“High On Their Own Supply”: Republicans Marching Into One Well-Prepared Crossfire After Another
Jonathan Strong, writing at National Review Online, explains that the Republicans are wary of doing anything that might distract people from their campaign against the Affordable Care Act. Therefore, Mitch McConnell doesn’t intend to engage in any high-profile retaliatory procedural actions in the Senate. That’s fine with me, but it calls to mind McConnell’s immediate response to the invocation of the Nuclear Option. He took to the Senate floor and declared not that Harry Reid had just done something historical or significant or even abominable, but that Reid was merely trying to distract people from ObamaCare.
I thought that was the oddest response in the world. I expected fire and brimstone and steaming wrath and promises of vengeance, or even impeachment. And I got a mild complaint about Reid trying to change the narrative.
This makes me think that the Republicans are truly on another one of their Moby Dick adventures, like Whitewater, like the White House Travel Office, like Vince Foster, like l’affaire Lewinsky, like Saddam’s WMD, like Fast and Furious, like Solyndra, like the New Black Panther Party, like Benghazi, and like the most recent government shutdown. More than anything, it reminds me of when they convinced themselves not that the presidential polling numbers could be oversampling blacks, but that they were oversampling blacks. It’s like their theory that systematically trying to make it harder for blacks to vote would result in reduced black turnout rather than a black community more determined than ever to cast their ballots.
It’s some variation of stupidity and delusion, with a little evil sprinkled into the mix. And this really is the only area where I find the Republicans unpredictable. I know what they won’t agree to, which makes it easy to offer it to them without fear that they will accept it. “Have some Chained CPI, boys, really, all we need in return is some revenue.”
What I have trouble predicting is their next obsession, and how absurdly far they will take it. These people are still talking about Benghazi. As long as I’ve watched them, I still have to admit that I didn’t see that coming.
Still, their greatest weakness is their predictability. They do not know how to adapt to changing circumstances, nor how to trim their sails when it would be to their advantage. As a result, they march into one well-prepared crossfire after another.
By: Martin Longman, Washington Monthly Political Animal, November 23, 2013
“It’s Not All Doom And Gloom On Obamacare”: Just A Matter Of Time Before Republicans Start Criticizing Something New
Condemning the Affordable Care Act and its problem-plagued rollout is easy, but when the White House insists things are getting better, that’s not just spin. Brett Norman reports this afternoon:
Tech surge czar Jeff Zients said that HealthCare.gov will be able to handle 50,000 users at a time by the end of this month – up from 25,000 now, thanks to hardware additions and software additions the team is putting in this weekend and next week.
He said that will enable the site to handle 800,000 people a day – “a conservative estimate,” he said in a conference call with reporters.
It’s important to note that handling increased traffic, while clearly important, is not the resolution to all of the website’s troubles. Accurately connecting consumers to insurers and providing reliable data on subsidies is just as important, and to date, these are areas with which healthcare.gov has also struggled.
That said, Zients told reporters all of these issues are being addressed, and the increased website capacity should – should – keep the larger enrollment system on track towards its 2014 goals.
Indeed, even before Zients’s media briefing, Sarah Kliff highlighted reports of a “November surge” in enrollments.
By the end of October, the federal government had counted 106,000 people enrolled into private coverage through the new health insurance marketplaces, a small percentage of the projected half-million sign-ups.
By mid-November, though, with the 14 state-based marketplaces reporting fresh data, that number had just about doubled to more than 200,000…. State officials say they are seeing an uptick in sign-ups this month. California, which has had about 80,000 sign-ups, is now reporting about 2,000 enrollments per day. New York and Washington reported double-digit enrollment numbers as of this week.
Kaiser Family Foundation President Drew Altman told Kliff, “It’s not all doom and gloom.”
Reports from several states where officials want the system to work are reporting impressive numbers for the first half of November. California, in particular, appears to be leading the way – and given that the Golden State is the nation’s largest, that’s good news for the overall totals.
The law’s proponents shouldn’t be Pollyannaish about any of this, and we have not reached the point at which the system can fairly be described as “adequate.” It’s just not there yet.
But the administration can credibly say they’re putting out the fires; they’re making steady progress; and they’ve moving closer to their goals. The panic is subsiding. The recent chatter that “Obamacare” is going to destroy the president, Democrats, the health care system, and the idea of progressive governance on a conceptual level hasn’t quite gone away, but it’s looking increasingly silly.
And while I’m reluctant to look too far ahead with so much uncertainty still surrounding the system’s functionality, I can’t help but wonder about what the political world’s conversation will look like if, in the near future, healthcare.gov is working as it should, enrollment is strong, costs are contained, millions are gaining coverage they previously lacked, and millions more enjoy health care security that previously didn’t exist.
I have a very strong hunch we would, under this scenario, see very few headlines that say “Obama fixes problems, brings health care security to nation.” Rather, folks would just move past the hysteria of the last month, start criticizing something new, and Republicans could return to saying, “Now, about Benghazi….”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, November 22, 2013
“Don’t Bother Us With Governing”: With Caucus-Wide Sentiment, House GOP Pushes Distractions Over Policy
At the start of every Congress, the leadership of both chambers generally set aside bill numbers as a way of designating their biggest priorities. The House Republican majority, for example, will set aside H.R. 1 through H.R. 10 for their top 10 most important bills – the ones they’re most eager to pass.
And in this Congress, H.R. 1 has nothing to do with immigration, health care, energy, or security. Rather, it’s tax reform.
For the last several months, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) has been quietly meeting with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) on a major overhaul of the federal tax code – the first in a generation. It’s no easy task, and Camp has made clear he considers this the most important project of his political career.
The general proposition is pretty straightforward: if Congress eliminates unnecessary deductions, closes loopholes, and scraps superfluous tax giveaways, the result will be a simpler, streamlined tax code that produces more revenue. The benefit would mean more deficit reduction, lower rates overall, or both. The trouble, of course, is that those deductions, loopholes, and giveaways have their champions and they’re hard to get rid of, compounded by the fact that Democrats and Republicans disagree on what to do with the new revenue.
But that’s not the only trouble. Brian Faler had a report this morning on an angle I hadn’t considered.
[Some of Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp’s] fellow Republicans now don’t want him to release his long-awaited tax reform bill for fear it will allow Democrats to change the subject. They want the public’s focus on people who have lost their health insurance and those having trouble signing up at healthcare.gov, and not on what will surely be a controversial tax-reform bill.
It’s a cruel bit of timing for Camp, who’s spent three years, almost since the day Republicans took control of the House, trying to build support for the first tax overhaul in a generation. He’s repeatedly promised his panel would take up legislation this year, and if it doesn’t soon, Camp – who faces term-limit restrictions on his chairmanship – may never get the chance.
Got that? Camp believes he’s finally made progress on H.R. 1 – ostensibly the one thing House Republicans actually want to pass in this Congress – and he’s eager to move forward. Camp, however, is effectively hearing from his own allies, “Don’t bother us with that now; we’re too busy raising a fuss about health care.”
Indeed, the Politico report added that lobbyists involved with the process believe House GOP leaders will “pressure Camp to pull the plug” on his tax-reform measure.
This reminds me a bit of a story from March, when Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) said he wanted to tackle legislation regarding loan guarantees to clean-energy companies, but he dropped the legislation because “he chose to focus more” on Benghazi and Fast and Furious.
In other words, the congressman had a policy priority, but it was abandoned – a partisan crusade got in the way.
Seven months later, it seems Camp is running into a similar issue. He wants to follow through on years of work on tax reform – for the record, I have a hunch I won’t care for his plan – but his effort is getting in the way of Republicans’ anti-healthcare fun.
And since it’s a post-policy party, the conflict between governing and gamesmanship isn’t much of a contest, at least with the House GOP majority.
Don’t forget, just last week Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) boasted that the House Republicans’ top priority should be “messaging,” not problem solving. As Dave Camp is apparently realizing, this is a caucus-wide sentiment.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, November 13, 2013
“Game Show Contestants”: Why Obamacare’s Critics Have To Brazenly Just Make Stuff Up
With the federal government re-opened, and the debt ceiling raised, the political world can slowly adjust to some semblance of normalcy – or at least as normal as the conditions were a few months ago.
At Fox News, that means a few specific things, including an effort to convince viewers that the shutdown’s effects on the U.S. economy weren’t that bad, followed by an effort to – I kid you not – focus on another round of Benghazi conspiracy theories.
But it also means reinvesting in the crusade against the Affordable Care Act. Eric Stern has a fascinating item in Salon this morning on one Fox segment in particular.
I happened to turn on the Hannity show on Fox News last Friday evening. “Average Americans are feeling the pain of Obamacare and the healthcare overhaul train wreck,” Hannity announced, “and six of them are here tonight to tell us their stories.” Three married couples were neatly arranged in his studio, the wives seated and the men standing behind them, like game show contestants.
As Hannity called on each of them, the guests recounted their “Obamacare” horror stories: canceled policies, premium hikes, restrictions on the freedom to see a doctor of their choice, financial burdens upon their small businesses and so on.
