Broder Piles On

Believe me when I tell you that I am in absolutely no mood to defend the 110th Congress at this moment, but I am compelled to do so because of this particularly awful column by David Broder that appeared in the Washington Post and the Bucks County Courier Times yesterday.

The distinguishing characteristic of this Congress was on vivid display the other day when the House debated a bill to expand the federal program that provides health insurance for children of the working poor.

Even when it is performing a useful service, this Congress manages to look ugly and mean-spirited. So much blood has been spilled, so much bile stockpiled on Capitol Hill, that no good deed goes untarnished.

How artful of Broder in ultimate “concern troll” mode to heap blame like this anonymously, attacking the Democrats through implication since they’re running the show. And Congress was not ugly and mean-spirited towards Clinton while his administration produced 22 million new non-farm sector jobs and delivered a budget surplus to the next administration which (of course) willfully squandered it?

Oh, sorry, I forgot – as far as you’re concerned, Clinton “trashed the place, and it wasn’t his place.” (here)

The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is a 10-year-old proven success. Originally a product of bipartisan consensus, passed by a Republican Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton, it was one of the last domestic achievements before Monica and impeachment fever seized control.

Thus giving you and your ilk some sort of imagined rationale for ceaselessly speculating on the state of the Clintons' marriage (here).

It is up for renewal this year and suddenly has become a bone of contention. President Bush underfunded it in his budget; the $4.8 billion extra he proposed spending in the next five years would not finance insurance even for all those who are currently being served.

But when the Senate Finance Committee proposed boosting the funding to $35 billion -- financed by a hefty hike in tobacco taxes -- Bush threatened a veto, and he raised the rhetorical stakes by claiming that the measure was a step toward "government health insurance."

That was surprising news to Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Orrin Hatch of Utah, two staunch conservatives who had joined in sponsoring the Senate bill, which the Senate Finance Committee supported 17 to 4.

Right so far, believe it or not.

But rather than meet the president's unwise challenge with a strong bipartisan alternative, the House Democratic leadership decided to raise the partisan stakes even higher by bringing out a $50 billion bill that not only would expand SCHIP but would also curtail the private Medicare benefit delivery system that Bush favors.

I think Broder is talking about Medicare Advantage which, as noted here, (under Part C) was introduced as part of the Balanced Budget Act in 1997. This allowed Medicare beneficiaries to opt out of government-provided insurance and instead seek coverage through private carriers. This, of course, is the first hole planted in the program by the Repug congress of Dole and Gingrich (and signed into law by Clinton, sadly) which the Repugs have been trying to rip open even more to destroy the government-funded Medicare program in favor of private insurance, which definitely would cost more and probably provide inferior coverage in most cases.

And Broder just said that the original bill was, in essence, “a strong bipartisan alternative.” The issue was over funding – not much to negotiate on there philosophically. And the Senate offered a $35 billion bill as opposed to the $50 billion House bill.

It sounds like Bush had all kinds of options at his disposal, but “The Decider” decided that he didn’t like any of them.

To add insult to injury, House Democratic leaders then took a leaf from the old Republican playbook and brought the swollen bill to the floor with minimal time for debate and denied Republicans any opportunity to offer amendments.

So…it’s OK when Repugs do it, but not Dems?

The result was undisguised fury -- and some really ugly exchanges on the floor. The worst, given voice by former speaker Dennis Hastert, a Republican from Illinois, among others, was the charge that the Democrats were opening the program to illegal immigrants. The National Republican Congressional Committee distributed that distortion wholesale across the country in a flurry of news releases playing to the same kind of nativist prejudice that sank the immigration reform bill. In fact, governors of both parties support the certification system included in the bill for assuring that families meet citizenship requirements; the governors know that too many legal residents have been wrongly disqualified because they could not locate their birth certificates.

A shockingly sensible analysis, for the most part.

In the end, the House bill passed on a near-party-line vote, 225 to 204, far short of the margin that would be needed to override the promised Bush veto. That means the program will probably have to be given a temporary renewal before the Sept. 30 deadline, and eventually Democrats and the White House will negotiate an agreement.

So it will go down as one more example of unnecessary conflict. No rational human being could explain why a program that both parties support and both want to continue could ignite such a fight.

Oh, please. What else can you expect from the Repugs? Again, I’m hardly in a mood to favor Democrats in Congress at this moment, but it’s almost comical to read Broder waxing indignant here when you have a bunch driven by ideology and nothing else.

