A key reason why 50 Democratic senators and the V.P. should permanently eliminate the filibuster

One of the strongest arguments why eliminating the filibuster would do far more good than bad, and why 50 Democratic senators (that's all that's needed, plus the V.P.) should eliminate the filibuster through rulings from the chair, and then strike down from the chair all Republican tactics to shut down the senate (all do-able, see Kevin Drum's Mother Jones post, "Filibuster Wanking", Thomas Geoghegan's current article in the Nation, "The Case for Busting the Filibuster", and the 2006 book "Filibuster" by Columbia political science professor Gregory Wawro and Harvard government professor Eric Schlickler, page 272 for example) is this:

The great good the Democrats would do with the filibuster eliminated – things like universal healthcare, or perhaps someday Medicare for all, free four years of college (we've been stuck at free education only up to high school for over 100 years, while the amount of education necessary to be a highly productive nation has skyrocketed in that time), and much more – once enacted, and people saw the truth of how good they were, as opposed to the Republican propaganda, would be permanent. The Republicans would never dare get rid of them, and if they did, it would be very temporary; next election, the Republicans would be decimated, and the programs would be restored easily.

A good example is Medicare (universal single-payer health insurance, like in Canada and France, for our seniors). The Republicans, led by Ronald Reagan, fought it tooth and nail in 1965, claiming it would lead to socialism, or worse. Today they would not dare even mention repealing it, because once it was actually passed, people saw how much better it really made their lives, and loved it.

By contrast, the things the Republicans would push through with 51 votes would usually be bad, or horrible, to the vast majority, and so once people actually experienced them, and saw firsthand how the lies about them were really false, like how they, in fact, only helped the rich, they would not last. The public would vote for change, and they would be repealed, AND the Republicans would be revealed. People would see firsthand that lies like trickle down were false, a devastating fairy tale, eventually. For some things they would see very quickly, for others over more time. And, the repeal of harmful Republican policies would be much easier without the filibuster because it would only take 51 votes (or 50 plus the Vice President to break the tie).

So, this is an extremely strong reason why Democrats should support elimination of the filibuster. Basically, or largely, what they would do would be permanent, like Medicare, unemployment insurance, free public schooling, etc., but the harm the Republicans would do would only be temporary, often quite temporary.

People would relatively quickly see the great harm to everyone except perhaps the rich (and even for them, the extra few thousand square feet of mansion would help them and their families far less than they would be hurt by the decreased public health, safety, medical and scientific investment, and thus advancement, having to walk over homeless people, or live behind walls, etc., etc.)

Thus, the argument that some Democrats make that we should keep the filibuster because it prevents the Republicans from doing great harm, like say eliminating Social Security or Medicare, is more than countered. Republicans would not dare eliminate such popular programs, and even if they did, the very next election they would be decimated at the ballet box (and tremendously weakened and revealed for generations), and the elimination would be quickly reversed. By contrast, the good Democrats would do, like universal healthcare, or perhaps eventually even Medicare for all, would essentially be permanent.

Why do you think the United States has suffered as the only advanced country in the world without universal health care for so long? One answer is the filibuster. Without it we probably would have had universal health care long ago. Ezra Klein of the Washington Post wrote today, "There's a lesson in that, and it's not that we need to oppose 'government-run health-care experiments.'". In the comments I replied:

One of the biggest problems with the filibuster is that it makes it far harder to learn by experimenting, to see first hand if the claims against a program or idea were false (or grossly, ridiculously false). It really hurts the U.S. when other advanced countries are far freer than us to experiment and learn, with their completely Democratic legislatures as opposed to our Senate, where Wyoming gets the same votes as California with about 70 times the citizens, and where with the filibuster on top of that, senators representing only about 10% of the citizens can stop a bill favored by senators representing about 90%.

