So earlier today we wondered whether Speaker John Boehner is going to directly lobby his Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate to walk with him on Paul Ryan's road to recession. As everyone knows, things are not going too well for Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" debacle. Apparently Ryan was so much on the defensive during his speech at the Economic Club of Chicago that he ended up conceding the point that it was President George W. Bush who wrecked America's economy. With this backdrop it is going to be interesting to see which Senate Republicans will step up to embrace Ryan's roadmap to recession.

We have heard that Senator Susan Collins does not want any part of it. Senators Rob Portman and Lamar Alexander backed off from it as well. So which Senate Republican is going to embrace Ryan? Enter Senator Scott Brown.

Apparently Scott Brown is saying "Thank God" for Paul Ryan's budget plan:

"Finally we had congressman Ryan come forth with a budget proposal, thank God, because we haven't had one in a couple years and that now has forced the debate and forced the President actually to come forth with his budget proposal," Brown said.

There is no going back for Brown at this point. His words, blessing Ryan's plan to gut Medicare should be tagged on his forehead from here on out.

Continue reading »

Press Herald:

U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe said Wednesday she would support the repeal of the military policy that prevents gays from serving openly. The announcement came as the U.S. House of Representatives voted on repealing the policy, known as 'don't ask, don't tell.'

“After careful analysis of the comprehensive report compiled by the Department of Defense and thorough consideration of the testimony provided by the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the service chiefs, I support repeal of the 'don’t ask, don’t tell' law,” Snowe said in a statement. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., revived repeal efforts by sponsoring a stand-alone bill minutes after a Senate vote on a larger bill that contained the provision failed last week.

There's great momentum finally behind repealing DADT in Congress after the HOUSE just passed Murphy's standalone bill that seems pretty real. If Snowe and Collins do carry out their plans then it could actually get done.

TPMDC writes:

Snowe was among several theoretical supporters of repeal who said she voted against cloture because of procedural issues: Sens. Scott Brown (R-MA) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) objected to the time allotted to debate the underlying bill; and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said that the timing for repeal was, in his view, not quite right.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) said, on the other hand, that she'd missed the vote because of a dental appointment. So, with Snowe's support, repeal supporters are within 1 vote of cloture -- and a repeal of DADT.

UPDATE: Please join the Courage Campaign and Rep. Murphy on a public conference call taking place at 4PM PST.

Join the Courage Campaign and Representative Patrick Murphy on a short call today at 7 p.m. EST/ 4 p.m. PST.

Sign up filling out the form here.

One of the reasons I don't have any respect for Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe is that, while they maintain their thin candy shells of "moderation," they are more than willing to give protective cover to the far-right fringe of their party. Case in point: Collins was here in Philly this week, raising money for Pat Toomey, the loony-tunes Club for Growth extremist and former Wall Street broker who's running against Joe Sestak.

Why? Probably because the RSCC figured out a real winger (Sam Brownback etc.) wouldn't get much love in a relatively liberal urban area like Philadelphia. Susan was happy to come in and do her part in making her party even more extreme:

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a prominent moderate Republican, raised campaign cash Monday for Pennsylvania GOP Senate nominee Pat Toomey, a conservative who as recently as last year was trying to defeat people such as Collins.

The endorsement could provide ammunition for Toomey against his Democratic opponent, Rep. Joe Sestak, as they battle to seize the middle ground and define each other as an extremist.

After a fund-raising lunch at the Union League, Collins and Toomey said they were united around the core Republican principles of lower taxes, limited government, and individual freedom.

Never mind that the Club for Growth, a free-market advocacy group that Toomey ran until he declared his Senate candidacy last year, had skewered Collins as "Comrade of the Month" for her vote for President Obama's stimulus legislation.

"This is a pivotal race," Collins said. "It is one of those key Senate races that is going to determine whether the Republicans are able to regain control of the Senate or at least increase our numbers so we can be an effective check on the excesses of this administration."

Toomey, who has made a concerted effort to reach out to moderate Republicans ahead of the general election, said that he believes in the same kind of "big tent" party that Collins does.

"As Republicans, there's lots of individual items we're going to disagree about, but there's a broad theme on which we agree," Toomey said.

Sestak's campaign said voters should not be fooled - Toomey is to the right of the Pennsylvania mainstream. It launched "Republicans for Sestak" at an event outside the Constitution Center, where four GOP voters from his Delaware County district praised him.

Toomey is an "ideologue," while Sestak is a "pragmatic, problem-solving" centrist, said Scott Jenkins, an investor and cochairman of the Republicans for Sestak steering committee. He supported Sestak in his first run for Congress, in 2006.

Toomey's campaign released the names of 40 Democrats from across the state who are supporting the former Lehigh Valley congressman, boasting that its cross-partisan group was 10 times bigger than Sestak's. Jonathon Dworkin, spokesman for Sestak, said 40 to 50 people were on the steering committee of Republicans for Sestak.

Tickets to the Collins-Toomey lunch cost $1,000 for individuals and $2,000 for representatives of PACs, according to an invitation to the event. The Toomey campaign declined to say how much was raised

.

The President is heading to NYC on Thursday to tout the new financial reform bill which is still being worked on while the Maine Twins are at it again.

Susan Collins flatly rejected it after meeting with Geithner and said she will filibuster it.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) announced after meeting with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Monday that she will vote to filibuster a Democratic Wall Street reform bill.

Her announcement hurts Democratic chances of moving financial reform legislation through the Senate this week.

--

Collins said she and Geithner found common ground on many areas of financial regulatory reform and urged Democrats to spend several more weeks negotiating the measure. Collins said it was unlikely that her concerns could be addressed within the next few days so that Reid could stick to his schedule...read on.

Meanwhile, Queen Olympia Snowe says that she doesn't mind being the only Republican vote if they work out their differences.

It would be going too far to say Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) is a shoe-in to vote for the Democrats' financial regulatory reform bill. But after a meeting with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner this afternoon, she sounded much more optimistic about the prospects for a swift bipartisan vote on a slightly modified package than she did last week--and that's even if she's the only Republican who ends up voting with the Democrats.

"I'm optimistic that maybe the Democrats won't go forward with the bill as it is," Snowe told reporters outside her office. "Over the next few days, hopefully, something will change to make that possible. I don't see why it would be impossible because frankly I think that there isn't that much of a gap."

Will the Obama Administration trust Snowe again after what she did on HCR? The administration already caved to Mitch McConnell on the 50 billion dollar liquidation fund that would be paid for by Wall Street and he balked anyway. As is the Luntz way, he wants to start all over again. Will Snowe break the filibuster? Good luck with that.

Well, the Senate Dems passed this yesterday. But the bill only applies to the eligibility period. It extends the deadlines for the unemployed to receive extensions, but it doesn't add any additional weeks for the two million Americans whose benefits are running out. Call your senators and tell them we need Tier 5 extensions:

Yesterday the Senate approved HR 4213, the Tax Extenders Act of 2009, by a 62-35 vote. As you can see from the roll call, every Democrat present except Ben Nelson of Nebraska voted for the bill. All but six Republicans (Kit Bond of Missouri, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, David Vitter of Louisiana and George Voinovich of Ohio) voted against it. Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts voted for the cloture motion to let the bill proceed but against the bill.

Senator Tom Harkin's office summarized some of the $140 billion bill's key provisions:

o Extend the current federal unemployment benefits program through Dec 31, 2010.

o Extend the federal funding of the state share of Extended Benefits through Dec 31, 2010.

o Extend eligibility for the temporary increase of $25 per week in individual weekly unemployment compensation through Dec 31, 2010.

o Extend the 65 percent subsidy for COBRA coverage through Dec 31, 2010.

o Extend the Medicare payment fix for doctors.

o Extend FMAP, the federal share of Medicaid payments, to give state budgets some relief.

Last week, Congress passed a 30-day extension of the federal unemployment benefits program (through April 5th) and the extension prior to that continued unemployment benefits for 2 months (from Dec 2009 to Feb 2010).

But Rick Ellis reports that actual extensions are may still in the works as the House and Senate bills are reconciled, although he's doubtful it can be passed and signed before April:

The Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) included in the stimulus package created three tiers of additional coverage. Tier one typically lasts up to 20 weeks, Tier two typically lasts up to 14 weeks, Tier three typically lasts up to 13 weeks. For those who have exhausted a regular unemployment account and federal EUC, there is are also Federal-State Extended Benefits (EB) which can run up to an additional 13 weeks. These numbers vary a bit from state-to-state, but the bottom line is that no one is able to get unemployment benefits longer than a total of 99 weeks.

The current jobs bill doesn't extend any of those tiers or add any additional coverage, such as a fourth or fifth tier.

What it does do is extend the deadlines for people to move from one tier to the next. Prior to the “phase out” period, if an applicant exhausts a tier of EUC benefits, he/she moves to the next tier. If he or she exhausts the third tier of EUC, he or she moves to Federal-State Extended Benefits. Under federal law, when the “phase out” period begins, applicants will no longer be able to move from regular UI to the first tier of EUC or from one tier of EUC to the next.

Instead, if an applicant exhausts regular UI, or the first or second tier of EUC, he or she will move directly to Federal-State Extended benefits. The new legislation moves the beginning of the phase out period from April 5, 2010 to September 5, 2010. But by the end of 2010, everyone's extended benefits will have been exhausted, whether they have moved through all the tiers of coverage or not.

Bottom line: It's important to call your senators and tell them to support an additional Tier 5 extension.

This is encouraging news - at least, until Joe Lieberman and Olympia Snowe decide they don't like it. But if the House Dems pull this off -- national exchange, repeal of the anti-trust exemption and higher subsidies, they might actually come up with a decent plan:

WASHINGTON -- The White House wants to include a national health-insurance exchange in the health bill, which would give House Democrats one of their top remaining demands, according to an official involved in the discussions.

At issue is who would run the new insurance exchanges that would allow consumers to comparison-shop for health coverage. The House's version of the health overhaul calls for the federal government to run a single, national exchange, while the Senate's version would let states run their own exchanges.

President Barack Obama has told House Democrats that he intends to use the Senate bill as the framework for the final legislation. But the administration is pushing for a handful of House-backed provisions, including the federally run exchange, according to the official.

[...] Proponents of a federal exchange say state exchanges could have too few enrollees to function well, or might have enrollees who on average are too sick. Those who favor state exchanges say they would allow for more flexible regulation than one-size-fits-all standards set in Washington.

The White House also is working to increase the amount of the proposed subsidies that would help offset the cost of buying insurance for lower earners. The administration wants to bring them closer to the House levels, and is exploring with lawmakers how to do that while keeping the price tag around $900 billion over a decade, the target set by Mr. Obama.

House leaders are urging the White House to support repealing a decades-old federal antitrust exemption for the insurance industry that is part of its bill but isn't in the Senate's version. Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D., N.Y.), chairwoman of the House Committee on Rules, said Mr. Obama showed openness to the idea in conversations with House leaders.

Insurers say they are already heavily regulated by states, where antitrust laws mirror federal rules prohibiting price-fixing and collusion.

Well yes, insurers are nominally regulated by states, but for some odd reason, no one ever seems to enforce them. Hmm...

As Harry Reid tries to push through a health-care bill in the Senate before Christmas, the ConservaDems and Queen Snowe had to make sure to cut as much out as possible that liberals wanted. Ezra Klein tracks the process as it unfolded, which many of us have followed just as closely:

To move the process forward, Reid had three options. The first, many would say, was reconciliation. But that would have required going back to the committees to refashion a reconciliation bill, and going back to the House of Representatives so it could craft a reconciliation bill, and then going back through the votes. There wasn't time for that, and even if there was, throwing the process so far back onto itself would have been an enormous risk.

The next was to cut a deal with Olympia Snowe. But Snowe had made it clear that part of any compromise with her was a deceleration in the bill's momentum. "The more they try to drive this process in an unrealistic timeframe, the more reluctant I become about whether or not this can be doable in this timeframe that we're talking about," Snowe told reporters. "There's always January."

That left Joe Lieberman. And Lieberman's price for signing onto the bill was the destruction of the public option and, unexpectedly, the Medicare buy-in provision. There would be no triggers, no opt-outs, no compromises. Lieberman swung the axe and cut his deal cleanly, killing not only the public option, but anything that looked even remotely like it. Some on the Hill remain worried that Lieberman will discover new points of contention in the coming days, as they believe he had signaled that he wouldn't filibuster the Medicare buy-in. They worry whether his word is good. But assuming it is, he can provide the 60th vote Reid needs to move the bill by the end of next week, and keep health-care reform on some sort of schedule.

Lieberman is not interested in helping the millions of Americans who need help, but screwing liberals who held him accountable for the Iraq war. Even Jay Rockefeller, who has been so strong on the public option, defended Joe's behavior, seemingly as a way to get a bill passed as soon as possible. Then the Medicare buy-in came up and we celebrated, but of course resident Lieberman couldn't allow to happen.

Digby writes:

Senate Democrats signaled their intention Monday to back away from a plan to expand Medicare, in a bid to break a deepening impasse on sweeping health legislation.

The move came at an evening caucus convened just off the Senate floor, where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) and other party leaders made clear they wanted to head off a widening dispute -- pitting centrists against liberals -- over a proposal that would open Medicare to people below the age of 65.

There you have it. Everyone knows that liberals must lose, so down goes the public option and the Medicare Buy-in. The question remains whether King Joseph will allow the government to help older people with long term care needs or any of the other things that anyone could possibly construe as liberal policies.

I think we have a way to go before this bill is bad enough for him and his cronies to allow the Democrats to commit political suicide with it.

Reconciliation doesn't seem to be the way Harry Reid wants to go because it's a slow process that might not produce any meaningful results.

mcjoan has a nice wrap-up and adds:

At this point, the assistance to the people who need it most is the critical moral and policy decision. Would it be a band-aid? Yes, but even a band-aid can staunch bleeding, and right now that's what we desperately need. The insurance reforms matter a great deal, too, and can be passed through regular process. It will be a lot harder for Senators to stand up and vote to allow insurance companies to continue to deny coverage to the American people.

We have to keep fighting to strengthen the bill before conference. There are millions of people who need our help. We still haven't seen the bill yet, so we're not sure how much it would help America. Howie and I wrote a bunch of posts during the whole general election process that Barack Obama wasn't a progressive, but a moderate Democratic politician.

Anatomy of a Right Wing Myth: Obama is the most liberal Democratic Senator

Anatomy of a Right Wing Myth part II: Obama is the most liberal Democratic Senator

Anatomy of a Right Wing Smear III-Hannity calls Obama #1 Liberal Senator

And here: Anatomy of a Right Wing Smear IV: Steve Doocy: Obama could be the most liberal Senator

That's what his voting record told us. We focused on the National Journal article that tried to paint Obama as the most liberal Senator in Congress -- which was a lie -- and we wanted everybody to be aware of it during the election. And that's where we come in now along with all the other great liberal groups. Many of us believed that one of our major tasks was to keep pushing for as much progressive policies as we could as soon as we took the White House.

Conservatism has been a complete failure as an ideology to govern America. George W. Bush had to promote himself as a new kind of conservative, a Compassionate Conservative who would do things differently, but as soon as he took office that was proved to be another lie. What we witnessed for eight years of Bush was an utter disregard for working class families and a foreign policy that sanctioned torture and the "preemption doctrine." A straw man was needed so Bush and Cheney could manipulate the media to justify an invasion of Iraq that didn't attack us.

A financial bubble was allowed to proceed because without that bubble, Bush's tax cuts and conservative philosophy would have been exposed as another conservative failure before the 2004 election. The end result was a global financial meltdown.

And we can't forget about Hurricane Katrina. We witnessed firsthand how conservatives protected our country during a natural disaster.

We fight as progressives because we have to. America is not a Bill Kristol academic exercise. It's full of real Americans who are worth fighting for as they try to survive. If not for us, who will speak for them?

Recently the Senate passed Sen. Barbara Mikulski's Women's Health Amendment, which requires health insurance companies to provide free mammograms and other preventive health services for women. Sounds good, doesn't it? Women's health needs have traditionally been underserved by the insurance system. But, ironically, the Senate's excise tax will force many women to pay indirectly for these "free" services.

Here's how: For one thing, the cost of the services mandated in the Mikulski Amendment will cause even more health plans to exceed the cost cap for the excise tax. And it's expected that 20% of plans will already be over the limit when the tax takes effect. In practical terms, any added costs for new services provided by these plans (like those mammograms) will be taxable. So, in one very real sense, the Senate plans to tax some of this preventive care for women - at a staggering 40% of cost.

The Mikulski Amendment looks like a step forward, but many women will pay for these services indirectly - in the form of higher premiums or increased out-of-pocket costs. One hand giveth and the other taketh away. And speaking of irony ...

Guess who voted for the Mikulski amendment? Some Senators who haven't even committed themselves to voting for the final bill, including Lieberman, Landrieu, and Snowe (who even cosponsored the amendment. Here's an idea: They can make sure these women's services really remain "free" by supporting the Sanders-Franken-Brown Amendment, which would replace the excise tax with a tax on the extremely wealthy (the way the house does it.)

That would remove the irony in the Senate's actions and replace it with fairness.

Cartoon from Walt Handelsman at Newsday (reg. required for some pages).

No one can predict how today will go, there is some hope that since the Senate likes to appear to be the royalty of the Congress, we might avoid some of the circus antics that Saturday in the House brought. It's unlikely anyone will use procedural objections over and over to silence Barbara Boxer or Olympia Snowe.

It's an open thread for what you're seeing in, and thinking about, today's procedures.

I know I shouldn't feed the ego that is Lieberman, but do you want to know how awesome Joe is, Mr. President?

Read this from the Weekly Standard.

Joementum 2012?

Is he the greatest senator ever? He fought for victory in Iraq, he's fighting for victory in Afghanistan, and he's fighting to save us all from Obamacare. Who needs Olympia Snowe when you've got Joementum?

Posted by Michael Goldfarb on October 27, 2009.

And we must never forget TNR's love for Joe.

(h/t Atrios)

And key Democrats correct Lieberman on the fiscal awesomeness of the public option. Are you listening, Joe?

I wonder how Connecticut feels since they support the public option by a wide margin:

Connecticut voters support 64 - 30 percent giving people the option to buy health insurance from a government plan.

Maybe it'll be Palin/Lieberman 2012 for this new crowd of voters.