Health Care

The Remaining Health Care Arguments: Fewer Fireworks, Possibly Bigger Consequences

Brian Beutler | March 28, 2012, 6:02AM

After Tuesday's explosive arguments over the constitutionality of President Obama's health care law threw conventional wisdom about the Supreme Court's likeliest course of action out the window, it would be easy to conclude that highest-stakes issue was behind us.

It's not.

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Affordable Care Act

The Most Radical Part Of The Health Care SCOTUS Challenge

Sahil Kapur | March 23, 2012, 5:37AM

The U.S. Supreme Court chamber (Associated Press)

It hasn't received nearly as much attention as the other main legal challenge to the health care law. But next Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether the Affordable Care Act's expansion of the Medicaid program is too coercive to states, and thus violates the Constitution.

If upheld, the states' far-reaching argument could invalidate decades of government programs. The law requires states that accept federal matching funds for Medicaid to expand that program to cover everyone under 133 percent of the poverty line. That may sound like an onerous burden for state governments, many of which are already stretched extremely thin. But the federal government will be picking up most of the tab for the expansion. So the argument essentially boils down to this: The new Medicaid funds Congress is giving us to insure more of our residents is too good an offer to pass up, and should therefore be struck down.

"What they're basically saying is, you're making us a deal that we can't refuse because it's such a good deal. And therefore it's unconstitutional," Tim Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University, and supporter of the health care law, told TPM. "I mean just to state the argument shows how ridiculous it is."

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Budget

How The GOP Budget Pulverizes Most Government Services (CHART)

Brian Beutler | March 22, 2012, 10:06AM

House Republicans' latest budget is a slightly new twist on a familiar theme: low taxes, particularly on the wealthiest, financed by extreme cuts to government spending programs. Knowing the GOP's -- and, frankly many Democrats' -- penchant for high levels of military spending, this mostly means unfathomably deep cuts to domestic health care, education, science and other programs.

Here's the twist. Last year, Republicans took a lot of guff for their plan to turn Medicare in to a subsidized private insurance system. That wasn't just because they proposed to privatize the program, but because the subsidies they proposed were extremely meager -- that's how it saved so much money.

This year, the budget calls for more generous subsidies. Which means that to hit the same long-term deficit targets, Ryan has to cut even deeper into other programs.

Here's how it looks graphically.

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HCR/SCOTUS

What's In A Mandate? Why SCOTUS May Take A Pass On 'Obamacare' -- For Now

Brian Beutler | March 20, 2012, 5:23AM

When the Supreme Court convenes next week to hear arguments about the constitutionality of President Obama's health care law, the first issue they will consider is the basic character of one of the law's crucial features: the requirement that uninsured Americans either purchase coverage or pay a fine to the federal government.

Better known as the individual mandate, it's the provision of the health care law at the heart of the GOP's constitutional complaint. The plaintiffs -- the 26 states suing over the law -- contend the individual mandate exceeds Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce, and the court's ruling on that issue could have the most sweeping legal impact, perhaps upending decades of Commerce Clause jurisprudence.

But before they get to the question of whether the individual mandate is an unconstitutional expansion of the Commerce Clause, the justices have agreed to consider whether they even have the power to take up this case, since the mandate does not go into effect for another two years. And that decision will ride on a fine distinction: Is the individual mandate a tax or is it a penalty?

The arguments they will hear, and the decision they ultimately reach, will determine whether the court can proceed to rule on the merits of the law, or whether they must punt on the substance until after the mandate takes effect in 2014. Either decision would place several key actors in awkward political predicaments without any easy escape routes.

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Steny Hoyer

Dem, GOP Leaders Renew Push For Major Deficit Legislation

Brian Beutler | March 9, 2012, 5:30AM

Under fire from progressives for working with Republicans on legislation that would likely cut entitlements and raise taxes, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer told reporters Thursday he thinks there's an imperative to address long-run budget deficits rationally, before the end of the election, in a way that doesn't end the explicit guarantees of key government programs.

In a roundtable with reporters in his Capitol office, Hoyer said the group's still a long way from achieving broad consensus, but sought to reassure critics, constituents and other observers that he opposes the GOP's radical entitlement proposals.

"I want to emphasize, because I get beat up on, I'm for the Medicare guarantee, I'm not for a Paul Ryan alternative that eliminates the guarantee," he said. "[Some claim] I've said we ought to raise the age. I haven't said that. What I've said is I think everything ought to be on the table."

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Steny Hoyer

Progressives Petition Hoyer Against Safety Net Cuts

Brian Beutler | March 8, 2012, 8:33AM

Progressives are escalating their campaign to warn House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer off cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, as he quietly pursues significant deficit reducing legislation with members of both parties. On Thursday, they will deliver 148,000 petitions to his Capitol offices.

"Representative Hoyer is hearing from thousands of Americans letting him know that we will not stand for any back room deal that puts cuts to Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security benefits on the table," said Becky Bond, Political Director of CREDO Action, an online advocacy group. "[W]orking with Republicans on a deal which will preemptively cave on cuts to our social safety net is not acceptable from the second most powerful Democratic Leader in the House of Representatives."

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Steny Hoyer

Progressive Advocacy Group Targets Hoyer Over Potential Entitlement Cuts

Brian Beutler | March 1, 2012, 1:38PM

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) And Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)

The online, progressive advocacy group CREDO Action is targeting a top House Democrat and a leading advocate of far-reaching deficit reduction legislation, including both higher taxes and cuts to popular support programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

In a Monday speech, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer revealed that he's working with a bipartisan coalition of House and Senate members to fashion a "grand bargain" on deficits, in the hope of addressing the issue -- and possibly even passing legislation -- before the November elections.

Hoyer's made no secret of the fact that he wants to see significant long-term deficit reduction, in programs that put everything, including entitlements and taxes, on the table. Progressives worry that such entitlement cuts will undermine the integrity of the programs and are warning Hoyer and Democratic members to tread cautiously. The subtext here, and the source of CREDO's leverage, is that Hoyer may -- a big may -- need progressive help in a future leadership fight, if Democrats take the majority, or Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi retires, or another shakeup occurs in the Democratic ranks.

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Steny Hoyer

Hoyer Working Behind The Scenes On Major Deficit Reduction Bill

Brian Beutler | February 27, 2012, 12:53PM

Steny Hoyer speaks at press conference with House Ways and Means Committee Democrats. November 30, 2011.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) is looking to shake legislative politics out of unconsciousness as early as this spring, and force a vote on a bipartisan legislative proposal - which would include higher taxes and cuts to federal programs -- to reduce deficits by trillions of dollars over the coming years.

The push is intended to disrupt the consensus among most political leaders that Congress will punt budget consolidation efforts until after November -- when the election returns are in, and the January 1, 2013 expiry of the Bush tax cuts and deep across-the-board spending cuts make real action inevitable.

In a speech hosted Monday morning by Third Way, Hoyer revealed that he and other lawmakers are looking for the right moment to introduce a bill that would achieve the sorts of deficit reduction goals that have eluded Congress and the White House thus far.

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Mitt Romney

D'oh! Debt Hawks Fear Most GOP Tax Plans Will Increase Deficit

Brian Beutler | February 23, 2012, 1:48PM

A key test for the political establishment and the media this campaign cycle will be whether they accurately explain the Presidential candidates' budget plans to voters, or whether they allow the candidates to spin their way out of the severe implications of their own proposals. The election will hinge to a large extent on the two parties' visions for the role of the federal government and how to pay for it, and keeping the taxing and spending implication of those visions clear is the key to helping voters make informed decisions at the polls.

An event hosted Thursday morning by the fiscal discipline hawks at the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget offered this corner of the establishment an early critique of the GOP candidates' tax and spending plans -- all of which drew mixed reviews or worse.

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Medicare

The Map That Proves Red Staters Use The Safety Net Too

Brian Beutler | February 22, 2012, 6:17AM

Just over a week ago, the New York Times ran an eye-opening story about a key paradox in U.S. politics: It turns out the biggest critics of federal spending -- Republican base voters -- are some of the biggest beneficiaries of the social safety net.

Expand on that irony, and you'll find that some of the most conservative states in the country are the greatest beneficiaries of transfer payments -- where residents pay on average less in taxes than they receive in federal benefits. Not all "taker" states are red, and not all "giver" states are blue.

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Barack Obama

Why A President Romney Would Find It Hard To Repeal 'Obamacare'

Brian Beutler | January 18, 2012, 5:27AM

Mitt Romney

Should he win the nomination and the presidency, then on inauguration day in 2013, after all the pageantry has subsided, Mitt Romney will face a key test: does he take aggressive action to roll back Obamacare as he and every other GOP contender has promised? Or will he accede to pragmatic realities and seek detente with Democrats on the issue that has most divided the parties over the past three years?

The amount of money, strategizing, myth-making, and political capital that Republicans have already thrown at the health care law will make it very difficult for Romney or any GOP President not to enter office with guns blazing. But many of the would-be policy makers who have made dismantling the law their top priority haven't given any real thought to how, mechanically, to unwind it. A closer look reveals that chipping away at Obamacare, or even repealing it altogether will be a daunting challenge, and even if successful will leave the Republican party holding the bag politically for the policy muddle they will create in the process.

"It would be a mess," said Donald Berwick, who led the law's implementation last year as Obama's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services director. "If I was given the assignment of unwinding the law, I wouldn't know how to do that. I would thoroughly disagree with it but it would be technically very difficult."

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Newt Gingrich

CHART OF THE DAY: Gingrich Tax Plan Would Codify Lower Taxes On Rich Than On Middle Class

Brian Beutler | December 13, 2011, 5:04AM

Newt Gingrich addresses a tea party rally in Staten Island, NY on December 3, 2011.

On Monday, the Tax Policy Center published an analysis of Newt Gingrich's plan to overhaul the tax code -- the latest in a series of of analyses of GOP presidential candidate tax proposals. And like all the plans that came before it, Gingrich's constitutes a massive tax cut for the rich. Indeed, no matter how you stack the numbers, Gingrich wants a tax system that permanently holds tax rates on the highest earners lower than tax rates on the middle class.

There are a lot of ways to parse the data. Gingrich proposes creating an alternative tax system that would significantly flatten the code, while keeping the current one in place as an option. So you can run the numbers assuming everybody jumps into the new system, or you can run them assuming that the only people who hop into the new system are people who would benefit financially as a result. And you can compare Gingrich's plan to current tax policy -- including the Bush tax cuts and other temporary tax policy -- or you can compare it to current law, which assumes all of these policies will expire in the next year, and go up on just about everyone.

To be as fair as possible, let's take Gingrich at his word that he would extend the Bush tax cuts for those staying in the current system, and that the only people who would opt into the new system are those who would pay lower taxes as a result.

Here's what happens to people's average federal tax burden as a result.

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Medicaid

ObamaCare Challenge Exposes Conservative Hypocrisy On Federal Power

Brian Beutler | December 12, 2011, 1:21PM

The Supreme Court in Washington, DC

Next year policy wonks, politics junkies, and legal experts will wait with bated breath for the Supreme Court to determine the constitutionality of a key section of President Obama's health care law: the mandate that uninsured individuals purchase health care coverage.

But the court will also review another major piece of the law -- the requirement that states expand Medicaid eligibility to people with incomes of up to 133 percent of the federal poverty line. This is no small expansion. Of all the millions of people expected to become insured under the law, about half will be covered through Medicaid.

For the first several years, the federal government will pay the states for the full cost of the expansion. After 2020, the federal contribution will drop to 90 percent. States with conservative governors don't like this one bit. But Medicaid is a voluntary program -- if states don't like the terms and conditions the government sets for the program, they're free to drop out of it.

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Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi Games Out The Long Fight Over Medicare And The Rest Of The Safety Net

Brian Beutler | December 7, 2011, 4:45AM

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

Eight months is a long time in politics, but it will be eight months ago next week that House Republicans voted overwhelmingly for a budget that envisioned a massively scaled-down social safety net -- a smaller, privatized health care system for old people, to replace traditional Medicare; Medicaid financially constrained, and handed over to state governments; cuts to various other support programs that benefit the poor, the young, and the elderly.

That didn't sit well with voters. And in the months that followed, Republicans tried to contain the fallout by making federal deficits a central political issue while forcing Democrats to agree to real cuts to these programs -- all while refusing themselves to raise taxes, even on the very wealthiest Americans.

This too didn't go according to plan. The GOP upheld its vow not to raise taxes; Democrats insisted new tax revenue was a criterion for cutting benefits; and Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security avoided the scalpel.

At least for now.

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Medicare

GOP Filibuster Ends Tenure Of Health Care Cost Cutting Expert

Brian Beutler | November 23, 2011, 1:45PM

President Obama hasn't used his recess appointment power very often. But he didn't hesitate to install Donald Berwick as the administrator of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services without Senate confirmation over a year ago, to lead the implementation of the new health care law. Berwick's has, without a doubt, been Obama's most important recess appointment, and his most effective. But he will step down early next month -- a few weeks before his term expires -- because filibustering Republicans continue to deny him an up or down vote.

The GOP claims its opposition is rooted in Berwick's past praise of Britain's state-run National Health Service. But his powers as CMS administrator obviously stop well short of socializing the United States health care system. So what gives?

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Super Committee

AFL Warns Super Committee Dems: Not One Vote For GOP Plans

Brian Beutler | November 18, 2011, 9:20AM

'Super Committee' members Sen. Patt Murray (D-WA) and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), September 7, 2011.

So far Democrats and Republicans on the Super Committee have acted as voting blocs. And smart money is on the idea that any plan that can pass the committee will get substantial buy-in from both parties.

But for progressive groups there's a Doomsday Scenario where one deal-hungry Democrat defies his colleagues and votes with the entire GOP to pass a plan. The AFL-CIO is petitioning Dems to prevent that from happening.

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Super Committee

Can't Go Small Either! Republicans Rejected Private Dem Super Committee Offer

Brian Beutler | November 16, 2011, 8:04PM

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)

To hear Super Committee Democrats and Republicans talk about it, the parties really hit a wall early last week after each rejected the other's wildly different offer to cut about $2 trillion from deficits over 10 year.

But discussions continued until late into the week, when they stumbled again over much smaller goals, according to a Democratic aide.

The details, first reported by the Associated Press, underscore just how difficult it will be for the panel to reach an agreement by Monday, which GOP co-chair Jeb Hensarling cited Wednesday as the drop-dead date for the 12 members to act.

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Super Committee

Liberals Slam Super Committee Dems For Caving On Taxes -- But Did They?

Brian Beutler | November 15, 2011, 5:46AM

Super Committee Members John Kerry and Patty Murray

Liberals and progressive groups are livid at a Sunday New York Times report, which reads as if Super Committee Democrats are about to capitulate to the GOP: spending cuts now in exchange for the promise of higher revenues later. But Democratic aides privy to the negotiations say the angry reaction misreads the Dems' position. And indeed the most recent Democratic offer to Super Committee Republicans would have squared this issue by automatically nullifying entitlement cuts if future tax legislation didn't raise revenues.

The Times story is based on a comment Republican co-chair Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) made on CNN's Sunday show State of the Union.

Under this approach, the panel would decide on the amount of new revenue to be raised but would leave it to the tax-writing committees of Congress to fill in details next year, well beyond the Nov. 23 deadline for the panel itself to reach an agreement. That would put off painful political decisions but ensure that the debate over deficit reduction stretched into the election year.

"There could be a two-step process that would hopefully give us pro-growth tax reform," Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, the top Republican on the panel.

Progressives took this to imply surrender.

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Balanced Budget Amendment

Despite Packed Agenda, Congress Returns To Radical Balanced Budget Amendment

Brian Beutler | November 14, 2011, 6:01AM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Houser Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA)

Congress is busy. It has to extend federal funding for all federal agencies before November 18, or else the government will shut down, and the deficit Super Committee has to recommend a big package of budget cuts to the House and Senate by November 23, or set in motion dramatic automatic spending cuts to defense programs and Medicare providers. But it's still suffering a hangover from the debt limit fight. And so this week House GOP leaders will fulfill one of the terms of the debt limit law, and appease some conservatives, by holding a vote on a Constitutional Balanced Budget Amendment.

There's a bit of a strife among Republicans -- and even among some Democrats -- over the details of such an amendment. But almost any version would constitute a radical policy shift for the country, and threaten key safety net programs as the country ages and the cost of health care soars. It would lead to dramatic swings in U.S. fiscal policy, and at a time of high unemployment, would cost the economy dearly.

Don't believe me, here's what analysts at Macroeconomic Advisers said about it.

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Super Committee

New Document Summarizes Recent Democratic Super Committee Offer

Brian Beutler | November 10, 2011, 11:26AM

'Super Committee' members Sen. Patt Murray (D-WA) and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), September 7, 2011.

As reported here, Republicans have rejected a Democratic Super Committee offer that would have reduced deficits by $2.3 trillion over 10 years. The reductions would be split evenly -- a trillion a piece -- between higher tax revenues and federal programs, plus $300 billion saved in interest on the national debt.

The plan also notably would not reduce Social Security benefits by using a less generous measure of inflation to calculate cost of living adjustments -- a proposal some Democrats have supported in the past.

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Super Committee

Report: Super Committee GOPers Agree To Violate Norquist Pledge...With A Catch

Brian Beutler | November 7, 2011, 4:12PM

Grover Norquist

Super Committee Republicans are floating a trial balloon that would produce new tax revenue, in apparent contravention of Grover Norquist's taxpayer protection pledge, according to Wall Street Journal editorialist Stephen Moore.

But as Moore explains that the offer has a catch:

One positive development on taxes taking shape is a deal that could include limiting tax deductions, perhaps by capping write-offs on charities, state and local taxes, and mortgage interest payments as a percentage of each tax filer's gross income. That idea was introduced on these pages by Harvard economist Martin Feldstein.

In exchange, Democrats would agree to make the Bush income-tax cuts permanent. This would mean preventing top rates from going to 42% from 35% today, and keeping the capital gains and dividend tax rate at 15%, as opposed to plans to raise them to 23.8% or higher after 2013.

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American Jobs Act

Democrats Tee Up Another Vote On Obama Jobs Bill Provision -- With A Twist

Brian Beutler | November 4, 2011, 12:11PM

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

Senate Democrats are teeing up yet another vote next week on a provision of President Obama's jobs bill. This time with a twist -- they're not going to ask that it be paid for with a surtax on millionaires.

They're calling this one the "Vow to Hire Heroes Act of 2011." A version of it passed the House on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis last month. It would offer a tax credit to companies that hire out of work veterans and increase an existing credit that already goes to companies that hire veterans with service-related disabilities. Dems propose to cover the $1.6 billion cost of the bill by delaying fee reductions that are scheduled to apply to mortgage loans guaranteed by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

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Super Committee

Chart: Super Committee Dems, GOP Differ On Jobs

Brian Beutler | November 4, 2011, 5:42AM

As noted previously, the deficit Super Committee is gridlocked largely because the GOP is unwilling to accept higher taxes on wealthy people as part of a compromise with Democrats that also cuts Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. But the parties also differ on the question of whether their recommendations should include any near term spending and/or tax cuts to give the weak economy a much-needed boost.

Recently committee Republicans and Democrats presented each other with competing plans -- some details of which were leaked to the press. Aides note that the Dem plan contained about $300 billion in expansionary measures, while the GOP plan contained... well, see for yourself.

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Grover Norquist

Boehner: Grover Who?!

Brian Beutler | November 3, 2011, 12:04PM

House Speaker John Boehner with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the foreground.

A simple yes or no would have sufficed, but when House Speaker John Boehner was asked whether anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist was a positive influence on his caucus, he feigned ignorance.

"It's not often I'm asked about some random person in America," he said.

The context here is that Republicans are gridlocking the deficit Super Committee because they've pledged publicly never to raise taxes -- a pledge Democrats say they'll have to break to get bipartisan support for cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

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Alan Simpson

Super Committee Republicans Get Earful Over Loyalty To Grover Norquist

Brian Beutler | November 2, 2011, 12:30PM

Grover Norquist

While Super Committee Democrats are pressed to accept unpopular, and illiberal proposals like raising the Medicare eligibility age to 67 over several years, Republicans are under increasing pressure to cut Grover Norquist loose.

The well-funded anti-tax crusader has secured pledges from the vast majority of Republican members of Congress, including all six GOP members of the Super Committee, to never raise taxes on net. And that's the key reason the panel is deadlocked with just three weeks until its deadline.

Yesterday, at a public hearing, those six Republicans got an earful from one of their former colleagues -- retired Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY).

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John Boehner

Boehner Dismisses Democratic Super Committee Proposal As Unserious

Brian Beutler | October 27, 2011, 1:15PM

House Speaker John Boehner with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the foreground.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) acknowledged that the 12 member deficit Super Committee is having a hard time reaching consensus, and dismissed as unserious a Democratic proposal that would have reduced the deficit by nearly $3 trillion, split fairly evenly between cuts to entitlement and other federal programs, and new taxes.

"I'm not surprised that, you know, we're having some difficulty," Boehner told reporters at a Thursday Capitol briefing. "Because this isn't easy. It's going to be very hard. But I do think it's time for everyone to get serious about this."

Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) have taken a more active role in the negotiations to hasten progress, according to reports, and Boehner seemed to confirm that.

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Super Committee

As Super Committee Gridlocks, Influential Conservatives Harden Their No-Tax Demands

Brian Beutler | October 27, 2011, 6:00AM

Surprise! The deficit Super Committee is gridlocked! Because Republicans don't want to raise taxes revenues at all.

And with less than a month to go before the Committee's statutory deadline, the GOP's leading lights and the stars of the conservative movement aren't relenting one bit, leaving the panel's Republicans little room to maneuver.

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Chris Van Hollen

Dems Get A Boost For Super Committee Tax Bump

Brian Beutler | October 26, 2011, 3:00PM

With less than a month before their November 23 deadline, Democrats on the deficit Super Committee are facing serious pushback from their Republican counterparts for proposing a broad deal that would reduce deficits by nearly $3 trillion -- including cuts to popular programs like Medicare -- because it also includes more than $1 trillion in new tax revenues, according to aides briefed on private negotiations.

Sources remain mum on the specifics of the cuts and taxes Dems have put forward. And they caution that most, but not all, of the Democrats on the panel support the push -- an effort to achieve multiple Republican votes for a plan modeled on the "grand bargain" President Obama tried to strike with John Boehner.

But they got some unexpected help from Congressional Budget Office director Doug Elmendorf who testified before the panel Wednesday. He cited analysis his office did about a year ago, which found that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire would carry greater reward than risk -- that the hole they punch in the budget overwhelms the positive impact they have on productivity.

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Flat Tax

Rick Perry's Flat Tax Plan: Not A Flat Tax

Brian Beutler | October 26, 2011, 6:00AM

Rick Perry

The flat tax is such a popular idea in conservative circles that Texas Governor Rick Perry is trying to revive his presidential primary campaign by proposing one.

Except for the flat tax part.

It turns out Perry's plan isn't flat, doesn't eliminate the current tax code, as many conservative elites claim to want, and would likely blow a huge hole in the federal budget.

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American Jobs Act

White House Hands GOP Victory In Jobs Bill Shadow Boxing Match

Brian Beutler | October 25, 2011, 5:38PM

President Barack Obama

Republicans just won a round of jousting over President Obama's jobs bill.

President Obama supports passage of House GOP legislation that would eliminate a tax compliance rule affecting big government contractors and pay for it by limiting Medicaid eligibility, the White House announced Tuesday.

