Filibuster Reform Reinvigorates Second Term
W. Post on how it helps Obama: "The most immediate effect will be felt at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ... The court is likely to help decide whether Obama can enact new Environmental Protection Agency regulations limiting greenhouse-gas emissions by power plants ... The court is expected to hear a series of other legal challenges as well, including lawsuits related to elements of the Affordable Care Act, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and new air-quality standards ... Obama will now be likely to win confirmation of high-level appointees for numerous agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Housing Finance Agency ..."
Also may help health reform. National Journal: "The Senate's rules change will likely make it much easier for President Obama to fill the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB—a 15-member panel tasked with slowing the growth in Medicare spending. The IPAB is a polarizing piece of the Affordable Care Act: It's been a feature of GOP campaign ads, and the House has voted to repeal it. The IPAB is technically supposed to submit its first proposed cuts in January, but Obama hasn't even nominated anyone to the board yet."
Don't expect a "flood" of judges yet, says HuffPost: "...Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, observes what's known as the 'blue slip rule,' a tradition in the committee that allows senators to advance or block judicial nominees from their home state. Republicans are currently refusing to submit blue slips for four nominees pending in the committee, effectively stalling their entire confirmation process. And they could use that same rule to block others in committee ... [But] Republicans are looking at the possibility of more than a decade of Democratic lifetime judicial appointments, which could go a long way toward Democrats winning back control of the judicial branch after decades of being outmaneuvered by better-organized conservative legal scholars."
Some senators push to expand filibuster reform to legislation. Politico: "Legislation was left out of the rules change that passed on Thursday, but the liberal wing of the caucus wants to reexamine that too ... [Sens. Jeff Merkley and Tom Udall] want to eliminate one 60-vote hurdle and require a talking filibuster to extend debate when the majority moves to choke it off ... Sen. Tom Harkin ... also indicated that he wanted to go further, saying he wants to eliminate the procedural maneuver on legislation."
President Obama helped Sen. Harry Reid get the votes. Politico: "As some of his fellow Democratic senators remained on the fence, Reid called in a heavy hitter to close the deal: President Barack Obama, according to sources familiar with the matter. Obama personally called senators on Wednesday to back the move, and Reid ultimately won the vote on a slim margin, 52-48. Just three Democrats broke with Reid: the retiring Carl Levin of Michigan, the moderate Joe Manchin of West Virginia and the vulnerable Mark Pryor of Arkansas."
Republicans blew it, says The American Prospect's Scott Lemieux: "The real question is why Senate Republicans made such an obvious strategic blunder. The filibuster in general is more beneficial to Republican interests than Democratic ones, and it seems likely that Republicans could have stopped reluctant Democrats from detonating the nuclear option by letting one or two D.C. Circuit nominees get a vote earlier in the process."
Boehner Enrolls In Obamacare
Boehner enrolls in Obamacare. Time: "'Like many Americans, my experience was pretty frustrating,' he wrote, providing screen shots of error messages. The website has been widely criticized for being user unfriendly. But after a few hours, Boehner noted: 'Kept at it, and called the DC Health Link help line. They called back a few hours later, and after re-starting the process on the website two more times, I just heard from DC Health Link that I have been successfully enrolled.'"
"Patient advocacy group says health policy cancellations are being overblown" reports McClatchy: "Of the 15.2 million people with individual health insurance, the analysis finds that 71 percent, or 10.8 million people would either qualify for Medicaid or federal subsidies that would substantially offset the cost of new coverage purchased through the state and federal insurance marketplaces ... if one-third of [the remaining] individual policy holders would leave the market within a year - as most individual policy holders do - that leaves roughly 1.5 million people out of 267 million Americans under age 65 who're at risk of losing their individual coverage and not receiving any financial assistance."
Republican governors fight each other over Obamacare's Medicaid expansion. NYT: "'I said no,' Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin said, 'because if I took the Medicaid expansion I’d be dependent on the same federal government that can’t get a basic website up...' ... Gov. Rick Perry of Texas ... used even more vivid language. 'It’s like putting 1,000 more people on the Titanic when you knew what was going to happen,' ... In defending Medicaid, [OH Gov. John Kasich] spoke at length about the scourge of drug addiction and challenges faced by those with mental illnesses. 'It’s going to save lives,' he said. 'It’s going to help people, and you tell me what’s more important than that.'"
California enrollment builds. NYT: "Nearly 80,000 people have enrolled in health plans through California’s online marketplace, at a rate of several thousand a day in November — a sizable increase over a month ago ..."
California also rejects loosening grandfather clause. Reuters: "The announcement on Thursday by the most populous U.S. state, an early supporter of Obama's Affordable Care Act, marked the latest state to reject the president's fix ... '[We] spent a lot of time structuring a marketplace that's best for consumers,' the exchange's executive director, Peter Lee, told the board before it voted on Thursday."
Push To Expand Social Security
Paul Krugman backs expanding Social Security: "...there’s a strong case for expanding, not contracting, Social Security. Yes, this would cost money, and it would require additional taxes — a suggestion that will horrify the fiscal scolds, who have been insisting that if we raise taxes at all, the proceeds must go to deficit reduction, not to making our lives better. But the fiscal scolds have been wrong about everything, and it’s time to start thinking outside their box."
Budget negotiators avoiding Social Security. W. Post: "people close to the talks said [Sen. Patty] Murray and [Rep. Paul] Ryan have agreed to jettison for now any discussion of tax increases or cuts to federal health benefits — each side’s hot button — and focus instead on a more politically neutral category of potential savings known as 'other mandatories.' ... It contains some spending reductions, including in farm subsidies that both parties support, and smaller contributions to civil employee pensions. But most other items would raise money for the Treasury through, for example, broadband spectrum auctions, increased aviation fees and higher fees for companies whose private pensions are insured by the federal government."
Breakfast Sides
Boehner keeps immigration alive. W. Post: "House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday that immigration reform is 'absolutely not' a dead issue, but he offered no timetable for when he might schedule a vote on legislation ... Boehner insisted Thursday that his colleagues are still pursuing smaller-scale immigration bills, and said he was encouraged by recent suggestions that President Obama could support a piecemeal approach. At a forum with business executives this week, Obama said the House could divide a comprehensive plan into smaller measures, provided that each of the bills was approved."
"Second wind" coming for Wall Street reform, says TNR's David Dayen: "[Sens. Sherrod] Brown and [David] Vitter commissioned a study from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to quantify the public subsidy bestowed on banks, which could give them powerful evidence to rally support for their legislation. GAO released the first part of the study last week ... It details how banks received trillions of dollars in capital injections, emergency lending and debt guarantees during the financial crisis, offered with more favorable terms than they could have found in the private market, and secured by junk collateral that non-government lenders would never accept ... Nobody is better positioned to put this new set of facts from the GAO to use than the Warren wing of the Democratic Party."
US, China climate interests increasingly overlap. NYT: " The more productive relationship is raising hopes that the friction of recent years may be easing, paving the way for a new global climate change treaty in 2015 ..."
