On Health Reform Process, Daschle Demurs
Buried in today's New York Times piece on Tom Daschle's confirmation hearing before the Senate health committee is a possible revelation on his plans for passing health care reform this year.
Daschle, tapped by Barack Obama to head the health and human services department, had hinted as far back as June that he would consider using the "reconciliation" process as a way to fast-track broad health reforms. Reconciliation is a procedural tool, presaged in annual congressional budgets, that allows deficit-reducing legislation to be taken up in the Senate with no ability to filibuster and limited ability to amend -- an anti-democratic proposition in theory, but a weapon often used by Republicans during their years in the majority.
Reconciliation could be a boost to Democrats as they anticipate Republican pushback to a new public health insurance option as part of the Obama team's plan. But Daschle told senators yesterday that he would not use reconciliation to secure passage of health care reform, per the Times:
Mr. Daschle said the Obama administration would not try to rush health care legislation through Congress under expedited budget procedures, which would limit the opportunity for debate and amendments.
As the New Republic and Ezra Klein point out, Daschle is on record saying passing health reform through reconciliation should be a Plan B, not the initial strategy. But if Democrats do end up using the filibuster-free method to get the health care plan approved, Republicans are now free to accuse Daschle of going back on his word.
We'll know more next month, when the budget resolutions in both the House and Senate are released, with or without reconciliation included.
Late Update: Ezra Klein has an Obama transition official stating that Daschle hasn't taken reconciliation off the table, also noting that the former Senate leader only committed to promoting "regular order" for health care reform.
The subtlety and wiggle room in Daschle's remarks is duly noted, and the Times was a bit far ahead in its paraphrase. But even the smallest development on this front could prove crucial next month, when budget committee members are negotiating behind closed doors over whether to use reconciliation to pass health reform. Considering the relative meaninglessness of the term "regular order", Daschle's careful positioning on this front may be a way to play good cop, bad cop with congressional Democrats.
Daschle wasn't an effective Majority Leader because, like Reid, he wasn't particularly decisive. This development is a continuation of that trend.
January 9, 2009 10:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Daschle was no great shakes as Dem Sen leader, but he knows the Senate could enact health care reform either way: with simple majority votes through budget reconciliation, or through a standard legislative process that includes cloture.
The real challenge is to Reid et al: will they force Republicans to actually filibuster, instead of caving to "holds" or mere threats of filibusters?
It's time we did away with the myth that 60 votes are necessary to pass anything in the Senate. This should only be true if the minority is willing to actually filibuster and take the public heat for it.
January 9, 2009 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Basic civics -- there is no real story here.
Daschle does not get to pick the method Congress uses. It is the choice of the Congress alone to make. He can recommend, as can the president -- but Congress needs to make the decision.
And any administration official that tried to dictate this would get stomped -- Daschle knows that as a former senate leader.
It would be nice to go back to old school and have two functioning branches. Even if it slows the bill down, this is good for democracy. I like this!
January 9, 2009 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, Heavens-ta-Betsy. By choosing not to have the very first official thing he says signal eagerness for confrontation, he set himself up to have Republicans say mean things about him if confrontation becomes necessary.
If they become obstructive such that it's necessary to use this little dynamite charge, a) it will be done by Harry Reid, not Tom Daschle and, b) I really don't think we're going to give a rat's ass whether the Republicans say we're big stinky meanies for forcing national health through Congress over the objections of their puppet masters in the insurance and big pharma wold.
January 9, 2009 10:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I like your 'b' point. Seriously, the Republicans are always free to criticize, and Daschle is going to be accused of something until he leaves office. If we don't have politicians complaining somewhere, nothing's being done!
January 9, 2009 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Reminds of the issue being currently made of the 1965 Voting Rights Act: as long as there's controversey about it it needs to remain in place.
It doesn't matter what a public figure does, especially in politics: the opposition is going to call him names. It's permanent "damned if you do, damned if you don't."
January 12, 2009 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama is all about working with the Republicans, of course he's not going to pick a fight right away by saying that they're going to try shenanigans to force it through.
Obama's healthcare is all about getting the Universal health Care door opened a crack rather than trying to blow the door off it's hinges. he fighres that this reasonable approach should get enough support from the moderates and big business on the right that he won't need to play the games. If the GOP is voting as a strong block to block it, then I expect him to play dirty as well, because I think Obama wants this to be his legacy.
January 9, 2009 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jonze,
If I have learned anything from the last 12 years of watching Republicans at work, you do not start negotiations by being conciliatory with them. That's a sign of weakness, and they will turn it around and spit on you for it. Then they will force concessions based on your honor and your conciliatory words, and threaten a nuclear option of some sort if you don't swallow their crap.
