Rep. Mike Pence Spreading Nutty Stories About Health-Care Reform

Rep. Mike Pence Spreading Nutty Stories About Health-Care Reform
With high-profile support from President Barack Obama, Congress is preparing a major overhaul of the nation's health care system. The details have yet to be revealed, but that hasn't stopped critics in Congress from going on the attack.

Obama and the Democratic leadership have proposed broad outlines for the overhaul. The centerpiece of their plan remains the employer-based system, where most people have private health insurance through work. To rein in costs, the government would invest in electronic medical records and encourage efficiency and preventive care.

To get coverage for people who don't have health insurance, the plan would increase eligibility for the poor and children to enroll in initiatives like Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Finally, the plans seek to create a health insurance exchange, where individuals and small businesses can easily comparison shop for insurance coverage. One of the exchange plans would be a public option run by the government.

It's the public option that has fueled Republican attacks, leading to charges that it would destroy the private system, that millions would lose their current coverage, and that Democrats don't have a way to pay for it.

Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana described the Democratic health care plan as "a government-controlled health care plan that will deprive roughly 120 million Americans of their current health care coverage and lead to federal bureaucrats denying critical care for patients."

That "120 million" number jumped out at us. That's a big number, representing roughly three-quarters of those who now have employer-provided health insurance.

We asked Pence's staff about the number, and they referred us to a report from the Lewin Group, a health care consulting firm. The report ran a number of scenarios, including what would happen if the government offered a public option that was a Medicare-style plan open to everyone. Their model found that 118 million people would choose to drop their private coverage in favor of cheaper public coverage.

But there's a hitch: That's what the Lewin Group believed would happen under the plans that were the most like Medicare, and if everyone were allowed to enroll. As we noted before, it's possible to set up a public option where only some people are allowed to enroll. Under the Lewin Group's estimates, if you restrict a Medicare-style public option only to individuals and small businesses, only 32 million would leave private coverage. And if the public option is less like Medicare and competes like a private insurer, the number drops further.

We'll grant that Congress could come up with a Medicare-style plan and open it to everyone, but it doesn't seem likely. Pence appears to be picking the worst number he can choose. And he doesn't mention the fact that under the scenario laid out by the Lewin Group, people would still have health care coverage and their premiums reduced by 30 to 40 percent. He says the government would "deprive" people of health insurance, when actually the scenario is that they would choose a different option.

Even if you believe that an expansive government health care plan would drive private insurers out of business, that still doesn't account for Pence's "deprive" claim, because the Lewin report he cites is focused on people who have chosen the government plan, not people who were left to the government plan after private options disappeared.

Finally, we have to include a caveat about the Lewin Group. The group says it operates with editorial independence, but it is a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, which also offers private health insurance.

Given all this background and explanation, we rated Pence's statement that the government would "deprive" 120 million people of their "current health care coverage" False.

Conservatives Spreading Heath-Care Reform Disinformation

Health-Care Reform: Busting The Medicare Myths
Christopher Beam has a column up on Slate about health-care reform and the Medicare related myths being spread by the Right. Scaring Grandma

Page 425(pdf) of the House health care bill: The Right is trying to convince the elderly that they must be consulted about how they wish to die. Some how this comes out of right-wing sites such as World Nut Daily that Obama is going to kill old folks. Echoed by veteran enemies of health-care reform like Charlotte Allen.

In fact, the bill says the meeting must include “an explanation by the practitioner of the end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice”—not a recommendation of it. (Emphasis added.) Still, Obama pointed out that it’s not too late to remove the language: “If this is something that really bothers people, I suspect that members of Congress might take a second look at it.”

No wonder the Right wants to give this passage the Pravda treatment, its a twofer. Few people are going to read the actual bill so they get away with portraying Democrats and Obama as death merchants. The language of the actual bill protects patient rights regarding one of the most personal and important decisions people will make in their lives. The bill contradicts the Right’s propaganda about heath-care reform that allows the government controlling every facet of your care.

Betsy McCaughey, another propagandist is red flagging a passage that reads in part ( nothing makes for good spin like lifting a few words out of context) “the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration”. McCaughey claims this says the government gets to kill you when its convenient. She’s not even close, but rumors like this have their way into retirement and nursing homes,

But the bill specifically says that an order to withhold, say, an IV drip, must be one that “effectively communicates the individual’s preferences regarding life sustaining treatment, including an indication of the treatment and care desired by the individual.” In other words, a doctor can’t make you do it.

These subjects are difficult to talk about and to contemplate, but there may come a time that we as patients will have to make decisions about whether we want doctors to go to extraordinary means to extend our lives or to what degree we want them to go. Fear mongering ideologues like Allen and McCaughey want everyone to believe those decisions will be placed solely within the province of government bureaucrats. Democrats and a few enlightened Republicans created Medicare. A program that has, saved lives, improved the quality of life for America’s seniors and extended their life expectancy. Medicare among other progressive accomplishment take pride of place on the Democratic Party’s resume. If nothing else, it makes no political sense for Democrats to undermine a successful program about which they have historical bragging rights.

Blue Cross praised employees who dropped sick policyholders
Blue Cross of California encouraged employees through performance evaluations to cancel the health insurance policies of individuals with expensive illnesses, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) charged at the start of a congressional hearing today on the controversial practice known as rescission.

The state's largest for-profit health insurer told The Times 18 months ago that it did not tie employee performance evaluations to rescission activity. And executives with Blue Cross parent company WellPoint Inc. reiterated that position today.

But documents obtained by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and released today show that the company's employee performance evaluation program did include a review of rescission activity.

The documents show, for instance, that one Blue Cross employee earned a perfect score of "5" for "exceptional performance" on an evaluation that noted the employee's role in dropping thousands of policyholders and avoiding nearly $10 million worth of medical care.

WellPoint's Blue Cross of California subsidiary and two other insurers saved more than $300 million in medical claims by canceling more than 20,000 sick policyholders over a five-year period, the House committee said.

"When times are good, the insurance company is happy to sign you up and take your money in the form of premiums," Stupak said. "But when times are bad, and you are afflicted with cancer or some other life-threatening disease, it is supposed to honor its commitments and stand by you in your time of need.

"Instead, some insurance companies use a technicality to justify breaking its promise, at a time when most patients are too weak to fight back," he said.

President Obama Holds a Tele-Townhall Meeting on Health Care with AARP Members
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.

I am just going to provide some brief remarks, and then I want to hear from you. It is wonderful to be here today. I want to thank Mike for moderating this discussion. I want to thank Jennie and Barry for their extraordinary leadership here at AARP.

Some of you may know that, 44 years ago today, when I was almost 4 years old, after years of effort, Congress finally passed Medicare, our promise as a nation that none of our senior citizens would ever again go without basic health care.

It was a singular achievement, one that has helped seniors live longer, healthier, and more productive lives. It's enhanced their financial security, and it's given us all the peace of mind to know that there will be health care available for us when we're in our golden years.

Today, we've got so many dedicated doctors and nurses and other providers across America providing excellent care, and we want to make sure our seniors and all our people can access that care. But we all know that right now we've got a problem that threatens Medicare and our entire health care system, and that is the spiraling cost of health care in America today.

As costs balloon, so does Medicare's budget. And unless we act within a decade -- within a decade -- the Medicare trust fund will be in the red.

Now, I want to be clear: I don't want to do anything that will stop you from getting the care you need, and I won't. But you know and I know that right now we spend a lot of money in our health care system that doesn't do a thing to improve people's health, and that has to stop. We've got to get a better bang for our health care dollar.

