(1) Have Republican Senate and House candidates nationwide run on a platform along the lines of the “Contract with America” that they will not vote to approve any budget that includes appropriations to effectuate provision of Obamacare.
(2) The GOP take over the House or Senate, or both.
(3) The House or Senate or both pass budgets that bar the executive branch from spending money to implement Obamacare.
(4) The Democrats refuse to go along.
(5) The public sides with the Republicans (who point out that they won the 2010 elections on exactly this platform), and Obama is ultimately forced to sign a budget that bars appropriations to implement “the bill.” The bill is killed.
(6) 2012 election is then fought (in part) over whether the law should be formally repealed, or implemented.
How likely is this scenario? I have no idea, but better than relying on the courts.
UPDATE: Several commenters suggest that this strategy isn’t viable, because it would only stop the executive branch from spending money on implementation, not from enacting and enforcing regulations. I’m no expert on the federal budget process, but my understanding is that Congress can in fact pass legislation (with the president’s signature, of course) that bars the executive branch from using its resources to enact and enforce regulations pertaining to existing laws. The legislation stays on the books, but there’s no money available to do anything with it. I suppose one could posit an inherent executive power to enforce legislation even if a new law bars the president from using executive branch resources to do so. But that sounds like an awfully “Bushian” view of executive power.
uh_clem says:
I agree that the best way to repeal or otherwise stymie the health care bill is through the legislature.
Good luck with that. As other commentators far more conservative than I have observed, entitlements are very hard to roll back once they are implemented. They don’t call Social Security “the third rail of politics” for nothing.
March 23, 2010, 9:23 amSeaDrive says:
I don’t suppose there is any chance that y’all would actually consider getting on board working to make it better rather than just being obstructionist.
March 23, 2010, 9:35 amsashal says:
what I am wondering if the communistic takeover will succeed and the republican bill of health insurance reform will not be repealed by republicans when they will regain power will the huge immigration to the freedom loving countries with true free market run health insurance :- like Costa-Rica, Russia,Norway, India etc – commence in USA ?
March 23, 2010, 9:37 amMak says:
The courts have been coopted by the collectivists, and have allowed Federalism to be destroyed. There is little chance of getting relief from this tyrannical move from the Judiciary. Still, I don’t see much greater chance of relief through the legislature. It will take the perfect storm for the Republicans to control Congress to effect a repeal — and its unclear to me how sincere the Republicans are in the first place. Moreover, I think it is overly optimistic that those now in power would idely stand by and allow a democratic vote to ruin their plans.
March 23, 2010, 9:38 amJohn Burgess says:
SeaDrive: Obstruction isn’t the goal here. Complete eradication is. Improving that which you intend to destroy is counterproductive and wastes resources.
March 23, 2010, 9:38 amcboldt says:
– I don’t suppose there is any chance that y’all would actually consider getting on board working to make it better rather than just being obstructionist. –
March 23, 2010, 9:41 amIt’s too late in the game to be seeking good faith agreement.
You made the system, you run it. Good luck getting the money, and finding doctors who will work for peanuts.
As for how likely it is that the scenario in the OP will play, I’d give it zero probability. The legislation is front-loaded on taxes/revenue to the government, not appropriated outlays. ALL politicians are in favor of higher revenues.
Roger the Shrubber says:
It’s quite clear to me.
March 23, 2010, 9:47 amAndrew J. Lazarus says:
I believe the young ones say ROFLMFAO. The Republicans’ idea of good faith agreement on health care hasn’t changed since 1993, when Bill Kristol wrote his notorious memo saying that Health Care Reform had to be blocked at all costs. Not because it was bad for the country, but because blocking it would make the Democrats look crippled and weak, and improve GOP political fortunes. Straight from his Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyist upbringing. So you saw Bob Dole not negotiating in good faith, you saw him (and other Republicans) rejecting their own health care proposals.
The Republicans tried it again; they even trumpeted it would be Obama’s Waterloo. But they were a few votes short. Guess their Kristol ball cracked! Ha-hah!
March 23, 2010, 9:50 amcboldt says:
– I believe the young ones say ROFLMFAO. –
March 23, 2010, 9:54 amI’m not sure where that comes from, but I’m inclined to agree with the laugh.
Are you opining that good faith agreement is in the cards? If so, I have the opposite sentiment.
pc says:
Prof. Bernstein, I think that is probably the most likely way the Republicans can kill the bill. By the time the elections roll around it will be interesting to see how the ads play out. On the right there will be ads saying to kill the bill. On the left there will be ads saying that Republicans want to allow insurance companies to deny children health insurance because of pre-existing conditions. There are a number of items that go into effect immediately with this bill, items that are hard to argue against at an emotional level. That doesn’t make it good law, but it does make it good politics.
March 23, 2010, 9:58 amJoseph Slater says:
I’ve seen this list posted by right-wing commenters on other blogs. What is the original source?
March 23, 2010, 10:01 amAndrew J. Lazarus says:
No, not at all. We would have had a better bill with Republican input, and Republican agreement to support parts of the law that they actually support. (Republicans who aren’t spending all day watching Glenn Beck re-runs also detect a problem with affordability of health insurance and accessibility of health care.) With a few GOP votes, for example, Obama wouldn’t have needed to placate Pharma 100%. But those Republicans vanished from the scene. Instead the GOP tried scorched earth tactics, that worked splendidly in 1993. The details of Obamacare are not so different (fbow!) from Massachusetts, but there’s Governor Romney who architected that plan trying desperately to reassure the Tea Party cretins that he now sees the nearly-identical Obamacare as satanic.
March 23, 2010, 10:04 amDavid Bernstein says:
I haven’t, so for purposes of this post, the original source is me. (I did see someone else point out that just because the law is in force, doesn’t mean that a GOP-led House has to appropriate money for it. I think it was a random comment to a blog post elsewhere, but I don’t remember for sure).
March 23, 2010, 10:07 ampc says:
Good faith requires that both sides come to the table willing to negotiate. The plan that the Democrats are passing is more conservative than what Nixon wanted; it’s more conservative than what Republicans proposed in 1993; it’s more conservative than Bob Dole’s health care reform plan; it’s eerily similar to former Republican presidential candidate — and current Republican 2012 front runner — Mitt Romney. It certainly isn’t what the liberal wing of the Democratic party wanted. So who was working in good faith?
March 23, 2010, 10:09 amcboldt says:
– cboldt: Are you opining that good faith agreement is in the cards?
March 23, 2010, 10:12 amNo, not at all. … Tea Party cretins –
’nuff said.
Floridan says:
Rube Goldberg would be proud.
March 23, 2010, 10:12 amThreeSheets says:
What makes you think he would sign the appropriations bill just because the public supports it if he doesn’t seem to care that the people were against ObamaCare in the first place? If he is already willing to risk a second term by enacting unpopular legislation, I don’t see why he would suddenly be inclined to zero it out. In fact, I think he’d try to turn it against the Republicans, ala Clinton, and blame them for cutting services to the elderly, children and minorities.
March 23, 2010, 10:13 amDaniel Chapman says:
“I don’t suppose there is any chance that y’all would actually consider getting on board working to make it better rather than just being obstructionist.”
Thanks. I needed a good chuckle this morning.
March 23, 2010, 10:16 amTheReasonedMind says:
While your proposal may be an effective control mechanism for the financial components, I don’t see how that would influence the regulatory components such as those regarding pre-existing conditions and extending coverage for adult children.
By my understanding, the regulatory elements are not contingent on the implementation of the financial elements.
Restriction of the financial elements would only serve to further squeeze the insurance companies by requiring coverage for higher-cost members without integrated the lower-cost members, leading to significantly higher premiums.
March 23, 2010, 10:16 amJ. Aldridge says:
What if enough people just refuse to buy insurance and refuse to pay the fine. Suppose there is 30 million who do that? That might mean Dems would need to pass another bill to make up for the substantial shortfall which GOP would be in position to block.
March 23, 2010, 10:17 amSKI says:
Idiocy. Truly.
First, the politics of shutting down all of government isn’t gong to play well with anyone outside the core 25% of the hard right (and may not with many of them).
Second, a majority of Americans would oppose repeal. Latest polling has 53% either in favor of the actual bill or opposed from the left. I know, facts spoils memes but…
Third, your point #5 is completely hypocritical given that Obama and the Dems won 2008′s election explicitly on the platfrom of passing HCR (in pretty much the format the final bill takes).
Fourth, the commentators who are claiming this is some radical socialistic plan are ignoring (or unaware) that the actual seeds of ‘ObamaCare’ was in the Heritage Foundation and the GOP’s plans in the mid-1990s that were offered as an alternative to Clinton’s plan. Is anyone rational supposed to believe that what was “conservative” in the 1990s is socialism and radical in 2010?
Bottom-line: I strongly suggest getting out of the echo-chamber of like-minded individuals who aren’t capable and/or willing to actually think about the issues. Try Larison for some conservative honesty: The Constituency For Repeal
March 23, 2010, 10:17 amDavid Bernstein says:
I’m assuming that the GOP won’t be dumb enough this time to brag, a la Gingrich, how they are going to shut down the government, and instead correctly point out that if Obama vetoes appropriations, it is he who is shutting down the government. Plus, the media is a lot more ideologically diverse now than it was then, making it more difficult for Obama to control the narrative.
