Good evening and welcome to the Daily Strike on this busy day in politics. We'll be focusing on two of the three December pillars tonight: jobs and health care. We'll also run down the estate tax bill that passed the House today, and address some reader comments as well! Enjoy!
JOBS: The White House held a jobs summit today at the White House in an effort to jump start action on the most pressing domestic policy problem. The summit comes a day before the latest unemployment numbers are released, and at the same time as House Democrats mull legislative options to boost job growth. The summit brought together business leaders, economic analysts and representatives of the labor movement. As expected, there were no major deliverables from this meeting. In fact, the President made reference to the fact that it could seem like a photo-op. They did discuss some interesting ideas that I hadn't thought of, like ways that the government can promote U.S. exports through the legal system. President Obama says he will announce more specific proposals for job creation next week.
The Republicans had their own job summit today at the Capital, blasting the President and proposing "reforms" of their own. As others have noted, their proposals are Bush-era recyclables like corporate tax cuts, discretionary spending freezes and gutting regulations. This is why life is so easy in the minority. Your proposals are never tested, so they don't actually have to work (though I think the Bush era is evidence enough).
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has indicated that the 2010 session of Congress will be largely focused on the economy, jobs (yay!) and deficit reduction (boo!). In making this announcement, Hoyer noted the public anger about the federal deficit. I believe that concern about the deficit is a pretty nebulous thing that usually represents general angst about the economy. Also, people will be more prone to be angry about deficits if they think that massive government spending isn't helping them. The biggest question for the next year, in my view, is whether the President will learn from history and emphasize job creation over deficit reduction. There are very few issues that I would say determine the fate of an entire Presidency, but this is one of them.
HEALTH CARE: The Senate today finally voted on a couple amendments to the health care bill after four days of Republican delay tactics. Off the floor, Democrats are still trying to find a way to get 60 votes on the bill. There are intense negotiations going on relating to the public option. There are also other potential landmines, like the abortion issue. While amendment votes are important, we have to keep in the back of our mind that this bill cannot advance unless we can cobble together a 60 vote majority.
The Senate voted on 4 amendments today. The first two concerned women's health. An amendment by Senator Mikulski (D-MD) increases funding in the bill for women's access to preventative care. Republicans saw this issue as a vehicle to discuss "rationing." After a report a couple of weeks ago that recommended against women having mammograms in their 40's, Republicans have tried to warn that we are on the cusp of having the government ration care. Of course, the advisory's recommendations a) have absolutely no bearing on government policy, and b) are based on best practices research. To make their political point, Republicans (led by Senator Murkowski of Alaska) proposed a side-by-side amendment that would "ensure patients receive recommendations for procedures without government intervention." Various medical groups believed that the Murkowski alternative would do away with evidence-based standards.
The Mikulski amendment passed 61-39, with support from 58 Democrats as well as Republicans Snowe and Collins of Maine and shockingly, Senator Vitter (LA). Senator Nelson (D-NE) and Feingold (WI) voted no. The Republican alternative was defeated 41-59, with only Nelson (NE) going across party lines.
This afternoon, the debate turned to the $500 billion in Medicare savings in the bill. A good portion of these savings come from the duplicative Medicare Advantage program, which pays exhorbitant amounts of taxpayer money to private insurance companies to perform the same services (pretty much) as regular Medicare. New found single-payer health care advocate John McCain proposed an amendment that would strike the Medicare cuts (cuts which incidentally are half as large as those he proposed during last year's Presidential campaign). These cuts were necessary to keep the bill budget neutral. The Senate first voted on a Democratic alternative amendment from Senator Bennet (CO) that would express the sense of the Senate that cuts should not be made in services to Medicare beneficiaries. The Bennet alternative passed 100-0. McCain's amendment was defeated by a vote of 42-58, with Senators Nelson (NE) and Webb (VA) voting yes with the entire GOP caucus.
There have been no agreements as to the consideration of other amendments, though it's possible we'll see some votes over the weekend. We will have the full rundown for you as the debate continues.