“These are the stories that the media refuses to cover,” Hannity interjected.
To his credit, Stern listened carefully to the couples’ stories, but noticed that they didn’t sound plausible. So he tracked each of the guests down to ask some follow-up questions.
First was a North Carolina couple that said the health care law is hurting their construction business, forcing them to keep their employees at part-time status. As it turns out, what they said on the air was simply made up.
Then there was a woman who was paying over $13,000 a year in premiums, who was recently told by her insurer that her plan was being terminated. This was proof, she told Hannity, that when Obama said consumers could keep their plans if they wanted, it wasn’t true. What she neglected to mention on the air is that, thanks to the law she opposes, she can sign up for coverage through an exchange and save several thousand dollars a year for better insurance.
Finally, there was a Tennessee couple who said they’re facing a rate increase of 50% to 75%. Asked if they’d shopped around in the new marketplace, the couple said they refuse, which is a shame – when Stern checked for them, he found a plan for them that would cut their health care costs by 63%.
So what are we left with? Three Fox News horror stories that really aren’t that horrible after all.
Whether Hannity knew his guests were pushing bogus, politically motivated stories is unclear – fair minded folks can draw their own conclusions – but a related concern has lingered for quite a while. If the dreaded “Obamacare” were really so awful, and is poised to hurt so many families, shouldn’t Fox and other opponents find it easier to find real anecdotal evidence?
In other words, Hannity would have us believe Obamacare victims are everywhere. If so, why can’t he find real ones to appear on his show? Why mislead the public so brazenly?
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, October 18, 2013
“Stark Raving Mad”: When Unhinged GOP Conspiracy Theories Become Self-Defeating
Remember Rep. Joe Wilson (R)? The right-wing South Carolinian has been in the U.S. House for nearly 12 years, and apparently has distinguished himself exactly once: he shouted “You lie!” during President Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress on health care policy.
Apparently, though, Wilson is still on Capitol Hill, and piped up during a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting today with a question on Syria for Secretary of State John Kerry. Watch on YouTube
For those who can’t watch clips online, note that Wilson, with a halting cadence, very carefully read a question that someone on his staff apparently prepared for him:
“With the president’s red line, why was there no call for military response in April? Was it delayed to divert attention today from the Benghazi, IRS, NSA scandals, the failure of Obamacare enforcement, the tragedy of the White House-drafted sequestration or the upcoming debt limit vote? Again, why was there no call for a military response four months ago when the president’s red line was crossed?”
Now, I can appreciate a wild-eyed conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but even by House GOP standards, this is just stark raving mad. First, the “scandals” Wilson believes in don’t exist; things are going fairly well for the Affordable Care Act; and sequestration was Republicans’ fault.
Second, think about the point Wilson is trying to make with his deeply silly question: the White House was, the theory goes, overwhelmed in April by scandals and policy fiascoes. To “divert attention” to all of these terrible problems, President Obama did … nothing.
Wilson’s conspiracy theory would at least have internal consistency if Obama had bombed Syria at the time, giving conservatives an opportunity to say the military offensive was timed to be a distraction from domestic difficulties. But Wilson doesn’t even have that — he’s saying Obama didn’t intervene in Syria in April to “divert attention” from made-up controversies, suggesting the Congressman doesn’t even understand the words of the conspiracy theory someone wrote for him to repeat during the hearing.
Alas, Wilson wasn’t alone.
Sahil Kapur reported on a related conspiracy theory from another South Carolina Republican.
Secretary of State John Kerry erupted at Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) after the congressman charged that the Obama administration cannot be trusted to carry out an attack on Syria due to mistakes made in Benghazi and controversies involving the IRS and NSA programs.
“I cannot discuss the possibility of the U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war without talking about Benghazi,” Duncan said, questioning Kerry at a Wednesday hearing.
“The administration has a serious credibility issue with the American people, due to the unanswered questions surrounding the terrorist attack in Benghazi almost a year ago. When you factor in the IRS targeting of conservative groups, the AP and James Rosen issues, Fast and Furious and NSA spying programs, the bottom line is that there is a need for accountability and trust-building from the administration,” he said. “The American people deserve answers about Benghazi before we move forward in Syria’s civil war.”
Kerry dismissed Duncan’s garbage rhetoric out of hand.
If the right-wing lawmaker’s name sounds familiar, it’s probably because Duncan is fond of conspiracy theories about the IRS and firearms; he believes conspiracy theories involving the Census Bureau; and he pushed Glenn Beck’s conspiracy theories surrounding the Boston Marathon Bombing in April. He’s also a birther.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 4, 2013
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