I’ll tell you what, Broder; give a read to this column by Paul Krugman via Brad DeLong about Dubya’s decision to veto the SCHIP legislation on “philosophical” grounds. The Congressional Repugs, as always, take their marching orders from “President 25 Percent Mandate.” The problem isn’t congressional rudeness; the problem is that the Repugs refuse to distance themselves from the metaphorical “head of the snake” that they refuse to chop off…

President Bush... has declared that he’ll veto any Schip expansion on “philosophical” grounds. It must be about philosophy, because it surely isn’t about cost. One of the plans Mr. Bush opposes, the one approved by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in the Senate Finance Committee, would cost less over the next five years than we’ll spend in Iraq in the next four months. And it would be fully paid for by an increase in tobacco taxes....

So what kind of philosophy says that it’s O.K. to subsidize insurance companies, but not to provide health care to children?

Well, here’s what Mr. Bush said after explaining that emergency rooms provide all the health care you need: “They’re going to increase the number of folks eligible through Schip; some want to lower the age for Medicare. And then all of a sudden, you begin to see a — I wouldn’t call it a plot, just a strategy — to get more people to be a part of a federalization of health care.”

Now, why should Mr. Bush fear that insuring uninsured children would lead to a further “federalization” of health care, even though nothing like that is actually in either the Senate plan or the House plan? It’s not because he thinks the plans wouldn’t work. It’s because he’s afraid that they would. That is, he fears that voters, having seen how the government can help children, would ask why it can’t do the same for adults.

And there you have the core of Mr. Bush’s philosophy. He wants the public to believe that government is always the problem, never the solution. But it’s hard to convince people that government is always bad when they see it doing good things. So his philosophy says that the government must be prevented from solving problems, even if it can. In fact, the more good a proposed government program would do, the more fiercely it must be opposed.

Back to Broder (who is about to enter full wanker mode here)…

But that is Washington in this era of polarized politics. As Congress heads out for its August recess, it has accomplished about as much as is usually the case at this stage. It passed an overdue increase in the minimum wage and an overdue but healthy package of ethics reforms. It moved some routine legislation.

Ugh…first, this provides information on what the House Dems accomplished in their first 100 hours of leadership, and this is a testimonial by outgoing House Repug Ray LaHood as to the second-quarter effectiveness of the House with the Dems running the show (I mean, a Repug could only say that if he or she were leaving, right?).

And as far as the Senate is concerned, Broder should take a look at this.

I realize, however, that Broder isn’t interesting in being a “straight shooter” here, but here is one name that enables the 110th Congress to distance itself from all of its Repug predecessors: Henry Waxman. He and his oversight committee have acted as a machine in cataloging and investigation Bushco’s myriad abuses and cover-ups (here).

But what the public has seen and heard is mainly the ugly sound of partisan warfare. The Senate let a handful of dissident Republicans highjack the immigration bill.

“The Senate” let that happen, huh? Another sneaky rhetorical trick to blame Dems.

Actually, Broder, if you want to find out the real culprit on that, read what Trent Lott (of all people) has to say here.

Its Democratic leadership marched up the hill and back down on repeated futile efforts to circumscribe American involvement in Iraq, then shamefully pulled back from a final vote when a constructive Republican alternative to the Bush policy was on offer.

I guess the toothless Warner-Lugar proposal that would have let Dubya thumb his nose at Congress yet again is Broder’s “constructive Republican alternative.”

The less-than-vital issue of the firing of eight U.S. attorneys has occupied more time and attention than the threat of a terrorist enclave in Pakistan -- or the unchecked growth of long-term debts that could sink Medicare and Social Security.

Now what the hell is this Congress supposed to do about a terrorist enclave in Pakistan? And, of course, Broder’s “analysis” of the issue of funding Medicare and Social Security serves only to ridicule the Democratic leadership once more.

And I’m not surprised that Broder wishes to wash his hands of something as messy for The Dean Of Beltway Journalism ™ as the untidy firings of U.S. attorneys by Abu Gonzales because they wouldn’t trump up some charges of voter fraud against Democrats. After all, since Broder thought the Scooter Libby trial was “a sideshow,” (re: this column about Judge Reggie Walton who heard the Libby trial) it’s apparent that he wishes to just roll over and fluff his pillow and let Great White Father Dubya continue to sing him lullabies to sleep at night.

And when this Congress had an opportunity to take a relatively simple, incremental step to extend health insurance to a vulnerable group, the members managed to make a mess of it.

As I said, Dubya wanted that outcome from the start, you hack.

It's no wonder the approval ratings of Congress are so dismal.

I know another profession that has a dismal approval rating, Broder, and your hackery is part of the reason why (here).