THE HOUSE: The House today passed a bill that will keep the estate tax at 2009 levels for the foreseeable futures. As we explained the other day, the Bush tax cuts from 2001 stipulate that the estate tax will be completely eliminated next year. However, those tax cuts expire after 2010, so the larger 2001 estate tax rates would return in 2011. The bill passed to day ensured that only estates worth more than $3.5 million would be taxed, and that they would be taxed at 45% marginally. In 2001, estates worth more than $1 million were taxed at 55% marginally. I'm not thrilled about this bill. I would rather have rich people's estates be taxed at the 2001 levels. Cutting estate taxes just perpetuates the transfer of wealth through generations that keeps our society from being truly meritocratic. But at least this tax won't be eliminated next year. And by passing this bill, we would stave off attempts by Republicans and centrist Democrats to make these taxes even lower. The bill itself passed by a vote of 225-200. All Republicans voted no, as did 26 Democrats. About half of the Democratic "no" votes are from liberals who are against keeping taxes low for millionaires when average Americans are struggling. The other half of the "no" votes were from self-professed fiscal conservatives who want to greatly INCREASE the deficit by cutting estate taxes even more.
Luckily, the House defeated a Republican motion to recommit that would have kept the scheduled elimination of the estate tax (or as the Republicans call it, the "death tax") through 2011. The 187 members who voted for this are never allowed to talk about the deficit again. This is a textbook case of what David Sirota would call "Selective Deficit Disorder." Among those 187 members were 18 Democrats. 233 Democrats voted no.
COMMENT: Finally, I want to address a comment someone wrote to yesterday's entry. I'm all for opposing viewpoints to write comments on this blog. In fact, I think it's great to get a good dialogue going. I'm glad that whoever this was commented last night. It's just hard to believe that people think the way this person does. This person acts like it's established fact that Democratic health care bills will " deny hospitalization and an IV for having nothing more wrong than simple dehydration." Where do people get this information? I guess I know the answer to that. But honestly, it amazes me how people will believe anything they hear. Where in the bill would you even get this idea? Also, this person repeats the Republican talking point (which helps feed crazy conspiracy theories) that we're trying to jam this bill through without giving the legislature time to know what's in the bill. That's absolute baloney. These bills have been considered for months, if not years. They've gone through the vetting of five Congressional committees, and they've been online for the general public for weeks now.
Anyway, I hope whoever that was keeps on commenting, because it allows us to highlight some of the fearmongering and ignorance that has distorted this health care debate. That's it for tonight, see you tomorrow!
Showing posts with label Estate Tax. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Estate Tax. Show all posts
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
The Weekly Strike-11/30-12/6
Good morning and welcome to the Weekly Strike. I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving vacations, and you didn't have too many withdrawal symptom's during this blog's absence. We're gearing up for a December to remember in politics. The President and Congress will be faced with a barrage of issues before year's end, and we'll be here to cover every minute of it. Now to preview a very busy week in politics...
AFGHANISTAN: The big news story this week will be the President's decision on Afghanistan. Tomorrow evening, the President will announce his long-awaited strategy at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. As an aside, I deeply disagree (as does the despondent Big Picture) with having this event at a military academy. It strikes me as very Bush-like to look for a political photo-op to announce such a difficult decision.
Nevertheless, the President is expected to announce that he will send an additional 34,000 troops to Afghanistan, short of the recommendation of General Stanley McCrystal, but a huge increase nonetheless. He also will supposedly announce some sort of new comprehensive strategy to end the conflict, which should include diplomatic efforts and economic development. I'll be watching very closely to see how detailed the President is about the aspects of the plan beyond the troop increase. The only way an increase of this magnitude in unwinnable territory (see: Soviet Union, 1979) will not be catastrophic is if it is coupled with an equally strong political strategy.
I will also be interested in the reactions of members of Congress. I don't think there will be many members praising this decision. Republicans will attack Obama for not adding even more troops. Liberal Democrats will undoubtedly (and justifiably) express significant concern and skepticism. We'll see if they turn that skepticism into legislative action (perhaps a resolution disapproving of the troop increase, or maybe even a war tax.)
We'll have full coverage of the address in Wednesday's Daily Strike.
