Category: Legislation

Yet Another Artifact of the Bush Tax Cuts

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If some rich guy dies in the next few days, it could get very ugly for his wife:

Spouses of those wealthy who die this year might find themselves with nothing if the family will isn’t revised—a major wrinkle that could follow Friday’s repeal of the federal estate tax.

As started on Jan. 1, estate taxes will be repealed for 2010 only. That means unless Congress acts otherwise, there is no limit to the wealth that can be passed on to heirs without incurring federal estate taxes through the end of the year.

But wills have often been written on the expectation that estate taxes were a fact of life for years to come, estate planners say. As a result, wills typically direct assets not subject to the tax be passed on to children—for 2009, up to $3.5 million—with the rest directed to the spouse.

“You could be in a situation now where everything would go into a trust downstream to the kids and nothing is left to the spouse,” …………

So, in addition to giving heirs a motive to bump you off, you could leave your spouse without anything when you die, and if the taxes go back into effect, which is a highly likely scenario, you have lawsuits to claw it back.

It ain’t just the Supreme Court where the misdeeds of Bush and His Evil Minions™ will be felt for years.

Completely F%$#ing Delusional

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Part of a trend, not a result of selling out American workers

Rahm Emanuel believes that by voting against the Democratic base, you improve the electoral prospects of the Democrats:

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has been telling Democrats a win on the health issue will reverse the slide in public opinion, just as passage of another controversial proposal, the North American Free Trade Agreement, lifted President Bill Clinton in the polls.

Let’s be clear: Clinton’s popularity did rise after the passage of NAFTA.

It was a part of a trend (see pic). When people finally noticed the passage, a few months later, his ratings fell through the floor, and the Dems lost both houses of Congress.

To be fair, a part of this might have been the collapse of healthcare reform, but NAFTA demoralized labor, and pretty much the entire Democratic base.

A bad bill is worse than no bill, and immeasurably worse than one that passes through reconciliation.

The real problem with Rahm is not that he’s determined to offer succor to right wingers because he believes that it will somehow benefit Democrats, but that he’s wrong, and incompetent.

H/t A Tiny Revolution

Pushback on the House on Healthcare Reform

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Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), Chairman of the House Rules Committee, has said that the Senate version of the bill is so flawed that the whole bill should be killed, in an OP/Ed that she wrote for CNN.

In addition to a lack of a public option, she lists:

  • The Senate bill keeping the insurance companies’ antitrust exemption.
  • Allowing much higher rates to be charged with older people and people with preexisting conditions.
  • Fewer incentives/penalties on employers who do not supply insurance.
  • The anti-abortion language, which will have the effect of eliminating abortion coverage in insurance nation wide.

It’s unclear as to whether or not she is suggesting reconciliation or not.

Additionally, Representatives Barbara Lee, head of the CBC, and Lynn Woolsey, head of the CPC, are lobbying to kill the bill without a public option.

I would note that part of the dynamic is a push-back against the proposition that the Senate is calling the shots here.

The Senate Passes Obama’s Healthcare Bill

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The vote was 60-39.

Say what you will, but it’s been clear from the start that what Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel have been interested in is Barack Obama signing a bill called “Healthcare Reform,” whether it helped ordinary people or not, and the Senate version fits the description to a “T”.

Obama has already made it clear that he wants the Senate bill to be the one out of committee, as shown by his full throated support of the tax on “Cadillac” insurance plan tax.

It means that, in addition to everything else, the bill is anti-union too, because protecting health care for their workers has been the Unions rear guard action for the past 28 years, ever since Reagan made union-busting cool with PATCO.

So, we will now allow insurance companies to levy a tax on ordinary Americans, and Rahmbama just loves that.

I had rather hoped that a few of the Senate Democrats, and those who caucus with them (I’m talking to you Bernie Sanders) would have had the guts to vote for cloture but against the bill, but no such luck.

At the rate things are going, we will get someone even more batsh%$ insane than George W. Bush in 2012, because there is no Republican on the national scene who is saner than he is right now.

60……Until Leiberman Knifes Everyone Again……

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We now have reports that Reid and Obama have managed to cajole Senator Ben Nelson into not filibustering the helathcare bill:

Senate Democratic leaders achieved a breakthrough Saturday in the drive for health overhaul legislation, securing the 60 votes needed to ensure passage after a late-night deal on abortion coverage locked in the support of Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson.

The bill is at best marginally better than what we have now, it might be a bit worse, since the mandate in a monopoly situation is a disaster, and the abortion language allows states to forbid insurance companies to cover abortions.

Let’s be clear, insurance companies don’t customize their plans unless forced to, and over the next few years, this will have the effect of eliminating abortion from insurance coverage, as NOW notes:

Statement of Terry O’Neill, NOW President

December 19, 2009

The so-called health care reform bill now before the Senate, with the addition of Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Manager’s Amendment, amounts to a health insurance bill for half the population and a sweeping anti-abortion law for the rest of us. And by the way, it’s the rest of us who voted the current leadership into both houses of Congress.

The National Organization for Women is outraged that Senate leadership would cave in to Sen. Ben Nelson, offering a compromise that amounts to a Stupak-like ban on insurance coverage for abortion care. Right-wing ideologues like Nelson and the Catholic Bishops may not understand this, but abortion is health care. And health care reform is not true reform if it denies women coverage for the full range of reproductive health services.

We call on all senators who consider themselves friends of women’s rights to reject the Manager’s Amendment, and if it remains, to defeat this cruelly over-compromised legislation.

###

I’ll still be calling my Senators, and asking them to vote against the bill and against cloture.

Obama Gets Revolt from the Faithful on Healthcare

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Which is not particularly surprising, as his behavior has been pretty revolting on healthcare.

It turns out that OFA, originally “Obama for America,” and now “Organizing for America,” just called for a phone bank to support the Nelson/Lieberman healthcare reform sellout bill, and the base decided that they had to wash their hair:

On Wednesday morning, Organizing for America, as Obama’s reconstituted campaign organization is now known, e-mailed its list of 13 million Obama supporters asking them to “call your senators now and help us ‘ring in reform.’”

The campaign yielded 150,000 calls — less than half the number of a similar effort in October — and it prompted a backlash among online and local activists who had logged countless volunteer supporting Obama’s campaign and legislative agenda, but who felt betrayed by recent Democratic concessions in the health-care reform fight.

………

………while some OFA subscribers replied directly to the call-to-action e-mail with angry messages and others asked to be removed from the list entirely.

(emphasis mine)

I had myself removed from the OFA mailing list some months ago, and I do not regret this at all.

Additionally, the latest This Research 2000/Progressive Change Campaign Committee/Democracy for AmericaPoll shows that the public overwhelming opposes the personal mandates in the bill if there is no public option.

Respondents said that they supported a public option 59% to 31%, opposed a madate without a public option 33% to 56%, and that Obama didn’t fight Lieberman hard enough: 63% to 29%.

What a surprise. Hoocoodanode that the American public would object to a tax on breathing with the proceeds going to insurance company executive bonuses?

The real problem here is not that the bill sucks, the problem is that it’s increasingly obvious, as Senator Russ Feingold notes, that Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel thought that forcing people to buy overpriced insurance and overpriced pharmaceuticals was a good way to keep those industries from donating to Republicans, the average citizen be damned:

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), among the most vocal supporters of the public option, said it would be unfair to blame Lieberman for its apparent demise. Feingold said that responsibility ultimately rests with President Barack Obama and he could have insisted on a higher standard for the legislation.

“This bill appears to be legislation that the president wanted in the first place, so I don’t think focusing it on Lieberman really hits the truth,” said Feingold. “I think they could have been higher. I certainly think a stronger bill would have been better in every respect.”

It seems that Obama’s fetish with signing a bill with “healthcare reform” on it, to the exclusion of any principles, or the need to actually make things better, so he could have a trophy on the wall has bitten him on the butt.

DeForest Kelly put it best when he said, “It’s not enough! You didn’t care as long as you could hang your trophy on the wall. Well, it’s not on it, Captain Mr President, it’s in it.”

Did Nancy Pelosi Just Call Barack Obama a Bitch?

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Why yes, I think that she did just call Barack Obama a bitch.

On a slightly more precise level, what she has said is that if Barack Obama wants Democrats in the house to support him on Afghanistan, that Pelosi will not use her position as speaker to whip votes:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said President Barack Obama must press his own arguments for sending 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan because she won’t ask House Democrats to pay for the military escalation.

“The president is going to have to make his case,” Pelosi told reporters today in Washington.

The speaker said persuading House Democrats to approve a $106 billion spending bill in June to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was “definitely” the hardest vote of her tenure as speaker. She said she told Democrats her request for their support was the last time “I would ever ask them to vote for it.”

House Democratic leaders will provide briefings on funds for the additional troops, and members “will have the information” they need to make a decision, she said. “But this, for members, is a vote of conscience.”

I’m sure Steny Hoyer, 2nd in command as House Majority Leader, will continue to whip the vote, but this is a big deal.

I expect the bill to pass anyway, since the Republicans will always vote pro war, but much like during our private little war in South East Asia in 1968, it’s the Democrats who are opposing it, and much like that private little war in South East Asia in 1968, they are correct in their opposition to the this private little war in South Asia.

Here is the Video of Howard Dean Disavowing the Senate Bill

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I want him to be my president

Courtesy of the Big Orange Borg.

He makes it very clear: this is a tax on the American people that will be transferred to insurance companies.

He says that it’s not healthcare reform, or even that it’s not even insurance reform. He’s right.

He notes that reconciliation should have been used from the start, and he also notes that this bill will cause the Democrats to lose seats.

He also notes that this is about Joe Lieberman preening for attention.

The Washington press corps went after him hammer and tongs because, hell I don’t know why, in 2004, and he is so much better than anyone else on this it’s not funny.

VPR Audio: VPR News: Dean On Health Care: “Kill The Senate Bill”

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The Plum Line is breaking the story that Howard Dean is calling for the Senate bill to be scrapped, and for the house to push through reform via reconciliation, which only requires 50 Senators (+ Joe Biden) to pass.

VPR has a transcript of the interview:

This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate. And, honestly, the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill and go back to the House and start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill.

Yeah, but Republicans will call it a “Nuclear Option,” and say bad things about Barack….You know?

Great googly moogly.

link to audio

Lieberman and Obama, and the Shark that They Jumped

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This is one big shark that he jumped.
With Frikken Lasers!

It appears that the excessive wankerage of Joseph Lieberman on healthcare has even gotten the Villagers, specifically nepotism affirmative action hire Luke Russert (video at link), and wannabe villager Ezra Klein to admit that perhaps, just perhaps, Joseph Lieberman is not acting out of moral conviction, but instead is acting out of a need for revenge.

When you have guys like this calling Joe Lieberman small and petty, and, well basically evil, Holy Joe has done more than jump a shark, he’s jumped the shark, specifically, he’s jumping C. Megalodon*.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that Obama and His Stupid Minions™ are getting a clue on this, or that they understand that Joe just wants to turn the knife, and will keep pulling the football away, because his goal is to punish liberals for not recognizing his brilliance and moral superiority over the past 9 years.

Harry Reid, no doubt wanting to avoid Chris Dodd’s fate, where Dodd was hung out to dry by the administration for doing Geithner’s bidding and putting in a loophole on banker salaries, is now leaking like a seive, with sources who are clearly from his office saying that, Rahm Emanuel personally pressured Reid give in to Lieberman’s extortion. (See also here and here here)

As a result of this, 81% Of Dememocrats want Lieberman’s chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee pulled, which to my mind, would be a good thing, because the Senate Democrats would have to start learning to live with 50+ the Vice President to pass a bill, and people like Lieberman (and Lincoln and Baucus) would be told to go pound sand.

If you want any more evidence of bad faith, Lieberman admits that he’s flipped on the Medicare option because liberals like it:

And he said he was particularly troubled by the overly enthusiastic reaction to the proposal by some liberals, including Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, who champions a fully government-run health care system.

(emphasis mine)

You see, it’s all about pissing off liberals. It does not matter if hundreds of thousands of people die every year because of lack of insurance, Lieberman wants to punish liberals.

Joe Lieberman is a venal sociopath.

*The largest shark, and likely largest predator fish ever. It died out some 1.5 million years ago. The Genus is still in dispute, between either Carcharodon (Great White) or Carcharocles (broad toothed Mako). So in jumping C. Megalodon, you have jumped the biggest shark ever.

A Failing State With Nuclear Weapons

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No, I don’t mean Pakistan, I mean India, where they have just carved up the province of Andhra Pradesh.

It appears to be political pandering to a coalition partner, but it also sounds a lot like a nation that will soon be joining Pakistan in having issues with its territorial integrity:

The Indian government agreed to carve a separate state out of the southern Indian province of Andhra Pradesh, which includes the information-technology capital of Hyderabad, following days of violent protests.

The government’s unexpected decision, which could spur social unrest and separatist demands in other regions, faces legislative hurdles — and prompted 83 of Andhra Pradesh’s 295 legislators to say they would resign in protest.

Hyderabad has been hit by protests from supporters of K. Chandrashekar Rao, who heads the Telangana Rashtra Samithi political party dedicated to establishing a separate state for the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh, which includes Hyderabad.

This is not the sort of thing that a cohesive nation state does.

Hopefully, this is not the beginning of a downward trajectory for India as a nation-state.

Barack Obama Pimps for Big Pharma

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It looks like debate on healthcare reform is foundering on White House opposition to an amendment to allow the reimportation of drugs from Canada

The White House, aided by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), is working hard to crush an amendment being pushed by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) to allow for the reimportation of pharmaceutical drugs from Canada, Senate sources tell the Huffington Post.

As a result, the Senate health care debate has come to a standstill: Carper has placed a “hold” on Dorgan’s amendment and in response, Dorgan tells HuffPost, he’ll object to any other amendments being considered before he gets a vote on his.

Note, though that this is not a bid at bipartisanship, as Dorgan’s amendment has a Republican co-sponsor, Olympia Snowe (R-ME),and significant ‘Phant support, John McCain (R-AZ), Charles Grassley (R-IA), John Thune (R-SD) and David Vitter (R-LA).

It appears that the Obama administration is afraid that Big Pharma will oppose the bill, but I don’t recall them actually having anyone electing Big Pharma president…..As we all know, the President of the United States is Olympia Snowe.

House Votes to Tighten Regulation of Financial System – NYTimes.com

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House Votes to Tighten Regulation of Financial System – NYTimes.com thankfully, the CFPA survives, but they voted down cramdown on mortgages in bankruptcy, and voted for the contemptible Melissa Bean’s contemptible preemption language, which allows the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, to strike down state consumer protections.

USA Today, of all people was right hen it said that, “The Comptroller of the Currency, for example, behaved much like a banking lobby embedded in the Treasury Department,” so this is simply repulsive.

Bullet points:

  • The Creates the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) is created.
  • A Financial Stability Council is created.
  • Dissolution Authority, though the way that it is structured, it may be considered a “perpetual TARP”.
  • Shareholders get a non-binding “say on pay”, which means nothing.
  • Increases the SEC’s powers.
  • Regulation of Derivatives, but it’s full of loopholes.
  • Mortgage Reform.
  • Reform of Credit Rating Agencies:a biggie if the reforms mean anything, but they seem to be weak tea.
  • Registration of hedge funds, though it seems weak.
  • Creates an Office of Insurance, which is a big thing, since insurers are likely the to be in the meltdown shortly.

In the least surprising news of the day, it appears that no Republican voted for the bill.

A long list of the amendments is here.

It’s better than nothing, but not by much, and you know that the bad parts will be kept, and the good parts thrown overboard, in conference committee.