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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/ - Economic and Domestic Policy, and Lots of It
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Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and Ben Nelson have all said they're voting for cloture now. That makes 60, at least barring any surprises. The bill can pass go.
But that's all it can do, at least for now. Today's cloture vote is so Democrats can begin debate and modification of the bill. ...
Congress
Harry Reid
Blanche Lincoln
United States
voices.washingtonpost.com - 5 hours ago
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voices.washingtonpost.com —
Ron Brownstein's latest column is probably the best
thing written on both the delivery-system reforms and the
cost controls built into the Senate bill. Read it.
(more)
Read Ron Brownstein
Comments
vote down
Daily Kos
found this 5 hours agofound this
voices.washingtonpost.com - 23 hours ago
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voices.washingtonpost.com —
David Broder has a column today expressing skepticism
that health-care reform will really cut the deficit. But
he doesn't provide much evidence for the charge. The specific budget gimmick mentioned in the column is that Reid has delayed the ...
(more)
You can't cut the deficit without a bill that cuts the ...
The Senate is -- sigh -- "debating" health-care reform. Actually, to be more technical about it, they are debating whether to move forward to debating health-care reform. But as with the House, there's no real debate here, and few votes are up for grabs. Which is, I guess, as it should be. It ...
Congress
Harry Reid
1) Sarah Palin's foreign policy doctrine, or lack thereof.
2) A small win for Ron Wyden and choice.
3) Brad DeLong is puzzled by America's political economy.
4) Paul Krugman on the "phantom menace," though not the one you're thinking of.
Recipe of the day : My family won't go for ...
Other
That's economist Jonathan Gruber's take, anyway. He's got a new analysis of the revised excise tax that's present in the Senate plan. The takeaway numbers are that the tax is expected to raise net worker wages from 2013 through 2019 by $234 billion, resulting in an average wage increase of $700 ...
Other
Harry Reid's bill has made a number of complicated changes to the free-rider provision, a.k.a. The Worst Policy Idea in the World . The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities says these tweaks make the free rider a bit better, although others disagree with that analysis, and the whole thing is ...
World
Foreign Policy
In general, the Fed's behavior tends to track the Taylor Rule , which is an economic formula based off a mixture of unemployment and inflation. Don't worry, there's not going to be a quiz. Suffice to say that the situation remains bad enough, and strange enough, that the Taylor Rule ...
White House
Federal Reserve
It's nice to be an undecided senator in a 60-vote Senate:
Sen. Mary Landrieu's state of Louisiana is still ailing years after Hurricane Katrina devastated its largest city. So Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could be killing two birds with one stone by including in his health care bill ...
Congress
Health care
Medicaid
Harry Reid
Bobby Jindal
Bruce Bartlett tees off on the Republicans who voted for the deficit-busting Medicare part D but now say their concern for the debt prevents them from supporting the deficit-improving health-care reform bill.
Just to be clear, the Medicare drug benefit was a pure giveaway with a gross cost ...
Other
Next week, as you may have heard, is Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a nice holiday marred by the tradition of eating turkey, which is probably the least tasty of all meats. Think how much more thankful you'd be if you were eating pork belly! Worse, the turkey is generally cooked terribly, the ...
Other
If you read this profile of the relationship between Max Baucus and Jim Messina and thought it weird that Baucus is repeatedly quoted as saying "Noooo," let me assure you, he really does say that in interviews.
Also, this might be one of my favorite headlines ever.
Congress
Max Baucus
As the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities points out , the Senate bill's subsidies are, in general, more generous than the Senate Finance bill's subsidies, but a sliver of folks between 134 percent and 154 percent of the poverty line saw their help cut a bit. The dollar amounts involved ...
Congress
Harry Reid
Bill Nelson
Steve Pearlstein:
I should acknowledge that I have no idea who should and should not get routine mammograms. But I know enough about statistics to say that the issue is not settled just because you know of someone in her 40s whose breast cancer was detected by a mammogram and cured. As ...
Other
Dave Bry's confusion over how much cordless drill he needs reminds me of my confusion over how much lock I need, particularly in a world with, well, cordless drills.
My doors, as I found when I recently locked myself out of the house, have extremely advanced door-locking technology. The ...
Other
voices.washingtonpost.com - 26 hours ago
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voices.washingtonpost.com —
Today, the Senate debates. I've been watching all
morning. Not sure what it says that the level
of debate in my comments is a whole lot higher than in the world's greatest deliberative democracy. Either way, tomorrow, the Senate votes to break ...
(more)
Cloture vote on health care scheduled for Saturday. ...
Things are getting ugly as Congress considers financial reform. Legislators don't like the (entirely accurate) perception that the banks got a sweetheart deal last fall. The public wants someone to lose a pound of flesh over what happened to the economy, and since Tim Geithner didn't take it ...
White House
Timothy Geithner
Ron Paul
Federal Reserve
A couple of days ago, Ross Douthat and I spoke to a class that E.J. Dionne teaches. At some point, I was riffing about how it's a pretty odd political system in which a solid 45 percent of the people believe in death panels and yet public opinion on health-care reform is closely split. Douthat ...
Congress
John McCain
ACORN
Given Sarah Palin's reputation as a polarizing figure, the degree to which everyone can agree that they'd like to talk about her is really amazing. Conservative outlets want to lionize her. Liberal outlets want to mock her. Mainstream outlets want to cover her. There are fact-checks and ...