JOBS: The White House will also attempt to address the main issue on most voter's minds right now: joblessness. On Thursday, the White House will bring together 130 stakeholders, as well as members of Congress to brainstorm about how to address spiraling unemployment. I'm pretty skeptical that a summit will produce much of any value. The name of the game is pushing a jobs package through Congress as quickly as possible. This event strikes me as even more political posturing by the White House. The event is also undermined by a New York Times article this morning (h/t The Big Picture) which indicated that the White House is not too involved in pushing a jobs bill through Congress, but instead is more focused on deficit reduction. This is like nails on a chalkboard for me. First of all, you cannot lower the deficit unless the economy improves and tax revenues increase. You can't achieve that with 10% unemployment. Second of all, the administration can't bow to poll numbers that show people more concerned about the deficit than job creation. The deficit is a very nebulous concern that usually represents general unease with the economy. Most people don't really know what the deficit is if you dig deeper; they know things are bad out there and they want to see something done to address it. Third, addressing the deficit would undermine a key long-term goal of the administration: making the American people less weary of government. By focusing on reducing the deficit, you're tacitly admitting that government actions to prop up the economy have not worked and that we need to cut our losses. At least that's how it might appear to some voters.
I think Obama's success will correlate closely with jobless numbers, and he needs to do a much better job of making employment a top priority.
HEALTH CARE: Can you believe we've gotten this far in the entry and haven't talked about health care? Starting at 3pm today, the Senate will begin debate on health care legislation. The debate is expected to last most of December. On the floor, Senators will be debating amendments from members of both parties. Some of these amendments will be important policy questions, and others will be politically-motivated "gotcha" votes. We will do our best to keep track of all of them.
Debate on amendments though is ultimately useless until Democrats can muster the 60 votes to break a Republican filibuster. The bill in its current form, unfortunately, would not garner those 60 votes. Majority Leader Reid will have to strike a compromise on the public option. Centrist Democrats have decided that the politically safe thing to do is pick the one thing liberals prize the most, and oppose it. That's an unfortunate reality we have to deal with. It seems that a potential path would be Senator Snowe's (R-ME) idea to have the public option only come into effect if private companies don't meet certain criteria (the trigger approach). Liberal Democrats will not be happy about such a compromise, but they would be very wise to read this report from the Urban Institute, which suggests that a strong trigger (emphasis on STRONG!) is probably better than the watered down public options in the House and Senate bills right now.
We will, of course, keep track of the health care debate as it progresses.
THE HOUSE: While the Senate works on health care, the House twittles its thumbs, basically. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will vote on various bills under suspension of the rules. On Thursday, the House takes up a bill to permanently address the Estate Tax problem. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 gradually eliminated the tax on estates (or as Republicans call it, the "death tax.") These taxes only apply to estates worth over $1 million, so it only applies to the super rich. The problem is that the Bush tax cuts expire after next year, meaning that the estate tax would return to their 2001 levels. (oh the horror!) The tax also speaks to the uniquely American value that every American should have to earn their way in life. Republicans, the people right now carping about deficits, want to permanently eliminate the estate tax. Democrats have proposed a compromise plan that will maintain the estate tax for estates worth over $3.5 million, and would freeze estate tax rates at 45% marginally. The top rate was 55% in 2001 before the Bush tax cuts took effect, and anything less than that is unacceptable. At a time when we're supposedly focusing on reducing the deficit, how can we not ask the proprietors of multi-million dollar rates to pay their fair share?
That's it for now. Leave us some comments!
AFGHANISTAN: The big news story this week will be the President's decision on Afghanistan. Tomorrow evening, the President will announce his long-awaited strategy at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. As an aside, I deeply disagree (as does the despondent Big Picture) with having this event at a military academy. It strikes me as very Bush-like to look for a political photo-op to announce such a difficult decision.
Nevertheless, the President is expected to announce that he will send an additional 34,000 troops to Afghanistan, short of the recommendation of General Stanley McCrystal, but a huge increase nonetheless. He also will supposedly announce some sort of new comprehensive strategy to end the conflict, which should include diplomatic efforts and economic development. I'll be watching very closely to see how detailed the President is about the aspects of the plan beyond the troop increase. The only way an increase of this magnitude in unwinnable territory (see: Soviet Union, 1979) will not be catastrophic is if it is coupled with an equally strong political strategy.
I will also be interested in the reactions of members of Congress. I don't think there will be many members praising this decision. Republicans will attack Obama for not adding even more troops. Liberal Democrats will undoubtedly (and justifiably) express significant concern and skepticism. We'll see if they turn that skepticism into legislative action (perhaps a resolution disapproving of the troop increase, or maybe even a war tax.)
We'll have full coverage of the address in Wednesday's Daily Strike.
JOBS: The White House will also attempt to address the main issue on most voter's minds right now: joblessness. On Thursday, the White House will bring together 130 stakeholders, as well as members of Congress to brainstorm about how to address spiraling unemployment. I'm pretty skeptical that a summit will produce much of any value. The name of the game is pushing a jobs package through Congress as quickly as possible. This event strikes me as even more political posturing by the White House. The event is also undermined by a New York Times article this morning (h/t The Big Picture) which indicated that the White House is not too involved in pushing a jobs bill through Congress, but instead is more focused on deficit reduction. This is like nails on a chalkboard for me. First of all, you cannot lower the deficit unless the economy improves and tax revenues increase. You can't achieve that with 10% unemployment. Second of all, the administration can't bow to poll numbers that show people more concerned about the deficit than job creation. The deficit is a very nebulous concern that usually represents general unease with the economy. Most people don't really know what the deficit is if you dig deeper; they know things are bad out there and they want to see something done to address it. Third, addressing the deficit would undermine a key long-term goal of the administration: making the American people less weary of government. By focusing on reducing the deficit, you're tacitly admitting that government actions to prop up the economy have not worked and that we need to cut our losses. At least that's how it might appear to some voters.
I think Obama's success will correlate closely with jobless numbers, and he needs to do a much better job of making employment a top priority.
HEALTH CARE: Can you believe we've gotten this far in the entry and haven't talked about health care? Starting at 3pm today, the Senate will begin debate on health care legislation. The debate is expected to last most of December. On the floor, Senators will be debating amendments from members of both parties. Some of these amendments will be important policy questions, and others will be politically-motivated "gotcha" votes. We will do our best to keep track of all of them.
Debate on amendments though is ultimately useless until Democrats can muster the 60 votes to break a Republican filibuster. The bill in its current form, unfortunately, would not garner those 60 votes. Majority Leader Reid will have to strike a compromise on the public option. Centrist Democrats have decided that the politically safe thing to do is pick the one thing liberals prize the most, and oppose it. That's an unfortunate reality we have to deal with. It seems that a potential path would be Senator Snowe's (R-ME) idea to have the public option only come into effect if private companies don't meet certain criteria (the trigger approach). Liberal Democrats will not be happy about such a compromise, but they would be very wise to read this report from the Urban Institute, which suggests that a strong trigger (emphasis on STRONG!) is probably better than the watered down public options in the House and Senate bills right now.
We will, of course, keep track of the health care debate as it progresses.
THE HOUSE: While the Senate works on health care, the House twittles its thumbs, basically. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will vote on various bills under suspension of the rules. On Thursday, the House takes up a bill to permanently address the Estate Tax problem. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 gradually eliminated the tax on estates (or as Republicans call it, the "death tax.") These taxes only apply to estates worth over $1 million, so it only applies to the super rich. The problem is that the Bush tax cuts expire after next year, meaning that the estate tax would return to their 2001 levels. (oh the horror!) The tax also speaks to the uniquely American value that every American should have to earn their way in life. Republicans, the people right now carping about deficits, want to permanently eliminate the estate tax. Democrats have proposed a compromise plan that will maintain the estate tax for estates worth over $3.5 million, and would freeze estate tax rates at 45% marginally. The top rate was 55% in 2001 before the Bush tax cuts took effect, and anything less than that is unacceptable. At a time when we're supposedly focusing on reducing the deficit, how can we not ask the proprietors of multi-million dollar rates to pay their fair share?
That's it for now. Leave us some comments!
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