And that's why I want to start by taking a new approach that emphasizes prevention and wellness so that instead of just spending billions of dollars on costly treatments when people get sick, we're spending some of those dollars on the care they need to stay well, things like mammograms and cancer screenings and immunizations, common-sense measures that will save us billions of dollars in future medical costs.

Conservative media consistently scapegoat ACORN

Conservative media consistently scapegoat ACORN
In discussions of major news stories, conservatives in the media have repeatedly turned to two favorite bogeymen -- undocumented immigrants and ACORN -- in place of substantive analysis, even when those groups have little or nothing to do with the issue.



In coverage of major news stories, conservative media figures have repeatedly fallen back on two of their favorite bogeymen -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and undocumented immigrants -- frequently blaming national crises on one or both groups or accusing them of receiving undeserved benefits from the government. At best, these scapegoats are tenuously connected to the issues those figures are discussing; at worst, they are entirely unrelated. In some instances, the media linked their scapegoats to major news stories using misleading claims, and in others, they advanced outright falsehoods. Whatever the case may be, conservatives in the media consistently weave ACORN and undocumented immigrants into their coverage or commentary, instead of addressing the substantive policy issues or developing a cogent critique. Other media outlets follow the conservatives' lead, uncritically reporting their smears of ACORN and undocumented immigrants or reporting those smears as fact.

Media Matters for America has documented numerous instances in which conservative media outlets and figures have used ACORN and undocumented immigrants as scapegoats in reporting on major news stories recently, as well as other media outlets echoing their claims.

2008 financial crisis

Conservative media figures repeatedly invoked the specter of ACORN when discussing the causes of the financial crisis. For example, several in the media have claimed, suggested, or uncritically reported that ACORN contributed to the housing crisis by "bullying" banks into irresponsible lending to minorities. In many instances, media figures asserted that the group used the threat of the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) to intimidate banks into making risky loans. But as Media Matters documented, the media-promoted myth that the financial crisis was caused by banks lending irresponsibly to comply with the CRA has been widely discredited. According to housing experts, a large number of subprime loans were not made under the CRA, which applies only to depository institutions.

Let NRA-Loving Senators Practice What They Preach

Let NRA-Loving Senators Practice What They Preach By E.J. Dionne
Isn’t it time to dismantle the metal detectors, send the guards at the doors away, and allow Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights by being free to carry their firearms into the nation’s Capitol building?

I’ve been studying the deep thoughts of senators who regularly express their undying loyalty to the National Rifle Association and have decided that they should practice what they preach. They tell us that the best defense against crime is an armed citizenry and that laws restricting guns do nothing to stop violence.

If they believe that, why don’t they live by it?

Why would freedom-loving lawmakers want to hide behind guards and metal detectors? Shouldn’t NRA members be outraged that Second Amendment rights mean nothing in the very seat of our democracy?

Congress seems to think that gun restrictions are for wimps. It voted earlier this year to allow people to bring their weapons into national parks, and pro-gun legislators have pushed for the right to carry in taverns, colleges and workplaces. Shouldn’t Congress set an example in its own workplace?

So why not let Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., pack the weapon of his choice on the Senate floor? Thune is the author of an amendment that would have allowed gun owners who had valid permits to carry concealed weapons into any state, even states with more restrictive gun laws. The amendment got 58 votes last week, two short of the 60 it needed to pass.

Judging by what Thune said in defense of his amendment, he’d clearly feel safer if everyone in the Capitol could carry a gun.

“Law-abiding individuals have the right to self-defense, especially because the Supreme Court has consistently found that police have no constitutional obligation to protect individuals from other individuals,” he said. I guess Thune doesn’t think those guards and the Capitol Police have any obligation to protect him.

He went on: “The benefits of conceal and carry extend to more than just the individuals who actually carry the firearms. Since criminals are unable to tell who is and who is not carrying a firearm just by looking at a potential victim, they are less likely to commit a crime when they fear they may come in direct contact with an individual who is armed.”

In other words, keeping guns out of the Capitol makes all our elected officials far less safe. If just a few senators had weapons, the criminals wouldn’t know which ones were armed, and all senators would be safer, right? Isn’t that better than highly intrusive gun control—i.e., keeping people with guns out of the Capitol in the first place?

“Additionally,” Thune said helpfully, “research shows that when unrestricted conceal and carry laws are passed, not only does it benefit those who are armed, but it also benefits others around them such as children.”

This is a fantastic opportunity. Arming all our legislators would make it safer for children, so senators could feel much more secure bringing their kids into the Capitol. This would promote family values and might even reduce the number of highly publicized extramarital affairs.

During the debate, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., quoted a constituent who told him: “When my family and I go out at night, it makes me feel safer just knowing I am able to have my concealed weapon.”

Why shouldn’t Vitter feel equally safe in the Capitol? Why should he have to go out on the streets to carry a gun?

The pro-gun folks love their studies. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., offered this one: “A study for the Department of Justice found 40 percent of felons had not committed certain crimes because they feared the potential victims would be armed.”

That doesn’t tell us much about the other 60 percent, but what the heck? If it’s good enough for Barrasso, let the good senator introduce the amendment to allow concealed weapons in the Capitol.

Barrasso already dislikes the District of Columbia’s tough restrictions on weapons. “The gun laws in the district outlaw law-abiding citizens from self-defense,” he complained. So go for it, senator! Make our nation’s Capitol building an island of firearms liberty in a sea of oppression.

Don’t think this column is offered lightly. I want these guys to put up or shut up. If the NRA’s servants in Congress don’t take their arguments seriously enough to apply them to their own lives, maybe the rest of us should do more to stop them from imposing their nonsense on ours

Greed and Free Markets are not the Answer to Every Situation

Greed and Free Markets are not the Answer to Every Situation

Did you know, for example, that there was a time when being called a "war profiteer" was a bad thing? But now our war zones are dominated by private contractors and mercenaries who work for corporations. There are more private contractors in Iraq than American troops, and we pay them generous salaries to do jobs the troops used to do for themselves ­-- like laundry. War is not supposed to turn a profit, but our wars have become boondoggles for weapons manufacturers and connected civilian contractors.

Prisons used to be a non-profit business, too. And for good reason --­ who the hell wants to own a prison? By definition you're going to have trouble with the tenants. But now prisons are big business. A company called the Corrections Corporation of America is on the New York Stock Exchange, which is convenient since that's where all the real crime is happening anyway. The CCA and similar corporations actually lobby Congress for stiffer sentencing laws so they can lock more people up and make more money. That's why America has the world;s largest prison population ­-- because actually rehabilitating people would have a negative impact on the bottom line.

....But like everything else that's good and noble in life, some Wall Street wizard decided that hospitals could be big business, so now they're run by some bean counters in a corporate plaza in Charlotte. In the U.S. today, three giant for-profit conglomerates own close to 600 hospitals and other health care facilities. They're not hospitals anymore; they're Jiffy Lubes with bedpans. America's largest hospital chain, HCA, was founded by the family of Bill Frist, who perfectly represents the Republican attitude toward health care: it's not a right, it's a racket. The more people who get sick and need medicine, the higher their profit margins. Which is why they're always pushing the Jell-O.

Because medicine is now for-profit we have things like "recision," where insurance companies hire people to figure out ways to deny you coverage when you get sick, even though you've been paying into your plan for years.

When did the profit motive become the only reason to do anything? When did that become the new patriotism? Ask not what you could do for your country, ask what's in it for Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

If conservatives get to call universal health care "socialized medicine," I get to call private health care "soulless vampires making money off human pain." The problem with President Obama's health care plan isn't socialism, it's capitalism.

And if medicine is for profit, and war, and the news, and the penal system, my question is: what's wrong with firemen? Why don't they charge? They must be commies. Oh my God! That explains the red trucks!

Fearmongering Health Care Ad Comparing American Reform To Britain And Canada

Fearmongering Health Care Ad Comparing American Reform To Britain And Canada
Conservatives For Patients rights, the Swift Boat Health Smear Group headed by disgraced health executive Rick Scott, has released a new ad, and POLITICO, in turn, has penned another blog post presenting the advertisement.

In what can best be described as a marriage of Betsy McCaughey (the government intends to control what’s in your medicine cabinet!) and Sally Pipes (Canadian health care is coming!), the ad warns that the Federal Coordinating Council For Comparative Effectiveness Research was modeled “after the national board that controls Britain’s health system” to institute “government control over your health care choices.” Two doctors testify to the horrors of medicine in Great Britain and Canada, respectively:

SCOTT: “Deep inside the stimulus bill, Congress buried an innocent sounding board: the Federal Coordinating Council For Comparative Effectiveness Research. It’s not so innocent – it’s the first step in government control over your health care choices. This federal council is modeled after the national board that control’s Britain’s health system. Listen to Britain’s Dr. Karol Sikora about what happens to patients once the government takes over.”

DR. SIKORA (GB): “They’ll lose their own choice, completely…lose control of their own destiny within the medical system.” [...]

DR. DAY (Canada) “Patients are languishing and suffering on wait lists, our own Supreme Court of Canada has stated that patients are actually dying as they wait for care…



Scared yet? Well, you shouldn’t be. As Media Matters Action Network explains here, and I’ve written here, here, and here, comparative effectiveness research will ensure that doctors and patients have access to information about treatment effectiveness without the filter of a drug industry representative. As Newt Gingrich explains, “today, only about 10 percent of all health care is based on evidence. That means that 90 percent of the care we receive is, basically, informed opinion. We need a rigorous, clear system to measure the costs, benefits and value of a given procedure, technology or drug.”

Most notably, Obama has rejected a British/Canadian-like single-payer reform and most policy makers are looking for a “uniquely American solution” that preserves the employer-sponsored system and creates a hybrid public-private partnership. In other words, American reforms would look a bit like the Swiss health system in which the government “leaves the provision of health care and health insurance in private hands” but creates a marketplace within which insurers can compete on price, and not avoid insuring the sickest patients.

Bill O'Reilly's Sick Fans Stalk Journalist

Bill O'Reilly's Sick Fans Stalk Journalist

Last week I was greeted with an uncomfortable curiosity: a brace of hate mail in my inbox, received within a 20-minute span. The first came at 7:26: "You are an uneducated writer! You need to get your fact straight! You are a liberal bastard! You need to get informed!" All arguable propositions, perhaps, but that still left the question: why was this person realizing that precisely now, and why, two minutes later, did "Dr. Anthony" feel moved to inform me, "I've noticed a trend that left-wing extremists tend to be exceedingly ugly & perverse. Living with that ugliness & deviance seems to lead to an aberration of thought as well. I am attempting to formulate the correlation..."

And then, while he did, as if on a schedule, another deluge hit some three hours later, the messages several notches more frightening:

"Your a piece of s---. we will hunt you left wing libs down one by one. you lieing piece of trash."

"So perlstein,whats your problem with Fox and conservatives. you jews should be dancing on the ceilings.you have control of the government,obama,congress, senate...."

"You sir are far more dangerous than Sarah Palin ever will be."

YouTube soon revealed all. Bill O'Reilly had run a segment on an article I published in the July 20 Newsweek, along with a picture—my author photograph—and a description of me—"this Perlstein," who had written "some book no one heard of," spit out with such venom that more than one friend of mine thought of Sasha Baron Cohen's Borat singing about throwing a Jew down a well. I was, Bill O'Reilly explained, an agent of "media corruption." In a subsequent newspaper column, O'Reilly summarized the problem thus: "Under the guise of hard news reporting, the media is pushing rank propaganda on the citizenry. Dr. Joseph Goebbels the Nazi propaganda minister, successfully developed this tactic in the 1930s."

Were I a conservative, and a fan of Sarah Palin, and a viewer of Bill O'Reilly—but not a particularly conscientious reader of Newsweek—I would have been mad at me, too.
What had I written, and what had Newsweek attempted to get away with? Here's how one friendly blogger summarized "Beyond the Palin": "Perlstein's entire article is ... a chronicle of the division within Republican ranks between the party's elites ... and its far more strident base." Any contempt present in the piece, he pointed out, came not in my own voice but those of the elite Republicans I quoted, who "treat part of the base with a certain amount of disdain, courting them with a wink and a nod when necessary, dissociating from them ... when they fail to deliver the electoral goods.... Indeed, Perlstein's article is not so much a liberal elitist sneer at the lumpen proletariat in fly-over country as much as it is a careful examination of conservative elites toward those they regard as such."

In truth the article was a little more than that. I also quoted author and former Bush speechwriter David Frum asking worriedly, "What's happening to Fox News?", and suggested that, in an era of occasional violence from the right-wing fringe, all responsible conservatives should all be asking that question. My friend David Neiwert, a Seattle-based journalist and author of the recent book The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right, explained to me the problem thus: "I'm hearing now, from supposedly mainstream conservative pundits"—he singled out Fox's Glenn Beck, who has been entertaining the notion that Obama might not be a natural-born American citizen—"the kind of extreme rhetorical appeals that I used to hear from militia movement leaders in the early 1990s, talk about how the evil liberal president literally intends to destroy our country."

Again, my point was not to give my personal opinion of Palin or her followers, or O'Reilly, Beck, and theirs, but that of another segment of the Republican coalition, and explore the consequences of this divide for American politics. Maybe I did so effectively, maybe not; that's for the reader to judge. The political phenomenon I described, meanwhile, rolls on: just the other day a town hall held by Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware, a moderate Republican, was disrupted by a constituent who, holding up her own birth certificate in a plastic bag, delivered an impassioned tirade about how congressmen like Castle had failed patriotic Americans by allowing Barack Obama, a "citizen of Kenya," to be inaugurated in the first place. The lion's share of the crowd appeared to support her with cheers, and deride Rep. Castle, who may be running for the Senate, with boos. "He is a citizen of the United States," Castle implored repeatedly, before being drowned out by a spontaneous Pledge of Allegiance from the crowd.

O'Reilly's main point was that since I'm a liberal writer, and even and unabashedly a liberal activist, I couldn't analyze any of this in a fair or useful way. Again, I trust the reader to make that judgment themselves. I never hide my liberal sympathies, as a quick visit to Google will confirm (one of the first articles that will come up is my eulogy for my late friend William F. Buckley, who I describe as my "role model" in striving to make ideologically pointed arguments with civility and intellectual responsibility—and who was among the many conservatives kind in expressing their admiration for the two books I have published on the history of conservatism).

Solid Reformer Picked to Investigate How We Got into the Financial Mess

Solid Reformer Picked to Investigate How We Got into the Financial Mess

By William Greider, TheNation.com

Angelides, the former state treasurer of California, is a tough-minded liberal with hands-on knowledge of high finance and the social contradictions in modern capitalism. So it is remarkable that Angelides has been chosen to chair the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission newly created by Congress. The commission has enormous potential to generate deeper reforms than anything President Obama has yet proposed, simply by digging out the hard facts of what caused the financial collapse.

An honest investigation--like the Pecora hearings that famously revealed the truth of what caused the Great Depression--could splash embarrassment on both political parties and turn up shocking evidence of the political collusion between Washington and Wall Street. But can we really expect such a truth-telling creature to emerge from Congress? Maybe we can. The appointment of Angelides is a very promising start because of his record as an aggressive reformer on issues like corporate governance, social equity and environmental reform. The danger is that the Angelides commission will be paralyzed by the usual hard-nosed tactics of Washington partisans.

Angelides was named by Democratic congressional leaders, but Republicans picked four of the ten commission members and chose a relentless partisan as the vice chair--former Representative Bill Thomas. Thomas was Ways and Means chairman in the Bush years, well-known for his intellectual brilliance and his take-no-prisoners legislative tactics. Angelides must get Thomas's consent on staff appointments, particularly the crucial job of chief investigator. Issuing subpoenas will require support from at least one of the Republicans. "I talked with Bill Thomas," Angelides said. "His view is our job is tell the truth. Let's surprise people."

Angelides is hopeful the commission will surprise skeptics--if it sticks to the task of digging out the facts. "Given the extent of harm that has been done to so many people and the damage done to our system, my hope is that people will rise to the occasion and do the right thing," he told me. "Probably, there's a lot of nervousness out there as to what rocks might be turned over, because there will be Democrats who will be nervous about those facts too. We have to dig deep and get to the root causes, and we have to do this in a way that's understandable."

The best evidence of Angelides's authentic values is that, as state treasurer, he was endlessly attacked and ridiculed by the Wall Street Journal. Angelides was a pioneer among state treasurers in mobilizing the financial-market power of CalPERS and CalSTRS, California's mammoth pension funds for public employees and teachers. Those funds repeatedly used their weight to challenge Wall Street firms and corporate managements on the soundness of investment strategies and the financial system's disregard for larger social consequences, including ecological destruction. He ran for governor and lost in 2006, then returned to his private life as a real estate developer (a joint venture with Magic Johnson to build affordable rental housing in Los Angeles) while also serving actively as chairman of the Apollo Alliance for a green economy.

During the Bush years, when Angelides articulated his views on capitalism, he sounded downright quaint. In a Nation article I did four years ago on pension-fund power, Angelides explained his perspective: "I would make the case--this comes from my experience in real estate--that the best, most highly regarded companies are the ones that are profitable and also produce products that are of utility to society, that increase our productivity and enrich our lives. When people step back and ask what they most want to see in the private sector, it is both profitability and good results for society. There is no reason capital shouldn't be held to the same standard."

If Phil Angelides applies that standard to his commission's inquiry, we will see one bombshell after another.

NY Times ignores House health bill's exemption protecting small businesses

NY Times ignores House health bill's exemption protecting small businesses
SUMMARY: The New York Times reported that House Democrats' health care bill levels "a payroll tax -- as much as 8 percent of wages -- on employers who do not provide health insurance." But the Times did not note the bill's exemption protecting small businesses.



In a "news analysis" that ran on the front page of The New York Times' July 18 edition, reporters Robert Pear and David M. Herszenhorn reported that House Democrats' health care reform bill levels "a payroll tax -- as much as 8 percent of wages -- on employers who do not provide health insurance to workers." However, despite subsequently citing lawmakers' stated concerns about the impact of the bill's tax provisions on small businesses, Pear and Herszenhorn did not explain that the 8 percent payroll tax would only apply to "employer[s] with an annual payroll of more than $400,000," as they themselves noted in a July 14 article. Nor did they note that companies with annual payrolls of less than $250,000 would pay no penalty for failing to provide health insurance for their employees.

As Media Matters for America has noted, the House Democrats' bill, the America's Affordable Health Choices Act, would establish a 2 percent payroll penalty for employers with combined payroll between $250,000 to $300,000 that don't offer health insurance to employees; a 4 percent penalty for employers with $300,000 to $350,000 in payroll; a 6 percent penalty for employers with $350,000 to $400,000 in payroll; and an 8 percent penalty for companies with annual payrolls exceeding $400,000. Additionally, the bill establishes tax credits for small-business employers that do provide health care.

Cronkite and What Happened to Real Journalism

Cronkite and What Happened to Real Journalism
"The Vietcong did not win by a knockout [in the Tet Offensive], but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. . . . We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. . . .

"For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. . . . To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past" -- Walter Cronkite, CBS Evening News, February 27, 1968.

"I think there are a lot of critics who think that [in the run-up to the Iraq War] . . . . if we did not stand up and say this is bogus, and you're a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didn't do our job. I respectfully disagree. It's not our role" -- David Gregory, MSNBC, May 28, 2008.



When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Halberstam died, media stars everywhere commemorated his death as though he were one of them -- as though they do what he did -- even though he had nothing but bottomless, intense disdain for everything they do. As he put it in a 2005 speech to students at the Columbia School of Journalism: "the better you do your job, often going against conventional mores, the less popular you are likely to be . . . . By and large, the more famous you are, the less of a journalist you are."

In that same speech, Halberstam cited as the "proudest moment" of his career a bitter argument he had in 1963 with U.S. Generals in Vietnam, by which point, as a young reporter, he was already considered an "enemy" of the Kennedy White House for routinely contradicting the White House's claims about the war (the President himself asked his editor to pull Halberstam from reporting on Vietnam). During that conflict, he stood up to a General in a Press Conference in Saigon who was attempting to intimidate him for having actively doubted and aggressively investigated military claims, rather than taking and repeating them at face value:

Picture if you will rather small room, about the size of a classroom, with about 10 or 12 reporters there in the center of the room. And in the back, and outside, some 40 military officers, all of them big time brass. It was clearly an attempt to intimidate us.

General Stilwell tried to take the intimidation a step further. He began by saying that Neil and I had bothered General Harkins and Ambassador Lodge and other VIPs, and we were not to do it again. Period.

And I stood up, my heart beating wildly -- and told him that we were not his corporals or privates, that we worked for The New York Times and UP and AP and Newsweek, not for the Department of Defense.

I said that we knew that 30 American helicopters and perhaps 150 American soldiers had gone into battle, and the American people had a right to know what happened. I went on to say that we would continue to press to go on missions and call Ambassador Lodge and General Harkins, but he could, if he chose, write to our editors telling them that we were being too aggressive, and were pushing much too hard to go into battle. That was certainly his right.

Can anyone imagine any big media stars -- who swoon in reverence both to political power and especially military authority -- defying military instructions that way, let alone being proud of it? Halberstam certainly couldn't imagine any of them doing it, which is why, in 1999, he wrote:

Obviously, it should be a brilliant moment in American journalism, a time of a genuine flowering of a journalistic culture . . .

But the reverse is true. Those to whom the most is given, the executives of our three networks, have steadily moved away from their greatest responsibilities, which is using their news departments to tell the American people complicated truths, not only about their own country, but about the world around us. . . .

Somewhere in there, gradually, but systematically, there has been an abdication of responsibility within the profession, most particularly in the networks. . . . So, if we look at the media today, we ought to be aware not just of what we are getting, but what we are not getting; the difference between what is authentic and what is inauthentic in contemporary American life and in the world, with a warning that in this celebrity culture, the forces of the inauthentic are becoming more powerful all the time.

All of that was ignored when he died, with establishment media figures exploiting his death to suggest that his greatness reflected well on what they do, as though what he did was the same thing as what they do (much the same way that Martin Luther King's vehement criticisms of the United States generally and its imperialism and aggression specifically have been entirely whitewashed from his hagiography).

So, too, with the death of Walter Cronkite. Tellingly, his most celebrated and significant moment -- Greg Mitchell says "this broadcast would help save many thousands of lives, U.S. and Vietnamese, perhaps even a million" -- was when he stood up and announced that Americans shouldn't trust the statements being made about the war by the U.S. Government and military, and that the specific claims they were making were almost certainly false. In other words, Cronkite's best moment was when he did exactly that which the modern journalist today insists they must not ever do -- directly contradict claims from government and military officials and suggest that such claims should not be believed. These days, our leading media outlets won't even use words that are disapproved of by the Government.

Despite that, media stars will spend ample time flamboyantly commemorating Cronkite's death as though he reflects well on what they do (though probably not nearly as much time as they spent dwelling on the death of Tim Russert, whose sycophantic servitude to Beltway power and "accommodating head waiter"-like, mindless stenography did indeed represent quite accurately what today's media stars actually do). In fact, within Cronkite's most important moments one finds the essence of journalism that today's modern media stars not only fail to exhibit, but explicitly disclaim as their responsibility.



UPDATE: A reader reminds me that -- very shortly after Tim Russert's June, 2008 death -- long-time Harper's editor Lewis Lapham attended a party to mark the release of a new book on Hunter Thompson, and Lapham said a few words. According to New York Magazine's Jada Yuan, this is what happened:

Lewis Lapham isn’t happy with political journalism today. “There was a time in America when the press and the government were on opposite sides of the field,” he said at a premiere party for Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson on June 25. “The press was supposed to speak on behalf of the people. The new tradition is that the press speaks on behalf of the government.” An example? “Tim Russert was a spokesman for power, wealth, and privilege,” Lapham said. “That’s why 1,000 people came to his memorial service. Because essentially he was a shill for the government. It didn’t matter whether it was Democratic or Republican. It was for the status quo.” What about Russert’s rep for catching pols in lies? “That was bullshit,” he said. “Thompson and Russert were two opposite poles.”

Writing in Harper's a few weeks later, Lapham -- in the essay about Russert (entitled "An Elegy for a Rubber Stamp") where he said Russert's "on-air persona was that of an attentive and accommodating headwaiter, as helpless as Charlie Rose in his infatuation with A-list celebrity" -- echoed Halberstam by writing:

Long ago in the days before journalists became celebrities, their enterprise was reviled and poorly paid, and it was understood by working newspapermen that the presence of more than two people at their funeral could be taken as a sign that they had disgraced the profession.

That Lapham essay is full of piercing invective ("On Monday I thought I’d heard the end of the sales promotion. Tim presumably had ascended to the great studio camera in the sky to ask Thomas Jefferson if he intended to run for president in 1804"), and -- from a person who spent his entire adult life in journalism -- it contains the essential truth about modern establishment journalism in America:

On television the voices of dissent can’t be counted upon to match the studio drapes or serve as tasteful lead-ins to the advertisements for Pantene Pro-V and the U.S. Marine Corps. What we now know as the “news media” serve at the pleasure of the corporate sponsor, their purpose not to tell truth to the powerful but to transmit lies to the powerless. Like Russert, who served his apprenticeship as an aide-de-camp to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, most of the prominent figures in the Washington press corps (among them George Stephanopoulos, Bob Woodward, and Karl Rove) began their careers as bagmen in the employ of a dissembling politician or a corrupt legislature. Regarding themselves as de facto members of government, enabling and codependent, their point of view is that of the country’s landlords, their practice equivalent to what is known among Wall Street stock-market touts as “securitizing the junk.” When requesting explanations from secretaries of defense or congressional committee chairmen, they do so with the understanding that any explanation will do. Explain to us, my captain, why the United States must go to war in Iraq, and we will relay the message to the American people in words of one or two syllables. Instruct us, Mr. Chairman, in the reasons why K-Street lobbyists produce the paper that Congress passes into law, and we will show that the reasons are healthy, wealthy, and wise. Do not be frightened by our pretending to be suspicious or scornful. Together with the television camera that sees but doesn’t think, we’re here to watch, to fall in with your whims and approve your injustices. Give us this day our daily bread, and we will hide your vices in the rosebushes of salacious gossip and clothe your crimes in the aura of inspirational anecdote.

That's why they so intensely celebrated Tim Russert: because he was the epitome of what they do, and it's why they'll celebrate Walter Cronkite (like they did with David Halberstam) only by ignoring the fact that his most consequential moments were ones where he did exactly that which they will never do.

UPDATE II: In the hours and hours of preening, ponderous, self-serving media tributes to Walter Cronkite, here is a clip you won't see, in which Cronkite -- when asked what is his biggest regret -- says (h/t sysprog):

What do I regret? Well, I regret that in our attempt to establish some standards, we didn't make them stick. We couldn't find a way to pass them on to another generation.

It's impossible even to imagine the likes of Brian Williams, Tom Brokow and friends interrupting their pompously baritone, melodramatic, self-glorifying exploitation of Cronkite's death to spend a second pondering what he meant by that.


© 2009 Salon.com

RNC Chairman Michael Steele's Fuzzy Math Obama Administration Created $10 Trillion National Deficit

RNC Chairman Michael Steele's Fuzzy Math Obama Administration Created $10 Trillion National Deficit

Via ThinkProgress, Earlier today on Fox News, RNC Chairman Michael Steele was asked whether Republicans would borrow from President Clinton’s famous catch-phrase during the 1992 campaign, “it’s the economy stupid,” in the run-up to the 2010 election. Steele proceeded to launch into a rambling answer that used fuzzy math to assert that, in only six months, President Obama has added “10 trillion dollars” to the national deficit, while President Bush is to blame for only “a trillion”:

STEELE: They love going back to George Bush and his deficit that was inherited. Great. I’ll take George Bush’s deficit right now of a trillion dollars over the 10 trillion dollars that this administration has created in just six months.

Steele is clearly confusing the difference between our national debt, which stands at roughly $11.4 trillion, and this year’s budget deficit, which just exceeded $1 trillion.

To help jog Steele’s memory, here’s a bit of a deficit recap: Bush inherited a budget surplus of $128 billion in 2001. Budget experts projected a $710 billion surplus for 2009 when he came into office. But the deficit soon exploded, thanks largely to the Bush tax cuts — which accounted for 42 percent of the deficit. When Bush left office, he handed President Obama a projected $1.2 trillion budget deficit for this year, the largest ever.

As for the debt, when President Bush took office, it was $5.73 trillion. When he left, it was $10.7 trillion.

Just last month, the New York Times published the results of an examination from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. The report, which examined federal spending stretching back almost a decade, found that Obama “is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits”:

About 33 percent of the swing stems from new legislation signed by Mr. Bush. That legislation, like his tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit, not only continue to cost the government but have also increased interest payments on the national debt.

Mr. Obama’s main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies — together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama — account for 20 percent of the swing.

About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obama’s agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas.

Try as Steele might, this is blame shifting that just won’t work — especially after the Bush administration made it clear that “deficits don’t matter.”