March 23, 2010, 10:17 amPersonFromPorlock says:
I still like the scenario I’ve been promoting for the last two weeks: the Republicans take the House and pass a resolution deeming that the Healthcare bill was never approved by the House. Therefore it could never have been presented to the President and signed, and isn’t a law.
March 23, 2010, 10:18 amneimoller says:
they went one step further. newt gingrich, one of the supposed intellectuals on the republican side, and a possible presidential contender, said that this would be as damaging to the dems as johnson’s signing of civil rights legislation was. don’t think much needs to be said about such a comparison.
March 23, 2010, 10:20 amgeokstr says:
Never happen. Obama refuses to sign the budgets, threatens to shut down the gov, trots out totally fake stories of old people and welfare mothers with no food dying in the streets because they can’t get their gov checks, media doubles down with Obama (unlike when Reagan tried this ploy), smears the R’s, who cave behind the strong principled conservative leadership of McCain, Snowe, Collins, and Graham. Collectivism wins again.
Instead they need to point to 2012 and having a Republican prez who will sign such a budget or an outright repeal. Run on a platform of refunding all the taxes/fees/penalties/fines collected to date. The Dems have just shown us exactly how to do it, so all they need is 50 senators plus the vice prez, and a majority in the House.
Now that’s a really hilarious ROTFLMAO.
A leftist acting like anything whatsoever Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyist is a bad thing. Ha!
Apparently, it’s just hunky-dory when the left uses the tactics of Karl and Saul, after all, that’s their boys. But when it gets thrown back in their faces, they get all wee-weed over it.
March 23, 2010, 10:20 amCalderon says:
That seems to be true enough, but many of the entitlements here don’t begin until 2014, so there’s a slim window to repeal the bill in between 2012 and 2014. I agree it’s unlikely to happen, but it’s far more probable than Social Security repealed (though of course even Social Security came relatively close to receiving major changes several years ago …).
March 23, 2010, 10:20 amThatGuy says:
What about a civil disobedience solution? Get a critical mass of people to overload doctors by asking for all the free preventive care we can get, and crash the system?
March 23, 2010, 10:21 amSKI says:
Because the reality is that most people won’t and wouldn’t want to.
March 23, 2010, 10:21 amsashal says:
that’s how Mitch McConnell brought universal health care to America. And the thing of it is that most conservatives are so shallow, and so driven by hippie-hatred rather than any real views, that if they get to use this as an “issue” to win seats in the midterms and it never gets repealed, they’ll consider themselves vindicated.”
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/03/waterloo.php
Read more: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/03/22/kristol-blue-deflation/#ixzz0j0dYoH3g
March 23, 2010, 10:21 amDavid Bernstein says:
False, he said as damaging as the great society, the Times had to correct Krugman’s misstatement.
March 23, 2010, 10:22 amSKI says:
There is no way for the GOP to gain a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate this year. They won’t be able to pass a budget for Obama to veto.
March 23, 2010, 10:22 amneimoller says:
keep calling it that. the faction that asks n—–s and f—–s to go back and spits on them will be scared. the rest will soon associate it with the first serious success in managing health costs – something conservatives should have embraced, along with limits to the caprice of insurance parties – something normal humans should have approved of in some form. in the meanwhile, maybe the republicans can eagerly come up with medicare part e.
March 23, 2010, 10:23 amsashal says:
Larison is truly enjoyable intelligent conservative writer.
March 23, 2010, 10:23 amI wonder if there were more of this kind years ago.
Too bad I missed them
Andrew J. Lazarus says:
I agree here. The Dems failed to realize what was up in 1993 even though Kristol’s memo was publicly available. Their wimp factor is pretty high. I’m told Obamacare is actually less radical than what the Republicans of the 1990s proposed as an alternative to Clinton’s plan (although, under Kristol’s malign influence, they repudiated their own plan). But we’re not wee-weed today. The Republicans tried the same trick again, and this time it backfired. Boo-hoo, as you might say.
I see that a brick was thrown through the window of Rep. Slaughter’s Buffalo office. The local Tea Party blogger leading the charge against Obamacare is on SSI. That’s the level of buffoonery conservatives can expect from the Tea Party crowd.
March 23, 2010, 10:27 amSKI says:
Much of this site used to be that way..
Others that currently fit that model include Conor Friedersdorf and the crews at Outside the Beltway and the League of Ordinary Gentlemen
March 23, 2010, 10:28 amneimoller says:
false apologia. newt gingrich sent some cya emails after he realized this could be his trent lott moment. can’t be too transparent about his real feelings and all that.
even the wa po reported what he originally said here and here.
March 23, 2010, 10:28 amConsumatopia says:
“(who point out that they won the 2010 elections on exactly this platform),”
Because Republicans found it really convincing when Obama and Democrats pointed out that they won the 2008 elections on exactly their platform.
March 23, 2010, 10:29 amDavid Bernstein says:
Well, the Times issued a correction, and the Washington Post doesn’t link to the original Gingrich piece, which is certainly suspicious.
March 23, 2010, 10:41 amDavid Bernstein says:
Note where the quotation marks in the Post piece end: “will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” with the passage of civil rights legislation.
March 23, 2010, 10:42 amAllan says:
A much simpler solution to overturning health care, with the added bonus of getting rid of Social Security and Medicare, too.
1. Start an armed insurrection.
2. Defeat the federal government (and kill all the liberals while you are at it).
3. Install conservative leaders.
4. Repeal the laws you don’t like (and, while you are at it, rewrite the Constitution).
Good luck. This is much more likely to succeed than David Berstein’s proposal, although it also means more violence.
March 23, 2010, 10:44 amsardonic_sob says:
For God’s sake, must Newspeak permeate every corner of the land?
Architects don’t “architect” things. They design things. Are we so desperate to intellectualize that all nouns must be verbed? Are we so filled with fail that all verbs must be nouned? What is WRONG with you people?
March 23, 2010, 10:45 amDangerMouse says:
A significant number of people may refuse to buy insurance and pay the fine, since it is expected that premiums will skyrocket. An insurance company can’t deny someone with pre-existing conditions. So don’t buy insurance, pay the small fine, and then when you get sick, buy the insurance (they can’t deny you coverage).
March 23, 2010, 10:46 amSteve says:
The Times didn’t issue a correction, they simply noted that Gingrich is now trying to push a new interpretation of his statement.
March 23, 2010, 10:46 amJ. Aldridge says:
The Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act (MCCA) of 1988 got repealed a year later.
March 23, 2010, 10:48 amDangerMouse says:
Exctly. It’s another example of the MSM putting words in people’s mouths. Libs seem to believe that people are so gullible as to eat that crap up. Morons. This is why the MSM is reviled by most Americans.
March 23, 2010, 10:48 amDavid Bernstein says:
Again, look at where the quotation marks end. Not that I think it’s especially important what Gingrich did or didn’t say, but it’s typical Krugman. If the Times had solid information that the characterization of Gingrich’s quote was accurate, it surely wouldn’t have published this editor’s note, given it’s general policy of giving its op-ed columnists a lot more leeway to play with the facts than its reporters.
March 23, 2010, 10:48 amThorley Winston says:
Maybe, but I think that even if that were to succeed, the only thing it would do would be to delay the subsidies and Medicaid expansion. Obama’s tax increases on pharmaceuticals, medical devices, clinical laboratories and health insurance would still go into effect on schedule, the new regulations that would drive up the cost of health insurance even further, and the individual mandates and fines would all be unaffected by whether Congress appropriates money. So while such a scenario might reduce the cost to (some) taxpayers by stopping part of the increase in federal spending, the costs to other taxpayers and consumers would still happen.
March 23, 2010, 10:49 amcboldt says:
– Libs seem to believe that people are so gullible as to eat that crap up. –
March 23, 2010, 10:59 amEvidence supports that conclusion (that the readers are gullible). See the recent wave of false reports on some tea party person shouted “nigger.” Other than the news reports, where is the evidence? Same technique of fabricating facts from this air, that AP used when it reported “The crowd booed” when GWB delivered news that Bill Clinton was to undergo bypass surgery, and that “we” (the crown, ostensibly) wish him well.
TheReasonedMind says:
Why not just leverage the 38+ states who are passing resolutions against the bill and re-write the Constitution without the violence?
March 23, 2010, 11:00 amneimoller says:
did you read this in a poll on fox news?
haha! thanks for the laughs. as for the rest, what steve said.
don’t be so sure about the less violence part. it all starts with spitting at the n—–s and f—–s.
March 23, 2010, 11:01 amDangerMouse says:
Well, your list only goes to prove that the MSM has made stuff up in the past, not necessarily that people believe it. Sure, there’s a section of the population that probably does believe that stuff, because they didn’t grow up in an age where it was known that almost everything remotely political stated by the MSM was a bunch of liberal lies. Among people who follow this stuff all the time, it’s pretty embarassing that the libs continue to lie like this. In any event, even if some section of the public at large believes it, it is pure fantasy to think that such an assertion would work on a blog such as this. News check, libs: people aren’t as stupid as you think they are.
March 23, 2010, 11:04 ambyomtov says:
pc,
The plan that the Democrats are passing is more conservative than what Nixon wanted; it’s more conservative than what Republicans proposed in 1993; it’s more conservative than Bob Dole’s health care reform plan; it’s eerily similar to former Republican presidential candidate — and current Republican 2012 front runner — Mitt Romney. It certainly isn’t what the liberal wing of the Democratic party wanted. So who was working in good faith?
How dare you introduce actual facts into the discussion? Don’t you know how upsetting that is to some commenters?
March 23, 2010, 11:04 amneimoller says:
ahem. ponly believers in santa claus, the tooth fairy, and sales of the brooklyn bridge will buy that the newt wasn’t referring to lyndon johnson’s famous statement to bill moyers.
March 23, 2010, 11:05 amDangerMouse says:
This is exactly what I’m talking about. Non-responsive snark answers that assume people are idiots. If anything, you libs are predictible.
March 23, 2010, 11:06 amDangerMouse says:
Returning to the subject of this thread, I do think that de-funding Obamacare is the best way to BEGIN to kill the bill. Ultimately, it must be completely repealed or replaced with something else. If the Republicans take control of the House, which is increasingly likely, the process can start within a year.
March 23, 2010, 11:09 amneimoller says:
now, I am the MSM? you made a claim, i asked you where you got it.
no assumptions here.
March 23, 2010, 11:10 ambyomtov says:
If the Times had solid information that the characterization of Gingrich’s quote was accurate, it surely wouldn’t have published this editor’s note,
Oh come on. Gingrich complained that he had been misquoted, and the Times reported his complaint. That’s what happened.
And you know as well as everyone else that the reference was vastly more likely to refer to civil rights than anything else.
March 23, 2010, 11:12 amAndrew J. Lazarus says:
I’m wondering why you think yelling “nigger” at black lawmakers is out of character for the Tea Party? Their own convention featured a speaker who thinks Obama is some sort of Kenyan-born usurper. I know Republicans like to dream that International ANSWER makes up half of the Democratic Party, but you are missing the show on which party is beholden to, I repeat the word, cretins.
March 23, 2010, 11:12 amneimoller says:
you mean. in my remark that a mob laughing and spitting at the n***ers and the f***ots is a dangerous dangerous sign?
March 23, 2010, 11:12 amRich B. says:
I certainly will not pretend to read Gingrich’s mind, but is it not the case that if he is referring to the “Great Society,” then his statement is factually incorrect?
It was — factually — the passage of the Civil Rights laws that shattered the Democratic Party as (mostly) Southern Democrats voted against it, not the passage of Medicare.
The Great Society programs were much closer to party-line votes for the Democrats.
March 23, 2010, 11:15 amneimoller says:
well, then you can rest assured till the 2011 tax forms show up that hcr hasn’t happened either.
March 23, 2010, 11:17 amyankee says:
This is phenomenally unlikely. First, it’s extremely unlikely such a bill could pass the Senate. It’s mathematically impossible for the Republicans to get a 60-vote Senate majority even if they win every seat that’s up for reelection. Senate Democrats who supported the bill aren’t going to turn around and oppose it, which would expose them to a hue amount of anger from the base and open them to charges of flip-flopping on the most important legislative issue of the day.
Even if the Republicans have a super landslide in which they take over a huge number of “safe” Democratic Senate seats, there’s no guarantee that they’ll win a budget shutdown contest. Obama will trot out stories of children being denied healthcare and Grandma not getting her Social Security check, a narrative that works much better for Democrats than for Republicans. So I’m not seeing it.
The much stronger tack is for Republicans to win the 2012 elections and repeal the bill in 2013, before the benefits start rolling in.
March 23, 2010, 11:17 amDavid Bernstein says:
Last post on Gingrich. He wasn’t “misquoted.” He was quoted accurately, but the author added the interpretation that he was talking about the civil rights stuff, without
March 23, 2010, 11:17 ama quotation mark. There’s no reason to prefer the Post author’s understanding of what Gingrich’s meant to Gingrich’s own. But if the entire quote, in full context, was damning to Gingrich the Post could just reprint the entire thing, and then there would be no controversy. Either the full quote isn’t damning, or the reporter was just taking careless or haphazard notes, in which case once again there’s no reason to privilege his understanding.
DangerMouse says:
Where’s the proof that anyone yelled anything? Some lib lawmaker makes an assertion that isn’t backed up by video evidence, supposedly surrounded by crowds of people? And the MSM, which by the way has been claiming for months that anyone who opposes Obama at all is a racist, parrots that assertion? Please. You’ll have to do better than that. Or, two can play that game. I can make plenty of assertions, if you want to go down that road.
March 23, 2010, 11:20 amsashal says:
corrected
March 23, 2010, 11:23 amDangerMouse says:
corrected
Truly, I am astounded with the force of your intellectual argument.
You’d think that 2 days after a big lib policy victory, libs would be happier. Heh. I take great satisfaction that even though the healthcare law was signed today, the libs here commenting today are unable to express any joy and can only express snark. Wallow in your hatrid – it’s great joy for me.
March 23, 2010, 11:28 amAxl says:
Why not work on making it better before you ram it down people’s throats?
March 23, 2010, 11:29 amMartinned says:
ROTFLMFAO! Euphemism of the day!
March 23, 2010, 11:29 amneimoller says:
umm. either gingrich, the brains of the party and a history buff, misunderstood basic history as was pointed out above, or he was referring to johnson’s legendary remark to bill moyers the night before he signed the civil rights act. i’ll go with the logical assumption here.
don’t stop now!
March 23, 2010, 11:31 amjosh says:
I said it during the 2008 elections, I’ll say it now, and I’ll say it when the midterms start heating up: As a card-carrying librul, socialist, Marxist, left-wing radical, I want to thank David Bernstein, Jim Lingren, et al for the commentary. Here’s hoping we can return to the heady days of ACORN, Ayers and pallin’ around with terrorists before voters hit the polls!
March 23, 2010, 11:32 amCalderon says:
I’m not sure what you mean by “shortfall” here. I don’t think the bill is premised on receiving funds from the fines. I suppose if there were significant adverse selection, premiums would increase significantly, and more funds would have to be allocated to subsidies than is currently planned, but that doesn’t happen until 2014. Also, allocating those monies would happen as part of the budgeting process, which DB’s post already addresses.
That said, one thing Professor Jost has pointed out is that the language of the Senate bill prohibits typical way of enforcing the fines. Specifically, the Senate bill stated:
‘‘(2) SPECIAL RULES.—Notwithstanding any
11 other provision of law—
12 ‘‘(A) WAIVER OF CRIMINAL PENALTIES.—In
13 the case of any failure by a taxpayer to timely
14 pay any penalty imposed by this section, such
15 taxpayer shall not be subject to any criminal
16 prosecution or penalty with respect to such fail
17 ure.
18 ‘‘(B) LIMITATIONS ON LIENS AND LEVIES.—
19 The Secretary shall not—
20 ‘‘(i) file notice of lien with respect to
21 any property of a taxpayer by reason of
22 any failure to pay the penalty imposed by
23 this section, or
24 ‘‘(ii) levy on any such property with
25 respect to such failure.’’.
Assuming this language is also in the House bill, it appear to deprive the government of the typical means to enforce a fine/tax/judgment/what-have-you. Thus, the “individual mandate” seems to be unlikely to prevent adverse selection, though sufficiently generous subsidies would probably cause people to purchase insurance regardless of the mandate.
All that aside, a problem with DB’s strategy is that isn’t the money spent on Obamacare / health care reform from now until through 2013 very small? Democrats might not care too much about funding the bill in 2010-13 since it’s not doing much then and most of the expenses go into effect in 2014.
March 23, 2010, 11:32 amseattle law student says:
To answer DB’s question: 0% – It won’t happen. All the rest is wingnutsturbation, which is fun to a degree but essentially pointless.
The R’s wont have the presidency until 2012 at the earliest and by then people will be used to their 25 yr old kids having insurance and not being denied healthcare for pre-existing conditions. You think a R with half a brain is going to run against that vs. an incumbent? Not going to happen.
March 23, 2010, 11:32 amcboldt says:
– Or, two can play that game. I can make plenty of assertions, if you want to go down that road. –
March 23, 2010, 11:33 amYour threat is toothless. Again, see the “Crowd booed” fabrication – it exists in the form of hundreds of news reports, any one or any combination of which will be pointed to as evidence that the event happened. Unless you were at the event (or watching it as it happened), you would not know the volume of news reports was based on a false report from the AP.
Your false assertions, OTOH, wouldn’t get anything that resembles widespread buy-in from mindless drones (just meaning that media outlets print AP stories w/o challenge).
neimoller says:
i see you still haven’t produced a poll supporting your assertion that most americans hate the msm despite my asking you where you got it. instead you make more unsupported assertions about liberals. and then you tease us by promising even more.
March 23, 2010, 11:33 amReductio ad absurdum says:
Where’s the proof that Jesus existed? Where’s the proof that Jesus walked on water? Where’s the proof that Jesus was resurrected?
How far do you want to take your “because there is no video evidence” logic?
March 23, 2010, 11:34 amneimoller says:
well, sarah palin might still be the republican candidate…
March 23, 2010, 11:34 amneimoller says:
he’s not that good a fascist then, is he?
March 23, 2010, 11:35 amSara says:
I see this advice in comments occasionally but it is really bad advice. Most people need insurance unexpectedly (indeed that is the reason for insurance) for an accident or an acute incident, where you often would run up $50,000 to $250,000 in medical expenses (that first night or few days) long before you could get insured.
