This is bang-my-head-against-the-wall frustrating:
House Democrats are likely to jettison family planning funds for the low-income from an $825 billion economic stimulus bill, officials said late Monday, following a personal appeal from President Barack Obama at a time the administration is courting Republican critics of the legislation.
[ . . . ]
Under the provision, states no longer would be required to obtain federal permission to offer family planning services — including contraceptives — under Medicaid, the health program for the low-income.
Yes, that’s right, the Democrats will be caving to the Taliban-aping GOP. The “controversial” idea here is that states could automatically elect to use their federal Medicaid funding to cover services that they’re presently providing with state funds.  In other words, states would no longer be the ones paying for condoms and such for low-income Medicaid recipients, thus freeing up the state to use its tax revenues to meet other needs while ensuring that contraception is still available.  Seems pretty straightforward, no? And since it’s up to each state to make this election, it should appeal to those conservatives who are always claiming that issues like this should be decided at the state level (in theory, anyway – I’ve found that that’s more often than not still as much a cover as “states’ rights” used to be).  And yet here Democrats are, allowing something as simple as plain contraception to be treated as some divisive issue? I’m sorry, didn’t the American public just spend two years throwing out the theocracy supporters? And Democrats react like this? Pathetic.
sasha
No silly, it’s multi-hundred million dollar gift to the “abortion industry”. It’s also somehow racist and elitist.
Get with the program. You’ll never get to be a republican at this rate.
EJ
Putting aside the abortion or just birth control, etc, the problem here is, this is NOT “stimulus.” This is ramming something random into a bill that was wanted anyway and this is just an excuse to pass it while no one in watching. It’s essentially the equivalent of a special interest pork project hidden in a bill with other purpose. The GOP is then obviously using this for political gain as an example of the waste; I by no means take this as any sincere outrage on their part. However, that doesn’t change the principle of it.
Obama is ultimately the one calling the House Dems off. Remember that whole “post partisan” bs? He has to play the “change” look for a little bit as to not just look like another partisan hack. Now sure the House dems could just ram through whatever they wanted and that would be within their ability, but if I do recall correctly were not the dems bitching about the GOP not respecting their minority views when they were in power? Weren’t all of them about “changing the way Washington works?” You got to go along with that facade for a little while don’t you?
All the House needs to do is propose a separate bill on that issue and pass it on its own merits. But then again if that were how it was going to work the entire “stimulusâ€, which is just a amalgamation of various projects members of congress wanted anyway, would be thrown out. This bill’s dynamics are very similar to the Patriot Act in that its proponents just used crisis as an excuse to pass something they wanted all along. And if you have any fundamental problem with that type of system, for the same reason why you are upset with the Patriot Act, you should be upset the way this entire bill is being or orchestrated.
MB
Sure it is. States spend an enormous amount of money to provide these services right now, and this frees up those funds to be directed to otherwise unmet needs in the state. Which is where “conservatives” are forever telling us decisions need to be made, no? Or is that where the shell game then switches over to arguing that the state has no business meeting these needs?
But let’s say that it’s not stimulus. I’m with you on the general principle that bills ought not be laden with additional measures not primary to the purpose of the bill. But there are two points that – for me – take precedence over that. The first is that while I support that general principle, legislation has almost never worked like that (and certainly, my problem with the PATRIOT Act wasn’t in the fact that it had amendments not germane to the purpose – it was the substance of the laws themselves). The second point is that something is that Democrats shouldn’t let the Republicans turn something as widely supported as basic access to contraception into a yet another party trick for its fundraising letters (or, even scarier, into an actual acceptable policy position for its fundie base).
As for “post partisan”, that requires the Republicans to participate in good faith. Otherwise, it’s called being a “sucker”. The Republicans, as individual electeds and as a party, have demonstrated zero good faith (and zero actual ability to govern, failing spectacularly across the full spectrum of government). I don’t blame anyone who would laugh at them if they all of a sudden start claiming concern about things like comity, effective policy, or principled conservatism. Obama might have to keep a straight face about that, but I certainly don’t.
EJ
First off, this birth control provision is a permanent spending program. Keynesian fiscal stimulus, as this is being touted as being, calls for temporary fiscal expenditures. Furthermore, it also calls for the stimulus spending to be concentrated in the areas in which there is most of the idle labor and capital. In this case, that would be construction workers, manufacturing, mortgage finance and so on and all the way down the supply chain. Birth control related industries and health care in general is not an area in which there are a lot of unemployed or excess capital. Therefore any spending in these areas, in the short run anyway, will primarily just crowd out existing private or public use of the resources only shifting them from one use to another. It has no positive macro economic benefits then as a whole. If you were worried about the states having to lay people off because of budget shortfalls, then temporary loans or grants could be given and then the states could allocate such funds to their needs. The reality is, this measure has nothing to do with stimulus. It doesn’t even fit within the Keynesian model, never mind any “right” leaning economic schools.
Now perhaps I wasn’t clear, but I was not comparing the patriot act and this stimulus bill in the sense that there are unrelated provisions. I was comparing the two in the sense that their supporters wanted these things all along and were/ are just using the crisis of the day when the electorate is in panic as an excuse to pass things they wanted all along. Crisis is the health of the state. That was my point. Iraq too. Many in the Bush administration wanted to go after Sadam all along and just needed the excuse to do so. Likewise many want all this new spending and programs and now just need the excuse to implement them. All that “fiscal irresponsibility” of the Bush tax cuts, of which the parts the Dems want to overturn, which amounts to something like $60-80 billion per year- well they (the dems) have about $150 to $200 billion in new permanent spending programs built into this bill (NOT stimulus). Im sure when this is all over, and we have a much larger structure deficit, the dems in Congress will not be blaming their own spending rampages as the cause.
MB
I direct you back to the first sentence in my response – it frees up the state to spend that committed money elsewhere (say, those industries you mention). It’s sort of like the argument we’re always getting about tax cuts (which are *always* the answer) – the money will find its way to the place it needs to be. All that said, I’m not terribly committed to the defense of its classification as stimulus. I am quite happy, however, to stand behind it as good public policy.
You’ll get no argument from me that Congress uses panic and hyperbole to push through preformed agendas.
You will, however, get an ample bit of evidence for my claim that the GOP deserves zero credit for operating in good faith – just look at today’s vote. Not a single House Republican voted in favor, even after all that accommodation.
sasha
Any bets on the Democrats finding their spines while the bill is in conference?
MB
Doesn’t sound like it. Sen. Stabenow & Feingold seem to indicate that they’re not going to fight for it in the Senate, and if it doesn’t show up there, it certainly won’t in conference.
EJ
“You will, however, get an ample bit of evidence for my claim that the GOP deserves zero credit for operating in good faith – just look at today’s vote. Not a single House Republican voted in favor, even after all that accommodation.”
What is the “all the accomidation” that you speak of? Because the Dems removed birth control funding, that was a farse anyway in a “stimulus bill”, that meant they were being accomidating? And even that onyl happened after Obama strong armed them into doing it. The dems want to pass a $900 billion bill and removing some minescule line is accomedation?
If the effort here was to truely create something bipartisan, they should have started this bill off in a narrow manner, much like supreme court justices often try to keep the ruiling narrow in order to create consensus. If this bill actually was a stimulus bill and did what it was suppoed to do as Larry Summers describes it ought to be, “Temporary, targetted and timely,” which is by the way what Kenysian policy calls for in the first place, there would have been a lot more GOP support. This in NOT a stimulus bill.
Now the dems by no means need to have bi-partisan support. They can go ram through whatever they want; they have the votes for it and they are not obligated to listen to the GOP if they don’t want to. But if Obama truely wants this to be bi-partisan you can’t bundle a package togther that is a Christmas tree of every wish every democrat interest group has wanted in the past decade and then say “we are being bipartisan.” This is like if the GOP of recent years bundled together a bill reauthorizing wire tapping, funding iraq, banning partial birth abortion, cutting the capital gains tax and putting it all into one vote and then blaming the dem’s for voting against it because they didn’t except their “accomidation” of adding a few billion for unemployment benifits.
I really hope you can see this.