There are, of course, other important reasons to eliminate the filibuster, a key one being the undemocraticness I mentioned above. The Senate's undemocraticness may be in the original constitution, but so was slavery, so was women not having the right to vote, and senators being appointed by state legislatures rather than being elected. Should we have not changed those things because they were in the original constitution? The founding fathers were extremely intelligent. They knew that the constitution and the original government were not perfect; that's why they designed them so that they could be improved, so they were living, not ossified. The founding fathers also had the character to admit flaws in their country, and to realize that it was patriotic to do so, so those flaws could be fixed. Not being willing to admit flaws and problems with your country, and trying to intimidate those who do, is the opposite of patriotism. It hurts your country and holds it back.

Finally, of course, let us not forget global warming. Do we really want to take the monumental risk of planetary devastation from waiting 30, 50, 100 years until luck, skill, and circumstances are just right that we can get strong anti- global warming legislation past a Republican filibuster?

Update: With regard to the power of learning by doing, the power of actually trying things to see first hand if the claims are true, and if the counter claims, or scare tactics, are false (and the Republicans come up with some outrageous whoppers that unfortunately often work), please see this important post at the Charter Cities blog of acclaimed economist, and likely future Nobel Prize winner, Paul Romer.

Speaking of media abdication...

Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman writes today:

From the Times, January 2008:

First, those who don’t want to nominate Hillary Clinton because they don’t want to return to the nastiness of the 1990s — a sizable group, at least in the punditocracy — are deluding themselves. Any Democrat who makes it to the White House can expect the same treatment: an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major media organizations that somehow can’t bring themselves to declare the accusations unequivocally false (at least not on Page 1).

For prime evidence see my last post.

Update: Wow! I'm stunned that the New York Times had a front webpage headline, no less, calling a Republican lie false, "False ‘Death Panel’ Rumor Has Some Familiar Roots". I get so disappointed with the press, that when they stand up and explain important information in an accurate non-misleading way – by stating clearly verifiable Republican lies as false – it stuns me. I like to think my blog post had something to do with it (Ha), but anyway this is great to see.

The article even assigns blame to top mainstream Republicans, like "the party’s last vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, and Charles E. Grassley, the veteran Iowa senator", as well as "many of the same pundits and conservative media outlets that were central in defeating President Bill Clinton’s health care proposals 16 years ago, including the editorial board of The Washington Times, the American Spectator magazine and Betsy McCaughey, whose 1994 health care critique made her a star of the conservative movement (and ultimately, New York’s lieutenant governor)." The blame is truthfully due, but it's great to see this after the press so often not being willing to tell the public when Republican politicians and organizations are responsible for spreading lies, due to caring more about what they think looks "even-handed" than conveying important information to the public in an accurate non-misleading way.

New York Times misleads: outrageous lie "forced euthanasia" refered to as "questionable" charge

A front webpage August 11th New York Times article, begins, "The White House on Monday started a new Web site to fight questionable but potentially damaging charges that President Obama’s proposed overhaul of the nation’s health care system would inevitably lead to “socialized medicine,” “rationed care” and even forced euthanasia for the elderly."

How is, "forced euthanasia for the elderly" a questionable charge, and not a flat-out outrageous lie?

If the Republicans claimed the Earth was flat, I'm not sure how many mainstream journalists would call this false, thinking it wouldn't be "even handed".

The writer does use the words, "inevitably lead to", but that's still just an impossibility for "forced euthanasia for the elderly" that should be obvious to a writer for one of the leading newspapers in the country. There is, of course, nothing in the bill about forced euthanasia, and it is no more possible that this bill could lead to forced euthanasia, than that passing Medicare for seniors in 1965 could lead to "forced euthanasia for the elderly". It should be obvious to a writer for a premier newspaper that for reasons of grave morality as well as political self-destruction this would never happen, unless you want to consider possibilities like a weird space virus coming to Earth and driving everyone insane, in which case the writer should make clear that he means possibilities like this, instead of grossly misleading.

There is also nothing in the bill for socialized medicine; there is no government ownership of the health care system. With regard to "Rationed care", this is fairly subjective. Typical free market health insurance has a lifetime limit of $1 million or less, and often $250,000 or less. This could certainly lead to rationed care for many illnesses, or no care, especially if you have no health insurance, like so many Americans. And HMOs deny many treatments. But there is nothing that explicitly rations health care in Obama's bill. The bill provides for minimums, subsidies, and protections, but no restrictions on what additional insurance and treatments people may buy. All of this should be made clear so as not to grossly mislead the public on a very important issue.