January 9, 2009 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Working with Republicans is weakness? I've read statements like that all over the blogosphere and I have to wonder if this stuff is mostly coming from men or just political junkies. This is no time to let egos and revenge get in the way of doing what's right for the country. To the general public, Obama working with Republicans is a GOOD thing. Congress and the President working together is a GOOD thing.
January 9, 2009 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Anew,
Allow me to clarify. Working together is not weakness. Working together _shouldn't_ be seen as weakness. Assuming good faith on both sides, working together is almost always better. But to Republicans, conciliation is weakness, and they do not act in good faith.
Remember how Social Security was stopped? The Democrats said no. They didn't start off with a bargaining position or a counter-proposal for privatization. Social Security was fine just the way it was, and any "fixing" or "bargaining" would have simply weakened, and perhaps destroyed, the entire system in the long run.
You wrote, "I've read statements like that all over the blogosphere and I have to wonder if this stuff is mostly coming from men or just political junkies." In turn, I respond: If someone hasn't figured out that Republicans see conciliation as weakness over the past 16 years, I wonder which rock that person has been hiding under.
Incidentally, I am both a man and a political junkie.
January 9, 2009 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bribes,
agreed, and the Republicans already know what wusses the Democrats are, so why go softly into the night?
Hey, maybe give 'em hell Harry Reid will show 'em. heh heh heh
January 9, 2009 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
For the last twelve years, we haven't had much to offer them.
But let's remember that, in the minority, we were able to block some truly heinous bills, e.g., Social Security privatization, due to the Senate's rules of debate.
Whenever we get around to seating Franken and whoever eventually succeeds Obama, the math still puts us one vote behind the total necessary to shut down the filibuster. Our efficacy as passers of legislation will strongly depend on finding enough good will in one or two Republican senators to move bills contrary to their party assumptions. Since the public's perception is that the buck stops with the Democrats, regardless of whether their bills are filibustered, it's smart not to threaten people who can watch our majorities in Congress wither and die over the next 2-4 years.
January 9, 2009 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would agree that the Democrats have done a lot of good. In regards to Social Security, I'd also add that privatization went down because the Republicans could not find any bipartisan cover for their horrific scheme. The Democrats stood united, and the Republicans could not politically withstand taking full responsibility for their own horrific policies.
On the other hand, I cannot give the Democrats anything close to a clean or positive slate. Note the capitulation on habeas corpus (Military Commissions Act), the abdication of responsibility for torture, allowing and even encouraging extraordinary rendition, tax cuts for the top 1% and above, domestic spying, lax regulation and oversight of financial markets, worker safety (collapsed mines and dead miners), the destruction of environmental standards and regulations (Clear Skies anyone?) and so on and so forth.
January 9, 2009 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
It could be that Obama and Daschle simply want to let the Republic Party do publicly what they do so often: destroy all efforts to help the vast majority of Americans.
I agree that on the surface this may seem too timid, but Obama is so clever about these things and has so often found a way to turn Republican crap into Democratic gold that I'm not ready to give up on this strategy.
January 9, 2009 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed, in that I am willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. This does not change the political reality that we should constantly push for more, more, more.
Politics works on perception. If we can create the perception that Obama is under pressure from the "Left" to do something bigger, it creates a better bargaining position for him. If we begin with a reasonable demand and the Republicans begin with a ridiculously horrific demand, then the "middle" will be crap. Start big, demand more, and let Obama find the middle.
January 9, 2009 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
If one wants five million, one asks for ten and settles for seven.
January 12, 2009 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
"...legislation to be taken up in the Senate with no ability to filibuster and limited ability to amend -- an anti-democratic proposition in theory..."
Ironically, the filibuster is actually the "anti-democratic" element, allowing a relatively small minority (40-60) to stymie what a very strong majority wants. Consider the last time the popular vote ever went 40-60 to any Presidential candidate.
January 9, 2009 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Man, I am really tiring of Democrats deferring to Republicans so much and being, frankly, so afraid of GOP bluster.
If you want to try a different approach, that's fine if it's done right. And "right" means combining toughness with peace overtures. They need to know they can do it the hard way or the easy way.
We need someone who can bust some chops out there, as well as the Kum ba yah chorus.
January 9, 2009 10:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
January 9, 2009 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
If Plan B is reconciliation to ram a bill through that pretty much means Repubs have marshalled enough of their senate caucus to stonewall it to the end of year, right? By then major sectors of US business (like the Big Three) that really need single payer instead may be collapsing.
