Attention All Liberals And Progressives: Listen To Karen Tumulty!!!

I said from the beginning that the opt out provision for the public option was a policy and political winner. Now at least one major mainstream media journalist whom herself had big time reservations about whether we would even have a public option in the final bill, has noticed what having the provision in the Senate bill actually means.

Check out Karen Tumulty of Time's post from yesterday

I've always had trouble understanding the opt-out version of the public option. Or more specifically, I've had trouble understanding why any state would actually opt out of something that some might find ideologically objectionable, but that doesn't actually cost them anything, gives their citizens a choice, and might actually bring in some government money down the line.

In that sense, the opt-out reminds me of all those Governors who made a lot of noise about rejecting the stimulus money, but then took it. As Doug Holtz-Eakin, a Republican and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office who is now a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, puts it: "If the default is, you're in, the legislative momentum has to be found to get you out. ... You have to make the case that eliminating a choice is a good thing."

That's why I'm a little puzzled at this passage in CBO's preliminary analysis of the health bill that will go to the Senate floor in the next few days:

CBO's analysis took into account the probability that some states would opt not to allow the public plan to be offered to their residents. Rather than trying to judge which states might opt out, CBO applied a probability recognizing that public opinion is divided regarding the desirability of a public plan and that some states might have difficulty enacting legislation to opt out. Overall, CBO's assessment was that about two-thirds of the population would be expected to have a public plan available in their state.

Translation (I think): We're plugging in a random number here, but we have no clue why anyone would opt out either.

KT's analogy is the same one I made the day the idea was floated. Seriously folks how about taking yes for an answer for once. The truth is this version of the public option doesn't cover as many people as any of us would like and the premiums would be higher than desired, but you can say the same for the supposedly more robust House version. This is a way to get the bill passed and get at least the foundation for a really effective public option in the future.

Its time to get behind this move and move on to fighting other battles like the one over the Stupak amendment. Seriously.

An Exercise In Journalism

If you read one interview about health care reform, you want it to be this one between President Obama and Karen Tumulty of Time Magazine.

Stay Classy Michele Bachmann

Still more fearmongering from Michele Bachmann and allusions to Nazi facism this weekend on a radio show when talking abou the bipartisan approval of the expansion of Americorps.

It’s under the guise of — quote — volunteerism. But it’s not volunteers at all. It’s paying people to do work on behalf of government. …

I believe that there is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service. And the real concerns is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums.

Steve Benen fisks this dreck

Now, I feel kind of awkward fact-checking obvious madness, but I suppose it's worth noting two quick points. First, there's nothing in the legislation requiring public service. It's about expanding service opportunities for those who choose to pursue them.

Second, support for the expanded community service programs was bipartisan. The bill passed the Senate with 79 votes, and passed the House with 321 275 votes. Bachmann apparently believes some of her own conservative Republican colleagues backed an initiative to mandate public service and force young people into re-education camps that only exist in her twisted imagination.

Stepping back, though, this reminds me of a great post Kevin Drum had over the weekend in which he pondered why, exactly, so many on the far-right are feeling besieged and panicky.

"Who, exactly, is their enemy these days?" Kevin asked. "I'm not sure they know themselves. But maybe that makes it worse.... Like a horror movie where you're surrounded on all sides by something you can never quite make out, I guess it seems to them like there's something horrible going on, but it's something so insidious that they're only allowed to catch occasional foggy glimpses of it."

Right. And to take this one step further, I think this also helps explain why truly batty conservatives like Bachmann and Glenn Beck fabricate dire threats that don't exist in our reality. They're struggling to deal with legitimate progressive policy ideas, so they're stuck manufacturing make-believe policy ideas that suit their worldview. Obama wants to adopt a global currency! He wants young people in government-sponsored re-education camps! He wants to take medical decisions away from doctors and give them to bureaucrats! He's going to impose a tax on every time we flip a light switch!

These ideas are clearly delusional, but for those who need to see a political apocalypse, they apparently don't have a choice. Debating real ideas on the merits is proving too difficult, so they're creating their own reality and hoping their supporters play along

Now the overriding question is WHEN WILL THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA CALL THIS BULLSHIT OUT? Some journalists evidently think its not their job to do so or that they would be irresponsible to link events to right wing rhetoric. And in the next breath they wonder why they are working in a dying industry.

Go figure.

More On That CBO "Report"

After two days of complaining by commenters at the Swampland blogs K Tizzle finally decided to weigh in by linking to an expert in federal spending, former staff director of the House Appropriations Committee Scott Lilly, and his view of the partial analysis of President Obama's economic stimulus package by the Congressional Budget Office which has been sold as a "report" by WingNuts and Villagers alike. Guess what he found...