Mainstream journalists, in general, clearly don't consider conveying important information in an accurate, non-misleading way their top priority, or even a very high one relative to its great importance, and the country has paid a momentous price for this.

Problems fixed and improvements made in last post

My last post has been substantially revised and improved. I think now it's pretty complete and well done.

Why the Blue Dogs and Republicans probably can't stop a good universal health insurance bill -- if Obama is willing to fight

MAJOR REVISION AT APPROXIMATELY 9:30 pm, JULY 27TH

Paul Krugman writes in today's column, "Right now the fate of health care reform seems to rest in the hands of relatively conservative Democrats — mainly members of the Blue Dog Coalition". Krugman rightly wants to put pressure on the Blue Dogs to do the right thing, but note that he uses the word "seems".

There are three key ways to consider that the Blue Dogs, Blue Dog-like senators, and the Republicans might legislatively stop a good universal health insurance bill:

1) The Blue Dogs could refuse to let the bill leave the House Energy and Commerce Committee – A July 15th CNN article states, "Democrats outnumber Republicans 36-23 on the Energy and Commerce committee, which contains eight Blue Dogs, including Ross. If seven Democrats vote with Republicans against the bill, it would fail to advance to the House floor."

What could the Democrats do in this case?

The authoritative book "Congress & Its Members", 10th edition, 2006, has an excellent chapter on committees in both houses of congress. On page 232 the authors begin a section called, "Bypassing Committees", which gives recent examples in the house and senate where uncooperative committees were simply bypassed; the bills were brought to the floor for a vote without their consent. The authors conclude the section writing, "Some analysts contend that, 'There are few consequences if [committees are bypassed] because nobody outside congress cares whether a bill went through committee or not'"

In fact, we see that bypassing the Energy and Commerce committee is being considered in an article from The Hill from just three days ago, "Waxman may let health bill skip committee":

Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) says there is "no alternative" but to have healthcare legislation bypass his Energy and Commerce Committee if Blue Dog Democrats don't accept a deal worked out Friday.

Waxman is now playing a game of legislative chicken with the Blue Dogs. He's hoping the inclusion of a study on Medicare reimbursement rates in the healthcare overhaul will be enough to placate the centrist Democrats, who say the government program short-changes hospitals and physicians in their rural districts.

If that’s not, the seven Blue Dogs could join with the committee's Republicans to "eviscerate" healthcare reform, and that’s something Waxman will not tolerate.

"I won't allow them to hand over control of our committee to Republicans," Waxman told reporters.

"I don’t see what other alternative we have, because we're not going to let them empower Republicans on the committee."

The reimbursement rates are important to the healthcare bill, because the government-run "public option" would be based on Medicare

2) Blue Dog representatives could join with Republicans to defeat the bill in a full vote of the house – The Wall Street Journal writes today that there are 52 Blue Dogs in the house. Their source is the group itself. The Democrats have 256 seats to 178 for the Republicans. If all Republicans vote no, then the Blue Dogs could defeat the bill with 39 out of 52 joining the Republicans (In the house, if there's a tie, the bill is defeated). However, the Wall Street Journal article states, "Overall, House Blue Dogs are not always in alliance. But the bloc of seven on the Energy and Commerce Committee -- an eighth Blue Dog there, Rep. Jane Harman of California, is a liberal on health-care issues -- has shown every sign of remaining unified.", so Harman should be a yes. I would hope that Obama and the Democrats would, if necessary to preserve a good effective bill, go all out LBJ style with positive and negative incentives, and really using political capital, to get at least 13 others, and would succeed

3) Blue Dog-like senators could join with Republicans in an attempt to stop the bill with a filibuster – The impetus for my recent study of congressional rules and procedures is an assertion I read by New Republic Senior Editor Jonathan Chait, that Clinton could have passed universal health care by using a procedure called Reconciliation, which prevents filibusters and allows bills that qualify for it to pass with just 50 votes, plus the vice president breaking a tie.