Consumption The Root Cause of Climate Change

Consumption The Root Cause of Climate Change by Merrick Godhaven
Technology is part of the solution to climate change. But only part. Techno-fixes like some of those in the Guardian's Manchester Reportdrastic reductions in our consumption. That means radical economic and social transformation. Merely swapping technologies fails to address the root causes of climate change. simply cannot deliver the carbon cuts science demands of us without being accompanied by

We need to choose the solutions that are the cheapest, the swiftest, the most effective and least likely to incur dire side effects. On all counts, there's a simple answer – stop burning the stuff in the first place. Consume less.

There is a certain level of resources we need to survive, and beyond that there is a level we need in order to have lives that are comfortable and meaningful. It is far below what we presently consume. Americans consume twice as much oil as Europeans. Are they twice as happy? Are Europeans half as free?

Economic growth itself is not a measure of human well-being, it only measures things with an assessed monetary value. It values wants at the same level as needs and, while it purports to bring prosperity to the masses, its tendency to concentrate profit in fewer and fewer hands leaves billions without the necessities of a decent life.

Techno-fixation masks the incompatibility of solving climate change with unlimited economic growth. Even if energy consumption can be reduced for an activity, ongoing economic growth eats up the improvement and overall energy consumption still rises. We continue destructive consumption in the expectation that new miracle technologies will come and save us.

The hope of a future techno-fix feeds into the pass-it-forward, do-nothing-now culture typified by targets for 2050. Tough targets for 2050 are not tough at all, they are a decoy. Where are the techno-fix plans for the peak in global emissions by 2015 that the IPCC says we need?

Even within the limited sphere of technology, we have to separate the solutions from the primacy of profit. We need to choose what's the most effective, not the most lucrative. Investors will want the maximum return for their money, and so the benefits of any climate technologies will, in all likelihood, be sold as carbon credits to the polluter industries and nations. It would not be done in tandem with emissions cuts but instead of them, making it not a tool of mitigation but of exacerbation.

Climate change is not the only crisis currently facing humanity. Peak oil is likely to become a major issue within the coming decade. Competition for land and water, soil fertility depletion and collapse of fisheries are already posing increasing problems for food supply and survival in many parts of the world.

Technological solutions to climate change fail to address most of these issues. Yet even without climate change, this systemic environmental and social crisis threatens society, and requires deeper solutions than new technology alone can provide. Around a fifth of emissions come from deforestation, more than for all transport emissions combined. There is no technological fix for that. We simply need to consume less of the forest, that is to say, less meat, less agrofuel and less wood.

Our level of consumption is inequitable. Making it universal is simply impossible. The scientist Jared Diamond calculates that if the whole world were to have our level of consumption, it would be the equivalent of having 72 billion people on earth.

With ravenous economic growth still prized as the main objective of society by all political leaders the world over, that 72 billion would be just the beginning. At 3% annual growth, 25 years later it would be the equivalent of 150 billion people. A century later it would be over a trillion. Something's got to give. And indeed, it already is. It's time for us to call it a crisis and respond with the proportionate radical action that is needed.

Obama, FDR, and the Politics of Health Care Reform

Obama, FDR, and the Politics of Health Care Reform
"I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it."
-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Facing what is likely to be the defining political struggle of his presidency -- the battle for health care reform -- President Obama emphasized in a town-hall meeting earlier this month that the "lobbyists and special interests are what is going to end up carrying the day" unless "ordinary Americans... stand up and say, 'Now is the time.'" With the deep-pocketed health care industry reportedly spending $1.4 million a day to oppose any fundamental change, the need for a countervailing popular movement could not be more urgent.

Yet shortly after this eloquent call for public pressure, President Obama then moved to undermine it, telling Congressional leaders that grass roots groups such as the Service Employees International Union, MoveOn, and Democracy for America should stop pressuring wavering Senate Democrats to support more robust reform. While continuing to express support for a public plan, President Obama has conspicuously refused to draw a line in the sand on the issue. At the same time, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has repeatedly communicated that the Administration might be willing to support health care legislation that abandons the public option altogether.

Obama's awkward attempt to deflect grassroots pressure could not be more different from the stance taken by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who famously said after his election in 1932 to a group of labor leaders pressing for favorable legislation, "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it." What Roosevelt understood was that demands from below -- even clamorous ones -- were a resource for a president who aspired to be the architect of major social reform.

FDR's steadfastness of purpose and his ability to capitalize on grassroots pressure were nowhere more visible than in the battle over the Social Security Act -- the piece of legislation that, more than any other, defined his domestic legacy. In an eerie echo of the problems Obama is facing today, Roosevelt faced Senate opposition from within his own party . The leader of the opposition was a conservative Democrat from Missouri, Bennett "Champ" Clark, who sponsored an amendment that would have allowed employers to opt out of Social Security. The amendment enjoyed widespread support, passing in the Senate with over half the Democrats voting for it as well as all but three Republicans.

But Roosevelt and his supporters stood firm, recognizing that the Clark amendment would fatally undermine Social Security by narrowing the contribution base, limiting universality, and destroying portability (the ability to carry the pension from job to job). Promising to veto any legislation that included the amendment, the Roosevelt administration -- crucially assisted by its allies in the more liberal House of Representatives -- kept it out of the final legislation, the landmark Social Security Act of 1935. In the words of political scientist Jacob Hacker, a leading expert on the history of public and private social benefits in the United States, "Social Security passed not because Congress wanted it but because Roosevelt demanded it."

By unwaveringly insisting on a vigorous public plan and promising to veto any legislation that does not include it, President Obama could play a role similar to that of President Roosevelt in protecting the integrity of the Social Security Act. Certainly, the President is an able and articulate defender of a public plan. In a powerful critique of the logic of those who claim that a public option would drive private insurance out of business, he has pointedly asked: "If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care; if they tell us that they're offering a good deal, then why is it that the government, which they say can't run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That's not logical." And, as he rightly notes, a public plan can keep down administrative costs, provide more options, and -- most critically -- force the insurance companies to compete.

It is precisely because a public plan is likely to bring down costs that private insurance companies oppose it so vehemently. Their fierce opposition unquestionably poses a formidable political problem for the President. But this is a battle that can be won, especially if a substantial number of members of the House of Representatives, emboldened by grass-roots pressure, make clear they will simply not vote for any legislation that lacks a robust public plan.

With opinion polls showing wide popular support for a public option, this is the time for President Obama to set aside his deep-seated instinct for compromise and to show the kind of steely resolve President Roosevelt displayed in defeating the Clark amendment. Obama's ability to rise to this challenge will do much to determine not only the fate of health care reform, but also whether he will join the ranks of that handful of presidents who have increased the security of the American people against what FDR memorably called the "hazards and vicissitudes of life."

Who's Responsible for the Economic Crisis

Who's Responsible for the Economic Crisis
There are two basic truths about the enormous deficits that the federal government will run in the coming years.

The first is that President Obama’s agenda, ambitious as it may be, is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits, despite what many of his Republican critics are saying. The second is that Mr. Obama does not have a realistic plan for eliminating the deficit, despite what his advisers have suggested.

The New York Times analyzed Congressional Budget Office reports going back almost a decade, with the aim of understanding how the federal government came to be far deeper in debt than it has been since the years just after World War II. This debt will constrain the country’s choices for years and could end up doing serious economic damage if foreign lenders become unwilling to finance it.

Mr. Obama — responding to recent signs of skittishness among those lenders — met with 40 members of Congress at the White House on Tuesday and called for the re-enactment of pay-as-you-go rules, requiring Congress to pay for any new programs it passes.

The story of today’s deficits starts in January 2001, as President Bill Clinton was leaving office. The Congressional Budget Office estimated then that the government would run an average annual surplus of more than $800 billion a year from 2009 to 2012. Today, the government is expected to run a $1.2 trillion annual deficit in those years.

You can think of that roughly $2 trillion swing as coming from four broad categories: the business cycle, President George W. Bush’s policies, policies from the Bush years that are scheduled to expire but that Mr. Obama has chosen to extend, and new policies proposed by Mr. Obama.

The first category — the business cycle — accounts for 37 percent of the $2 trillion swing. It’s a reflection of the fact that both the 2001 recession and the current one reduced tax revenue, required more spending on safety-net programs and changed economists’ assumptions about how much in taxes the government would collect in future years.

About 33 percent of the swing stems from new legislation signed by Mr. Bush. That legislation, like his tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit, not only continue to cost the government but have also increased interest payments on the national debt.

Mr. Obama’s main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies — together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama — account for 20 percent of the swing.

About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obama’s agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas.

If the analysis is extended further into the future, well beyond 2012, the Obama agenda accounts for only a slightly higher share of the projected deficits.

How can that be? Some of his proposals, like a plan to put a price on carbon emissions, don’t cost the government any money. Others would be partly offset by proposed tax increases on the affluent and spending cuts. Congressional and White House aides agree that no large new programs, like an expansion of health insurance, are likely to pass unless they are paid for.

Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, and an author of a widely cited study on the dangers of the current deficits, describes the situation like so: “Bush behaved incredibly irresponsibly for eight years. On the one hand, it might seem unfair for people to blame Obama for not fixing it.

Hannity distorts article to smear administration on stimulus money distribution

Hannity distorts article to smear administration on stimulus money distribution
Fox News' Sean Hannity and CNN's Kiran Chetry cited a USA Today article to claim or speculate that political favoritism played a role in the distribution of funds from the recovery act. However, the article itself stated, "Investigators who track the stimulus are skeptical that political considerations could be at work."


On the July 9 editions of Fox News' Hannity and CNN's American Morning, both Sean Hannity and Kiran Chetry cited a USA Today article headlined, "Billions in aid go to areas that backed Obama in '08," to claim or speculate that political favoritism played a role in the distribution of funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. However, the USA Today article itself stated, "Investigators who track the stimulus are skeptical that political considerations could be at work." USA Today also reported that "[t]he imbalance didn't start with the stimulus. From 2005 through 2007, the counties that later voted for Obama collected about 50% more government aid than those that supported McCain, according to spending reports from the U.S. Census Bureau."

After Hannity read from the USA Today article, he asked, "So is this a mere coincidence, or is there something more sinister at work?" Fox News anchor and analyst Kimberly Guilfoyle later stated, "[W]e're not born yesterday. Of course it's going to go to the blue states. It's called, like, you know, you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours. It's very simple." Conservative commentator S.E. Cupp later added, "I think the message is completely clear. If you want more of the taxpayers' money, vote Democratic. If you want a chance to actually earn your own, well you'll have to vote Republican," to which Hannity responded, "Yeah. And so he's punishing those areas that voted for McCain."

On American Morning, Chetry teased a segment by stating, "Where are your tax dollars actually going? A new report just breaking this morning says it may depend on how your county voted." She later noted that "the report also says that that imbalance didn't just start with the stimulus. From 2005 through 2007, counties that later voted for Obama collecting about 50 percent more government aid anyway, according to spending reports from the Census Bureau."

From the July 9 USA Today article:

The reports show the 872 counties that supported Obama received about $69 per person, on average. The 2,234 that supported McCain received about $34.

Investigators who track the stimulus are skeptical that political considerations could be at work. The imbalance is so pronounced -- and the aid so far from complete -- that it would be almost inconceivable for it to be the result of political tinkering, says Adam Hughes, the director of federal fiscal policy for the non-profit OMB Watch. "Even if they wanted to, I don't think the administration has enough people in place yet to actually do that," he says.

Jobs Are More Important Then Formulas

The Human Equation - by Bob Herbert
Vice President Joe Biden told us this week that the Obama administration "misread how bad the economy was" in the immediate aftermath of the inauguration.

Puh-leeze. Mr. Biden and President Obama won the election because the economy was cratering so badly there were fears we might be entering another depression. No one understood that better than the two of them. Mr. Obama tried to clean up the vice president's remarks by saying his team hadn't misread what was happening, but rather "we had incomplete information."

That doesn't hold water, either. The president has got the second coming of the best and the brightest working for him down there in Washington (think of Larry Summers as the latter-day Robert McNamara), and they're crunching numbers every which way they can. They've got more than enough data. They understand the theories and the formulas as well as anyone. But they're not coming up with the right answers because they're missing the same thing that McNamara and his fellow technocrats were missing back in the 1960s: the human equation.

The crisis staring America in its face and threatening to bring it to its knees is unemployment. Joblessness. Why it is taking so long - seemingly forever - for our government officials to recognize the scope of this crisis and confront it directly is beyond me.

There are now five unemployed workers for every job opening in the U.S. The official unemployment rate is 9.5 percent, but that doesn't begin to tell the true story of the economic suffering. The roof is caving in on struggling American families that have already seen the value of their homes and retirement accounts put to the torch.

At the present rate, upwards of seven million homes can be expected to fall into foreclosure this year and next. Welfare rolls are rising, according to a survey by The Wall Street Journal. The National Employment Law Project has pointed out that hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers will begin losing their jobless benefits, just about the only thing keeping them above water, by the end of the summer.

Virtually all of the job growth since the start of the 21st century (which was nothing to crow about) has vanished. If you include the men and women who are now working part time but would like to work full time, and those who have become so discouraged that they've stopped actively searching for work, you'll find that 16.5 percent of Americans are jobless or underemployed. Nearly everyone who is fortunate enough to have a job has a spouse or a parent or an in-law or a close friend who is desperate for employment.

Anyone who believes that the Obama stimulus package will turn this jobs crisis around is deluded. It was too small, too weakened by tax cuts and not nearly focused enough on creating jobs. It's like trying to turn a battleship around with a canoe. Even if it were working perfectly, the stimulus would not come close to stemming the cascade of joblessness unleashed by this megarecession.

I'd like to see the president go on television and, in a dramatic demonstration of real leadership, announce a plan geared toward increasing employment that is both big and visionary - something on the scale of the Manhattan Project, or the interstate highway program or the Apollo spaceflight initiative.

My choice would be a "Rebuild America" campaign that would put men and women to work repairing, maintaining, designing and rebuilding the nation's infrastructure in the broadest sense - everything from roads and schools and the electrical power grid to innovative environmental initiatives and a sparkling new mass transportation network, including high-speed rail systems.

One of the ways of financing such an effort would be through the creation of a national infrastructure bank, which would provide federal investment capital for approved projects and use that money to leverage additional private investment.

There was a time when Americans could think on such a scale and get it done. We used to be better than any other nation on the planet at getting things done. It would be tragic if the 21st century turns out to be the time when that extraordinary can-do spirit disappears and we're left with nothing more meaningful and exciting than lusting after tax cuts and trying to pay off credit card debt.

The joblessness the nation is experiencing is crushing any hope of a real economic recovery. With so many Americans maxed out on their credit cards and with the value of their homes deep in the tank, the only money available to spend in most cases is from paychecks. The best and the brightest in Washington may have a theory about how to get the economy booming without dealing with the employment crisis, but I'd like to see that theory work in the real world.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

CIA We Lied to Congress

CIA We Lied to Congress
by John Nichols

In May, at a point when congressional Republicans and their amen corner in the media were attempting to defend the Bush-Cheney administration's torture regime, their primary defense was: Pelosi knew.

The spin held that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, had in 2002 been secretly briefed about the use of harsh interrogation techniques on terror suspects.

Pelosi said the Central Intelligence Agency had failed to inform her about the character and extent of the harsh interrogations.

Pelosi accused the CIA of "misleading the Congress of the United States."

Republican senators screamed.

"It's outrageous that a member of Congress should call a terror-fighter a liar," howled Missouri Senator Kit Bond, the vice chair of the Senate intelligence committee. "It seems the playbook is, blame terror-fighters. We ought to be supporting them."

CIA officials denied lying to Congress and the American people, and that seemed to be that. "Let me be clear: It is not our practice or policy to mislead Congress," said CIA Director Leon Panetta. That is against our laws and values."

But, now, we learn that, in late June, Panetta admitted in secret testimony to Congress that the agency had concealed information and misled lawmakers repeatedly since 2001.

Some of the details of Panetta's testimony are contained in a letter from seven House Democrats to Panetta that was released Wednesday morning.

In the letter, the members (Anna Eshoo of California, Alcee Hastings of Florida, Rush Holt of New Jersey, Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, Adam Smith of Washington, Mike Thompson of California and John Tierney of Massachusetts) wrote: "Recently you testified that you have determined that top CIA officials have concealed significant actions from all members of Congress, and misled members for a number of years from 2001 to this week."

The letter continued: "In light of your testimony, we ask that you publicly correct your statement of May 15, 2009."

Pelosi's critics are claiming that Panetta's admission does not resolve the debate about whether the speaker was lied to in briefings about harsh interrogations.

What does the CIA say?

That's where things seem to get confusing -- but, as we'll see, not too confusing.

Panetta "stands by his May 15 statement," CIA spokesman George Little claimed after the letter from the House members was released.

The problem is that Little also said: "This agency and this director believe it is vital to keep the Congress fully and currently informed. Director Panetta's actions back that up. As the letter from these ... representatives notes, it was the CIA itself that took the initiative to notify the oversight committees."

So, officially, CIA director Panetta stands by his statement that: "It is not our practice or policy to mislead Congress."

But...

Panetta's spokesman is seemingly rather proud that "it was the CIA itself that took the initiative to notify the oversight committees" that the agency had in the words of the House members "misled members for a number of years from 2001."

Can we reconcile these statements?

Yes.

Panetta, who has only headed the CIA since February of this year says that "it is not our practice or policy to mislead Congress."

But he tells Congress that it was in fact the consistent practice of the CIA to lie to Congress during the Bush-Cheney years.

Why Can't Hannity Criticize Obama Without Lying

Why Can't Hannity Criticize Obama Without Lying
Media Matters caught Sean Hannity doing it again. They write:

On the July 7 edition of his Fox News show, Sean Hannity deceptively cropped President Obama's answer to a question from Fox News senior White House correspondent Major Garrett about the Cold War to suggest that Obama did not acknowledge the actions of past U.S. presidents in freeing Eastern Europe. In fact, as part of his answer, Obama stated, "I'm very proud of the traditions of Democratic and Republican presidents to lift the Iron Curtain," a comment Hannity edited out of the clip he aired of Obama's response... Media Matters for America has documented a pattern by Hannity and other Fox News personalities of cropping Obama's comments abroad to misrepresent their meaning.

If Obama's the radical socialist Hannity likes to paint him as, you'd think he could find ample ammunition without resorting to misrepresenting and distorting the facts. Don't hold your breath for a retraction. * report via Newshounds

A Few Senators Away from Having Much Better Health Care

A Few Senators Away from Having Much Better Health Care By Paul Krugman
The Congressional Budget Office has looked at the future of American health insurance, and it works. A few weeks ago there was a furor when the budget office "scored" two incomplete Senate health reform proposals -- that is, estimated their costs and likely impacts over the next 10 years. One proposal came in more expensive than expected; the other didn't cover enough people. Health reform, it seemed, was in trouble. But last week the budget office scored the full proposed legislation from the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP). And the news -- which got far less play in the media than the downbeat earlier analysis -- was very, very good. Yes, we can reform health care. Let me start by pointing out something serious health economists have known all along: on general principles, universal health insurance should be eminently affordable. After all, every other advanced country offers universal coverage, while spending much less on health care than we do. For example, the French health care system covers everyone, offers excellent care and costs barely more than half as much per person as our system. And even if we didn't have this international evidence to reassure us, a look at the U.S. numbers makes it clear that insuring the uninsured shouldn't cost all that much, for two reasons. First, the uninsured are disproportionately young adults, whose medical costs tend to be relatively low. The big spending is mainly on the elderly, who are already covered by Medicare. Second, even now the uninsured receive a considerable (though inadequate) amount of "uncompensated" care, whose costs are passed on to the rest of the population. So the net cost of giving the uninsured explicit coverage is substantially less than it might seem. Putting these observations together, what sounds at first like a daunting prospect -- extending coverage to most or all of the 45 million people in America without health insurance -- should, in the end, add only a few percent to our overall national health bill. And that's exactly what the budget office found when scoring the HELP proposal. Now, about those specifics: The HELP plan achieves near-universal coverage through a combination of regulation and subsidies. Insurance companies would be required to offer the same coverage to everyone, regardless of medical history; on the other side, everyone except the poor and near-poor would be obliged to buy insurance, with the aid of subsidies that would limit premiums as a share of income. Employers would also have to chip in, with all firms employing more than 25 people required to offer their workers insurance or pay a penalty. By the way, the absence of such an "employer mandate" was the big problem with the earlier, incomplete version of the plan. And those who prefer not to buy insurance from the private sector would be able to choose a public plan instead. This would, among other things, bring some real competition to the health insurance market, which is currently a collection of local monopolies and cartels. The budget office says that all this would cost $597 billion over the next decade. But that doesn't include the cost of insuring the poor and near-poor, whom HELP suggests covering via an expansion of Medicaid (which is outside the committee's jurisdiction). Add in the cost of this expansion, and we're probably looking at between $1 trillion and $1.3 trillion. There are a number of ways to look at this number, but maybe the best is to point out that it's less than 4 percent of the $33 trillion the U.S. government predicts we'll spend on health care over the next decade. And that in turn means that much of the expense can be offset with straightforward cost-saving measures, like ending Medicare overpayments to private health insurers and reining in spending on medical procedures with no demonstrated health benefits. So fundamental health reform -- reform that would eliminate the insecurity about health coverage that looms so large for many Americans -- is now within reach. The "centrist" senators, most of them Democrats, who have been holding up reform can no longer claim either that universal coverage is unaffordable or that it won't work. The only question now is whether a combination of persuasion from President Obama, pressure from health reform activists and, one hopes, senators' own consciences will get the centrists on board -- or at least get them to vote for cloture, so that diehard opponents of reform can't block it with a filibuster. This is a historic opportunity -- arguably the best opportunity since 1947, when the A.M.A. killed Harry Truman's health-care dreams. We're right on the cusp. All it takes is a few more senators, and HELP will be on the way.