Dems Play Down Senate Health Care Delay
August to be dominated by fierce attacks and counterattacks. W. Post's The Fix: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's decision to postpone a final vote on President Obama's health care proposal until September sets up a one-month campaign sprint between supporters and opponents of the legislation that will span over Congress' August recess. 'With final votes now pushed back to at least September, this means every pro and con group is drawing up new media plans,' said Larry McCarthy, a Republican media consultant who is doing work for the conservative Americans for Prosperity. 'Two week media plans just extended to eight week media plans. Targets will expand -- not only national cable and swing Senators, but more congressional districts will be added.'"
NYT looks at what is moving: "Mr. Reid had some good news for the White House on Thursday. He said that he expected a bipartisan agreement to emerge from the Finance Committee before the Senate recess began on Aug. 8, and that he would spend the break merging that bill with legislation approved by the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. And some White House aides were optimistic that the negotiations between Mr. Emanuel and the Blue Dogs in the House would result in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s scheduling a floor vote for next week."
Pelosi plays down delay in The Hill: "'I’m not afraid of August. It’s a month.'"
House may still pass bill next week, though some fear moving without Senate fully on board. The Hill: "House Democrats, still searching for a way to pass their healthcare bill before August, are considering bypassing the Energy and Commerce committee altogether, where the bill has stalled, and proceeding right to the floor ... Asked about shuffling the healthcare bill right to the floor, Pelosi on Thursday night said: 'I don’t want to do that.' ... At least one member of [Energy and Commerce], though, indicated that she believes the [committee] markup will proceed. 'We've been asked to clear our calendars for Saturday,' said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.)"
Obama not ruffled on ABC's Nightline: "You know, given the progress that I'm seeing made, as long as everybody is working steadily, as fast as they can and particularly the Senate Finance Committee, which I think is the committee that a lot of folks are waiting for. If that gets done before the August recess, I feel pretty good because what happens then is we always knew the House and the Senate bills wouldn't match up. We're going to have to come back in September, make those bills match up. There are going to be a lot of negotiations and a lot of work that still takes place. You know, our general view is we can get this done by the fall. And so this doesn't set back that schedule, but, as I said before, frankly if you don't express a sense of urgency about this thing then people always say, 'let's put it off.' And I really do think that the families that I talk to who are struggling with health care right now can't afford it to be put off."
In These Times' Art Levine expresses confidence progressive grassroots ready for August fight: "Despite the media doom-saying, the on-the-ground organizing — from phone banks to petitions — to rally support for reform still seems likely to make an important difference in the weeks ahead."
House Blue Dogs take whacks from W. Post's Steve Pearlstein, Salon.com's Joe Conason and the Congressional Black Caucus for foot-dragging and hypocrisy.
Bloggers pound Reid and Baucus for the Senate delay.
Brilliant at Breakfast: "What part of 'You won' does Harry Reid not understand?"
Crooks and Liars: "Harry Reid is caving to the pressure from the do nothing Max Baucus caucus."
Oliver Willis: "Hey Harry Reid, how about you take some control in the freaking senate, quit letting Max Baucus dick around and get us to a vote on health care reform. You know, if you weren’t busy doing anything (like voting to increase the spread of guns)."
D-Day: "This reflects a general frustration with the holdup in the Finance Committee, particularly the secrecy of them and how long they have played out. As far back as February, Max Baucus talked about a markup session in June. And he consistently agreed to that throughout the next several months. Now he hasn't only help up the process, but he doesn't even plan to run it by the Democratic caucus once he introduces it."
Obama to meet with Reid and Baucus later today.
Krugman scolds media coverage of Obama presser: "The talking heads on cable TV panned President Obama’s Wednesday press conference. You see, he didn’t offer a lot of folksy anecdotes. Shame on them. The health care system is in crisis. The fate of America’s middle class hangs in the balance. And there on our TVs was a president with an impressive command of the issues, who truly understands the stakes."
Obama scolds media too. Politico: "...Obama suggested the debate was discouraging to him. He took a shot at the media for 'a lack of sustained focus on the facts,' saying it 'makes it very difficult.'"
Obama understands the polls better than ABC's Terry Moran:
MORAN: But they blew your deadline, the first deadline. And I wonder if you feel as if you look at the polls that things are slipping away. It seems that the more people focus on your health care plan, the less they like them.
OBAMA: Well, Terry, I don't think that's accurate.
MORAN: That's what the polls are showing.
OBAMA: No, no. What the polls are showing is, is that the more they focus on the political arguments that are out there, as opposed to my plan, the more anxious people get. But that happens every time we debate health care. It's always happened. That's not a reflection of us walking through the American people on our plan.
That's a reflection of the fact that this debate consistently degenerates into a certain pattern, which is, government takeover of health care and you know, this is going to be radical and, you know, somebody's going to get between you and your doctor.
And those scare tactics, which have been employed consistently for the last 40 years, they get some traction. They certainly get traction in the media. And as a consequence -- and I think people even if they're dissatisfied with their health care right now, they get nervous, which you know, I completely understand. And so my job has been to make sure that people understand the status quo is untenable.
W. Post reports Speaker Pelosi looking to squeeze more savings out of "hospitals and pharmaceuticals."
Howard Fineman calls out conservative strategy, stoke racial resentments instead actually talking about health care:
America Gets a Raise Today
Stateline: "Minimum-wage earners in 31 states and the District of Columbia can soon expect slightly bigger paychecks thanks to the third and final installment of a federal rate hike that raises the wage floor from $6.55 an hour to $7.25 an hour effective Friday. The latest federal bump will enlarge roughly 4.5 million workers’ paychecks by about four cents an hour in some states to almost $1 an hour in others..."
Dean Baker criticizes media for falsely raises job loss fears: "In its top of hour news segment today, Morning Edition joined the media chorus telling us that the minimum wage hike could increase unemployment and prolong the recession ... The impact of a rise in the minimum wage on employment is one of the most heavily researched topics in economics. Virtually all of this research shows that it will have little or no impact on employment."
American Prospect cautions some female-dominated industries not getting a raise: "For tipped workers like waitresses and nail salon workers -- a group that is overwhelmingly female -- the situation is even worse. For them, the federal minimum wage is a shockingly low $2.13 an hour. And under another outdated exemption, workers in the fast-growing home-health-care industry, in which millions of women tend to the most vulnerable in our society -- seniors, persons with disabilities, and the ill -- are not guaranteed any minimum wage at all."
NYT reports unemployed struggle to get their promised benefits: "Years of state and federal neglect have hobbled the nation’s unemployment system just as a brutal recession has doubled the number of jobless Americans seeking aid. In a program that values timeliness above all else, decisions involving more than a million applicants have been slowed, and hundreds of thousands of needy people have waited months for checks."
Zombie Climate Lies
Sens. Boxer and Kerry take Palin to task on climate bill in W. Post oped: "Palin argues that 'the answer doesn't lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive!' The truth is, clean energy legislation doesn't make energy scarcer or more expensive; it works to find alternative solutions to our costly dependence on foreign oil and provides powerful incentives to pursue cutting-edge clean energy technologies. Palin asserts that job losses are 'certain.' Wrong. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and American Clean Energy and Security legislation will create significant employment opportunities across the country in a broad array of sectors linked to the clean energy economy."
W. Post continues to publish climate lies from George Will. Climate Progress: "...he is just accurately quoting disinformation from the National Review, repeating the long-debunked myth that 'there has been no global warming' for 11 years. Yet the definitive global temperature record from U.S. climate experts would be that of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, which says the warmest year on record was 2005 — not 1998."
Breakfast Sides
As the foreclosure crisis continues, calls renew to allow bankruptcy judges to rewrite mortgages. LA Times: "Federal programs aimed at modifying loans to stem foreclosures aren't working, witnesses told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, and some lawmakers called on Congress again to pass a bill allowing bankruptcy judges to modify home loans -- a procedure known as mortgage cram-downs ... The financial services industry and many Republicans in Congress have strongly opposed such a move and helped stall the legislation in the Senate this spring after the House passed the measure."
Bloomberg: "Goldman Sachs Group Inc. may have gone from public enemy to model citizen in eight days.The most profitable firm on Wall Street paid 98 percent of fair market value to buy back warrants from the U.S. government this week, after BB&T Corp. and U.S. Bancorp paid less than 60 percent ... 'They are beginning to realize that there is a broader backlash here,' [Simon] Johnson said. 'The Goldman precedent puts pressure on people to agree with the Treasury’s offer, and it puts pressure on the Treasury to make a reasonable offer' when setting the price for banks to redeem their warrants, he said."