Daschle's "federal health board" that is structured like the Federal Reserve that would set basic coverage guidelines and weed out payments for wasteful or unnecessary care sounds nice. It might do away with under insurance and a lot of the basically fake insurance policies out there where people think they're covered until they need serious medical care. This would have been a fine proposal in 2001.
But I don't think this incremental approach will do nearly enough fast enough to rein in costs to save a lot of businesses and thus jobs in 2009 or 2010.
There's going to be a lot of moving parts in this recovery and this one of the biggest. We simply can't afford to wait for piecemeal reform. These guys have to think bigger. This isn't a hail mary, it's three yards and a cloud of acrimony.
The silver lining may be if we keep losing half a million jobs a month demand from the grassroots may force them to throw long.
January 9, 2009 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Depending on how many DINOs Harry manages to keep on board, it means that we can't peel the additional two to six Republicans he needs for a cloture vote.
Don't give in to the Democrat PTSD tendency to ascribe omnipotence to our former abusers. McConnell and Boehner are on the teevee puffing and blustering and acting like they still matter, and, as usual, the MSM is adoringly lapping it up like lovestruck tweens. The truth, however, is that they can't stop anything from happening in the House and McConnell has to maintain near 100% party discipline to block anything in the Senate. That's going to be tough for him because a bunch of people in his caucus are facing tough reelection fights in 2010--many of them being among the least ideologically blinkered people in the caucus.
Indeed, the more I see of those assclowns on the cable news shows puffing themselves up like pompous toads, the more they give me the impression of guys with way too much time on their hands because they don't have meaningful job duties anymore.
January 9, 2009 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Daschle? Caving? Whodathunkit?
January 9, 2009 11:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
I recall sitting in on a negotiation seminar some years ago. The presenters had studied a wide variety of strategies, ranging from always being nice to always being a prick, and everything in between. What they found was that the strategy most likely to get most of what you want is this: Start nice, then tit-for-tat.
Obama (and Daschle, by extension) is starting nice. He's assuming the Republican leadership are going to be assholes, as usual (so far it looks like they're obliging), which will force the rest of the R's to choose. After the last two elections, there will be plenty who are hesitant to choose the assholes over the reasonable guy who is, by the way, immensely popular. Self-preservation trumps ideology.
If that doesn't work, then tit-for-tat. That's basically what I hear Daschle saying.
January 9, 2009 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hope you've got it right! Interesting post.
January 9, 2009 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, but I'm guessing the study was of rational people in normal settings.
Congressional repugs, and McConnell and Boehner in particular, are nowhere near rational and have created a setting as abnormal as it gets.
They are wounded, cornered, rabid wolverines with nothing to lose. Their only goal is to destroy everything dem and Obama that gets within reach of their bloody claws and teeth.
Long-range, high-powered weapons are the only thing that will stop them.
January 9, 2009 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ultimately you can count on this: self-preservation trumps ideology. McConnell and Boehner may not have to worry, but there are plenty of R's who do. After the last two elections, most are looking over their shoulders, and any in states Obama carried should be very nervous.
McConnell and Boehner can bloviate all they want - they can't change the math. Actually, the smart thing for Obama to do is give them all the rope they want. The farther into irrelevance they go the easier it will be to pick off enough Republican votes from the rest.
January 9, 2009 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nah they'll lay down their markers saying it'll never work, it's not the way to go and regardless of what the government does this year the economy will still get worse. Then they'll claim they were right all along, despite any evidence that Obama's measures kept a bad situation from getting exponentially worse. That's where Republican hope lies. Saying you have no proof this will work, we don't think it will, and when there is no quick fix saying I told you so.
January 9, 2009 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I heard about the study the original post referred to (generally, when negotiating, start nice then go tit-for-tat). It's great for general propositions. My one critique would be that we are not starting from zero. We already have a large history of negotiations with Republicans. They indicate, for the most part, that we are already in the tit-for-tat stage.
This is why Mark's post (game theory indicates that Republicans win when the stimulus plan loses) is important as well.
January 9, 2009 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
It works the same in online discussion.
January 12, 2009 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Healthcare is absolutely vital - and Obama has already moved faster than his campaign promises (to get it passed before the end of the first term).
But this blog seems to have had a particular obsession with the notion that it would get passed this year. Which would be great and important, but different than what was anticipated before the election. From a readership standpoint, it's sort of perplexing and repetitive to see this date parsed over and over here.
http://strategyforprogress.wordpress.com
January 9, 2009 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Supposedly Hillary pissed of Robert Byrd by trying to use the reconciliation bill to pass health care, thereby offending his noble sense of what's right by the Constitution to do.
Is it okay now that Byrd's resigned his Appropriations chair? It's a fundamental flaw to not consult Senators, but ramming in Panetta without Feinstein and Rockefeller's knowledge is copacetic?
I'll just start abbreviationg, IOKIYO - will save me thousands of words the next 8 years.
January 9, 2009 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some thought on why Tom Daschle's statement indicating he might be "open" to Republican efforts to filibuster health care reform legislation was probably a very shrewd political move on Daschle's part.
To begin with, both he and Obama are brothers-under-the-skin in that both men seem to understand that "soft-political-power" (including "civility" and "getting-to-yes" negotiation strategies) is the best means by which to obtain legislative victories.
Now i realize that thereare some on the left who would prefer a more aggressive, in-your-face (smash-mouth) approach to politics and who think that Daschle is weak and ineffective. The fact that Obama chose Daschle to be his point-person on health care reform would suggest that Obama views Daschle as having the requisite skills for ensuring that this time around, health care reform (significant reform)is realized.
My own view is that Daschle is very savvy (shrewd) when it comes to the art of politics and that he actually presents a most formidable threat to the Republican Party. (See the U.S News and World Report blog referenced below.)
Josh Marshall blogs: "Not Sure That Makes Sense:
Daschle open to allowing filibusters of health care reform".
Why would Daschle be "open" to an idea of a filibuster? Why would Daschle "offer" the Republicans such an opportunity? Perhaps the reason is that he knows any effort on the part of the Republicans to filibuster would lead to the implosion of the Republican Party.
Why implosion? First, the Republican Party has already been weakened by the electoral losses in 2008. And they are losing touch with the electorate, in part, because their "conservative" ideas are losing currency. Add into this mix, the fact that there exists strong public support for health care reform and that support is growing (and Republicans have had a history of resisting it of being the obstructionists).
What Daschle understands (what informs his thinking)is that any effort on the part of the Republicans to filibuster a health care reform package would not only fail to get off the ground because a significant number of Republican senator concerned about their own political survival would jump ship -- and this, in turn, would leave their caucus in shambles. And in turn, this "shambles" would be to the benefit of the Democrats, not only in regards to health care reform but also in relationship to any subsequent Democratic initiative.
Thus, perhaps Daschle's "reaching out across the isle" (with an open hand), to say "I might be open to the idea of your filibustering" is really a means for him to let Republican Senators know that he knows how to play "hard ball". And perhaps, it is also a means of letting them know that he is ready and able "win the game". In other words, in a nice way, he is putting them on notice that he knows that they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. By letting know this up front, Daschle is allowing for them to engage in some face-saving for Republicans as they go down in defeat. Such a gesture would be in line with "the new politics" that Obama is promising to bring to Washington D.C.
(I understand of course, that some progressives do not agree with the "soft-power" approach and would rather see a more aggressive "rub-it-in-your-face" form of politics. My own view is that most members of the public are tired of that old style of hard-ball politics.) I could be wrong.
Note: for the idea that Daschle constitutes a threat to the conservative movement, see James Pethokoukis' U.S. News and World Report blog entitled "How Tom Daschle Might Kill Conservatism".
January 9, 2009 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Stephen, every talking head on TV uses "the public is tired of...." Think the public is tired of $700 billion bailouts, or do they like the bi-partisanship that makes them possible and lack of financial oversight inevitable?
There are more options than either caving to Republicans or putting turds in their whiskers. How about simply doing their job, effectively, conscientiously, sweepingly, as they were elected to do?
January 9, 2009 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dasidero
What I am suggesting is the Republicans are in weak position, so weak than any attempt to filibusterer would backfire. A process of "getting to yes" does not imply "caving in". Nothing I said suggests that I think Daschle is in a position where he would "gave in".
January 9, 2009 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dasidero
Oops "cave in" not gave in.
Also, my initial post was a response to Josh Marshall's question: "Not Sure That Makes Sense
Daschle open to allowing filibusters of health care reform".
I gave some reasons why it might make perfect sense to be open for allowing Republicans to filibuster. And how such a gesture fits in with what I understand as Obama's "soft power politics". How does your comment "simply doing their job..." related to my post? Am I missing something?
January 9, 2009 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the Democrats don't pass meaningful health care reform in the next 2 years, they can kiss my support goodbye. Clinton promised health care reform, then sqandered his time with a friendly congress and accomplished nothing. If Obama does the same, I won't be making any more political contributions. It worries me that Daschel was one of Obama's main supporters and mentors.
I've had it with spineless Democratic Senators.
January 9, 2009 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
If one wants five million, one asks for ten and settles for seven.
January 12, 2009 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink