maha has a post titled "Shooting Ourselves In the Foot." I'm less interested in the specifics of her post, which are a critique of FDL, but instead of her title. To me, it exemplifies a problem that Dem bloggers are not grasping - a lot of folks are not thinking of the Democratic Party as "ourselves." Haranguing them for feeling that way is not a political remedy for that problem. I touched on this issue in a post last Friday:

[L]et's accept the premise that internal carping has damaged Democratic electoral chances. So what do you do about that? Do you try and shout down the Left Flank of the Democratic Party in an off year election cycle? Is that really the thing to do? Of course not. What you do is pander address the concerns of this important disaffected sector.

To my way of thinking, maha's type of reaction is the actual "Shooting Ourselves In The Foot."

Speaking for me only

Via this dkos diary, Evan Bayh:

“I do think there’s a chance that Congressional elites mistook their mandate,” Mr. Bayh said. “I don’t think the American people last year voted for higher taxes, higher deficits and a more intrusive government. But there’s a perception that that is what they are getting.”

The continuing struggle for what the Democratic Party will represent can not be seen through the lens of Obama's personality and political fortunes. There are different segments of the Party arguing for their views. Poms poms for Obama do not help progressives. There must be a Left Flank arguing for their view.

Speaking for me only

In an editorial today, the NYTimes claims:

The proposed excise tax on high-cost plans is the most significant measure in either bill to slow the relentless rise in health care spending.

Can someone provide the evidence for this claim? I have never seen anything but assertions. Since an excise tax on health insurance plans has never been implemented to my knowledge, there is actually no evidence to support this claim. There are ARGUMENTS for why this would be the case, but no evidence. This is an experiment. It would work better as one of the pilot programs in the proposals that are being so highly touted. Try it with folks earning over 250,000 a year and see how it works. Then we will see if indeed the excise tax is a "significant measure to slow the relentless rise is health care spending."

Speaking for me only

[I]f you think that the administration will simply give up on the excise tax -- which does them virtually no good in the first 10 years anyway -- why is it in there at all? It's unpopular with their allies and wins them no friends among their enemies. Indeed, it's easy to see why so few presidents attempt cost control: You get hammered by the people who usually like you and dismissed by the people who usually like cost controls but don't fundamentally trust you. That leaves you with, well, virtually no one.

(Emphasis supplied.) In addition to accepting the false right wing frame that Republicans "like cost controls" (they don't), Ezra's argument is belied by the fact that the Obama Administration abandoned the most effective cost control measure that was proposed for health care reform - the public option:

Ezra Klein:

The excise tax, by contrast, does not have progressive rates -- it's just a flat 40 percent. If health benefits were treated as wages, then a middle-class worker with a $27,000 health-care plan would've paid much less in taxes than a Goldman Sachs trader with a $27,000 health-care plan. With the excise tax, the two will pay the same rate.

(Emphasis supplied.) Indeed. But then Ezra levels a strange, disingenuous critique at the House Dems:

Some folks are up in arms because union leaders protected their membership in their negotiations on the health bill (David Dayen has some details.)

I think people misunderstand precisely what the job of a union leader is - hint - it is not to protect non-union members. Anyone non-union who was counting on the unions to defend their interests probably also believed Obama was going to change politics.

I hold no grudge against the unions. They did their jobs. Folks who want the excise tax fixed further need to understand that fighting for that is their job, not the unions.

Speaking for me only

This dkos diary provides me an opening to AGAIN republish my 2007 They All Disappoint post:

The great Teddy Pendergrass passed away last night. My favorite work from Pendergrass was when he sang for Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. Here is "The Love I Lost" from 1973.

And here is Teddy in 1979 (Teddy was paralyzed from the waist down in an auto accident in 1982) solo doing "Close the Door"

He was a great one. Rest in peace.

d-day writes:

You may think that House Democrats warning that the health care bill is in a lot of trouble reflects nothing more than posturing. Why is Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) saying in the above clip that the bill might go down on the first pass and then return to the House before it passes? Consider the math. [. . .] Maybe Nancy Pelosi can flip some of the no votes, especially with the more conservative Senate bill being the base, and the public option likely dead. [. . . But] there will not be more than a small handful of no-to-yes flips available. [. . .] But there’s a HUGE universe of yes-to-no flips that are at least possible. [. . .] Virtually everyone in the Democratic caucus has some problem or other with the bill.

The problem is that the Obama Administration and the Senate Dems acted with too much hubris. They have produced a bill that virtually no one likes and many detest. There is, as d-day notes, little political upside for anyone in this bill. The Ben Nelsons and Blanche Lincolns never wanted to vote for a health bill in any form. Accomodating them has created a situation where they may still be Nos and a whole bunch of progressives in the House may be nos. This is looking like a debacle. Reconciliation may be the only way to save it.

Speaking for me only

Matt Yglesiasdemonstrates again that Democrats do not know how to bargain. In this case, he points to the fact that insurance companies are running ads against the health bill. Yglesias states that:

The fact of the matter is that even though the new mandate/subsidy structure will give at least some insurers a bunch of new customers, the medium-run trajectory of reform is bad for private insurers.

Let's suppose it is. That has little to do with the health insurance industry's strategy here. They are bargaining STILL. Let's accept that the status quo is their preferred result. That does not mean that they will not try and shape the bill to be more to their liking. Indeed, that is what they have done and will continue to do. More . . .

Kevin Drum is engaged in a discussion with Scott Winship about whether middle class wages are stagnating. It is an interesting discussion, but I want to focus on one part of Winship's analysis:

[T]he Economic Policy Institute estimates that the median male worker’s hourly wage was $16.88 in 1973 and $16.85 in 2007. However, EPI’s figures show that when fringe benefits are taken into account, the median male worker’s hourly compensation increased by somewhere between 5 and 10 percent over this period.

(Emphasis supplied.) Setting aside the accuracy of Winship's analysis, what is striking is the inclusion of fringe benefits as income. The biggest fringe benefit is of course health insurance. Currently, health insurance benefits are not taxed. But the proposed excise tax would indeed tax them. As R.J. Eskow notes, even given the rosy assumption of a 1:1 transfer of fringe benefit value to wages, such transfer will lead to a reduction in after tax income:

I have been stressing this question and am pleased to see others beginning to look at it as well. Ezra has a good post:

In the House/Senate negotiations, Democrats want to make three major changes to the health-care bill, all of which cost money. First, they want to weaken the excise tax, which means less revenue. Second, they want to increase the subsidies, which means more spending. And third, they want to extend some version of the Nebraska deal federalizing the Medicaid expansion to all the states. That, again, is pricey. So where does all the new money come from?

One answer? Applying the Medicare tax to all forms of income above 250K per year: