Tag: Senate

Obama’s Populism a Hoax: ObamaCare Is a Sop to Big PhRMA

By
Michael F. Cannon

From the invaluable Tim Carney:

The Obama team regularly dismisses opponents as industry lackeys. The Democratic National Committee blasted out e-mails this week warning that “for every member of Congress, there are eight anti-reform lobbyists swarming Capitol Hill” and “Congress is under attack from insurance lobbyists.”

But drug industry lobbyists, according to Politico, spent the weekend “huddled with Democratic staffers” who needed the drug lobby to “sign off” on proposals before moving ahead. Meanwhile, we learn that the drug lobby is buying millions of dollars of ads in 43 districts where a Democratic candidate stands to suffer for supporting the bill. The doctors’ lobby and the hospitals’ lobby are also on board with the Senate bill.

So the battle at this point is not reformers versus industry, as Obama would have you believe. Rather, it is a battle between most of the health care industry and the insurance companies.

(And the insurers are not opposed to the whole package. On the bill’s central planks — limits on price discrimination, outlawing exclusions for pre-existing conditions, a mandate that employers insure their workers and a mandate that everyone hold insurance — insurers are on board. They object mostly that the penalty is too small for violating the individual mandate.)

Read the whole thing.

Topics: 
General, Government and Politics, Health Care

Open All of Obama’s Health Care Meetings to C-SPAN

By
Michael F. Cannon

From my op-ed in The Daily Caller:

ObamaCare would dramatically expand government control over health care.

Each new power ObamaCare creates would be targeted by special interests looking for special favors, and held for ransom by politicians seeking a slice of the pie.

ObamaCare would guarantee that crucial decisions affecting your medical care would be made by the same people, through the same process that created the Cornhusker Kickback, for as far as the eye can see.

When ObamaCare supporters, like Kaiser Family Foundation president Drew Altman, claim that “voters are rejecting the process more than the substance” of the legislation, they’re missing the point.

When government grows, corruption grows.  When voters reject these corrupt side deals, they are rejecting the substance of ObamaCare.

If Obama is serious about fighting corruption, he should invite C-SPAN to into every meeting he holds with members of Congress.

Then we’ll see whether he’s lobbying House members based on the Senate bill’s merits, or promising House members judgeships or ambassadorships in exchange for their votes.

What’s going on behind those closed doors, anyway?  Aren’t you just a little bit curious?

Or does corruption only happen when Billy Tauzin is in the room?

Topics: 
General, Government and Politics, Health Care

If There’s Money, We Want It! (Whatever “It” Is.)

By
Neal McCluskey

There seems to be a real trend in Washington to declare support for a bill now, but actually have the bill exist later. It’s been most obvious in the health care marathon, where often purely notional pieces of legislation have been boisterously celebrated or bemoaned for months. It’s also the case with the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which may or may not be tacked on to health-care reconcilation because supporters don’t, you know, want to actually debate the thing. Currently, there is no Senate version of SAFRA, and it’s unclear what changes would need to be made to the House version to make it reconcilable.

So why are so many people willing to take big chances on legislation that only exists in the fertile minds of congresspeople? As this Inside Higher Ed article on community colleges illustrates, it’s often because they want taxpayer money – $12 billion is the community colleges’ hoped for windfall – no matter what:

Sensing the urgency of the moment on Capitol Hill, many community college advocates believe that budget reconciliation is the most likely route for passage of the AGI this year. They argue that time is of the essence for those community college trustees and presidents visiting town for the summit to lobby their representatives and senators without focusing on quibbles over the bill.

“I know there’s a lot of discussion for many of you [about] what’s in the program,” said Jee Hang Lee, ACCT director of public policy. “‘What’s in the final program for SAFRA? What’s in the final program for AGI? What is it going to look like?’ What we’ve heard is that, for the most part, the House and Senate staffs and the White House have something in place. I don’t know what it looks like. I don’t know many people who do know what it looks like. But they have a broad agreement on the structure of these programs, so that’s nice to know that they have because that means it’ll likely get funded.”

Still, he advised visiting trustees and presidents to be direct in their support for the bill and wait until later to work out potential kinks in its specific provisions.

“My point is that you just need to press hard to get this money and get it passed, and we can work out some of the details, I guess, later, I guess through the negotiated rule-making period,” Lee said.

Hmm. And I guess money grabs like these explain a good bit of why the national debt is now approaching $12.6 trillion.

Topics: 
Education and Child Policy, General

Questions for Thoughtful ObamaCare Supporters

By
Michael F. Cannon

What does it say that the American polity has consistently rejected a wholesale government takeover of health care for 100 years?

What does it say that public opinion has been consistently against the Democrats’ health care takeover since July 2009?

What does it say that Democrats are having this much difficulty enacting their health care legislation despite unified Democratic rule?  Despite large supermajorities in both chambers of Congress, including a once-filibuster-proof Senate majority (see more below)?  Despite an opportunistic change in Massachusetts law that provided that crucial 60th vote at a crucial moment?  Despite a popular and charismatic president?

What does it say that 38 House Democrats voted against the president’s health plan?

What does it say that Massachusetts voters elected, to fill the term of Ted Kennedy, a Republican who ran against the health care legislation that Kennedy helped to shape?

What does it say that the only thing bipartisan about that legislation is the opposition to it?

What does it say that 39 senators voted to declare that legislation’s centerpiece unconstitutional?

What does it say that health care researchers – a fairly left-wing lot – think the Senate bill is unconstitutional?

What does it say that the demands of pro-life and pro-choice House Democrats, each of which hold enough votes to determine the fate of this legislation, are irreconcilable?

What does it say that House Democrats are actually contemplating a legislative strategy that would deem the Senate bill to have passed the House – without the House ever actually voting on it?

Given that ours is a system of government where ambition is made to counteract ambition, what does it mean that the only way to pass this legislation is for the House to trust that the Senate will keep the House’s interests at heart?

Topics: 
Health Care

A $1.1 Billion Re-Election Campaign. For the Senate.

By
Sallie James

When Rep. Collin Peterson (D- Minn. and Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee) pronounces that a farm program is too generous, you know you’ve crossed a line.

But that’s what happened recently after Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark), Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman and – oh, hey, how about that? – facing a tough re-election battle in November proposed an extra $1.1 billion in emergency farm aid be added to a jobs/tax/unemployment/kitchen sink bill going through the Senate this week. These extra handouts would flow despite the fact that the 2008 farm bill contained ”reforms” (the so-called ”permanent disaster” program) ostensibly to put an end to politically-motivated ad hoc emergency aid of just the type that Senator Lincoln is pushing now.

For those who can stomach it, this excellent article by Dan Morgan, one of the nation’s best agriculture journalists, contains plenty of background information.

Topics: 
Tax and Budget Policy, Trade and Immigration

Taxes and Small Business

By
Chris Edwards

I testified to the Senate Finance Committee today regarding taxes and small business. My testimony is posted here.

President Obama plans to raise the top two individual income tax rates. That will not be good for business or the economy. A little more than half of all business income in the United States is reported on individual returns, not corporate returns. Of the business income reported on individual returns, 44 percent is in the top two income tax brackets.

My testimony pointed out that while Congress cut the top individual rate by 5 percentage points this past decade, the average top rate in the 30 OECD countries also fell by 5 percentage points, as shown in the chart below.

If the top federal rate rises to 40 percent next year, the United States will have the ninth highest top individual rate in the OECD, including state-level taxes. We’ve already got the second-highest corporate tax rate in the OECD.

A nation that has been a relative bastion of market capitalism and individual achievement has a tax code that is becoming very hostile to high-earners, entrepreneurs, and businesses of all types.

Topics: 
Tax and Budget Policy

Criminalizing Politics

By
David Boaz

Steve Poizner, the California insurance commissioner who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor, created a stir this week by charging opponent Meg Whitman’s campaign with attempting to coerce him out of the race. He said he had reported her campaign to state and federal law enforcement authorities.

What did Whitman actually do? Well, Poizner said that Whitman consultant Mike Murphy had contacted a Poizner staffer by phone and email to urge him to withdraw from the race. The email, released by Poizner, said: “I hate the idea of each of us spending $20 million beating on the other in the primary, only to have a badly damaged nominee. And we can spend $40 million tearing up Steve if we must; bad for him, bad for us, and a crazy waste to tear up a guy with great future statewide potential.” In the email, Murphy went on to suggest that if Poizner dropped out of the race before the June 8 vote, Whitman and her team would immediately get behind him for a 2012 challenge to Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Poizner says that’s not only “strong-arm tactics” but possibly an illegal inducement to get him to withdraw. But isn’t this really just politics as usual? Don’t candidates as a matter of course say “support me this time, and I’ll support you next time” or “run for a different office and I’ll endorse you”? Presidential candidates, or their campaign managers, are often said to have promised the vice presidency to more than one rival to clear the field.

The point about spending $40 million of Republican money tearing up fellow Republicans is a pretty common complaint about party primaries. In fact, National Review correspondent John J. Miller raised just that concern about the Rick Perry-Kay Bailey Hutchison showdown in Texas.

Even during the Rod Blagojevich flap over “selling” a Senate seat, the always-provocative Jack Shafer and Jim Harper both asked, Isn’t this what politicians do? They make deals – including deals like “I’ll support your campaign if you’ll make my buddy (or me) a Cabinet secretary.” No doubt the promises are often worthless, but they still get made. Blagojevich and Murphy have reminded pols all over the country that such deals are better made in person, not via email or telephone.

Politics ain’t beanbag, Mr. Poizner. Accept the deal or reject it. But “let’s clear the field and spend our money fighting the other party” is pretty standard politics. And a darn sight better than another standard political practice, using the taxpayers’ money to bribe the voters to support you.

Topics: 
Government and Politics

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