Washington is on fire today!

Even snow covered bushes are burning in celebration now that the Senate has approved a procedural motion to move to final consideration of the health care reform bill...thus assuring its passage on Christmas Eve. Have a very Merry Christmas!!

Success Comes Only with Defeat: Republican Strategy 2009

I’ve been thinking about Republican strategy the last few days, unsure about whether to say anything or not --- but as the health care reform bill moves ever closer to final passage in the US Senate, it is worth noting the all or nothing strategy the R’s have adopted. The R's are the most risk averse people you have ever met and that is why it surprises me they have rolled all the dice on a strategy aimed at total defeat of health care reform.

No compromise, no consolation prize, no joke. Only nothing will do.

I am surprised. And it is hard for these people to surprise me.

If they are right and the health care bill turns out to be the worst new law to pass in decades, the Democrats will pay the price next November and again in 2012. But if, as I suspect, the law will actually move health care reform forward in an overall positive way, the R’s will pay the price by being relegated to the back bench for a long, long time, having demonstrated fully and completely that they are not interested in solving problems, only in playing an obstinate role, a naysayer role. In other words, the opposite of what the founding fathers intended when they set up a republic that would send representatives to Washington to govern with an eye always toward making tomorrow a better day through the sheer force of new ideas if nothing else.

The R’s have clearly stated they have no new ideas and don’t intend to come up with any anytime soon. The substantive policy defeat the Democrats are about to hand the R's will last for decades.

What you will never learn from a civics book

Even many who proudly proclaim their keen understanding of the Washington political game do not understand the nuance I am about to reveal.

Most Republicans want the health care reform bill to pass, BUT they will never vote for it.

Many brows are furrowing about now, so here’s why.

As Bob Dole used to say, “No one ever got blamed for voting against a bill that passed.” In other words, If your Republican representative votes against a bill – any bill – that passes and it turns out to be a great success for the American people, he will excuse his lack of support by saying, “I voted against it because I wanted to improve it. It wasn’t good enough, in my view, and I was working to improve it…when it passed.” Now, if the new law turns out to be a colossal failure, the same Republican representative will say, “Yes, I knew it, I told you so, a few of us were standing up for you and for America (play God Bless America here), and as long as you continue to send me to Washington, I will continue to stand up for you.”

This, by the way, is not new. For the last 60 years at least, Republicans have been content to sit on the back bench, throw eggs at the majority in public, and urge them on to success in private. It is a lot easier than actually using the gray matter between the ears and coming up with real ideas that will work to solve real problems.

GOP Shoe Does Not Fit Anymore

If the Republicans win the current debate to decide whether or not America will begin the process of reforming health care costs, coverage and delivery, every one of us will lose.

And we will lose something far more precious than rejection of one major reform initiative. We will have handed control of our government to one very influential special interest group: the health insurance companies. The NRA will be proud of their success.

President Truman urged the Congress to pass legislation covering all Americans with basic health care. That was 60 years ago. In 1972, the first speech I wrote for a U.S. Senator focused on the need for health care reform. That was 37 years ago. In 1993, President Bill Clinton urged Congress to move forward finally on health care reform, and again, the insurance industry rejected it flatly. Each time they succeeded by buying the votes they needed to gain total loyalty from a minority that could be counted on to defeat any and all efforts to move forward on the issue.

And now, Republicans stand on the threshold of defeating the current health care reform legislation supported by President Obama and a majority of the Congress. In addition to serving the interest of the insurance companies, the GOP opposition will hand a major defeat to President Obama ...and they live for that.

Why not use the reconciliation process to circumvent the opposition? That’s the question I am asked often. It might be done. Remember, only items in the bill that affect budget numbers – spending issues or tax revenues can be considered in reconciliation but that would include much of the bill. Excluded would be all of the oversight and regulatory provisions in the current bill.

Remember this: It was the Republicans who set up this process of passing legislation through reconciliation without the risk of a filibuster. And now that they are in the minority, they rue the day they thought of this mischief.

Until 1996, reconciliation was limited solely to deficit reduction, but that year the Republican majority adopted a precedent to apply reconciliation to any legislation affecting the budget, even legislation that would increase the deficit.

Under Bush 43, Congress used reconciliation to enact three major tax cuts. Efforts to use reconciliation to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling failed. That’s right – oil drilling! Thankfully, the idea did not pass.

They were in the majority and they were dedicated to perverting the reconciliation process to pass any and all bills they wanted. So much for the Senate rules. So much for respecting the views of the minority.

And they paid no heed to the warnings that the day would come when the Democrats would be kin the majority and use they same rule against them. Now they have the audacity, the unmitigated gall, to say the Democrats should not use the reconciliation process to pass one of the most important bills of our time.

Make no mistake: They represent the insurance companies; they do not represent the interest of their constituents. Is this the form of government the “tea baggers” support? Maybe they don’t understand a representative democracy as defined by our Constitution. (Maybe they ought to read the Constitution.)

When no one's happy

After President Obama’s speech at West Point, it seemed certain that most of the pundits would find some parts to applaud and even more to criticize. And no one, absolutely no one was completely happy with the entirety of his proposal. That may be exactly where we need to be to move forward with this complex problem.

Are we so polarized in this nation that everything must be black or white to be acceptable to us? Can’t we just acknowledge that this man has an enormous challenge before him? Maybe he has it wrong, maybe he has it right. One thing is certain: we can be sure he has given it more thought than nearly anyone on the planet. And with his considerable intellect, I choose to give him the benefit of the doubt. That is one very heavy weight he carries around all day.

Not long ago, I listened to Bill Moyers on PBS as he played the tapes of telephone conversations between LBJ and his friends, allies in Congress, and officials within his own administration. You could hear the angst in his voice over and over again as he tried to divine the answer to the thickest thicket he had ever been in. It is clear President Obama is not going to let Afghanistan do to America what Vietnam did. We will do the job he outlined last night and we will come home.

This is not 1945 so there will be no peace treaty signed on the deck of some battleship. But, mind you, coming home in 2011 does not mean we will cease to participate in the strategic security of that entire region. The rest of the free world looks to us to make sure we keep an eye on every untoward movement there.