Let's begin today's round-up with
James Surowiecki's analysis of Republicans possibly reaping what they sow on Obamacare:
The Republican hatred of Obamacare is so powerful, and Republican politicians’ fear of being challenged from the right is so strong, that there will undoubtedly be states where governors and legislatures hold firm and basically tell citizens that they can’t have, and shouldn’t want, the free money that the federal government is offering them. (Something like this already happened, after all, when some states opted out of Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid, even though the federal government was going to pay almost all the costs.) But, given that this will wreck the individual market for health insurance in these states, that it will (unlike Medicaid) affect plenty of middle-class voters, and that Democrats will be able to point to states where the subsidies are still intact as obvious success stories, staying true to conservative principles is going to be a very hard political sell—even in truly red states. Republican politicians have been able to reap the political rewards of inveighing against Obamacare without actually having to strip benefits from anyone. Now they’re going to have to put up or shut up. Obamacare’s opponents may win when the Supreme Court finally decides King, sometime next year. But it could turn out to be a fight they’d have been better off losing.
And here's
Ryan Cooper's take on the politics of it all:
In the 2010 elections, after Democrats had burned up more than a year of their precious majority making their sweeping health care bill fit all the Beltway pieties, they got obliterated at the polls anyway. All that political cowardice and ass-covering was completely pointless. They might as well have torched the filibuster and gone for single-payer — shoot, they couldn't have done worse if they had.
ObamaCare would have been better policy, and Democrats would have been better off politically, if they had just ignored the clown show that passes for a mainstream political press in this country and passed a simple, bold reform that worked. Better still, they would have had more legislative time to address the dozens of other critical policy problems that have since been ignored.
Head below the fold for more on today's top stories.
Speaking of the beltway, Jonathan Bernstein makes great points on the obsession with false equivalence:
As long as “neutral” pundits are going to blame both sides for anything that goes wrong, the out-party will have the ability to make the in-party look bad to those pundits simply by refusing to go along.*
This isn't to single out Fournier. His position is only the most cartoonish version of the blind belief among many "neutral" pundits that bipartisanship is the only thing that matters, not just on health care but on practically anything. [...] The assumption in this position is that every problem has a common-sense solution we can all agree on, if only parties and politicians would get out of the way. That isn't true.
Politics is about legitimate disagreements, whether they’re based on interests (energy-producing states honestly disagree with energy-consuming states) or on ideology (liberals want government-guaranteed health insurance for all; conservatives don’t). Or, as is usually the case, some combination of that. Sometimes, yes, compromise can produce good policy; sometimes there are simply going to be winners and losers.
Moving on to the Keystone XL pipleline,
Lindsay Abrams examines the jobs numbers:
Of all the reasons one might have to support the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline (like, say, a last-minute gambit to save one’s Senate seat), arguing that it’s going to create jobs is the least sensical — because, as the State Department itself determined, it will create only 35 permanent jobs.
Even with the 15 other, temporary jobs the project will create, for inspections and maintenance, that’s still not enough even to employ the 60 senators Mary Landrieu, D-La., needs to pass through approval of the pipeline when it comes to a vote Tuesday evening. [...]
You know what already did create tens of thousands of jobs, in nearly every state? Renewable energy, which according to a report from Environmental Entrepreneurs created almost 80,000 of them in 2013 alone. The main thing holding back future growth, that same report found, is “ongoing regulatory uncertainty,” most notably with wind energy tax credits. It’s worth checking out, especially if you happen to be a politician who’s legitimately looking for a way to grow the economy.
Erich Pica, meanwhile, writes about the environmental impact:
The oil that would be carried by the Keystone XL pipeline is the most environmentally destructive on the planet, and would traverse the American agricultural heartland, only to then be exported.
If constructed, the pipeline would put communities and one of the world's largest aquifers — which provides drinking and irrigation water to millions of Americans — at grave risk of spills. TransCanada's Keystone 1 pipeline leaked 14 times in its first year of operation. [...]
The evidence is clear: The Keystone XL pipeline would stimulate the development of the Canadian tar sands, which would lead to more greenhouse gas emissions and lock in fossil fuel infrastructure at a time when scientists are sounding the alarms on the need to leave fossil fuels in the ground.
The New York Times agrees that the environmental impact isn't worth it:
Environmentalists typically fret about the prospect of adding monstrous new amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere if the Keystone XL pipeline is approved, and for good reason. [...] Where bitumen is near the surface, the landscape is reduced to a treeless wasteland. For the harder-to-extract bitumen, the steam plants require a supporting network of roads, pipelines, power lines, seismic lines and well pads that do their own damage. The natural gas that powers these plants is generated by the hydraulic fracturing of shale-gas formations in British Columbia. One battlefield leads to another.
Woodland caribou, shy, lichen-eating animals, are a notable casualty. They avoid cut lines like the plague and won’t cross a logged forest. In recent years their population has declined significantly. They are listed as threatened by the Canadian government.
The Boston Globe:
THE US Senate is expected to vote on the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline today, after the GOP-controlled House passed a bill to force construction last week. The measure will get bipartisan support, although a filibuster may still delay the actual vote. Nonetheless, the president should veto it. [...] So a veto now shouldn’t mean that Obama ought to reject Keystone categorically — just that approval ought to be predicated on bigger concessions by Congress on another part of the president’s environmental agenda. The goal should be to reduce emissions and boost energy efficiency, rather than block pipelines per se. (Especially given the aging, unsafe energy infrastructure the United States relies on today. [...]
The House has already voted nine times to send the pipeline project to the president’s desk for approval. The Senate, once it’s under Republican control come January, will surely pass another measure to that effect. The president would be wisest to bide his time. If the new GOP Congress wants Keystone so badly, it should be willing to negotiate a comprehensive climate deal.
On immigration,
The Miami Herald rightly tears into the GOP for its inaction and hypocrisy:
Given the repeated failure of this Congress and preceding ones to deal with immigration reform, the only questions now are when and how far President Obama will go in using his discretionary authority to fix the problem on his own.
We hope it’s soon and that he does everything he can within the law to provide a strong measure of relief to immigrant communities in Florida and throughout the nation. They’ve waited patiently and for too long for the president to act. [...] Mr. Boehner and other Republicans have not been shy about threatening the president if he decides to go ahead, saying any relaxation of immigration rules would “poison the atmosphere” in Washington. Really? At this stage — after years of demonizing the president, blocking his agenda, voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act some 50 times, and so on — now they’re saying No More Mr. Nice Guy?
Mr. Obama would be wise to ignore the posturing by his adversaries on The Hill. They’ve been in “No” mode for so long they apparently don’t know how else to behave. If they’re serious about wanting to pass a bill to supersede his executive action, they have the votes to do it whenever they’re ready.
Jamelle Bouie adds his take on the issue:
Given the high priority for immigration reform, there’s no question Democrats could have worked with House Republicans to craft a counterpart to the Senate bill. And indeed, there’s a good chance they would have made even more concessions if it guaranteed a vote. As with health care, Republicans could have gotten more conservative policy than they otherwise will if they had backed down from their relentless opposition. [...] Which is to say that, when it comes to the prospect of a new, more liberal immigration regime, Republicans have themselves to blame. With a few concessions, they could have gotten more enforcement and tighter security. Instead, we’ll have legal status for millions of immigrants, with few Republican fingerprints.
John Nichols:
How about making Election Day a holiday? That’s hardly a radical idea. Countries around the world schedule elections on weekends or recognize weekdays when elections are held as a holiday. Louisiana usually votes on Saturdays. And roughly a dozen states and jurisdictions give some recognition to Election Day as a holiday. So why not take the idea national?
That’s what Senator Sanders is proposing. Even before November 4, the independent from Vermont argued that, as part of a broader effort to generate the largest possible turnout, “Election Day should be a national holiday so that everyone has the opportunity to vote.”
On a final note,
Jill Lawrence has a smart piece up on strengthening the Democratic Party:
[P]arty activists and donors should direct their cash and attentions to state legislatures and state ballot initiatives. It’s the smart move both psychologically and politically. [...] The other part of this state-centric equation, however, is more of a slog. State legislatures, like most of the cities where they meet, are not glamorous. But they are essential to launching and nurturing political talent. [...]
A pool of experienced officeholders — lieutenant governors, secretaries of state, attorneys general and state legislators — is an invaluable asset in races for governor, senators, representatives and — as they make their way up — president. But only the GOP has recognized this in an organized fashion. Why? Let the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) explain: Hundreds of state officials have ascended to federal office, and half of all presidents, including Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln, served in their state legislatures. [...] The urgency for Democrats can’t be overstated. They need to start now if they want to have solid candidates and policies on state ballots in 2016, when they may be able to capitalize on the high turnout and friendlier electorate of a presidential year.