

In the 1990s, when the last liberal Democratic president was in office, the militias thrived. These groups were under the impression that the federal government was planning a socialistic take-over of America. Their bogyman was a mythical “Black Helicopter” that was supposedly conducting surveillance of and preparing for war against the gun-toting patriots of America. The militias’ activities culminated in the bombing by two militia members, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City--killing 168 innocent adults and children.

Now, with liberals back in power, the militias, and organizations sharing their beliefs, are on the rise. The SPLC report noted that in Pensacola, Fla., a militia spokesman told a gathering of antigovernment “Patriots” that the federal government had set-up 1,000 internment camps across the country and was storing 30,000 guillotines and a half-million caskets in Atlanta. He averred that they are there for the day the government finally declares martial law and moves-in to round-up or kill American dissenters.

Outside Atlanta, a so-called "American Grand Jury" issued an "indictment" of President Obama for fraud and treason because, the panel concluded, he wasn't born in the United States and is illegally occupying the office of president. Other sham "grand juries" around the country have followed suit.

There is a new element to this second wave of militia revival. According to the SPLC report: “One big difference from the militia movement of the 1990s is that the face of the federal government — the enemy that almost all parts of the extreme right see as the primary threat to freedom — is now black. And the fact that the president is an African American has injected a strong racial element into even those parts of the radical right, like the militias, that in the past were not primarily motivated by race hate. Contributing to the racial animus have been fears on the far right about the consequences of Latino immigration.”

This racial hatred has popped-up in Tea Party gatherings where demonstrators have waived racist signs and posters showing President Obama as a witch doctor and saying things like “Obama’s plan--white slavery” and “Save white America from Obama.”

Needless to say, these militia groups, and those affiliated with them, are not in competition with MENSA for the best minds available. These groups are made-up of the most ignorant elements of white America. These are mostly losers whose resentment stems from the fact that they have achieved nothing in society while the leaders in this country are mostly intelligent, well-educated, sophisticated, elite individuals who look down on the militia types.

One hopes that the little old ladies and other Republican guests at the Tea Parties will look-around and be aware of the party crashers from the far-right who would rather slurp from the mug of conspiracy than sip from the teacup of sanity.

Republicans and the Census

Republicans have always portrayed themselves as paragons of patriotism and devoted supporters of the Constitution. It has, therefore, been something of an anomaly to find that they dislike one of the fundamental principles of our nation—democracy. The idea behind true democracy is that every adult citizen in a nation has the right to vote regardless of his or her race, wealth, occupation, origin, education, religion, or political opinion.

Article I, Section 2, of the Constitution provides for a nationwide census every ten years in order to enumerate the population. The results are used to allocate Congressional seats (congressional apportionment), electoral votes, and the funding of governmental programs. Republicans are, at the very least, suspicious of, if not down right hostile to the census.

If the census counted only white, Anglo-Saxon, financially stable, Christian citizens, Republicans would have no problem with it. Unfortunately for them, it also counts minorities, immigrants, the poor, non-Christians, and the homeless. Many Republicans would prefer that these types were not even part of the American population, and feel strongly that they should not be considered part of the electorate. They are aware that many of these people have been overlooked and undercounted in past censuses and that a preponderance of these people tend to vote for Democrats. For that reason, they oppose any efforts to make the census more thorough and accurate.

Now, it seems, Republican leaders are making efforts to sabotage the census before it even gets started. Republicans are sending-out a fundraising form that looks a lot like the official census form. Census officials are afraid that the Republican mailings could make some Americans think that they are responding to the official census and therefore be less likely to respond to the real thing.

House Minority gasbag John Boehner sent out a fundraising mailing which says that recipients were specially chosen to receive "the enclosed CENSUS DOCUMENT containing your 2010 Census of America's Republican Leadership." Copies of the Republican mailings look very much like official census forms. In the upper right hand side of the document I have seen, in large bold capital letters, it says “2010 CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT CENSUS.” Then below, in tiny lower case letters it says: “Commissioned by the Republican Party.” The rest of the form looks like an official federal government form. It is very different from the usual fundraising type of letter sent-out by political parties.

The similarity of this form to official government census forms is no coincidence. The clear purpose of this deceptive and dishonest mailing is to confuse voters and lower the response to the official census mailings. Republicans seem to think that the fewer the number of people who answer the census, the better it is for them.

A former director of the U.S. Census Bureau, who was appointed by George H.W. Bush, said in a letter sent to RNC Chairman Michael S. Steele that she received a mailer called the "2010 Congressional District Census." It was delivered in an envelope marked with the words, "Do Not Destroy, Official Document." She said that the mailer is "blatantly attempting to interfere with the United States’ 2010 Census of the Population….The design of the mailing envelope and its enclosure is clearly intended to confuse recipients and, in doing so, affect response to the nation’s 23rd decennial census."

Why do Republicans feel it necessary to engage in such deceptive and misleading activity? Is it because they do not trust the strength of their political arguments? Is it because they do not trust the majority of the American people to make the right decisions? They have relied on falsehoods and scare tactics in an attempt to defeat the health care reform bills. Why can’t they let truth prevail and let Democracy do its work?