Projecting this “spend out” is a task requiring the weighing of numerous variables as well as the exercise of a considerable amount of subjective judgment. In the end, spending forecasts are subject to most of the uncertainties contained in weather forecasts, economic forecasts, and even Super Bowl predictions. But what is clear from the leaked analysis (and will probably be evident in the official version soon to be available) is that the watch word of this stimulus effort—“shovel ready,” meaning ready to be spent now—does not correspond to any key on the keyboards connected to CBO computers.

Hmmm imagine that.

It is particularly hard to defend the CBO forecast on the flow of “shovel ready” highway funds. The projection for the flow of highway funds from this package is much slower than the projection made by CBO for the flow of funds under the same program only four month ago in the stimulus package Congress attempted to pass last fall. CBO predicted 77 percent of that money would flow out of the Treasury in the first 24 months. Now they are projecting that only 45 percent of highway money will flow over a 24-month period.

Whichever figure is correct—if either prove to be—the disparity between the two estimates seems to demonstrate that CBO highway estimates will have been seriously out of line at least 50 percent of the time.

Ok, but what about worst case scenario and the partial analysis is right.

But what if CBO is right in its current forecast? What if many of the appropriated funds in this package do flow more slowly than federal and local officials anticipate? The first point that needs to be considered is that the $355 billion contained in the Appropriation Committee portion of the package represents only 43 percent of the total package and virtually all of the slower spending programs.

Nearly all of the remaining $470 billion, which will be made up of tax cuts, Medicaid payments to states, and unemployment benefits, is expected to flow from the Treasury over the course of the next 12 months. The $108 billion contained in the appropriation segment of the package that CBO projects to be unspent at the end of 2011 totals only 13 percent of the total package.

And as for the CBO itself? He doesn't mince words.

As for CBO, I find their efforts with respect to this package disconcerting. The Constitution delegated the making of budget policy to Congress. When the Congressional Budget Act was passed 35 years ago, CBO was established not for the purpose of transferring that responsibility from Congress to a team of experts but for informing the congressional deliberations with philosophically neutral, well-informed, and fact-based analysis—analysis based on a continuous and thorough vetting of all relevant information and points of view.

While CBO is certainly “where the action is in federal budgeting,” as it boasts on its website, I am not convinced that they have met the standard for analysis that should be expected of them. The incoming director needs to carefully review these projections and insure that CBO protects its reputation for quality and objectivity

Now K Tizzle doesn't fancy herself a media critic and she is loathe to take her coworkers to task, but at least she took the time out to post on the issue and give the Swamplanders the truth. Thats a lot more than can be said for a lot of other "journalists".

President Elect Obama's Transition Team Releases Statement on Blagojevich Contacts, Pundits Salivate

Word has just come down that President Elect Barack Obama's transition team has released a statement regarding the their report on any contacts between their office and disgraced Illinois Rod Blagojevich's office. It seems that the report is ready to go but after a revue US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has asked them to hold off on releasing report until next week so as to not impede his investigation. Now let me quote from a portion of the press release.

"At the direction of the President-elect, a review of Transition staff contacts with Governor Blagojevich and his office has been conducted and completed and is ready for release. That review affirmed the public statements of the President-elect that he had no contact with the governor or his staff, and that the President-elect's staff was not involved in inappropriate discussions with the governor or his staff over the selection of his successor as US Senator.

Now Karen Tumulty at TIME'S Swampland blogs characterized the report like so.

(I'm told it turned out to be "pretty milquetoast stuff.")

So now the report is ready, it has been reviewed by USA Fitzgerald, and supposedly its "milque toast stuff". Do you think any of that will stop the talking heads from continuing to frame this story as harmful to President Elect Obama? Of course not.

There is a reason why I highlighted the quote from the press release. No sooner than I had read the post on Swampland, I hear Rick Sanchez on CNN parsing the word "inappropriate" in the statement to frame it as mysterious. Mind you on most days I enjoy Sanchez, especially when he was in rare form during the election season. But the media are in straight group think mode right now and Blago Gate and its supposed negative effects on PEOTUS Obama is the ruling meme of the day. I can only imagine how that statement, that to any reasonable person reads as a confirmation of the absence any wrong doing, will be twisted by this time tomorrow into being an indictment on Obama and his whole transition team.

Clinton Rules are in full effect baby. But somehow I believe that Obama is strong enough to weather the storm.