Motley Moose – Archive

By: inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

The electoral college is one of the lingering undemocratic parts of American politics. Unlike almost every other country in the world, America elects its presidents not via the popular vote but rather via a strange system of “electoral votes” distributed by states. The good news is that this system generally reflects the popular will. The bad news is that it occasionally fails, as last happened in 2000.

Since then there has been a push to reform the electoral college so that all states cast their electoral votes for the winners of the popular vote. Currently half the states needed to implement the reform have signed on.

More below.

 I admit it – I am a romantic.  I grew up with my view of the Senate of the United States colored by Frank Capra's tale (and Jimmy Stewart's portrayal) of the trials and tribulation of Jefferson Smith in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  This holds especially true for my view of the filibuster. Filibusters should look like what Jeff Smith did — one man, standing up in the well of the Senate for what they believe in.  But, that hasn't been the case for, at a minimum, the past 4-6 years.   As the Brennan Center report on Filibuster Abuse  (PDF) demonstrates:

Filibuster Abuse is Rampant:      As of October 2012, the current Congress has enacted 196 public laws, the lowest output of any Congress since at least World War II. This is not purely the result of divided party control of chambers. Control of the House and Senate was also divided from 1981 to 1987 and 2001 to 2003.     The current Senate passed a record-low 2.8 percent of bills introduced in that chamber, a 66 percent decrease from 2005-2006, and a 90 percent decrease from the high in 1955-1956.     Cloture motions — the only way to forcibly end a filibuster — have skyrocketed since 2006, creating a de facto 60-vote requirement for all Senate business.     In the last three Congresses, the percentage of Senate floor activity devoted to cloture votes has been more than 50 percent greater than any other time since at least World War II, leaving less time for consideration of substantive measures.     On average, it has taken 188 days to confirm a judicial nominee during the current Congress, creating 32 “judicial emergencies,” as designated by the Office of U.S. Courts. Only at the end of the congressional term in 1992 and 2010 have there been more judicial emergencies.

 I'm not going to pretend to look at the issue in all its complexity here, but I do wish to look at one aspect of reform efforts that many have fixed upon — the talking filibuster — and contrast that with the proposal towards which, according to Politico , Harry Reid is leaning.  

One of the most important health care reforms would be to get rid an inefficient, outdated tax exemption that is still a fundamental part of U.S. policy.

This is how it works. If a company provides health insurance to its employees, the federal government does not tax the health benefits that are being provided. Say you have an insurance policy worth $5,000. Said company deducts a part of the employee’s salary – say, $1,000 – for “health insurance.”  But the majority of the cost – the other $4,000 – is hidden, because the company negotiates with health providers itself. This is an enormous tax exemption, amounting to the biggest the federal government gives.

On the surface, it sounds like a good idea. Who wouldn’t want to encourage a companies to provide health insurance?

The problem lies in the unintended consequences of this tax exemption.

More below.

Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the wife of the late Ted Kennedy, has an op-ed in the Washington Post. It is well worth a read. I really don’t have a lot to add to it.

My late husband, Ted Kennedy, was passionate about health-care reform. It was the cause of his life. He believed that health care for all our citizens was a fundamental right, not a privilege, and that this year the stars — and competing interests — were finally aligned to allow our nation to move forward with fundamental reform. He believed that health-care reform was essential to the financial stability of our nation’s working families and of our economy as a whole.

…

As President Obama noted to Congress this fall, for Ted, health-care reform was not a matter of ideology or politics. It was not about left or right, Democrat or Republican. It was a passion born from the experience of his own life, the experience of our family and the experiences of the millions of Americans across this country who considered him their senator, too.

The bill before Congress will finally deliver on the urgent needs of all Americans. It would make their lives better and do so much good for this country. That, in the end, must be the test of reform. That was always the test for Ted Kennedy. He’s not here to urge us not to let this chance slip through our fingers. So I humbly ask his colleagues to finish the work of his life, the work of generations, to allow the vote to go forward and to pass health-care reform now. As Ted always said, when it’s finally done, the people will wonder what took so long.

The House is holding court leading up to the likely vote on healthcare this weekend – perhaps even today.  Will healthcare reform pass into law in the foreseeable future?  Will it look like something that most people can be happy with?

Consider this an open thread for following and discussing the pertinent happenings.

When you wake up in the morning and rub the sleep out of your eyes are you surprised to find a great shadowy figure in the room? We are past the Fourth and the “let’s celebrate America” holiday feeling only to find that the lobbyists continued to move forward while we were distracted by fireworks and speeches.

The Wapo points out this morning that a large number of former inner-office employees of Max Baucus and Charles Grassley and other active Congressional committee members are being snatched up by lobbying organizations: