Why "2,700 pages" rings hollow

Anyone paying close enough attention to the health care debate has heard the Republican leadership reminding people that the health reform bill is 2,700 pages long. And Democrats have largely failed to find a counter-message that works. People are wary of ambitious undertakings that seem complicated and expensive and, most of all, that they don't understand.

But it got me wondering: just how long was the bill that enacted Medicare Part D? This is a prescription drug benefit program for seniors, much maligned by democrats as a handout to the private insurance companies that administer the benefit. The answer is that H.R. 1, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, takes up four hundred and fifteen pages.

Read the text of that bill here.

So, it took 415 pages to create a new Medicare Part D Program. At ~2,700 pages, that would make the Senate bill about 6.5 times longer. And yet, look at what's in there:

-Expanded coverage, including 30 Million more people on health care rolls
-Eliminates discrimination based on pre-existing conditions
-Eliminates wasteful spending from Medicare
-Establishes health insurance exchanges
-Closes the Medicare "donut hole"
-Eliminates lifetime caps on coverage
-Prevents people from getting dropped when they get sick
-Requires a high proportion of your premiums to be spent on care, not profits

Let's look at it another way. Medicare part D had about 24 million participants in 2007. That means about 57,831 people per page of legislation. Now, let's assume that with a population of 300,000,000, about 275 million would be required to have insurance under the Senate bill. That means that citizens would see benefits from this legislation at a ratio of, wait for it... more than 105,000 beneficiaries per legislative page. You could say that this is just the size of the effect, that not all of these people will "benefit" from the legislation...but I don't buy that for a second. I'd say that 2,700 is pretty economical for all that the Senate bill provides.

Of course, this is a little bit of a trip down the rabbit hole, because the GOP accusations about the length of the bill have never been good faith objections. They really just fit in there with the death panels argument, which started as a Republican idea in the first place. Nonetheless, this has been a fun little exercise.

The GOP/Tea Party Catch 22?

GOP Chairman Michael Steele is courting Tea Party activists and the Tea Party would take a prominent place at CPAC this week. I was mulling this over and asked myself about the implications of this. It struck me that co-opting the Tea Party might damage the GOP brand just as cooperating with the GOP will force the Tea Party to moderate.

Courting so-called values voters along side more traditional conservatives radicalized the GOP but it also moderated radical conservatives. Focus on the Family did not see its agenda immediately realized. Nor did the Club for Growth. And, it eventually drove more independent-minded voters out of the party.

Courting the Tea Party continues this pattern. The GOP needs Tea Party energy but can't give all the radicalism Tea Partiers are looking for. And the Tea Party doesn't have much of a choice but to consent to this without risking Dem wins, ala NY-23. Adopting the whole shebang Tea Party agenda, even if one were able to distill it from the anger and racism, would be Christmas come early for Democrats.

Independents won't break for rabidly conservative messages unless Democrats somehow condescend to them or stay aloof. The winning attitude is this: respect the voter. Scott Brown won precisely because he was handsome, neat, and didn't come off as a total whack job. He was unknown, got portrayed as an average joe, spoke to people's feelings and was there at the right moment in time. Many Tea Party activists operated in Massachusetts, but their radicalism and aggressive and intimidating activities gained too little attention too late to make any difference there. Their involvement didn't paint him in the slightest.

None of these factors apply in the same way for the 2010 elections. Another fall out between the hard right and the GOP establishment could mean more NY-23's. So, it seems, the GOP and the Tea Party need each other. And now we get to see if they're both ready to play at realpolitik. Can't wait to see what happens!

Precisely.

On Scott Brown Book Rumors

I really couldn't have put it better than my good friend Alex:

"Really? He should govern for a little while. Like, do his job."

All the things the President HAS delivered on

Yo. Let's get this straight: things have been getting done. At the risk of being just another one of those link-passer-arounder bloggers (hey, if Ben Smith can do it, why shouldn't I?) here is a list of things that the Obama Administration has gotten done. I think it's pretty impressive:

