Obama And Boehner Meet Again
Obama, Boehner Meet for Hour at White House [ABC News]: "Disentangled from showdowns or looming crises, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner held a rare one-on-one Oval Office meeting Tuesday addressing potential areas of common ground that could lay a foundation for more ambitious goals like immigration and trade that remain long shots for action this year. Aides to both political rivals described the talks as "constructive," but neither side signaled any significant breakthroughs. ... The meeting took on special meaning because they are so infrequent. When they last met alone in December 2012, the two were in a standoff over taxes and spending during deficit-reduction talks. A new budget deal last month put those kinds of confrontations behind them."
White House Meeting Turns Into a Lightning Round for Obama and Boehner [NY Times]: "resident Obama and Speaker John A. Boehner sat across from each other for an hour on Tuesday in the leather-bound chairs of Mr. Obama’s office and quickly ticked through a remarkably long list of issues. ... All told, they spent about five and a half minutes on each of the subject areas. ... But while the meeting offered a rare moment for private sharing by the leaders of America’s two dominant political parties, few of their colleagues expect it to lead to any legislative breakthroughs. Aides to both men on Tuesday called it “constructive” but offered no evidence that Washington gridlock is over."
Obamacare Enrollment Up
Obamacare enrollment hits 4 million [Politico]: "About 4 million people have signed up for health coverage in the new Obamacare exchanges since Oct. 1 with just over a month left for people to enroll, federal officials said late Tuesday. That total is up from 3.3 million enrolled at the end of January. In a blog post, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Marilyn Tavenner released the new number of signups through the state and federal exchanges. But she provided few details and no demographic breakdown, such as the number of young adults who have signed up or the percentage who have paid their premiums. Tavenner said health officials continue to see “strong demand nationwide” and that more than 12 million calls have come into the federal call center since the fall."
Dean Baker explains why Obamacare is scary for people who want their toilets cleaned on the cheap: "A major part of the story is that Obamacare will allow people to get health care outside of the workplace. ... This means that millions of people will no longer be tied to their jobs in the same way as they had been previously. ... This was the basis for the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) assessment that the ACA would reduce the supply of labor by 2 percent. CBO calculated that several million people would either cut back their work hours or leave the labor force altogether. ...While CBO didn't explore this issue, other things equal, a reduction in the supply of labor would be expected to lead to a rise in its price. In other words, wages would rise. That would be good news for workers who have seen their wages stagnate for more than three decades.
Governors "Playing Politics With People's Lives"
ThinkProgress covers how Georgia governor Nathan Deal is trying to avoid responsibility for denying health care to 600,000 poor people: "Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) has the power to follow several other GOP governors’ lead and negotiate an alternative to the Affordable Care Act’s optional Medicaid expansion — a provision that would extend basic health benefits to more than 600,000 of the poorest Georgians — with the Obama administration. Instead, Deal’s administration is pushing a GOP-sponsored state bill that would take the matter out of the executive branch’s hands and require lawmakers to give legislative approval to any Medicaid expansion plan. Deal has always been open about his support for the proposed bill, HB 990. But emails obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution under Georgia’s Open Records Act show that Deal’s staff actually helped write and even strengthen the legislation."
GOP running from health-care-law label but not health-care-law money [Washington Post]: "In the bitterly partisan debate over the Affordable Care Act, few House members criticized the proposed legislation as harshly or as often as then-Rep. Mike Pence. But now, nearly four years after the measure passed on a party-line vote, Pence, now Indiana’s governor, is asking the federal government for ACA money to expand a program that provides coverage to low-income Hoosiers. But he wants to do it outside the confines of the health-care law. Pence is among a small but growing number of GOP governors and lawmakers looking for alternatives to expanding Medicaid. They don’t want to be seen embracing a law that is almost universally loathed in their party, but the hundreds of millions of dollars available to their states through the law’s provisions are too enticing to pass up."
Kathleen Sebelius: GOP Governors Are 'Playing Politics With People's Lives' On Medicaid [Huffington Post]: "Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius lashed out at GOP governors on Tuesday for 'playing politics' on Medicaid expansion. In an interview with HuffPost Live, Sebelius lamented the struggle of residents in several states -- namely North Carolina, Texas, Georgia and Florida -- where Medicaid expansion has not been taken up as part of the Affordable Care Act. 'Unfortunately, what I think we have in a large case is governors playing politics with people's lives and people's health,' Sebelius said. 'There's no reason that this return on investment isn't a very positive thing because there's a cost of doing nothing in those states.'
Out of Afghanistan
Obama prepared to leave no troops in Afghanistan after 2014 [Reuters]: "U.S. President Barack Obama has told the Pentagon to prepare for the possibility that the United States will not leave behind any troops in Afghanistan after its troop drawdown at the end of this year, the White House said on Tuesday. Obama said he had given the order to the Pentagon in a phone call on Tuesday to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has refused to sign a bilateral security agreement that the United States insists it must have before agreeing to leave a contingent of troops behind. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was carrying the modified U.S. position to Brussels for discussion during a meeting with NATO defense ministers that starts on Wednesday."
Obama orders Pentagon to prepare for complete withdrawal from Afghanistan [ Washington Post]: "President Obama has ordered the Pentagon to begin formally preparing for a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Tuesday, signaling that the Obama administration increasingly sees that as a possible outcome. The order, Hagel said in a statement, came after Obama determined that it is unlikely that Afghan President Hamid Karzai will sign a long-delayed bilateral security agreement, “which would provide [Defense] personnel with critical protections and authorities after 2014.
Cheney Takes Aim at Obama's Military Budget
Cheney Bashes Food Stamps In Pro-Military Rant, Forgetting Military Families Rely On Them [Huffington Post]: "Former Vice President Dick Cheney (R) on Monday accused President Barack Obama of caring more about handing out food stamps than developing a 'strong military,' even though military families redeemed more than $100 million in food stamps on military bases in 2013. Cheney’s comments came in response to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s proposal to scale back the U.S. Army to its smallest size in 74 years by closing bases and tightening spending. 'I have not been a strong supporter of Barack Obama, but this really is over the top. It does enormous long-term damage to our military,' Cheney said during an interview on Fox News' 'Hannity.' Obama 'would much rather spend the money on food stamps than he would on a strong military or support for our troops.'"
Kevin Drum says Obama is fighting cuts to the military, not demanding them: "You might disagree with Obama's priorities, but Cheney's claim is based entirely on the notion that Hagel and Obama are proposing military cuts. But they aren't. Hagel proposed a change in force structure that would lead to a smaller Army, but his overall budget proposal is $115 billion more than the current sequester levels demanded by Republicans. Hagel is going to have plenty of fights on his hands, but mainly because he wants more money, not less."
Michael Cohen notes that the U.S. will still have 450,000 active duty soldiers despite cuts: "'Hagel plans to shrink the United States Army to its smallest force since before World War II,' blared the lede in yesterday's New York Times. The Defense Department 'proposed cutting the Army to its smallest size in 74 years,' said the Washington Post. On the surface this language – and the proposal to cut the army's active force to between 440,000 to 450,000 troops – made the announcement of the Pentagon's five-year budget blueprint seem like an historic event. But only in the alternate universe of Washington DC could a reduction of the active force from a wartime peak of 570,000 to 450,000 be portrayed in such a manner. And, of course, only in Washington could it be described by a Dick Cheney as doing 'enormous long-term damage to our military'. This is the same Dick Cheney, by the way, who when he was Secretary of Defense cut the size of the active force from 770,000 in 1989 to 572,000 in 1993."
