Failed state: Kansas's experiment with conservative economic policy

By Mustang Bobby 

The state of Kansas was supposed to be the laboratory of the conservative prosperity theory: cut taxes to the bone and the free market will take off: hey presto, Emerald City!

So how's that working out?

In Kansas, Republicans dominate the state government. They have the Governorship (Former Senator Sam Brownback), the State House (92-33 for the GOP), and the State Senate (32-8 for the GOP). Democrats don't have a say in this blood red state that went 60%-37% for Mitt Romney in 2012.

Brownback and his buddies have enacted all manner of conservative economic policy in the state. Cutting taxes, et cetera. What is the result? Guess.

Citing a sluggish recovery from the recession, risk inherent in the governor's tax plan and uncertainty over the Legislature's ability to keep cutting spending, one of the nation's two major debt rating agencies downgraded Kansas' credit rating Thursday.

Moody's Investors Service dropped Kansas from its second-highest bond rating, Aa1, to its third highest, Aa2. The Kansas Department of Transportation also took the same downgrade.

As Businessweek explained, "the immediate effect has been to blow a hole in the state's finances without noticeable economic growth."

I have a soft spot in my heart for Kansas thanks to my annual pilgrimage to the William Inge Theatre Festival in Independence. It's your typical Midwestern small town in the prairie with nice people. They're not hard-core wingnuts... at least the ones who show up to support theater and the legacy of one of their hometown boys even if he was gay. They are conservative, but not so crazy that they couldn't elect a Democrat as governor in 2002 and again in 2006: Kathleen Sebelius, before she was Secretary of Health and Human Services.

So it's really painful to see the results of this failed experiment happen to people I like. But they brought it on themselves; they can't blame this on the liberals and the Democrats.

If it's any consolation, Gov. Brownback is about as popular there as a tornado in a trailer park — he's polling in the low 30s and is trailing his Democratic opponent — and maybe the voters will decide that they've had enough of this right-wing paradise and boot him and his fellow True Believers out.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Kathleen Sebelius resigns amidst triumphant success of Obamacare

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Emphases mine:

-- The New York Times: "Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, is resigning, ending a stormy five-year tenure marred by the disastrous rollout of President Obama's signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act."

-- The Wall Street Journal: "Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who led the government's troubled rollout of the 2010 health-care law, will step down, her spokeswoman confirmed Thursday, capping a rocky five years in the Obama cabinet.

-- USA Today: "After a difficult five years shepherding President Obama's signature health care law, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has tendered her resignation, according to two senior administration officials."

-- Politico: "Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is resigning six months after a disastrous rollout of President Barack Obama's signature health law, according to administration sources.

See what's going on here? From how the story is being reported in the media (and these are but four major examples), you'd think Sebelius was a disaster as HHS secretary because the Obamacare rollout, which is apparently all that matters about Obamacare, was a disaster. End of story.

Were there early tech glitches that stalled the rollout and delayed sign-ups and made it seem as if Obamacare was in trouble (at least because that's how the media were treating it)? Sure. But, first, I just don't think that Sebelius should be held singularly responsible for what happened. Furthermore, second, the rollout was not the only thing that happened during her tenure; aside from any number of other HHS matters, there has also been the entirety of Obamacare development and implementation to date. And, third, the glitches were fixed, the rollout was smoothed out, and Obamacare has gone on to be, thus far, a huge success.

Yes, a huge success.

Read more »

Thanks for the syphilis

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Another sordid episode from the long, violent, and thoroughly despicable history of U.S. interference in Latin America:

From 1946 to 1948, American public health doctors deliberately infected nearly 700 Guatemalans -- prison inmates, mental patients and soldiers -- with venereal diseases in what was meant as an effort to test the effectiveness of penicillin.

American tax dollars, through the National Institutes of Health, even paid for syphilis-infected prostitutes to sleep with prisoners, since Guatemalan prisons allowed such visits. When the prostitutes did not succeed in infecting the men, some prisoners had the bacteria poured onto scrapes made on their penises, faces or arms, and in some cases it was injected by spinal puncture...

