And this is your morning edition of Jamelle’s George Packer fandom

George Packer writes about the United States Senate, as portrayed in the 1962 Otto Preminger film “Advise and Consent”:

The Senate of “Advise and Consent” is corrupt to the core. There are no statesmen, only petty backstabbers who never forget a slight, are willing to sell out almost any principle when it’s convenient, and are chiefly driven by the aggrandizement of their own power. The only senator of whom this isn’t true is no saint, and eventually he’s driven by scandal to commit suicide. The others use the levers of Senate authority as instruments of bribery and blackmail, to cut under-the-table deals, punish their enemies, and advance the President’s nominee out of sycophancy or undermine him out of spite. The President is a stubborn chain-smoker, and the Vice-President, openly despised by the President, is such a loser that he flies commercial with no Secret Service. “Advise and Consent” is one of those rare films with no particular heroes or villains, like a mob movie that has you enjoying the mobsters’ turns of phrase and skill in murder while hoping that all of them get it in the end. Not exactly a picture to inspire nostalgia.

Packer goes on to explain that for all of its flaws and bizarre idiosyncrancies, this is a Senate that works. The senators in “Advise and Consent” are glorified frat boys, whose foremost commitment is to “the institution.” And its this clubbiness and insularity that, to Packer’s mind, “ensures a kind of functionality.”

I don’t think there are any political lessons to be drawn from Packer’s piece, but it is definitely a pleasure to read (especially the last sentence), as well as a nice way to start your morning.

Lincoln Chafee is sippin’ on the sizzurp (i.e. he’s completely wrong)

Lincoln Chafee, who I mostly respect, has taken a big swig of the “centrist” kool-aid:

So I can certainly understand Senator Bayh’s remarkable decision to leave, but I also suspect that he’s not willing to give up on Washington. When he suggested recently that a third party could be a viable contender for the White House in 2012, my first thought was that he was focused on a future as an independent — and the exciting new avenues for public service it offers.

In 2001, John Zogby, the pollster, told our Republican caucus, “There is a burgeoning centrist third party waiting to be formed.” Either party could make a strategic decision to capture the center, he said, or both could wait for a third party to fill the vacuum.

Even if it were possible for a third-party candidate to mount a credible run for the presidency — and given the institutional barriers, that’s a huge “if” — any hypothetical “centrist” candidate would find it incredibly difficult to find a constituency outside of the usual crowd of Beltway prognosticators and political operatives, most of whom will cheer any instance of the substance-less “pragmatism” that masquerades as moderation in elite circles. The simple fact is that centrists rely heavily on the Beltway to make up for the support they completely lack within their own parties. You don’t have to look any further than the Democratic response to Evan Bayh’s retirement to see that even ostensibly “big tent” parties have little patience for members who continuously buck the party agenda in favor of aggressive hawkishness and/or slavish corporate devotion.

Beyond that, it’s incredibly dubious to assert the existence of a massive, receptive “center” in American politics. Genuine independents are a small minority of the electorate; most self-described independents are better described as “independent” leaners that tend to group around one political party or the either (approximately 75 percent of independents are loyal partisans). What’s more, those few “pure” independents are almost singularly unsuited to assist a third-party candidate; these voters are either too uninformed or too apathetic to make a choice about their political affiliation. Trying to build a campaign around these voters is like trying to make money as an Insane Clown Posse cover band. It’s certainly possible (in a non-zero sort of way), but you’ll have a hard time both a) finding fans of ICP and b) convincing anyone that it’s worthwhile.

Meet the New Health Care Bill, (Mostly) Same as the Old Health Care Bill

With a few slight adjustments, of course! That is, the White House’s recently released health care proposal is virtually identical to the Senate’s health care bill, with a few notable changes (if you’d rather not go to the White House site, you can read the full proposal here):

• The White House’s proposal eliminates the Nebraska Medicaid exemption and provides “significant federal financing to all states for the expansion of Medicaid.”
• The threshold for the excise tax on the most expensive health plans has been increased from $23,000 for a family plan to $27,500, with a start date of 2018 for all plans. What’s more, the point at which the tax would kick in is indexed to rise each year at the rate of inflation plus one percent. On the whole, this is a big victory for labor, as the trigger point in the earlier compromise was $24,000.
• The maximum amount of income the average family can pay in premiums is set firmly between the Senate and House ranges, but the percent of costs paid for by the plan (read: the subsidies) has increased significantly. Here’s the relevant chart if you’re curious.

There are a few other differences that I won’t go into detail here, but they’re worth mentioning: the plan closes the “donut hole” in Medicare Part D, includes stronger anti-fraud provisions, and allows the federal government to review insurance rate increases. There is no public option (though that might change) and most of the provisions take effect in 2014. That said, the White House plan is notable in that it doesn’t include address a single Republican objection. At its core, this is the bill passed by the Senate in December and amended by conference in January. The frustrating bipartisan kabuki of the past few weeks has given way to a bill that’s fundamentally liberal, which signals (to me at least) that the administration is under no illusions about the GOP’s (un)willingness to compromise and deal.

For what it’s worth, I think this bill will pass. The stakes for Democrats — and House Democrats especially — are simply too high for it not too make it through Congress (and that’s to say nothing of the profoundly positive implications this legislation will have for Americans). I am certain that sometime soon, liberals will watch with relief as President Obama sits in the Rose Garden — with Democratic leaders at his side — and signs the historic legislation that finally puts America on the path to finishing what Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson started.

Photo credit: Associated Press/Politico

Public Opinion Death Spirals

Now that President Obama has unveiled his compromise plan for health care reform, it’s worth turning to Jonathan Cohn for his thoughts on what he describes as “the last, best shot” for health care reform:

Obama wants this. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants this. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants this. (And, yes, liberal policy wonks like me want this.)

But do the rest of the Democrats in Congress want this? The House, by all accounts, is the chamber that worries reformers the most. Centrists and freshmen are nervous about voting for a bill, given the latest poll numbers and rebuke to Democrats in Massachusetts last month. Liberals are less than thrilled about voting for a bill they deem to conservative. [Emphasis mine]

If there’s one thing I respect about the Republican Party, its that as an institution, it understands that public opinion is incredibly malleable on all but the most controversial issues. By contrast, Democrats tend to treat public opinion as a god to be appeased; Democrats panic over the tiniest shift in public opinion, and are inclined to run away at the slightest sign of unpopularity. Which ends up spawning a sort of public opinion death spiral. Usually, the sequence of events is something like this: a Democratic idea doesn’t poll well, and Democrats run away from it in response. Voters see Democrats running away from the idea and respond by heaping more scorn on the idea (which they now take as being generally unpopular), which in turn, prompts a greater Democratic response. This goes on and on until the idea is absolutely unpopular, and voters are disgusted with the Democratic Party for its inability to stand up for its principles, convictions or anything resembling them.

This seems to have been the basic dynamic on health care reform for the past few months, and its guaranteed to continue unless congressional Democrats step up, pass the damn bill, and play a little offense for a change.

The only thing Zimbabwe and America have in common

I think Matt is being too charitable in his criticism here; the only reason Glenn Reynolds thinks Barack Obama is “trying to turn the United States into Zimbabwe” is because both countries have a black president. That’s basically it.

Hate to Say I Told You So (or Bob McDonnell will ruin Virginia’s finances)

In the days and weeks before Virginia’s gubernatorial election, my liberal but politically inactive friends would ask me to explain why they should vote for Creigh Deeds over Bob McDonnell. And my answer, without fail, was something along the lines of this:

“For the last fifteen years, there has been a pattern in Virginia politics. We elected an ostensibly “moderate” Republican who turns out to be completely enthralled to conservative orthodoxy — cut taxes, spite gay people. By the end of his term, Virginia’s finances are in ruins and we turn to a moderate Democrat, who repairs the economy and leaves the state in better shape than he found it. If you vote for Bob McDonnell, you’re virtually guaranteeing that the commonwealth will see four years of steep budget cuts in education and transportation, as well as needlessly antagonistic socially conservative legislation.”

Well, yesterday, Republican governor Bob McDonnell took his first step towards fulfilling my extremely-obvious-and-not-at-all-prescient prediction:

After reports that Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell was planning a $700 million-plus cut to K-12 education during private meetings with staff members and legislators, McDonnell confirmed a $731 million cut during a press conference this morning.

Anita Kumar details the division of education cuts on the Washington Post’s Virginia Politics blog—among them, $225 million in cuts to support staff and $130 million in supplemental salaries. The Associated Press estimates the total $731 million cuts is “about 35 percent of the $2.1 billion McDonnell plans to trim overall to help reconcile a $4 billion, two-year budget gap.”

Refusing to raise taxes — but cutting hundreds of millions from the state education budget — is fiscal lunacy masquerading as responsibility. Bob McDonnell and his allies in the House of Delegates are so enthralled to their one-note, anti-government agenda that they are indifferent to the long-term costs of defunding the state’s education budget. Last year, Virginia led the nation in AP scoring. These cuts will force schools to begin charging for AP tests, which is a huge disadvantage to underprivileged students whose parents can’t afford to spend $80 per test. During his campaign, Gov. McDonnell talked about being a “jobs governor,” but defunding education isn’t a particularly smart way of encouraging future job growth. Indeed, McDonnell’s budget shows as much foresight as the college grad that buys cheap suits to save money; they don’t look good, they wear out quickly, and you’ll end up spending more in the long-run.

Remember too that this is only the beginning. Virginia’s roads are in desperate need of repair and upgrade; the only available options for funding transportation are tax increases or budget poaching. And since McDonnell is unwilling to consider tax increases, you can expect any new transportation funding to come out of the budgets for education or social services. But, this is what Virginians asked for, and this is what they will live with (until the next Mark Warner comes along).

Should we intentionally isolate our representatives?

Jonathan Bernstein brings the power of political science to bear on political commentary, and he’s very good at it. Here he is, for example, challenging the idea that Congress is somehow less representative now than it was in the past:

For better or worse, Members of Congress are much better able to know what their constituents are thinking than they were before polling, modern communications, and modern transportation put them in constant touch with their districts. The Senate remains malapportioned (and that one can’t be defended on democratic grounds), but one person, one vote is the law of the land in the House — another relatively recent (post-1960) development. On the whole, it seems to me that today’s Congress is certainly much more representative of (and/or provides better representation for) the underlying population than the 1960 Congress, the 1910 Congress, the 1860 Congress, or the 1810 Congress.

I think this is on the mark. Advances in communication technology, expansion of the franchise, and modern transportation have made members of Congress more in tune with the wishes of the constituents than they have ever been in the past. The real question, I think, is whether this is actually a good thing.

Despite my preference for majoritarian institutions (down with the filibuster!), I’m inclined towards thinking that there should be fewer avenues of access between representatives and their constituents, especially in light of most voters’ completely irrational preferences. When your constituents want lower taxes and more services, or a balanced budget and zero entitlement cuts — and you have little in the way of separation from them — it is very difficult to make anything in the way of hard choices.

I actually haven’t given this too much thought, so you’ll have to wait a bit for a more thoughtful view, but I think there’s a decent case to be made that congressional cowardice is partially a product of greater representation. But we’ll see.

Federalize Medicaid

States are having an increasingly tough time keeping up with growing Medicaid costs:

The recession and high unemployment have driven up enrollment in Medicaid while depleting state revenues that help pay for it.

A survey released Thursday by the Kaiser Family Foundation found a record one-year increase in Medicaid enrollment of 3.3 million from June 2008 to June 2009, a period when the unemployment rate rose by 4 percentage points. Total enrollment jumped 7.5 percent, to 46.9 million, and 13 states had double-digit increases.

Because Medicaid enrollment often lags behind unemployment, this year’s increase could prove even greater.

The National Association of State Medicaid Directors estimates that state budget shortfalls in the coming fiscal year, which begins in July in most states, will total $140 billion. Because Medicaid is one of the largest expenditures in every state budget, and one of the fastest-growing, it makes an unavoidable target.

As a matter of public policy, there isn’t a single justifiable reason for keeping Medicaid as a state-based program. Medicaid is a program designed to have its greatest impact during economic downturns, but because of that, it is uniquely ill-suited to state-based funding and implementation. Most states are required to have balanced budgets, and during downturns — when tax revenues decrease and social spending increases — state legislatures have no choice but to cut spending. Given its size and constituency (poor people), Medicaid is a very easy target. Federalizing Medicaid will free up needed revenue in state budgets, and ensure that the program can serve more people during economic downturns.

Assuming health care reform passes and is successful, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the federal government take over Medicaid’s responsibilities in the following years. Of course, since that’s not happening anytime soon, the best thing Congress can do right now is provide more aid for states. $30 billion or so in state aid is enough to close the gap in most budgets, and keep states from yanking health care from the people who need it most.

Is “Another Black Conservative” America’s Worst Blog? Probably.

Another Black Conservative ranks as one of the worst political blog I have ever read, ever.

Now, given that there are hundreds of thousands of political blogs, it’s true that ABC isn’t at the bottom of pile, objectively speaking. To its credit, ABC is readable (albeit barely) and coherent (in the loosest definition of the term). That said, I fail to see to how anyone could write anything as painfully wrong as this:

OK, I might as well skip the PC nonsense and be blunt. Since we are at war with radical Islam, how about we do some good old fashion racial profiling in the military? After Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s shooting spree at Fort Hood, one would have thought the military would have dropped the political correctness and started to get some deep background checks on all Islamic soldiers.

Yes, I know it is unfair, but radical Islamic extremist count on our political correctness to hide in plain sight. Look at Hasan, the man was walking around with a big fat neon sign saying “I hate America” and our silly political correctness blinded us to the obvious.

This is in response to an — incredibly dubious — story that five Muslim men have attempted to poison food supplies at Ft. Jackson in South Carolina. You can easily count the ways in which this is flagrantly misguided: racial profiling unfairly penalizes an entire group of people for the actions of an extremely small minority, racial profiling antagonizes the mass of overwhelmingly patriotic Muslim-Americans and strains the bonds of trust between them and their fellow citizens. Given the extremely small number of “potential” extremists, and the low likelihood that they’ll attempt anything, it is absurd to think that profiling will do much — if anything — to prevent an attack. And the political correctness ABC derides is one of our greatest strength, as it has allowed us to successfully integrate Muslim immigrants into our society, with minimal friction and antagonism.

Of course, I’m probably wasting my time responding to this embarrassing, off-brand piece of right-wing crankery; there’s nothing in the post resembling a reasoned thought, and I’ve given it way more weight than it deserves by even reading and thinking about it. And so, with that in mind, I’m going to end this post was a simple admonition.

Don’t ever — ever — read Another Black Conservative. Please. For my sake. Believe me when I say that reading this blog is like having a terrible hangover without the fun and excitement of heavy alcohol consumption. It just isn’t good.

This isn’t Terrorism

CNN:

An Austin, Texas, resident with an apparent grudge against the Internal Revenue Service set his house on fire Thursday and then crashed a small plane into a building housing an IRS office with nearly 200 employees, officials said.
Federal authorities identified the pilot of the Piper Cherokee PA-28 as Joseph Andrew Stack, 53.

Two people were injured and one person was missing, local officials said. There were no reported deaths.

A message on a Web site registered to Stack appears to be a suicide note.

“If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, ‘Why did this have to happen?’ ” the message says. “The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time.”

In the lengthy, rambling message, the writer rails against the government and, particularly, the IRS.

Of course, this comes from a real American, so it can’t possibly be terrorism.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to score cheap points — I don’t think all conservatives are closet bombers — but I do think it’s extremely problematic that we’ve defined terrorism as, essentially, “any violence committed by any brown person, ever.”