The bump is a bump in the polls. Current polling says that a small majority of Americans are now in favor of the health care reform bill. So much for the Republican argument that “we have to stop this thing because the people don’t want it.” Nate Silver explains why he thinks the bump will fade a bit but not go away completely.
The Grind is the continued effort by Republicans to derail it. Part of the deal the Senate Dems made with the House Dems was to pass the reconciliation package unaltered. So Republicans are trying to load it up with junk and daring the Dems to note vote for it, like a provision to prohibit sex offenders from purchasing viagra. If Dems don’t include that, see, it must be because they sympathize with sex offenders.
Are challenges to the constitutionality of the mandate a real threat? Zachary Roth at TPM says could be, James Rosen of McClatchy Newspapers says probably not.
If you read nothing else today, be sure it’s David Leonhardt’s column in the New York Times:
For all the political and economic uncertainties about health reform, at least one thing seems clear: The bill that President Obama signed on Tuesday is the federal government’s biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago.
Over most of that period, government policy and market forces have been moving in the same direction, both increasing inequality. The pretax incomes of the wealthy have soared since the late 1970s, while their tax rates have fallen more than rates for the middle class and poor.
Nearly every major aspect of the health bill pushes in the other direction. This fact helps explain why Mr. Obama was willing to spend so much political capital on the issue, even though it did not appear to be his top priority as a presidential candidate. Beyond the health reform’s effect on the medical system, it is the centerpiece of his deliberate effort to end what historians have called the age of Reagan.
Update: Tea Party could hurt GOP in the midterms.
Update: Thanks to alert reader Bob for this.
This didn’t take long. Is Chuckles the clown the first to belly up to the buffet?
Shouldn’t it be some staffers job to make sure their congress critters take their meds in the morning?
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/grassley-look-how-great-this-health-care-bill-is.php
It saddens me to see what some people in this country have become. Not even a pretend – “I never meant for anything like this to happen”
“Do you mean I posted his brother’s address on my Facebook? Oh well, collateral damage.â€
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/03/24/the-party-of-personal-responsibility/
As I read up onthe Constitutional issue, I run across the issue of ‘standing’. A ot of the AG’s want to argue the case on issues where they lack ‘standing’.
The concept is based on the fact that the court won’t hear hypotheticals. If it hasn’t happened, as with the case of the mandate until 2014, the court is being asked to nullify what MIGHT happen. Generally, they won’t. I don’t expect the High Court to rule on the mandate until 2015 or later. According to an article I read this afternoon, the issues where the states do have standing is cost to the states, but that’s weak because they are reimbursed (if I recall) all but 10% of the cost and an argument could be made that when you factor in other savings, even that 10% isn’t a net impositon.
My last comment didn’t show up?
It appears the mandate was a Republican idea.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/3460142
Not many people are talking about this, but it scares the crap out of me:
It’s the glass-breaking at the offices of Democrat’s who voted for the health care bill. I know it’s not on the same scale, but it has to stop before it does and becomes an American version of “Kristallnacht (the “Night of the Broken Glass” in November of 1938 in Germany);” because eliminationist thinking WILL lead, and now has led, to violence. If it stops at breaking glass we may be ok. But that will probably only wet the appetite of those prone to violence.
Oh, and I know I don’t need to remind readers here, but maybe someone should give Jonah Goldberg a history lesson and tell him that the glass was broken by the Nazi’s, who were Fascist’s, and NOT THE JEWS! It was “CONSERVATIVE” Fascism, Jonah, and Glenn.
But of course, these are the act of lone wolves, and don’t represent the Tea Bag movement, right Jonah and Glenn? Uhm, yeah, “RIGHT!!!”
Start to talk about it, and maybe the media will pick it up: “KRISTALLNACHT!!!” Hell, maybe even Bill Kristol may have to write some insipid article against it, lest it be tied to him.
“KRISTALLNACHT!!!” Rinse and repeat…
Gulag, I’ve also been worried about the acts of vandalism against House Dems; it strikes me as a serious turning point for the worse. Terrorism isn’t a question of scale, or even of affiliation with some international group (both bogus, after-the-fact definitions). If someone tries to intimidate our elected representatives (yes, Righties, even if it involves a vote on invading another country), that person is a terrorist. All those gun threats that preceded the HCR vote should be taken seriously too. I hope the yahoos with those signs got visits from the Secret Service (but I doubt any of them did).