March 23, 2010, 11:42 amneimoller says:
i am having trouble commenting on this post. is there a problem with the site?
March 23, 2010, 11:42 amJoeSixpack says:
Isn’t that what Hitler said about the Final Solution?
(j/k)
March 23, 2010, 11:43 amJoeSixpack says:
Haha. As opposed to the maturity of the liberals who throw Oreo cookies at black people who don’t tow the party line. And of that there IS video proof.
March 23, 2010, 11:44 amStephen Lathrop says:
There is no chance, none at all, that the Republicans would let the filibuster stand for a minute if Democrats started using it the way Republicans have done. The veto is another matter.
As anyone can see by reading these threads, most of this is not about issues or principles. (The part that is comes mostly from radical rightists who aren’t really Republicans.) This thread and others like it come from partisans who believe the existential future of the Republican party is at stake. It’s not possible to scorch the earth enough to suit them. If they’re going down, they want Gotterdammerung.
I sympathize (sort of), but I’ve given up on the passion. I’ve been through it, but my problem is the loss of political representation on the left. It happened a long time ago.
But right now Republicans are losing their party because the Democrats are out-competing them for the traditionally Republican niche on the political spectrum. It must be infuriating. But that’s the way it is. Both parties want to be the representatives of corporate America. Only one of them can be.
Think of yourself sitting in the corporate personnel office. Who do you hire? You’ve got Boehner-McConnell; how do they present? There is one guy with equivocal hair plus strange violent-looking skin color, and the other who seems to radiate hatred when he’s just sitting there. You want to put that team up against Obama-Emmanuel, the smart, popular, diverse guy, and his partner the ultimate get-it-done corporatist?
It’s no contest. And that means Republicans have nowhere to be. That’s why they so furiously reject a healthcare reform bill that is nothing but Republican, right to its core. Whatever it might contain politically, Republicans can’t get anything out of backing it. They needed to win and propose it themselves, but they didn’t.
Until now, it probably hadn’t occurred to Republicans that there could be a corporatist future without them in the political saddle. Now they get it, and are they ever mad!
Me too, but for me it’s because I didn’t want corporatism at all.
March 23, 2010, 11:45 amRandy says:
” in my remark that a mob laughing and spitting at the n***ers and the f***ots is a dangerous dangerous sign?”
I saw a YouTube video of tea partiers mocking a old man with Parkinson’s disease, yelling at him that there are ‘no more handouts’ and that you have to work to get any money. It was pretty ugly, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
March 23, 2010, 11:45 amAxl says:
Response is a bit dramatic, don’t you think?
March 23, 2010, 11:45 amAxl says:
It’s “Republican” to force people, under the threat of fines, to purchase a service?
March 23, 2010, 11:50 amDangerMouse says:
Well, since you’re asking, I’d require video evidence whenever a lib says anything. When your whole ideology rests on the unsupported assumption that opposition to the president makes you a racist, then I think that video evidence is necessary. Especially when the majority of the country now disapproves of your Messiah-in-Chief:
It’s awesome how, on the day of Obama signing his P.O.S. healthcare bill into law, that you guys are so full of snark. Could you telegraph your fear of repeal any more? Heh.
March 23, 2010, 11:51 amorca says:
(1) Have Republican Senate and House candidates nationwide run on a platform along the lines of the “Contract with America” that they will not vote to approve any budget that includes appropriations to effectuate provision of Obamacare.
How many of the Republicans who ran in 1994 with “Contract with America I” promising to only serve 3 terms in Congress are still there, drawing their government paychecks, 16 years later?
March 23, 2010, 11:53 amRPT says:
He said what was originally reported. Later, after the adverse reaction, he “clarified what he really meant”.
March 23, 2010, 11:56 amDangerMouse says:
(My Cousin Vinny voice): You were serious about that? Heh. I thought it was a given that most people understood that the MSM was distrusted. But, here’s the first story that came up on google. You’re welcome to dig more.
March 23, 2010, 12:00 pmElliot says:
Most of that implementation is in the future, after the 2010 and 2012 elections.
March 23, 2010, 12:01 pmmonboddo says:
Does a pony come with this proposal?
March 23, 2010, 12:02 pmBrett says:
So, in other words, we just get the status quo with the Republicans voting en bloc against any Obama proposal. *Yawn*.
As for a “Contract with America”, do you seriously believe that the Republicans have either that type of credibility or creativity? I don’t – whatever they bring out is, by and large, just going to be the same old stuff.
Even if the GOP won literally every Democratic Senate seat up for grabs in 2010 and held on to all of their seats, they couldn’t kill the bill over Obama’s veto. By 2012, the provisions will be so sunk in (particularly the early, popular ones) that the Republican Party won’t have the balls to actually kill it, not if they actually want to win and keep a majority.
That only works if they refuse to appropriate money for it. Try to block the executive branch from spending it, and they’ll just claim “executive privilege” and ignore it.
For better or for worse, they are identified with this bill. Most of them voted yes, and they won’t run from it.
How exactly are you going to “force” him to kill his own bill? Like I said, there’s zero chance of the Republicans getting enough Senate power to overturn Obama’s veto in 2010, and by 2012 Obama will be running with the bill. After that, they have nothing – you can’t really threaten a second-term President unless you have grounds for impeachment, and they don’t and won’t.
Heh. Obama is identified with this bill – seeing as how he’ll be tagged for it whether he likes it or not, he’ll probably run on it.
Not likely.
March 23, 2010, 12:03 pmMartinned says:
Indeed. Unfortunately, the insurance paradox also works when you relax the assumptions. Anyone whose expected loss is sufficiently lower than the premium (“sufficiently” depending on their degree of risk adversity) doesn’t insure, thus driving up the premium, thus causing even more people to forgo insurance, etc. This is one of the reasons – though not the only one – why car insurance is mandatory, and it is also the reason why health insurance has to be mandatory if the insurance companies are required to accept all comers. (If they can keep out the bad risks, or at least charge them much higher rates, the problem disappears.)
Even if this “insurance paradox” doesn’t describe the behavior of all people, it describes the behavior of enough people that it would undermine the scheme absent a health care mandate. The argument does not assume that, absent a legal requirement to buy insurance, people would buy insurance at the eve of their operations. All it assumes is that there is a correlation between someone’s expected health insurance costs and their choice to insure or not.
March 23, 2010, 12:05 pmneimoller says:
did you even read the poll and story you posted about? under what definition of msm does this work
“The poll didn’t distinguish between Internet bloggers and reporters employed by newspapers and broadcasters, leaving the definition of “news media” up to each individual who was questioned.”
maybe your distrust of the msm is because you don’t actually read it carefully.
it is your assertion to prove.
March 23, 2010, 12:05 pmSeaDrive says:
What part of having duly elected representatives pass a bill through Congress is ramming it any damn where?
cf. Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies (Intended irony, perhaps?)
March 23, 2010, 12:07 pmneymoller says:
since when did snark become equivalent to fear of repeal? is your constant snark due to your fear of obama aka hitler aka stalin?
March 23, 2010, 12:10 pmDangerMouse says:
Heh. Go screw yourself. I owe you nothing. If you don’t want to believe me, or Pew’s poll, then fine. Live in your fantasy that people love the MSM. It only makes my job easier.
March 23, 2010, 12:13 pmMartinned says:
BTW, given that this entire thread has taken on a somewhat comedic quality, allow me to quote Kevin John Heller’s “Healthcare vignette“, that he posted on OJ yesterday and which I’m kinda loving:
March 23, 2010, 12:15 pmDangerMouse says:
Heh. Godwin alert. You lose. Thanks for playing.
March 23, 2010, 12:15 pmcboldt says:
– why car insurance is mandatory, and it is also the reason why health insurance has to be mandatory if the insurance companies are required to accept all comers. –
March 23, 2010, 12:16 pmCar insurance would be more expensive if it was the mechanism used to cover all breakdown maintenance, e.g., tire replacement.
Or looked at another way, the only car insurance that is mandatory is that which is required to make OTHERS whole, not yourself.
neymoller says:
so your defense to the debunking of your stated poll is: “go screw yourself”. classy. at least, you are embracing the fact that you made and continue to make unsupported assertions. will treat you with the seriousness requisite to one who is incapable of supporting their claims.
March 23, 2010, 12:18 pmneymoller says:
umm. sarcasm #fail by you.
March 23, 2010, 12:19 pmneymoller says:
Classic! Thanks for the post.
March 23, 2010, 12:21 pmCalderon says:
Martinned said:
AUSSIE: Not-for-profit insurance companies?
KEVIN: Nope.
Is this right? Some of the timelines I’ve seen say that nonprofits are part of the bill: “In 2012, nonprofit insurance co-ops will be created to compete with for-profit insurers, and physicians, hospitals and payers will be encouraged to band together in “accountable care organizations.” Cite; see also Chi Sun-Times (In 2012, “Sets up program to create nonprofit insurance co-ops.”) Is there any meaningful distinction between “nonprofit co-ops” and “not-for-profit corporations.” But I guess this only proves Pelosi’s point — I’m so excited to see what’s in the bill now that it has been passed.
March 23, 2010, 12:22 pmSara says:
Medical insurance is about that, too. The fact is that government and health care pick up much of the tab for the uninsured, currently. See eg., county hospitals and other hospital balance sheets.
Also, in your example of liability insurance, you the insured are made whole because you don’t have to pay the injured party and lawyers, which you would have to pay, without insurance.
March 23, 2010, 12:26 pmBob from Ohio says:
If the GOP takes back the House and makes gains in the Senate, the way to attack Obamacare is not a frontal assault but attack pieces of the bill. Attach those piecemail attacks to things that Obama wants so he won’t veto. If he does veto anyway, shrug and move on to the next point of attack.
If the Senate is regained, maybe use the additional attack of not confirming any appointees to anything, not judges, not executive posts. Don’t vote them down, just bottle up in committee. The only exception are high profile posts like the cabinet (maybe) and certainly the Supreme Court where the negative press may hurt you with independents. Nobody cares about appointments to deputy assistant secretary or even lower court judges but those appointed and activists.
Or come up with other insurgent tactics.
The point is to make it difficult for Obama to govern as you pick away at his plan.
March 23, 2010, 12:30 pmMartinned says:
Absolutely, which reflects the other reason why car insurance is mandatory: there’s an externality involved that doesn’t exist in health insurance. OTOH, health insurance tends to work with deductables, leaving the actual insurance to cover the big stuff, as intended. The higher the deductable, the lower the premium. A sensible mandatory health insurance scheme would allow citizens to contract a fairly high deductable, if they choose, since that’s not the part of the risk where the problem is.
March 23, 2010, 12:31 pmMalvolio says:
On the Internet, we say “pics, or it didn’t happen”. When a cop rousted a snowball fight in the middle of the worst storm in decades and there were, what?, six videos of it. A demonstrator supposedly calls a black Congressman the n-word in the middle of the biggest political dust-up since the Clinton fellatio-pallooza and nobody had so much as a camera phone to record it? I’m calling shenanigans.
March 23, 2010, 12:32 pmDangerMouse says:
I agree that this tactic might be effective merely from the standpoint of moving legislation. However, if the Republicans successfully gain control of the House on the idea of repealing the bill, they may have enough wind at their backs to pass a bill wholly de-funding all aspects of Obamacare in one shot. If that fails, then of course they can make a tactical approach towards de-funding aspects of it piecemeal.
March 23, 2010, 12:33 pmStephen Lathrop says:
I think relying on the courts is the best shot the Republicans have. The bloggers here minimize the chances of a court victory, but I think they start with a presumption that the Supreme Court is legally principled.
I don’t have that prejudice, I just go on what I see. I can’t imagine Thomas, Alito, Roberts, or Scalia turning down a chance to deal the Obama administration a crushing defeat. That means you just have to pick up one of five.
The politics for Republicans don’t look so good. The lawsuits look better. Seems like we will get to see, either way, doesn’t it?
March 23, 2010, 12:34 pmDangerMouse says:
I sustain your call of shenanigans. Somebody get a broom.
March 23, 2010, 12:35 pmMartinned says:
For the record: I’ve long since given up on keeping track of the minutiae of the various bills, limiting myself to watching with amazement how much time (and paper) is spent doing something that is essentially fairly simple. Being an economist (and a lawyer), I can comment on some general aspects of insurance, but that’s about it. I certainly offer no guarantees as to the veracity of prof. Heller’s statements.
March 23, 2010, 12:35 pmorca says:
Haha, oh yes, vote for the party of nihilistic obstructionism to lead the country!
I predict the Dems pick up 3 seats in the Senate and 20 in the House in November.
March 23, 2010, 12:36 pmDangerMouse says:
Meh, I need no reason to tell libs to screw themselves. If more people told libs to F. off everyday, the world would be a better place. But debunking? I think not, lib. In any event, let’s pretend, in your fantasyland way of assuming that people just LOOOOOOOVE the MSM (lol), that I was making unsupported assertions. Didn’t I say I could make unsupported assertions? Of course I did. “Two can play this game.” Right? I’m just playing by your own rulebook at this point. And according to those rules, YOU have to debunk ME!
The more snark, the more I have fun…
March 23, 2010, 12:40 pmStephen Lathrop says:
That’s the way I read the insurance mandate too. The hazard is that people don’t buy insurance, we can’t morally just let them suffer or die, so the public at large funds care. The mandate is there to make the public whole.
March 23, 2010, 12:41 pmcboldt says:
– which reflects the other reason why car insurance is mandatory: there’s an externality involved that doesn’t exist in health insurance. –
March 23, 2010, 12:44 pmIt’s the ONLY reason, not another reason. But for the possibility that a driver’s assets wouldn’t cover the damage a driver causes to others, liability insurance would not be mandatory. In some jurisdictions, a driver can post a bond in lieu of the mandatory minimum liability insurance.
– Also, in your example of liability insurance, you the insured are made whole because you don’t have to pay the injured party and lawyers, which you would have to pay, without insurance. –
Assuming, of course, that the damages don’t exceed the level of liability insurance one has purchased. Car insurance would be more expensive if federal law mandated UNLIMITED lifetime liability.
Sacrastro says:
The key is to act like dicks to everyone because we didn’t get our way. This will make the public love us!
March 23, 2010, 12:46 pmDangerMouse says:
You’re one to talk, bub. I merely deny libs their sense of moral superiority that is inherent in all liberal snobs.
March 23, 2010, 12:50 pmcboldt says:
– Sacrastro says: The key is to act like dicks to everyone … –
Well played!
March 23, 2010, 12:54 pmBob from Ohio says:
Why is Sacrasto posing as orca?
March 23, 2010, 12:55 pmneymoller says:
seems like an appropriate comment to this post.
huh? i just pulled out a part of the same news article that you claimed supported your assertion that drove a giant truck through your claim about msm.
as i said, glad to see you own up and have you self document that your comments are fiction. it is a giant kindness to others.
March 23, 2010, 12:57 pmSacrastro says:
I merely paint all who disagree with me with a super-broad brush. Simplify, simplify.
[BTW, the dicks thing was characterizing the 5 steps in the OP, not any of the posters here. DM may think poorly of libs, but he is often not the first to exercise the nuclear option of being uncivil in an exchange. (Unless you count being assumed to be a liar incivility, which I do not.)]
March 23, 2010, 1:07 pmChicago Lawyer says:
Many on the left note that several popular provisions of HCR go into effect relatively quickly. They also note that some of the more unpopular provisions do not go into effect for several years (or quite likely never if people were being honest). Thus, some argue that, by the time the unpopular provisions go into effect, it will be politically impossible to repeal HCR because people will have gotten accustomed to the “free goodies.” In general, that very well may be true.
However, I see a potential pitfall to that plan. Specifically, the “free goodies” going into effect early would seem destined to significantly drive up the price of insurance. Insurance Company X will say, yes, we cannot refuse to insure you due to preexisting conditions, we must insure your children until they are 26, etc., but man that policy is going to cost you an “arm and a leg.” Moreover, I assume that many insurance companies will say, if HCR had not been enacted, your policy would cost X, but due to the government’s actions, it will now cost 2X. If that happens, I can certainly envision the public (even people currently supporting HCR) turning against HCR (or even more against HCR if the majority of polls are to be believed).
If that were to occur (and I do not know if it will), then the left and the right would engage in a messaging war. The left, I think, will argue that this shows that even more government intervention is needed to rein in those evil insurance companies. The right will argue that it is HCR that caused this. If the right wins that messaging war, I can certainly see a repeal of HCR by legislation is not the impossibility that many state.
March 23, 2010, 1:10 pmorca says:
As noted VC centrist Jim Lindgren wrote last week:
Rasmussen’s Thursday release shows that after 14 months in office President Barack Obama has achieved Bush’s 43% of the people strongly disapproving of his performance, but Obama is still 10% ahead of Bush in those who strongly approve (23% v. 13% for Bush).
I suspect that the main difference in their overall approval ratings is among African-Americans, not whites.
Today, Rasmussen shows Obama’s numbers have improved 11 points since then.
The Right’s own pollster shows Obama’s approval index has gained 11 points in the last few days.
What happened over the past couple days?
America loves a winner…
March 23, 2010, 1:12 pmPersonFromPorlock says:
The market is the most meaningful poll of all and while it doesn’t tell us that Americans hate the MSM, it certainly does tell us they don’t place much value on it.
March 23, 2010, 1:13 pmbyomtov says:
Last post on Gingrich.
OK. Here’s my last post on Gingrich.
There’s no reason to prefer the Post author’s understanding of what Gingrich’s meant to Gingrich’s own.
Of course there is. Gingrich has every incentive to make a CYA statement, and given the evidence about his character (“Sorry about the cancer, honey, but I’ve been having an affair and want a divorce”), there’s no particular reason to think he’s above self-serving lies.
March 23, 2010, 1:17 pmMartyA says:
If I didn’t know that the flaming lefties would use it to rally ’round, I’d add, “Draft Articles of Impeachment to be served on the Kenyan and Clueless Joe.”
March 23, 2010, 1:19 pmbyomtov says:
It’s “Republican” to force people, under the threat of fines, to purchase a service?
I don’t know. Ask Mitt Romney.
March 23, 2010, 1:21 pmChicago Lawyer says:
If one actually looks at the poll you cite, the strongly disapprove numbers have remained about the same (41% today versus 43% on Thursday). What has changed though is the strongly approved numbers went from 23% to 31%. My guess is that this “increase” is among his base and not moderates or independents. If that is the case, while it might indicate an increased energy level for the mid-terms among the left’s base (certainly an important factor), I doubt that the President can make any meaningful inroads unless and until he can convince moderates and independents.
March 23, 2010, 1:24 pmSacrastro says:
Polls are awesome! They totally let me count my chickens early, and then gloat about it!
March 23, 2010, 1:47 pmFloridan says:
Bob from OH: If the Senate is regained, maybe use the additional attack of not confirming any appointees to anything, not judges, not executive posts. Don’t vote them down, just bottle up in committee.
Too late, the Republicans are doing this already.
March 23, 2010, 2:01 pmMartinned says:
Actually, for those still left standing, here’s a question:
Many countries, including IIRC the UK, have an unwritten pact among politicians/political parties that one government will not immediately reverse what the previous government has just enacted. The idea is that, whatever your opinion about a given law, the country needs a degree of legal stability. Society is not served by succesive governments continuously enacting and repealing certain legislation.
For example in the UK, the big post-war Attlee nationalisation wave remained in place through the Tory governments of Churchill, Eden, MacMillan, Douglas-Home and Heath (as well as during the Labour governments of that time, of course), until it was finally reversed by Margaret Thatcher, 35 years after it had been enacted. Certainly in the 1950s, this cannot be ascribed to inertia and agreement alone. They wanted to maintain a degree of stability in the economic governance of the country. Even Thatcher didn’t immediately hold an all-out yard sale. The National Enterprise Board, created in 1975 to “implement the Wilson Labour government’s objective of extending public ownership of industry” was only reigned in somewhat in 1981, for example. (It was privatised in 1991, but by that time it had already become an entirely different animal.)
So my question is: How come American political parties don’t favour stability in this way? Or do they favour it in their actions, but not in their words?
March 23, 2010, 2:05 pmAquinas says:
A good example of congress putting limits on the executive is USC 18.925(c) – which has been inactive for years now due to a combination of congress prohibiting BATF from processing applications, and the AG claiming all applications must go through BATF.
March 23, 2010, 2:11 pmcboldt says:
– Too late, the Republicans are doing this already. –
March 23, 2010, 2:12 pmThe majority leader can move to discharge nominees out of committee, independent of a committee vote and release. This gets around the “one minority member has a veto” condition that attaches to some committee rules.
Calderon says:
Okay, here’s a more substantive comment about the dialogue. When AUSSIE asks “So how is the government taking over health care?”, KEVIN could have answered by talking about the various new requirements the law imposes on insurers rather than answering “Got me.” One might argue about how far statutory control over an industry has to go before it amounts to a “take over,” and whether the bill meets that standard. But one prominent liberal blogger seems to believe that it does:
March 23, 2010, 2:15 pmseattle law student says:
I think they do, with a few exceptions. Reagan’s restoration of the B-1 bomber program after Carter killed it is such an exception. I think repeal is a rhetorical threat to motivate the base and not a likely outcome.
What you will see is the slow death of things in the executive agencies – check out the civil rights division of the Justice Department under president GWB for example, or the situation described by Aquinas above.
March 23, 2010, 2:16 pmShelbyC says:
Heh. If this health care reform stuff is so great, and the need so pressing, how come most of it doesn’t kick in for several years?
March 23, 2010, 2:19 pmDavid S says:
The GOP will gain seats in both houses, mostly because the party that controls the White House tends to lose seats in the midterms. Exceptions in the last couple of decades include 2002 (9/11 effect) and 1998 (6 years of very strong job growth and rising incomes). Also, in terms of seats held in Congress, the GOP doesn’t really have anywhere to go but up.
However, it is highly unlikely the GOP will be able to mount a “government takeover” of Congress, so to speak, by running on repealing health care reform. If they do adopt that strategy, Rahm Emanuel will be having wet dreams all year.
At the end of the day, the number of seats the GOP will gain is mostly dependent on how the economy does and how many jobs are added to payrolls. Most economists think the economy will add about a million to a million and a half jobs this year, not counting census workers. Not great, but combined with health care passing, the coming repeal of DADT and the GOP winding up on the wrong political side of financial reform, I would say both houses staying in the hands of the Democrats is a pretty safe bet.
A better title for your post would have been “How to ‘weaken the GOP further’.”
March 23, 2010, 2:29 pmMartinned says:
Personally, I don’t think such quibbling over labels is very interesting. Whether something counts as a “takeover” is less interesting than whether it is a good idea in the first place. And I don’t think you can take away from Heller’s little OJ post that he disagrees.
March 23, 2010, 2:29 pmSeaDrive says:
Some substantial part is just practical. Rome not being built in a day, etc. Some people, in some places, have a lot of work to do. Not the least is the need for the Federal Bureaucracy to turn the legislative language into codified regulations (all subject to hearings and review, etc). State governments are going to have to decide what to do, play or fight, and in either case, how to do it.
Another part is due to legislative trickery to make the dollar numbers look better.
March 23, 2010, 2:37 pmMartinned says:
Thanks. That’s indeed what I would expect to see in a polity of gentlemen: rather than taking on your predecessor’s enactments head on, you just assign them a very low priority if you don’t like them, or you put critical officials in charge of implementation or enforcement. That way, the law can die a slow death, unless it is revived in the future the next time the other guys are in power again. If they’re not really interested in reviving it either, it can be scrapped pretty easily.
(Would anyone care if the FTC’s power to enforce the antitrust laws were scrapped? IIRC, the Commission just recently reminded people that they still exist, but I don’t think anyone outside the circle of their likely targets cares. Anything interesting that happens in antitrust law usually comes from the DoJ or from the states.)
If efforts to make the law die a slow death fail, it is always possible to pick a big fight about it at some later day, once it’s had a fair chance, and its failings have been proved in practice.
March 23, 2010, 2:44 pmDave Hardy says:
A rider on funding can do *anything* to prevent governmental action. If no appropriated funds can be used for a purpose, that includes everything from the work of the person who draws up regulations (his salary is appropriated) to the paper on which they are written and the electricity powering the computer that contains the file.
Bureaucrats are very, very, wary of this sort of thing due to, if memory is correct, the Antideficiency Act, which has criminal penalties for government employees who spend funds that were not appropriated. I think it’s a misdemeanor, and it’s possible that no one has ever been prosecuted under it, but bureaucrats are quite frightened of it. It’s matched by another act forbidding use of volunteer labor unless specifically authorized, so that a bureaucrat cannot say he did it voluntarily after hours, either. Thus when, during Reagan’s terms, a funding bill was vetoed and the prior appropriation came to an end, we were all sent home and forbidden to return until a new appropriation was passed. The attorneys, and doubtless others, figured we had a job to do and would kept on going, figuring we’d eventually be paid for it, but the supervisors wanted us out of the building because they were scared of their liability under those two statutes.
March 23, 2010, 3:08 pmLN says:
Also, if healthcare is so important, why did it take a whole year to pass a bill? Why wasn’t a bill rammed down our throats immediately? Hypocrisy!
March 23, 2010, 3:56 pmShelbyC says:
Didn’t it take a whole year because the concept isn’t terribly popular and it took quite a while to figure out a formula to get all the required votes?
March 23, 2010, 4:12 pmMartinned says:
Oh, you mean it took a year because they spent that time talking to everybody and their uncle in order to get a “formula” that had as much support as possible and was the result of consultation with as many people as possible? How very fascist of them…
March 23, 2010, 4:34 pmJoseph Slater says:
DB:
Not sure if you’re still reading this thread (wouldn’t blame you if you aren’t), but FWIW I saw the exact same list on a thread at fivethirtyeight.com yesterday, posted I think by Bart DePalma. Although I believe you when you say you came up with it yourself.
On the other hand, re Gingrich, let’s not kid ourselves. As others have mentioned, the only part of LBJ’s “Great Society” that had arguably had a long term “damaging” effect on the Dems was the Civil Rights Act of 1964, at least in terms of costing them a bunch of white southern votes. And as others have mentioned, LBJ even famously predicted that effect. Do you honestly think for one minute that Gingrich was saying that, say, Medicare was “damaging to the Dems”? Headstart? Of course if he was saying that he would have been obviously wrong, descriptively. I don’t think he’s that dumb.
March 23, 2010, 4:41 pmDangerMouse says:
Do you honestly think for one minute that Gingrich was saying that, say, Medicare was “damaging to the Dems”? Headstart? Of course if he was saying that he would have been obviously wrong, descriptively. I don’t think he’s that dumb.
Of course Gingrich was talking about the Great Society, ie, the Welfare State. It DID end up substantially damaging the Democrats, because the 1994 Republican Revolution included as a major part of it Welfare reform and the cutting of bureaucratic waste. Clinton ended up vetoing Welfare Reform numerous times, only to finally have to relent when it became obvious he was losing on it politically. People associated the Democrats for the longest time with deadbeat hippies on welfare, or so-called starving artists who took government money while crapping over middle-class values (they still do this, to some degree). All the bureaucratic waste and fraud of the Great Society was also attacked by Gingrich in his books on the Third Wave, and his promotion of Future Shock-type reorganization of government. In terms of eliminating government, he used to talk about abolishing the Commerce Department, because it was merely compiling reports and information that could’ve been done by a private firm and sold on the market. Gingrich lives and breathes his distaste for the Great Society, as he believes it is modeled on old-second-wave inefficient waste and hierarchy (in order to institutionally protect itself instead of the people it serves), preferring networked-level operations as better attuned to reality and more efficient.
The idea that Gingrich was talking about the Civil Rights Act is laffable, considering that he’s never once really commended significantly on race relations at all, and instead has commented endlessly on bureaucracy, government dependency, and inefficiency. The only people who could remotely believe Gingrich was deceptively talking about the Civil Rights Act are those who are so biased to begin with to believe that all Republicans are racists anyway.
March 23, 2010, 4:55 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
Ah, yes. I remember the famous words of Patrick Henry: “Give me stability, or give me death!”
Most policies aren’t immediately reversed because most policies aren’t enacted unless they have bipartisan support. So even if someone else wins the election, the program usually has supporters on both sides. Obamacare is one of the few programs that was enacted without any attempt at bipartisanship, where the majority party said that it didn’t care how unpopular it was; its ideology is all that counts.
March 23, 2010, 4:58 pmShelbyC says:
Geez martined, you’re usually pretty reasonably pretty polite. I never called anybody facist, and it wasn’t me that brought up the fact that it took a whole year to pass. I simply pointed out that, as you put it, “they spent that time talking to everybody and their uncle in order to get a “formula” that had as much support as possible and was the result of consultation with as many people as possible” and still were only barely able to pass the bill, with the largest dem majority in recent memory. Now you can like that fact or dislike it, but don’t attack the messenger.
March 23, 2010, 4:59 pmRPT says:
“Bob from Ohio:
The point is to make it difficult for Obama to govern as you pick away at his plan.”
I thought we were at war. Guess not.
March 23, 2010, 5:04 pmLenny says:
The argument about what Gingrich did or did not say is irrelevant. Let’s focus on the issues, not on ad hominem attacks.
I had a sick feeling as I watched this legislation develop. The President delegated responsibilty for drafting it to Congress. Pelosi and Reid (and their designees) kept a firm hand on controlling the content. The GOP appears to have been excluded and the emphasis was on putting in provisions everywhere to attract wavering Democrats.
So now, we have the Senate version, with all its payoffs, enacted into law. The Senate is starting to consider the House bill containing the fixes. Who knows what dirty payoffs are hidden in that bill. If we start learning about more payoffs, the process will start looking even dirtier. A couple of months of news about earmarks and special benefits will make the angry part of the electorate even angrier…and could demoralize the liberal Democrats (who right now seem to be rallying a bit).
Next up…what. Cap and trade? Card check? Or, on the regulatory front, how about new regulations out of the FCC imposing equal access on talk radio?
March 23, 2010, 5:27 pmRPT says:
Lenny:
Talk radio in danger? I thought Limbaugh was moving to Costa Rica. Perhaps he could be neighbors with other expatriates.
March 23, 2010, 6:19 pmAnachronym says:
Particularly since this quote (apocryphal or not) is strongly associated with Johnson:
It is reasonable to assume that anyone referring to Johnson shattering the Democratic part for 40 years, is talking about this. Gingrich wants to clarify to insist that he meant something other than the signing of civil rights legislation, but I wouldn’t be too inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on that.
March 23, 2010, 6:25 pmleo marvin says:
Not the assumption. The insinuation.
March 23, 2010, 6:43 pmRPT says:
“Kill The Bill”. This may be the most apt summary for the entire Republican/conservative agenda yet developed. Better than any Frank Luntz product. Party of No? “Kill the Bill!”
March 23, 2010, 6:48 pmGot a problem with your pre-existing condition? “Kill the Bill!” Sick children? “Kill the Bill!”. Classic.
RPT says:
Who ya gonna call?
“Kill the Bill!”
March 23, 2010, 7:03 pmOrder of the Coif says:
Yes. The Congress can stop a law cold by denying funding for it’s enforcement.
Anti-gun Democrats have been doing that to 18 USC 926 (a procedure in the 1968 Gun Control Act allowing for rehabilitated persons to seek restoration of their right to possess a firearm) since the 1990′s. They attach a rider to the appropriate agancy funding bill prohibiting the spending of any money to implement the statute and it becomes a dead letter for another year.
March 23, 2010, 7:10 pmDesiderius says:
Seattle Law Student,
“The R’s wont have the presidency until 2012 at the earliest and by then people will be used to their 25 yr old kids having insurance and not being denied healthcare for pre-existing conditions. You think a R with half a brain is going to run against that vs. an incumbent? Not going to happen.”
25-year-old kids? If you think that’s popular, you got another thing coming.
Once was a time 25-year-old adults had health insurance. That was when they had jobs. You don’t fix that, you can trash Rasmussen all you want, you’ll still be shown the door.
As for the denial of healthcare on the basis of pre-existing conditions, it doesn’t happen. It was already against the law.
Health insurance is another matter. I’ve been in that boat. It does indeed suck. But I would have been no more justified in mugging the nearest doctor until he treated me than the government is in outlawing the free exchange of medical services. If we as a society decide that such denial is unbearable, it is our burden to raise sufficient taxes to purchase such services. The idea that we can instead bully our fellow citizens into providing them is exactly the Socialist (with a big S) fallacy that plagued the 20th Century.
Outlawing good action A, unless it is accompanied by other good action B, C, and D, not only leads to less A, it leads to less good action in general as the bonds of trust on which a free society subsists are inexorably frayed. I suppose there are those raising this alarm with an eye on some partisan gain, although given the history of the last century, I don’t see the angle there, but there are far more, and better, raising it because we understand the utter illiberalism of this approach.a
March 23, 2010, 7:14 pmMeichx says:
Please help me understand: The Democrats “forced” the bill through on a party-line vote. That’s bad. Republicans should “force” repeal through a party-line vote. And that would be good?
March 23, 2010, 7:14 pmShelbyC says:
Presumably, since about 30 dems voted no, it wouldn’t be a party line vote.
March 23, 2010, 8:00 pmMark Field says:
.
Lots of 25 year olds are in school. Keeping them on the parents’ policy will be very popular.
Even for those who are working, they (like my own daughter) may not make enough money to be able to afford health insurance. I have to pay for it anyway; might as well have her on the same policy.
Your point about the economy, though, I think is dead on.
March 23, 2010, 8:27 pmDesiderius says:
MarkField,
“they (like my own daughter) may not make enough money to be able to afford health insurance”
I don’t think you’d like me to relate my personal experiences regarding why they don’t. It ain’t pretty for the Boomer team, however liberal they imagine themselves to be. As a Buster, I’m right on the dividing line between the two, but they are not currently living in an affluent country.
All the subsidies in the world will not change that reality.
March 23, 2010, 8:34 pmneimoller says:
says the person who says all libs are liars and hence should be summarily ignored. irony-freeness is the flavor of the day, i see.
uncivil or not, it does free him/her from the burden of actually establishing his/her assertions, or even facing any inconvenient facts. call of n—er and f—ot? fabrication! newt gingrich echoing lbj’s statement in a call to oppose hcr? of course not! magical thinking is powerful.
March 23, 2010, 8:45 pmneimoller says:
while you are at it, don’t forget to bring up the mythical fear of a blanket gun ban too.
March 23, 2010, 8:46 pmOwen H. says:
Speaking of gun bans, one of the reasons the GOP took back Congress in 1994 was the AWB. And yet, after winning, they didn’t repeal it.
March 23, 2010, 8:50 pmMark Field says:
I don’t know about your circumstances, but her’s are pretty obvious: she made the unfortunate decision to be born in 1987. That meant college graduation in June 2009, just in time for the worst level of unemployment in nearly 30 years. She’s lucky to have a job at all, so the low pay is secondary at this point.
March 23, 2010, 9:23 pmStephen Lathrop says:
Doesn’t require bias, at least for national Republicans. They are objectively racists, and will continue in that category until they renounce the use of Southern Strategy type campaigning by every member of their party. There might be a few who do that already, not many.
I don’t give a damn what’s in their hearts. If they are trying to mobilize political power around racial themes, code words, fraught images, historical references, etc., they are racists. Same thing if they just condone it in someone else, for the sake of their strength as a bloc.
Some white guy who really does deep down hate black people, but knows it’s wrong, and tries hard not to let it affect how he behaves, he ought to get a pass. Politicians with dog whistles opportunistically trying to perpetuate unfair racial formulas for distributing power and privilege are far worse.
While we’re at it, I blame the Clintons for this too. There was some pretty despicable stuff in Hillary’s campaign.
And because I can see it all coming, I’ll say this too. Spare me the complaints about affirmative action as racism. Spare yourself, too. That kind of thing just makes decent people think you are stupid or malicious. If you want to suggest there is something wrong with affirmative action, we could discuss that, but not if you start calling it reverse racism, because it’s not.
March 23, 2010, 9:27 pmDesiderius says:
MF,
“I don’t know about your circumstances, but her’s are pretty obvious: she made the unfortunate decision to be born in 1987. That meant college graduation in June 2009, just in time for the worst level of unemployment in nearly 30 years. She’s lucky to have a job at all, so the low pay is secondary at this point.”
Low pay/no jobs same problem. I came out during the late-Bush I recession. This is different. I don’t think it’s cyclical.
March 23, 2010, 9:48 pmDesiderius says:
Stephen Lathrop,
As long as you attribute the current dissent to racism, you will have a sub-optimal picture of reality. Neither of us benefits from that.
March 23, 2010, 9:50 pmleo marvin says:
Not necessarily. A “racist” is someone with racist feelings or beliefs. As you explained, a racist may be morally innocent if they refrain from acting on their racist impulses. The flipside is that someone may engage in racism for crass political reasons but not be a racist if they harbor no racist feelings or beliefs. Scumbag, yes. Racist, no. It’s a nice example of why it’s important to judge people on what they do, not what they think.
March 23, 2010, 10:34 pmStephen Lathrop says:
leo marvin, I guess we just disagree on what racism is. To me the racist part implies systematizing effort carried out in public. What you describe as “racist feelings or beliefs”— which remain interior and personal—is what I think of as sin, or something akin to sin if you come at it from a non-religious point of view.
Perhaps we agree that the greater harm is in making it a public principle, regardless of what you have in your heart. Republicans have been doing that systematically and as a party since the Nixon administration. Democrats have been guilty as well, but as individuals, who do it largely against the program of the party. Of course the Democrats have their own horrendous record of party racism if you look farther back in time.
March 23, 2010, 11:04 pmRicardo says:
Of course it is different: unemployment is a lot higher now than it was during the early 1990s recession. Unemployment then peaked at 7.8% in 1992. In the current recession, unemployment peaked at 10.1% in October 2009 and has declined to 9.7%. Unemployment was higher in the early-1980s recession (peak: 10.8%) and much higher during the Great Depression (>20%).
The good news is that unemployment lags behind the general business cycle and tends to peak toward the end of a recession. If unemployment continues to decline from 9.7%, that’s a pretty good indicator that unemployment is, in fact, cyclical.
March 23, 2010, 11:11 pmleo marvin says:
Stephen Lathrop,
We’re in accord on your second paragraph. What puzzles me is,
I’m no religious expert, but other than “original sin,” doesn’t “sin” ordinarily require a moral choice? So long as we do our best to cure our ignorance and be compassionate, aren’t feelings and beliefs too far beyond our control to be sinful?
March 23, 2010, 11:39 pmMark Field says:
Maybe this will make you feel better, Des.
March 23, 2010, 11:58 pmChris Travers says:
I have a tendency to argue against Prof. Bernstein but here I think he is exactly right. I am not sure that this is “removing an entitlement” as others have suggested, but rather removing the individual mandate (i.e. deregulation).
This is also a welcome change from the cherry tomato posts which tend to be characteristic of his blogging.
March 24, 2010, 12:57 amRandy says:
” A “racist” is someone with racist feelings or beliefs. As you explained, a racist may be morally innocent if they refrain from acting on their racist impulses. The flipside is that someone may engage in racism for crass political reasons but not be a racist if they harbor no racist feelings or beliefs. Scumbag, yes. Racist, no. It’s a nice example of why it’s important to judge people on what they do, not what they think.”
To that we can add that the fact that the Republicans are objectively homophobic. As a party, they having been playing the gayfear card since at least the second Bush election. In the long run, it will hurt them, but in the short run it helps them in certain elections.
March 24, 2010, 1:02 amDougInSanDiego says:
OMG
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March 24, 2010, 4:55 amBrett Bellmore says:
Got that backwards; We minimize the chances of a court victory, because we start with the presumption that the Supreme court ISN’T legally principled, but instead upholds it’s own precedent instead of the actual Constitution.
Didn’t even try. Persuaded a lot of people that opposition to gun control was, on the part of many Republican officeholders, purely political theatrics. They were only acting on it so long as they knew the votes were futile, once they had the power to actually roll it back, they showed their true colors.
Many ‘Republicans’ are actually Democrats stuck in districts where you have to be a ‘Republican’ to win. Doesn’t mean they don’t privately agree with the Democratic party, and pull their punches.
That’s why I think the courts are our best chance out of a bad set of options. Should Republicans regain control of Congress, we’ll find that a lot of the Republicans who voted against the bill, losing, will refuse to vote to repeal it. It would take several election cycles to purge the members who were lying about opposition to this bill.
March 24, 2010, 12:22 pmBrett Bellmore says:
They have a present record of horrendous party racism, if you don’t accept the Democratic party’s self-serving definition of racism as excluding anything nominally motivated by good will. Essentially every current public policy today that involves tossing aside equal treatment under the law in favor of racial discrimination has a “Made by the Democratic party” label on it.
March 24, 2010, 12:27 pmSacrastro says:
Actual Constitution now defined by Brett Bellmore. Why does the Supreme Court continue to follow it’s own ideas?
March 24, 2010, 12:29 pmA_Nonny_Mouse says:
I have to say I find the assumptions of several of the presumably-Democrat-leaning posters to this blog offensive.
If you’re going into a discussion with the presumption that your opponents are all racist douchebags who would do ANYTHING to screw-the-other-guy, you’re setting up barriers of hostility which will prevent reasonable and civil debate of the merits and demerits of the topic.
Please stop.
Acknowledge that some people may indeed hold good-faith views on government policy and its implementation which are different from yours. (Remember “different” is not necessarily “evil” or “malicious”.) Do you not think there is room for concern about the cost of this newly-passed bill? You must be aware that other government entitlement programs (Medicare, Soc.Security) have grown beyond sustainability. Can’t reasonable men fear that this will follow the same path? In your view, is it totally unthinkable that Unintended Consequences may result from some of the provisions of this bill, and that some of those consequences may be unwelcome? Is it possible that somewhere in its 2700 pages, this law may be setting a precedent allowing for governmental encroachment on individual liberties in areas outside of health care? Shouldn’t free Americans be allowed to speak freely of their concerns about this overwhelming legislation?
Feel free to discuss the bill without impugning the character, parentage and motives of those who hold different views from yours.
Thank you.
March 24, 2010, 12:51 pmcboldt says:
– we start with the presumption that the Supreme court ISN’T legally principled, but instead upholds it’s own precedent instead of the actual Constitution. –
March 24, 2010, 2:34 pmIt doesn’t necessarily follow its own precedent, or distinguish the facts when distinguishing on the facts is necessary to support the conclusion as a matter of legal logic.” Wickard is a great example. Using Wickard to justify finding the health care bill constitutional overlooks very relevant facts and statements in the Wickard case.
And then I have the pet peeve of Heller misconstruing Miller. Anyway, just saying that the “unprincipled” conclusion might be justified on following dubious precedent, or not following precedent while claiming to be following precedent.
Sacrastro says:
If SCOTUS disagrees with my legal reasoning, it isn’t just wrong, it’s lying!
I know they know I’m right but choose to ignore the facts ’cause of my telepathy that works on all who wear black robes for at least 2 hours a day. (Damn you Rehnquist for your telepathy-jamming stripes!)
March 24, 2010, 2:39 pmDesiderius says:
MarkField,
“Maybe this will make you feel better, Des.”
Yes, the priesthood are discharging their duties remarkably well. There is just enough to the entrail-reading to render them plausbile to a public whose will to believe may soon chomp clear through the bit.
I must say that I finally understand what it must be like to be an atheist. Not only do I not believe, I cannot; however much I try. And I do try. It’s embarassing being so far afield from my friends here.
March 24, 2010, 3:00 pmchuck hannah says:
Gentlemen,
I point out that the congress is famous for refusing to provide funding for legally mandated purposes in order to keep the process from going forward. The 1968 gun control act provides for rehabilitating persons who have been refused the right to own firearms for statutory reasons. The congress has, for more than twenty years (not sure of the exact dates), in budgeting for the BATFE, required that NO funds may be expended for this purpose by the Bureau, thus nullifying this provision of the law while leaving the “rehabilitation” on the books so that they may say that they have provided for correction of errors in application of other provisions of the law.
March 24, 2010, 5:13 pmneimoller says:
Not all of them are racist, and not all of them are douchebags. However, when a mob yells n–ger and f–got at people, spits at them, and laughs at the insults yelled, with mainstream republican pols not denouncing them, and rather brushing it off as natural, and when these pols encourage breaking the windows and damaging property of democratic pols, instead of asking the teapartiers to stand down from their threats to use a browning, and when they again brush off murder and destruction of us property (like scott brown did of the irs plane terrorist attack), one really has to ask where things are headed.
March 24, 2010, 7:44 pmDesiderius says:
neimoller,
“Not all of them are racist, and not all of them are douchebags. However, when a mob yells n–ger and f–got at people, spits at them, and laughs at the insults yelled, with mainstream republican pols not denouncing them, and rather brushing it off as natural, and when these pols encourage breaking the windows and damaging property of democratic pols, instead of asking the teapartiers to stand down from their threats to use a browning, and when they again brush off murder and destruction of us property (like scott brown did of the irs plane terrorist attack), one really has to ask where things are headed.”
Link?
March 24, 2010, 9:36 pmcboldt says:
– Link? –
March 24, 2010, 9:56 pmSilly racist douchebag, it’s the seriousness of the charges that counts.
neimoller says:
for which one?
n–ger and f–got? here
browning? here. there are links to many many many more posters if you care to google.
breaking windows? here and here.
brown on the irs plane terrorist attack? here. wonder what he and his party have to say about the coordinated attacks on dems across the country.
March 25, 2010, 8:01 am