* No. 6: Create an Advanced Manufacturing Fund to invest in peer-reviewed manufacturing processes
* No. 15: Create a foreclosure prevention fund for homeowners
* No. 16: Increase minority access to capital
* No. 33: Establish a credit card bill of rights
* No. 36: Expand loan programs for small businesses
* No. 40: Extend and index the 2007 Alternative Minimum Tax patch
* No. 50: Expand the Senior Corps volunteer program
* No. 58: Expand eligibility for State Children's Health Insurance Fund (SCHIP)
* No. 76: Expand funding to train primary care providers and public health practitioners
* No. 77: Increase funding to expand community based prevention programs
* No. 88: Sign the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
* No. 110: Assure that the Veterans Administration budget is prepared as 'must-pass' legislation
* No. 119: Appoint a special adviser to the president on violence against women
* No. 125: Direct military leaders to end war in Iraq
* No. 132: No permanent bases in Iraq
* No. 134: Send two additional brigades to Afghanistan
* No. 154: Strengthen and expand military exchange programs with other countries
* No. 167: Make U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional on anti-terror efforts
* No. 174: Give a speech at a major Islamic forum in the first 100 days of his administration
* No. 182: Allocate Homeland Security funding according to risk
* No. 184: Create a real National Infrastructure Protection Plan
* No. 200: Appoint a White House Coordinator for Nuclear Security
* No. 208: Improve relations with Turkey, and its relations with Iraqi Kurds
* No. 212: Launch an international Add Value to Agriculture Initiative (AVTA)
* No. 215: Create a rapid response fund for emerging democracies
* No. 222: Grant Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send money to Cuba
* No. 224: Restore funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne/JAG) program
* No. 225: Establish an Energy Partnership for the Americas
* No. 239: Release presidential records
* No. 241: Require new hires to sign a form affirming their hiring was not due to political affiliation or contributions.
* No. 247: Recruit math and science degree graduates to the teaching profession
* No. 266: Encourage water-conservation efforts in the West
* No. 269: Increase funding for national parks and forests
* No. 270: Increase funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund
* No. 272: Encourage farmers to use more renewable energy and be more energy efficient
* No. 277: Pursue a wildfire prevention and management plan
* No. 278: Remove more brush, small trees and vegetation that fuel wildfires
* No. 284: Expand access to places to hunt and fish
* No. 290: Push for enactment of Matthew Shepard Act, which expands hate crime law to include sexual orientation and other factors
* No. 300: Reform mandatory minimum sentences
* No. 307: Create a White House Office on Urban Policy
* No. 325: Create an artist corps for schools
* No. 326: Champion the importance of arts education
* No. 327: Support increased funding for the NEA
* No. 332: Add another Space Shuttle flight
* No. 334: Use the private sector to improve spaceflight
* No. 336: Partner to enhance the potential of the International Space Station
* No. 337: Use the International Space Station for fundamental biological and physical research
* No. 338: Explore whether International Space Station can operate after 2016
* No. 342: Work toward deploying a global climate change research and monitoring system
* No. 345: Enhance earth mapping
* No. 346: Appoint an assistant to the president for science and technology policy
* No. 356: Establish special crime programs for the New Orleans area
* No. 359: Rebuild schools in New Orleans
* No. 371: Fund a major expansion of AmeriCorps
* No. 380: Bolster the military's ability to speak different languages
* No. 391: Appoint the nation's first Chief Technology Officer
* No. 394: Provide grants to early-career researchers
* No. 411: Work to overturn Ledbetter vs. Goodyear
* No. 420: Create a national declassification center
* No. 421: Appoint an American Indian policy adviser
* No. 427: Ban lobbyist gifts to executive employees
* No. 435: Create new criminal penalties for mortgage fraud
* No. 452: Weatherize 1 million homes per year
* No. 458: Invest in all types of alternative energy
* No. 459: Enact tax credit for consumers for plug-in hybrid cars
* No. 460: Ask people and businesses to conserve electricity
* No. 475: Require states to provide incentives for utilities to reduce energy consumption
* No. 480: Unprecedented expansion of funding for regional high-speed rail
* No. 483: Invest in public transportation
* No. 484: Equalize tax breaks for driving and public transit
* No. 494: Share enviromental technology with other countries
* No. 498: Provide grants to encourage energy-efficient building codes
* No. 500: Increase funding for the Environmental Protection Agency
* No. 502: Get his daughters a puppy
* No. 503: Appoint at least one Republican to the cabinet
* No. 506: Raise the small business investment expensing limit to $250,000 through the end of 2009
* No. 507: Extend unemployment insurance benefits and temporarily suspend taxes on these benefits
* No. 513: Reverse restrictions on stem cell research

Read the full post here.

One final, optimistic point in this glowing article:

It is likely the legislative schedule of 2010 will demonstrate that no president in recent history has had so many major legislative achievements, and that will be due to Obama's insisting that principled policy-making move forward, even where compromises need to be made with ideological opponents, all in the interests of progress.

Talking points for this: "pragmatic progressivism."

Why Dems May Prefer "Old Tricks" to "Change"

I was just reading a HuffPost article about the president and his promises of change. Oh, you say, that one. Anyway, it was specifically about pharmaceuticals, lobbyists, Medicare etc.

And I then just smacked my hand against my forehead an said "d'oh!"

Why? (Other than that this may be an obvious point?)

If we look at Washington from a view of 30,000 feet we see a town in which both parties rely on a system of "special interests," a politics of privileged access, and the kind of who's-who-ing that most people who dislike politics cite as the precise reason for its distastefulness. It's the same "culture of corruption" message that led Dems to massive victory in 2006.

The trouble is, Democrats govern in a similar way, most prospective candidates started working toward public office by building insider networks, and the all-powerful determinant of electoral viability, namely money, is concentrated in few enough hands to make most high donor rolls look like a who's who of national politics.

In other words, the president's campaign may have set up an impossible goal for Democrats: change the way you govern, run for office, and set up potential candidates to run, all without losing any ground and maximizing your electability. Did the president pull this rug out from under his own party without knowing he was doing it? Did he do it for the general welfare, despite foresight that his party might suffer?

I ask because I am skeptical of most people's altruism, either the president's or that of the network of individuals whose livelihoods and the relevance of whose skills are predicated on DC looking largely like it did before the president arrived (as president). Real change is in few people's interests when we speak of those professionally involved in politics.

Monocle

A new place to get perspective and news. Monocle is all about being informed and skirting what mainstream media are likely to report on, giving more context and insight. I love it. Check out a sample: http://monocle.com/sections/affairs/Web-Articles/The-Young-Europeans/. Unfortunately the video isn't embeddable.