Chait claims this in his 2007 book, "The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics" on page 204:

Perhaps the most incredible thing about the [1993 Clinton] health care debacle is that the Democrats could have avoided the filibuster that ultimately killed the reform if not for the stubborn insistence of one senator...West Virginia's Robert Byrd...an old fashioned New Deal Democrat who supported reform but cared more about the traditions of the Senate than anything else...He would not budge in the face of pleas from Clinton and his fellow senators, and his ability to tie the senate in knots if so inclined deterred the Clinton administration from crossing him. In the end, Dole spearheaded a filibuster that killed the potential reform.

Is Chait right? and could Obama and the Democrats today use reconciliation to prevent a filibuster and pass the bill with just 50 votes and Vice President Biden breaking a tie?

It looks like probably yes based on what I've read, for at least a reasonably good universal health insurance bill. The Republicans have recently used reconciliation to pass several big bills with less than 50 votes, including tax cuts overwhelmingly for the rich that costed more than universal health insurance!

The Senate parliamentarian will make a decision on whether reconciliation can be used to avoid filibuster, or if not how the bill might be altered so that reconcilliation could be used. The Hill has a good brief article on this from April 22nd. A filibuster decision of this type by the senate parliamentarian has never been disregarded, but it may be possible. The legality, potential moves, counter moves, and supreme court rulings are difficult to say, and it's beyond my current expertise in this to conjecture here.

Conclusion:

It looks likely that if Obama is willing to really fight for the great good of a good universal health insurance bill – he cares a lot more about that than looking new-age fairy land post-partisan – he can succeed.

As I wrote in a November 6th, 2008 post:

I strongly believe that health care is the most important thing. It is the most valuable thing that can be done when considering the probability distribution of its payoffs -- in non-mathematical-economics jargon, it is the most valuable when considering how much good it's likely to do.

Why is this?

Isn't there more potential to do good (or prevent bad) in combating global warming? Yes, but the best way to combat global warming is to pass a good universal health care program, or at least to move us greatly in that direction. The reason is that this would be so enormously good for people's lives [if it were really a good bill, certainly a good single-payer would qualify, but we aren't getting that], and for the economy, that it would generate a gigantic amount of gratitude and political capital for the Democrats, and that would allow them to push through far stronger anti-global warming legislation [over the coming years and decades] -- a lot more money for alternative energy, a lot greater conservation measures, etc. And it would also help Democrats in elections for decades to come, greatly decreasing the harm Republicans can do on so many issues (at least in the Republican party's present extreme, anti-thinking form).

There's nothing more important than passing a good universal health care program, and hopefully Obama won't falsely think it's too politically risky to push for this, because once we've had it, and Americans saw the reality of just how much better it made their lives, rather than the Republican false arguments and lies [Again, if it were really a good bill, certainly a good single-payer would qualify, but we aren't getting that], it would be like the New Deal; it would generate enormous gratitude and political capital for decades; it would expose the falseness of the Republican arguments and lies, and the Republicans would never be able to get rid of it. Would the Republicans dare even to try to get rid of old age social security, medicare, or unemployment insurance? No, these are programs that the Republicans could never get rid of once enacted. Universal healthcare would be the same.

As Nobel Prize Winning Economist Paul Krugman wrote in his 2007 book, "The Conscience of a Liberal", "Health care reform is the natural centerpiece of a new New Deal. If liberals want to show that progressive policies can create a better, more just society, this is the place to start." (page 216), and, "The most dangerous government programs, from a movement conservative's point of view, are the one's that work the best and thereby legitimize the welfare state." (page 228), and finally, "Getting universal care should be the key domestic priority for modern liberals" (page 243).

Bipartisanship at any costs

Paul Krugman writes, "David Broder has a column this morning calling for bipartisanship. I know, you’re shocked."

If the Republicans wanted to require everyone to wear their underwear on their head every day, David Broder would say the Democrats should be bipartisan and compromise 50-50, passing a bill requiring everyone to wear their underwear on their head every other day.

If Paul Krugman can do it, why can’t I?

...Please don't answer that.

Anyway, here is Mitzie Edelweiss Serlin and I: