I have sometimes been quite critical of President Obama's approach to financial issues, and I still believe he should push harder and go further than he is going. However, I think the regulatory reform package he put out today is a solid start. It does not go far enough for me, it "does not tilt at windmills," as he puts it, but it starts the debate with some solid reforms, including:
--Fairly comprehensive supervision of financial markets, with more regulation of derivatives and credit rating agencies, and more market transparency.
--More protections for both investors and consumers, including a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, are a very good step, as is forcing more transparency on consumer and investor products and services.
--More regulation of non-bank financial institutions.
--More accountability in terms of the Federal Reserve's emergency lending authority.
--A new national bank supervisor to oversee all federally chartered banks.
The experts I know and respect who have been studying bank regulatory issues are generally pleased.
Before I go any further, let me go back to that tilting at windmills thing for a minute. Politicians frequently say things like that when they are about to give in on something important, but in the case it's an interesting thing to dwell on. There is a lot in this proposal that, for those of us who think far more needs to be done to re-structure the financial industry, isn't addressed. Democratizing the Fed and taking it away from being run by bankers is a very big one, especially if we are going to give the Fed more regulatory power. Doing more to break up the biggest financial institutions is essential. I think as this bill makes its way through the legislature meat grinder, we progressives need to draw lines on those two issues, and fight like crazy to make progress in those areas. But also remember what we are up against: Wall Street is the most powerful special interest in America, and the progressive forces arrayed against them aren't exactly awash in money or power. Given that reality, we don't want Obama's proposal to be DOA.
This kind of thing is always a balancing act, a judgment call on how far to go. I will continue to fight like crazy for breaking up the big banks, democratizing the Fed, and other important financial reforms, and I will probably cuss out my friends in the Obama administration more than once before we are through with this issue. But given the power of the banks and the politics on Capitol Hill, I give the White House pretty good marks on this proposal.
One of the most important aspects of this campaign is how it is the first attempt to really push Senators to make their position on the public option clear. More than one Senate staffer has written us to say that no one in the media has ever asked them such detailed questions on the public option before:
Do you support a public healthcare option as part of healthcare reform?
If so, do you support a public healthcare option that is available on day one?
Do you support a public healthcare option that is national, available everywhere, and accountable to Congress?
Do you support a public healthcare option that can bargain for rates from providers and big drug companies?
To date, Senators have been allowed to avoid real pressure by providing vague, almost open-ended responses to health care questions. This has allowed them to sound good to the base, but also provided them wiggle room to cut backdoor deals with health insurance companies.
Today, we are starting to put an end to that. Through your emails, we are going to get every Senator to provide clarity on where they stand on the public option. And with such transparency comes accountability.
Hi, folks. This is Zach Lowe, Press Secretary for Senator Russ Feingold. I wanted to let you all know that Senator Feingold's response to all four questions is "YES!"
Here's what Senator Feingold had to say following the president's stop in Green Bay, Wisconsin last week. Thanks.
Shamelessly stealing this clip and news item from Susie Madrak:
Even Republicans were appalled when "[e]xecutives of three of the nation's largest health insurers told federal lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday that they would continue canceling medical coverage for some sick policyholders, despite withering criticism from Republican and Democratic members of Congress who decried the practice as unfair and abusive."
This is exactly why we need a public option. A real one. A good one. A plan that's as good as our legislators get, and that would even let their chicken* behinds off the hook for negotiating partner benefits for same-sex couples, because everyone would have access to it.
We need good healthcare, not to be forced into buying a crappy product that kills people by denying them the coverage they've paid for as soon as they get sick enough that their care would bankrupt the typical US household.
Why is Congress protecting these evil bastiches? I'd guess it's because they're bad people who recognize and protect their own kind. But I could be wrong. What do you think?
Update: Chris says over 3,000 people have taken action to ask their Senators to say where they stand on a public option. Please join them.
Get answers from your Senators on health care today.
So, what is going on with health care reform lately?
Today, The Hill reports that Blue Dogs and Republicans are holding secret talks on health care reform:
The talks have been so secretive and politically sensitive that some members interviewed by The Hill refused to name other legislators involved in the bipartisan effort.
Also today, former Democratic and Republican Senate majority leaders are coming out with plans to tax health care benefits, but with no public option.
A few days ago, Senators like Mary Landrieu and some Blue Dogs in the House have backed off their public statements in support of a public option.
Over the weekend, Kent Conrad is telling the world that there aren't enough votes for the public option. He claims that he was instructed to craft a compromise, non-public option plan by Senate leaders.
Pardon my sounding like an angry blogger for a moment, but what the frak is going on here?
For years, candidates for, and members of, Congress told us that we needed to elect and re-elect them in order to lower health care costs and provide universal coverage. And so, for years, we dutifully worked our collective asses off, delivering wide majorities for Democrats--who said they would lower health care costs and provide universal coverage--in both branches of Congress.
Now, when it comes time for them to deliver on health care by providing a public option--the care minimum required to reduce costs and provide universal coverage--what we are getting instead are backroom deals, flip-flops, and cop-outs.
Enough.
Today, along with Health Care for America Now, Democracy for America and numerous blogs, a campaign is being launched to put an end to the backroom deals on health care. We made and delivered on a commitment to bring about wide Democratic majorities in Congress. Now, instead of negotiating in secret, this Congress needs to make a public commitment to us on where it stands on health care.
No more dodges. No more vague, open-ended responses. We need every member of the Senate--main obstacle to reform--to answer four questions on the public option:
Do you support a public healthcare option as part of healthcare reform?
If so, do you support a public healthcare option that is available on day one?
Do you support a public healthcare option that is national, available everywhere, and accountable to Congress?
Do you support a public healthcare option that can bargain for rates from providers and big drug companies?
As activists and as constituents, answering these questions are the minimum they owe us. We are entitled to specific, clear, written responses to all of these questions.
Email--don't call, but email--these four questions to your Senators now. Make it clear that you want a written response to all four questions. There needs to be as little room for interpretation as possible. The Senate is going to be the biggest hurdle on health care, as it has proven to the biggest hurdle on all legislation in 2009. That is where we must focus our pressure.
When you receive a response, post it on this webpage. We are going to collect all of the responses to find out where every member of Congress, but especially the Democratic members, stand on the public option. It is only with this information that we can prevent backroom deals that will sell us out to insurance companies.
If they don't respond, we will keep emailing until they respond. If they dodge the questions and don't provide specifics, then we will keep emailing until they do. If we keep the pressure up, they are going to have to respond eventually.
It is about time that every Senator make their position clear. We are entitled to responses. Email your Senators today.
Arianna Huffington has a terrific piece on the bankers on Wall Street returning to their old habits, and I have a couple of observations on this urgently important topic.
The first is about the precarious balancing act the White House is forced to have on the economy. They have to project confidence in the economy, to celebrate the good news that is out there, both for the obvious political reasons, but also to give the American people hope that we can get out of this mess. You don't want to undermine any potential recovery by doing too much doom and gloom, and I don't blame them at all for trying to be upbeat about the things that are good that are happening.
At the same time, the Obama administration has to be crystal clear that they are going to change the destructive, speculative patterns on Wall Street, patterns that are continuing, even today virtually unchanged. I wrote yesterday about the power of Wall Street, and they absolutely do have the power to destroy this fragile economy by going back to their destructive out-of-control gaming of the system. Even with all of the big and important agenda items facing Obama and the Democratic Congress this year, they have to make sure that a major piece of business is rebuilding the system's oversight capacity on the financial markets.
... The MIT scientists published the peer-reviewed results in the Journal of Climate showing a 90% probability of global temperature will rise as much as 7.4 degrees Celsius, more than twice the previous projection from 2003.
... Various studies have shown that even a rise of 2 degrees Celsius in global temperatures would probably destroy 30 percent to 40 percent of all known species, generate bigger, fiercer and more frequent heat waves and droughts, more intense weather events like floods and cyclones, and would raise the sea level by at least a metre, displacing millions. ...
- Why is our food policy so screwed up?
- Where on Earth are we going to store the two trillion tons of carbon dioxide held in the world's peatlands? Sadly, probably the atmosphere.
- When did it become okay to refuse to fund the troops?
- What employer offered benefits besides healthcare are of significant value to domestic partners? Office Christmas party attendance? What?
- How did no one ever predict that you couldn't build a country pseudo-estate for half the US population without negative consequences? (via Leslie Blanchard)
(Via Swing State Project) According to a report in The Hill, a state legislator in Pennsylvania has introduced a bill to make the Pennsylvania primary open (that is, any Pennsylvania registered vote can participate), instead of the current closed format (that is, only Pennsylvanians who have registered as Democrats can vote). The Hill argues that such an open primary would benefit, and is the work of, Arlen Specter:
Such an approach could feasibly help Specter (D-Pa.) win the Democratic primary, too, as he prepares for a challenge from the left from Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.).
The timing could be more than coincidental.
When The Hill sat down with Specter before his party switch, he talked about opening up the primaries in Pennsylvania to independent voters, in the name of helping him defeat a conservative primary challenger. He acknowledged he was contacting state legislators in hopes of doing just that.
While it is highly likely that this bill is being introduced in the hopes of benefiting Specter, and that the pro-Specter Democratic leadership of the state had a hand in introducing the bill, the overall effort is flawed from the start. This is because polling shows clearly that an open primary would benefit Joe Sestak, not Arlen Specter:
Specter is much weaker among Independents and Republicans than Democrats. Among registered Democrats that self-identify as Independent or Republican, Joe Sestak already leads 46%--39%, according to the detailed GQR poll on the campaign (PDF, page 12). Further, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll on the campaign, Specter's favorability among Republicans was only 18%, his favorability among Independents was 46%, and his favorability among Democrats was 70%. Given these numbers, it is hard to imagine how introducing more Independents and Republicans into the electorate would actually help Specter. Pennsylvania Republicans hate Arlen Specter, and they will come out to vote against him en masse in the primary if given the opportunity.
Specter loses if he appears to be trying to win at all cost. Here is one of the two money quotes from the GQR polling memo (page 4):
Among those inclined to believe Specter switched because agrees with Democrats more on the issues, he trumps a potential Democratic challenger by 56 points, 74 - 18 percent. However, among those who believe Specter's primary rational was political expediency, he trails a generic Democratic candidate by 32 points, 28 - 60 percent
If Specter has already acknowledged that he tried to make an open primary to save himself electorally, then any legislative attempt to create an open primary will only reinforce statewide opinion that Specter is acting mainly to save his own job. As the GQR poll shows, no message could be more damaging to Specter's re-election chances than that (expect, possibly, when people learn that Joe Sestak exists, given that Sestak leads 52%-44% among Democrats who have heard of both candidates.)
So please, by all means, make Pennsylvania an open primary. As a Sestak supporter, I can think of few moves that would do more to help defeat Arlen Specter.