Sarah Palin and the Tea Party

It is emblematic of the profound wisdom emanating from the Tea Party movement that its poster girl and favored presidential candidate is the ill-educated, unqualified, unintelligent quitter whom former McCain aids openly admit was too obtuse to accept coaching for her television appearances and too uneducated to know the answers to questions that any prospective vice president should master. Recent revelations of her husband’s emails show that with his impressive credentials as a snowmobile champion he was the brains behind Sarah’s truncated term as Alaska’s governor.

The State of Alaska recently released nearly 3,000 pages of e-mails that Todd Palin exchanged with state officials. They show a Palin administration in which the governor's husband got involved in judicial and state board appointments, contract negotiations with public employee unions, and other matters that should have been handled by his wife.

The Tea Party Convention was a profit-making enterprise which paid the ex-governor handsomely to be its keynote speaker. Other prospective speakers dropped out because of ethical considerations. Sarah, whose abandonment of the State of Alaska was inspired by a need for cash, had no such problems.

Sarah exposed her penetrating understanding of national economics in her address when she blasted the Obama Administration for "wasteful" stimulus spending, and urged Congress to kill the latest stimulus-style proposal. This attack on the stimulus spending--spending which most congressional Republicans opposed--is a favorite of right-wingers who have no idea of what it would have been like in America without it and haven’t the foggiest idea of what that spending has done to prevent a deep depression.

Palin fed her Convention guests with the usual right-wing Tea Party paranoia about taxes, deficits, and spending. Needless to say, Palin has no understanding of why it is necessary to provide stimulus and incur further deficits during an economic recession. She could find-out if she was to read some of the recent writings of leading economists, but that would be stretching her capacity beyond People Magazine.

There is a wide consensus among leading economists to the effect that the stimulus legislation greatly helped an economy that was in free-fall a year ago. It saved many jobs and created many more jobs. “It was worth doing — it’s made a difference,” said Nigel Gault, chief economist at IHS Global Insight, a financial forecasting and analysis group based in Lexington, Mass. Mr. Gault added: “I don’t think it’s right to look at it by saying, ‘Well, the economy is still doing extremely badly, therefore the stimulus didn’t work.’ I’m afraid the answer is, yes, we did badly but we would have done even worse without the stimulus.”

While Dim Sarah condemns the stimulus and inveighs against further stimulus spending, leading economists believe that the stimulus package may not have been enough. They understand that in order to stop a plunging recession, you have to pump money into the system.

What is it with these Tea Party people? They are angry, but they do not seem to know why they are angry. Their amorphous anger seems to be aimed at a poor economy which is the result of the recession caused by the Bush Administration. They seem to resent taxes (“Taxed Enough Already”), even though the Democrats are not going to raise their taxes. They seem to resent large deficits even though the current deficits were caused by Bush’s huge tax cuts for the wealthy, the Bush recession, and two Bush wars. They seem to resent health care reform that will lower their health care costs and make it more available.

I think that the root of Tea Party anger is that their team lost the Super Bowl of politics, the 2008 elections, and that a man who is part African American is now our Commander in Chief.

Limited Government and the Poor

One constantly hears the claim by conservatives that the real issue between conservatives and liberals is the size and scope of government. Conservatives never tire of repeating the claim that they want smaller government, and that the present size of government is far beyond anything envisioned or authorized by the Constitution. They assert that the growth of government threatens their freedom and way of life. Nonsense! What they object to is taxes and the use of government funds to help the poor, especially minorities.

The primary source of conflict between liberals and conservatives has always been the issue of how to deal with the poor. Liberals have always supported and conservatives have always opposed governmental policies that provide for the amelioration of poverty through jobs, minimum wages, welfare, social security, health care, housing, and tax relief. Liberals look upon such legislation as humane justice. Conservatives see such programs as the redistribution of wealth.

If government programs constitute redistribution of wealth, why aren’t the poor people getting wealthy? A really good program redistributing wealth would, at the very least, provide every poor person with hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why do poor people go on being poor, living in wretched housing conditions, and doing without food, and clothing?

In order for the government to provide welfare, Medicaid, housing programs, food stamps, unemployment benefits, jobs programs, and other relief for poor people, there have to be a number of governments departments administering such aid. This is what conservatives object to; the payment of taxes necessary to support those departments.

Conservatives do not oppose the expansion of governmental power or the expenditure of governmental funds for programs they favor. They approve of the use of taxes to augment military power and wage war, subsidize oil and gas companies in the search for fossil fuels, and enforce laws against illegal immigration, abortion, pornography, and the drug trade.

To many conservatives, poor people, especially minority people, are not deserving of any aid from the government. They believe that such people are lazy, ignorant, and inferior. Their attitude is best reflected in the remarks of the South Carolina Lieutenant Governor, Andre Bauer, who recently said: “My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed! You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that." In other words, poor and minority people are like animals; all they are good for is eating and breeding.

Such thinking reveals a cold-hearted lack of compassion. Some people who share these beliefs call themselves “Christians.” Nothing could be more ironic. The Bible tells us that the man they worship as the Son of God was born poor and spent his life on earth wandering among, preaching to, and blessing the poor. He taught his followers how to see the face of God in the poorest and most wretched people. I wonder if Andre Bauer ever read these words: “...for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink...as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:35-40). I wonder why it is too much for the Andre Bauers of this world that some of their taxes are used to help the poor?

Private charity is simply not enough to provide for many of the needs of the poor. The provision of such necessities is more than a moral good. It benefits the nation and all of the people. It ennobles us and makes us a better people. It makes our nation stronger, safer, and happier.