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Barack Obama

Next Act In DC's Kabuki Theater: House GOP Lays Trap For Obama On Jobs Plan

Brian Beutler | October 25, 2011, 5:00AM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and President Barack Obama

The House GOP has hit upon a way to undercut President Obama's attacks on them and advance conservative policy goals all at once. This week, they'll pass legislation that includes perhaps the least stimulative measure in President Obama's jobs bill and pay for it with perhaps the most regressive measure in a recent package of deficit reducing proposals he submitted to the joint deficit super committee.

It's a case study in the perils of offering concessions to your opponents before negotiations have begun. And it will force Democrats in both chambers, but particularly in the Senate, to decide whether to pass a proposal comprised of measures Obama's backed in the past, even though they've been cherry picked to essentially constitute a Republican piece of legislation. If Senate Dems block the measure, Republicans will accuse them of wanting to pick political fights instead of passing Obama jobs legislation. If Dems pass the measure, and Obama signs it, the GOP can cite it as evidence that they're not simply standing in the way of action on the economy.

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Mitt Romney

Romney Tweaks The Ryan Budget: Cut Social Security Benefits, Privatize Medicare (VIDEO)

Brian Beutler | October 19, 2011, 11:41AM

Former Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

Mitt Romney caught a lot of heat Tuesday for his comments about foreclosures. But in the same interview with the Las Vegas Review Journal, he outlined a plan for the country's future that would please Paul Ryan, and conservatives hell bent on rolling back the social safety net.

Without noting that Social Security has been in good shape for about 20 years, Romney proposed making it solvent in the long term through a mix of benefit cuts, taking the option of imposing payroll taxes on higher-income earners off the table completely.

"Arithmetically, there are probably three ways of making Social Security permanently solvent," Romney said. "One would be simply raising taxes. I don't favor that one. Number two would be to increase the retirement age. Number three would be to have a little slower growth in benefits for higher income beneficiaries.... Some combination of those last two is the place we can go in my opinion to solve Social Security for future retirees."

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Jobs

Dems Win Jobs Bill Fight -- But Expose Major Strategic Weakness Ahead Of 2012

Brian Beutler | October 12, 2011, 5:50AM

After an agonizing week of arm-twisting, and a vote that had to be held open for hours, Senate Democrats got their act together. But only barely.

A full 51 of them voted as a bloc Tuesday, not to pass President Obama's jobs plan or even to break a GOP filibuster of the bill, but simply for the proposition that the Senate should publicly debate the most pressing issue in the country.

That wasn't enough to prevail. Under the Senate's obscure rules, simply debating a piece of legislation often requires 60 votes. And two Dems -- Sens. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and John Tester (D-MT) -- voted with all 46 present Republicans to block the debate from happening altogether. (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) also switched his vote to "no" at the last moment, but only as a procedural trick that allows him to bring the jobs bill up for another vote in the future.) But it was enough for the Dems to claim a partisan GOP minority is blocking meaningful action on the economy.

Indeed, that the vote failed was entirely expected. The point of Tuesdays vote was to allow Dems take a message to voters: With unemployment over 9 percent, Republicans unanimously snuffed out the the only bill on the docket that promises to significantly boost the economy -- without even allowing a debate on it.

"Republicans unanimously voted against our nation's economic health to advance their narrow political interests," charged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in a blunt official statement. "Republicans blocked a bill that would put nearly two million Americans back to work. And they voted against this job-creating bill despite previously supporting many of the ideas it contains, such as tax cuts for the middle class and small businesses."

But the outcome wasn't an unambiguous victory for Democrats. Though politically useful it exposed, in tortured fashion, the fundamental strategic incoherence that has defined the party since President Obama took office in 2009. Despite the simple nature of the proposition -- Should we debate a jobs bill? -- it took Democrats until the 11th hour to round up a bare majority support and avoid shooting the entire party in the foot. And that difficulty bodes poorly for the real, substantive fights -- over taxes, entitlements, the very shape of the country -- that lay ahead between now and the 2012 elections.

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