The revelations were made public on Friday, when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius apologized to the government of Guatemala and the survivors and descendants of those infected. They called the experiments "clearly unethical."

Clearly. Although I'd say that's an understatement.

"Although these events occurred more than 64 years ago, we are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health," the secretaries said in a statement. "We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologize to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices."

Along with what was done at Tuskegee, where the U.S. Public Health Service conducted syphilis "research" on poor blacks for 40 years, this is all pretty appalling.

But what's also appalling is that it took so long for the truth to come out. Which makes you wonder, as Melissa McEwan wonders:

[W]hat secret horrors going on now President Malia Obama and Vice President William Jefferson Mezvinsky will be apologizing for in fifty years. 

The imagination reels.

Newt Gingrich slams Sebelius, distorts reality, descends into madness

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Speaking at the right-wing Values Voters Summit (because, of course, greed and bigotry are values, too*) in Washington yesterday, Newt Gingrich said that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius should be removed from office, with a new Republican Congress "zeroing out her office," for "behaving exactly in the spirit of the Soviet tyranny" and for "represent[ing] left-wing thought police," both with respect to health-care reform.

Of course, she did and is nothing of the kind. What she wrote, in a letter to the insurance industry, is that the federal government "will not tolerate unjustified rate hikes." America's Health Insurance Plans, or AHIP, contends that "Obamacare" is forcing them to raise premiums. In response, Sebelius wrote that that is simply not true, that "any potential premium impact" would be "marginal."

Gingrich, as you might expect, takes the insurance industry at its word. Needless to say, that is a stupid thing to do. The industry wants to maximize its profits and will do and say whatever it takes to do so. But it is also stupid to suggest that Sebelius is acting like a Soviet tyrant (and speaking for some "left-wing thought police" by challenging the very industry that wants to harm consumers by charging them more and blaming Obama. Gingrich is supposed to be a historian, is he not? He is supposed to be one of the smarter conservatives out there -- at least, that is what the media would have us believe, given how much respect and airtime they give him. But he clearly lacks any genuine appreciation for history -- history to him is the just past filtered through his partisan and ideological prisms -- and, once again, we see that neither he nor anything he says should be taken seriously.

Also in his address, Gingrich said that he is "totally opposed to any effort to impose sharia on the United States." But who exactly is talking about imposing fundamentalist Islamic law on America? Where is the evidence? Where is it happening? It isn't. This is fearmongering pure and simple, projected through those partisan and ideological prisms, and just the sort of anti-Muslim bigotry we've come to expect from Gingrich. (While he's talking specifically about sharia, the message is really that Muslims are not to be trusted, that Islam is essentially anti-American, and that all Muslims, backed by liberals/progressives/Democrats, are jihadists seeking to undo the Constitution and take over the country.)

Gingrich is moving further and further away from reality -- and he was never all that close to it to begin with. In his partisan and ideological fervor, he has become a spinner of lies and smears and exaggerations, willing, as ever, to traffic in utter nonsense, running his mouth off without anything to back up what he says, simply to try to score political points by playing on popular ignorance and fear, and to keep himself in the news, where he continues to get the media's attention for saying crazier and crazier things, and to maintain himself as a key player in conservative circles, which cheer harder the crazier and crazier things get. Like the rest of the right side of the political spectrum, he's descending ever more rapidly into madness.

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* Tweeted our good friend (and Reaction editor) Carol Gee yesterday, on the VVS: "Reminder: Repubs can have no exclusive claim to be 'values voters.' Dem voters value ideas like creativity, diversity, veracity, lucidity." Exactly.

The Public Option is not dead -- maybe

By Capt. Fogg

President Obama is being excoriated right and left -- well, mostly left -- for having abandoned the public health care option in health care reform. Are we buying into the propaganda once again? It's not true, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said on Face the Nation yesterday. The president is still committed to the idea.

Although Heath and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told us on the same day that it's "not essential," leading to the speculation that the idea had been dropped, now we're being told she "misspoke." Was she being used as a stalking horse to try out the idea? I don't know, but if the admittedly unscientific CNN poll showing that 57% of us think it is indeed essential has merit, the huge and boisterous tumult trying to tie it to every vestige of evil that can be pressed into service is mostly sound and fury and a tale told by Republican opponents. Presumably, the number who think it's merely a good idea is even larger.

We're not going to have reform without it, says DNC Chairman Howard Dean:

[A]public option is essentially what veterans and people over 65 have — it's Medicare.

A sentiment which reflects what many of us supporters have been saying all along in the face of dire warnings about death panels and summary executions and worse.

The amplitude of the argument, which still seems to be growing louder has made us forget that health care reform is a very popular goal and with some insurers talking about very substantial hikes in premiums I don't think public support has waned very much at all.

Congressional support is another matter, of course, with Kent Conrad (D-SD) proclaiming on Fox News yesterday: "The fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for a public option. There never have been." There is some justification, to put it mildly, for public disillusionment with Congress.

I wonder how many letters, calls, hookers, and e-mails it takes to equal the power of corporate contributions, junkets, and three-martini lunches.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

The death of the "public option": What's really going on?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So. Is the "public option" dead or not? One of the Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, Kent Conrad, says it is. (And I responded yesterday.) Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says is it as well... or not. Therein lies some confusion, and she may very well herself be confused. She seemed to back it on This Week (ABC) yesterday, only to pull back on State of the Union (CNN). As she explains on the latter, the "public option" is "not the essential element" of reform.

Don't worry, it gets more confusing.

Sebelius was essentially just echoing the president himself, who on Saturday said this:

The public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of health-care reform. This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it, and by the way it's both the right and the left that had become so fixated on this, that they forget everything else.

Please. This is Obama, once more, playing to his beloved middle, and, in the process, vilifying both sides. This is hardly fair, though, to those on the left who voted for Obama, who continue to support Obama, and who support the "public option" because they believe, as I do, that only a government-run health-care coverage option will do what reform is supposed to do, which is not just keep costs down but provide access to coverage, and therewith to care itself, to all Americans, notably to the millions and millions who either lack coverage altogether or have no choice with respect to the coverage they have, squeezed by the profit-based insurers who are more likely to deny coverage than to extend it. To call this a fixation, as Obama does, is insulting.

Otherwise, of course the "public option" is not the entirety of reform. Of course there are other elements to it. It is simply a fact that reform is a comprehensive package. But to describe the "public option" as merely a sliver. Is that also not insulting? And is that not grossly misleading? To those who lack or have inadequate coverage, this is not a mere sliver but rather the essence of the thing. The same goes for those of us who support govermment-run health care -- and I, for one (as a Canadian who likes the Canadian system -- I am also British and feel the same way about the British system), support a single-payer government-run system that is far more extensive that what is currently being proposed in the U.S.

Sorry, Mr. President, but in playing to the middle, where conservative Democrats and a handful of Republicans, the latter clearly taking their marching orders from the right (and being as partisan as always), are trying to water the bill down so much as to render it inadequate, if not to defeat reform altogether, you risk losing the base, and bulk, of your support not just on "the left," as if only ideological extremists are supporting the "public option," but among the various liberals and progressives and moderates who want this to be meaningful reform and who think that now is the time, at long last, for just the sort of government involvement in health care that you here dismiss.

On CNN, Sebelius was pushing "consumer choice," "choice and competition," not the "public option" specifically or any specific version of reform. An administration official told Marc Ambinder that Sebelius "misspoke," on the "essential part" bit, while anther official, Linda Douglass (a key White House player on reform), said that Obama still supports a "public option." A third official refuted the first: Sebelius did not misspeak.

So what is it? As the Times is reporting:

The White House, facing increasing skepticism over President Obama's call for a public insurance plan to compete with the private sector, signaled Sunday that it was willing to compromise and would consider a proposal for a nonprofit health cooperative being developed in the Senate.

That seems to be the point White House Press Secretary was making on Face the Nation (CBS) yesterday. As Ambinder summarizes, "Gibbs said that fostering competition and choice were non-negotiable, but the specific mechanism designed to do so was up for discussion."

So Obama is waffling, Sebelius is waffling, Democrats in the Senate are waffling, and, meanwhile, Republicans are getting what they want, which is Democratic divisiveness and, ideally for them, inaction on reform altogether, all while they continue to score political points by lying about the Democratic plan.

But is Obama really pulling back from the "public option"? Perhaps not. He surely knows that he needs to reach out beyond his liberal-progressive base if reform is ever to be passed. While he may see non-profit co-ops as a suitable replacement for a government-run component, could it not be that his waffling, his apparent pull back, is actually part of his larger campaign to pass a comprehensive reform package that includes a "public option"? He has done this before, after all -- in a way, it is his modus operandi. He reaches out in search of compromise and bipartisanship, knowing that, ultimately, the other side won't agree to an acceptable compromise. But then he can at least say that he tried, that his motives were genuine, while ensuring that blame is directed at the other side. He seems to be doing with with Iran, so why not with the Republicans and the obstructionists in his own party?

But then there is the other possibility, that Obama knows that "Obamacare" is a tough sell that is unlikely to pass the Senate. Maybe he thinks that some reform is better than no reform, that a bill with non-profit co-ops is better than no bill at all, that, ultimately, the best that can be achieved is not the best (the "public option") but something that at least comes close to it.

Either way, Obama is being his usual realist self -- and it is realism that forms his core, so much not the idealistic rhetoric that we came to know during the campaign. I do not excuse him for calling the "public option" a sliver or for blatantly dismissing the concerns of "the left" as somehow akin to the fearmongering of the right, but, still, it is possible that he is doing everything he can to ensure that the best possible bill is passed.

Which is not to say that I won't be disappointed if reform does not include a "public option." I will be -- just as I am angry and frustrated now. To me, there is simply no excuse for failing to go all the way.

Sebelius gets the nod for HHS

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I've said it before, I'll say it again: A great pick. WaPo has the details.

Make sure to check out Jonathan Cohn's reaction at TNR's The Treatment.

Now let's just hope Obama is serious about moving forward with health care reform this year.

Sebelius for HHS?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Looks like it. And she'd be a great pick.

If anyone denies the need for a stimulus bill...

By Carl

Tell them to read the news today:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — After a frustrating holiday weekend that failed to yield the one vote needed to end California's budget stalemate, the state is poised to begin layoff proceedings Tuesday for 20,000 government workers.

In addition to the layoffs, the state also plans to halt all remaining public works projects, potentially putting thousands of construction workers out of jobs.

"We are dealing with a catastrophe of unbelievable proportions," said state Sen. Alan Lowenthal, a Democrat from Long Beach and chairman of the Senate transportation committee.

Senate leader Darrell Steinberg announced late Monday that lawmakers had failed to find the final vote in his chamber as Republicans refused to support tax increases. He called a session for Tuesday and said he would put the tax provisions of the budget proposal up for a vote, even if they would not pass.

"Sure," they'll say, "it's just 'Tax-and-spendifornia'! The bastion of liberal thinking and left-wing values!"

Eh. Not so much:

TOPEKA Kansas tax refunds, employee paychecks and money for schools are all on hold after a showdown erupted Monday between Republican legislative leaders and Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

The game of political chicken places state taxpayers, workers and schoolchildren squarely in the middle of a politically charged battle over massive budget cuts.

Republicans, who hold majorities in both chambers of the Legislature, blocked Sebelius’ proposal to borrow $225 million from healthy state funds to cover shortages in accounts used to meet the state’s payroll and issue tax refunds.

So Kansas may end up selling apples out of carts any day now, as well.

Keep in mind, when it comes to California, the ridiculous Prop. 13 and how that is now echoing down the corridors of bad governance. For instance, Proposition 13 has probably contributed mightily to the teetering housing market in California, by far the largest state with a continuing depressed housing market that has not responded at all to any of the Bush/Paulson bank bailout.

As well, the ludicrous Prop. 13 has raised sales taxes and user fees and taxes by exponential amounts in the thirty years since its passage.

Furthermore, it has had the bizarrely liberal effect of giving the centralized state government more say in how cities and localties can structure their taxes and fees, as well as property values. As an example, if a town wants to raise its school tax, it has to do so by a 55% supermajority (this used to be a two-thirds vote).

In Kansas, we have a very different picture. There, the Republican-controlled legislature is trying to prevent the governor, Kathleen Sebelius, from shifting state funds as she sees fit, in order to cover some entitlement obligations and of course, payroll. Clearly, the Grover Norquist school of governance is alive and well and terrorizing Kansans to this day.

Sebelius' reaction ought to be interesting. There are roughly $10 million available and $24 million in payroll, mostly schools and hospitals, and another $20 million in Medicaid payments due this week.

Will she take a page out of Bill Clinton's book and shut down the state, including the legislature? Stay tuned!

(Cross-posted at Simply Left Behind.)

Sebelius to replace Daschle as HHS nominee?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The AP is reporting that Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is "near the top" of the list to be Obama's new nominee for HHS secretary. (The source is, as you might expect, a "senior administration official," which means anyone from an insider close to the president all the way down to some mid-level leaker with a personal agenda. I suspect that this is some serious name-floating, though.)

Which is very good news. As my go-to health-care expert Jonathan Cohn of TNR explains, Sebelius "has both the right experience and the right instincts." More: "People marvel about her managerial abilities and there's no question about having the relevant experience. She was the state insurance commissioner before she became governor; over the years, she's fought to stamp out fraudulent carriers, block dangerous industry mergers, and overcome lawmakers opposed to expansions of government health insurance for kids. She's well-known and well-liked by the health care advocacy community. And while she's not steeped in the ways of Washington, she'd have plenty of advisors to help -- not to mention a strong relationship with Obama, based in part on her bipartisan touch." (Howard Dean would be an excellent pick, too, but that's not going to happen.)

At the very least, she's not Bredesen, Bredesen, or Bredesen: "[Tennessee Governor Phil] Bredesen seems like a particularly poor candidate for the job. He presided over massive cuts to Tennessee's Medicaid program and, by all appearances, relished fighting with advocates for the poor more than the advocates of the cuts. He made his fortune in the for-profit health insurance industry, raising questions about the sensibility he'd bring -- to say nothing of the political message he'd send."

Veepstakes: Biden denial

By Michael J.W. Stickings

UPDATED

(For more Veepstakes, see here.)

According to MSNBC's Howard Fineman, Biden is "likely" to be Obama's running mate. "Biden makes the most sense," claims one source, and I think that's true. Opines Fineman: "[Biden] is a lively and feisty if unpredictable campaigner with working-class roots and a street-level feel for the hot spots of the globe -- which he can use to go toe-to-toe with Sen. John McCain."

But will it be Biden? Not according to Biden himself: "Hey guys," he told reporters today, "I'm not the guy. See ya." Of course, such pre-announcement denials are predictable. Maybe he already knows he's not the one, but maybe he's "heard nothing," as Steve Clemons suggests. And, well, he just got back from Georgia -- the one near Russia, not the one that spawned Newt Gingrich. He's got the gravitas, he's got the experience, he's Catholic, and Obama just singled him out for praise.

And yet...

No... Sebelius... really? So say these people, but I'm hoping not. Like Kaine, she's a fine governor with a bright future, but Obama needs Biden's gravitas and experience, especially on foreign policy, not youth and "outsider" credibility.

UPDATE 1: Marc Ambinder points out that Obama was uncharacteristically gender-specific last night: he, not she.

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For the record, Ralph Nader thinks Obama will pick Hillary.

And, for the record, I'm still not ruling Hillary out. Nor Gore. You never know.

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CBS News is reporting that Obama's pick will be announced on Friday, with a joint appearance scheduled for Saturday.

UPDATE 2: Lynn Sweet is reporting that "the Obama team... will showcase the new Obama ticket Saturday in Springfield at the Old State Capitol." Springfield, Illinois, that is.

Veepstakes: Obama's choice

By Michael J.W. Stickings

According to Marc Ambinder, Obama's veep vetters are focusing on four condenders:

• Even Bayh;
• Joe Biden;
• Tim Kaine; and
• Kathleen Sebelius.

"Based on discussions with high-level Obama aides, I do not get the impression that Obama has made up his mind yet. These aides do say that Obama is narrowing his choices."

According to Ambinder, Kaine and Sebelius are about governing, not campaigning, while Bayh and Biden are about legislating. The first two are outsiders, the second two are insiders. The first two are young and relatively unknown. The second two have loads of experience in Washington and "would be expected to do heavy lifting with allies and adversaries." (For more on Kaine, and the enthusiasm in Kaine-land, see WaPo. For a cogent critique of Ambinder's analysis, see Publius at Obsidian Wings: Given their lack of experience in Washington, Kaine and Sebelius can't be about governing. Instead, they are about campaigning, and about Obama winning certain key states: "They’re Red State pragmatic governors and the media would love the narrative." (Maybe the media would, at least at first, but I'm not sure they'd remain media darlings for long.) By contast, Biden "would be an excellent governing choice.")

But they are all, in Democratic terms, centrist. Kaine and Sebelius are red-state governors. Kaine, in particular, could help Obama win a key emerging swing state, Virginia. Each one would be a risky pick. I'm not sure how either would do on the national stage, but, given recent performances (say, giving the Democratic response to a State of the Union address), I'm not confident that either one would do all that well. At best, solid and unexciting. At worst, too obviously inexperienced, in way over their heads, criticized by the media and the Republicans alike, which could reinforce Obama's general lack of experience.

(Still, a relatively unknown governor could match up well against a relatively unknown governor on the other side -- say, if McCain were to pick Jindal or Pawlenty. The experience factor wouldn't matter quite as much, though McCain will still play the experience card against Obama no matter what.)

Bayh and Biden, by contrast, would be safer picks, I think, though Biden has an unpleasant knack for getting his foot stuck in his mouth and Bayh is immensely dull, too much the consummate career politician. Bayh could help with Indiana, another key emerging swing state, as well as with Hillary supporters (he was one of her prominent backers during the primary campaign), but I'm not sure this is a good year to be a Washington insider. Biden, on the other hand, would be riskier but also more dynamic out on the campaign trail. He also has extensive foreign policy experience. There is the risk that he could overshadow Obama in this area, also reinforcing Obama's lack of experience, but Obama has become a superstar statesman and would not easily be overshadowed. As well, I suspect that Biden would be kept in check by the campaign (or, at least, the Obama people would try to ensure that he doesn't dominate, or try to dominate, the ticket). Biden also comes with a lot of baggage, having run for president in the past and having been around for so long, but it's not like any of the others is without baggage, and, what's more, the Obama campaign has proven extremely capable at dealing with the media and the GOP smear machine.

(Biden or Bayh would match up well against Jindal or Pawlenty or Thune, in terms of experience, but, of course, experience in Washington can leave a nasty mark. If McCain were to go with someone with more experience, like Portman, Obama would do well to have even more experience on the ticket. And if it's Romney, well, both Biden and Bayh are strong enough not just to stand their ground against his attacks but to overwhelm him both on domestic and foreign policy.)

But... what about Hillary? I asked "why not" a while back, and some of her supporters are still pushing her name, but I doubt she'll get the nod. (Unless the Obama campaign is keeping her vetting secret and leaking other names to deflect media attention. Imagine what a story it would be were she to be picked, say, right after the Olympics. Imagine an Obama-Clinton ticket at the convention in Denver -- united, not divided. Imagine the momentum for Obama. I'm not saying I'm for it, but it makes sense, eh?)

For further analysis, see my recent Veepstakes posts here and here.

I made some predictions in those posts, and I predicted Biden in the second. He's not my prediction here -- I'll go with Kaine, who seems to be on the rise (though perhaps propelled more by the enthusiasm of his supporters than by anything else) -- but, of the four, he's my clear and overwhelming preference.