$200-300 Billion Stimulus Announced

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Monday December 06, 2010 · 6:07 PM PST

2010/12/06 · 18:07

This diary is in keeping with the "Obama isn't an idiot, he just simply disagrees with you" theme.

So, what on earth was Obama thinking in agreeing to this plan? He is thinking that he got the Repubs to agree to vote for a $200-300 billon (admittedly jury-rigged) on-going stimulus for the economy. He is saying "to hell with the deficit, to hell with ideological principle," I want the best politically possible outcome for the economy over the next two years. In the face of the catfood commission nonsense, this plan maxes out the politically possible short-run deficit increase. In the face of claims that further fiscal stimulus was politically dead, dead (and also dead), Obama has a moderately-sized, immoderately-ugly, stimulus deal in hand.

Stevie

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Friday January 22, 2010 · 6:58 AM PST

2010/01/22 · 06:58

My wife was talking to her friend last week about a tough dilemma. She is self-employed and her sisters have a pattern of cancer that indicates a genetic predisposition to cancer may run in her family. You know the problem: if she gets tested and starts any preventative treatment, that becomes a pre-existing condition that may result in her being denied coverage. My wife's friend was hanging on, waiting for Heath Care Reform to pass so that she could stop worrying about pre-existing conditions.

But enough about my wife's friend, I meant to write about something else. I think it is time to recognize the Historic Victory of so many on this site and elsewhere in the blogosphere who worked so hard to defeat the Senate health bill. It was good enough for Bernie Saunders and good enough for Paul Krugman and it could have been fixed in future budget reconciliation negotiations between the House and Senate, but so many of you stood hard and tough to convince the progressive caucus in the House that the bill deserved total and complete defeat. They will not help to pass the Senate bill and work to fix it in reconciliation.

Victory is yours!

Stevie

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Wednesday December 16, 2009 · 1:10 PM PST

2009/12/16 · 13:10

Dateline: Feb. 4, 2008

Paul Krugman today bashes Barack Obama in the pages of the New York Times. Obama opposes mandates for individuals to buy insurance, Clinton supports them. Krugman heaps contempt on Obama for not understanding the obvious problem

... the big difference is mandates: the Clinton plan requires that everyone have insurance; the Obama plan doesn’t.
Mr. Obama claims that people will buy insurance if it becomes affordable. Unfortunately, the evidence says otherwise ...

An Obama-type plan would also face the problem of healthy people who decide to take their chances or don’t sign up until they develop medical problems, thereby raising premiums for everyone else ....

Stevie

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Friday December 11, 2009 · 5:13 AM PST

2009/12/11 · 05:13

I have a pretty low user ID and I have never seen so many flat-out right wing arguments on this site as I have seen lately. It is amazing!

How did it happen? Political activists decided, with good reason, that there had to be some way to screw up the courage of progressive legislators, to get them to hold their ground. So, they decided to draw a line in the sand: a "public option" or no deal. As political strategy, it has been effective in many ways. The problem is, folks confused strategy with fact.

Now, with the PO gone, tons of "progressives" on this site are devoted to the task of defeating the most massive expansion of the US social welfare state in decades. And what arguments to they use? Most often, the ones that are always used to defeat social progress: right wing ones!

To be clear: I am greatly in favor of a strong PO (I prefer single payer.) The question I am addressing is whether, at the end of the day, if progressive legislators genuinely conclude that they can't get the PO through our non-majority-rule Senate, how should they vote?

Follow me over the fold and we will identify the right-wing arguments that folks here are using to conclude that they should vote "no".

Stevie

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Thursday December 10, 2009 · 2:41 PM PST

2009/12/10 · 14:41

Chris Bowers points out today that both current House and Senate bills create a huge expansion in single-payer US healthcare:

The CBO report on the bill passed by the House (page 11), and the CBO report on the bill that was sent to the floor of the Senate (page 20), both project that the bills will add 15 million more Medicaid subscribers than current law. All of those 15 million are at 150% of the national poverty level or lower, and virtually all of them are currently uninsured.

(links to PDF's of CBO reports are in original post)

In comparison, he notes that the Senate's "opt-out public option was projected to cover 3-4 million people" and even the original "strong" Medicare-tied PO was projected to cover 10 million.

Stevie

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Friday December 04, 2009 · 9:06 AM PST

2009/12/04 · 09:06

Well, not all of you are wrong, but some are. And Ezra Klein is right:

It might have been a necessary thing from an activism point of view, but convincing liberals that this bill was worthless in the absence of the public option was a terrible decision, wrong on the merits and unfair to the base. The achievement of this bill is $900 billion to help people purchase health-care coverage, a new market that begins to equalize the conditions of the unemployed and the employed, and a regulatory structure in which this country can build, for the first time, a universal health-care system. Thousands and thousands of lives will be saved by this bill. Bankruptcies will be averted. Rescission letters won't be sent. Parents won't have to fret because they can't take their child, or themselves, to the emergency room. This bill will, without doubt, do more good than any single piece of legislation passed during my (admittedly brief) lifetime. If it passes, the party that fought for it for decades deserves to feel a sense of accomplishment.

Stevie

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Sunday May 25, 2008 · 6:16 PM PDT

2008/05/25 · 18:16

UPDATED:

Obama gets 3 supers from Hawaii

Stevie

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Tuesday May 20, 2008 · 7:26 PM PDT

2008/05/20 · 19:26

I come to DailyKos in large part because I want to be part of the Reality Based Community.

Now, there is a recommended diary up right now, with over 400 comments, claiming that in Clinton's speech tonight she vowed to carry on until the Convention in August. Now, if this were true, it would be truly gigantic (and very discouraging) news. Surely, it would be the lead story of the night. Oddly, though, none of the major news organization have picked up on this.

Media conspiracy? No. She didn't say it.

Poll

338 votes Show Results

Clinton will drop out before

338 votes Vote Now!

Clinton will drop out before

Tomorrow

4 votes

June 3

45 votes

June 15

114 votes

The 4th of July, when the Corn is Knee HIgh

15 votes

The Start of the Convention

7 votes

The End of the Convention

15 votes

Election Day

14 votes

When Hell Freezes Over

124 votes

The MI & FL Solution: Split the Baby!

Stevie

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday March 12, 2008 · 2:48 PM PDT

2008/03/12 · 14:48

A few days ago it seemed that there was a developing consensus in favor of a mail-in re-vote in Florida and Michigan. But that consensus seems to be breaking down. It is going to be very hard to negotiate rules in the middle of a campaign, because the rules could easily determine the outcome and the outcome is a zero-sum game: every rule that helps one side hurts the other. In the absence of agreement, Clinton falls back on the demand that delegates be seated as if the elections were legitimate and Obama falls back on an insistence that the delegations be seated with a 50/50 split.

I think it is now better to go back to the idea, suggested but not required by DNC rules, that 1/2 of each states delegates be seated, with the split determined by the January elections. There is a hard problem of how to deal with Obama's absence from the ballot in Michigan. I think the obvious answer is to treat the 55 "uncommitted" MI delegates as Obama delegates; this is not perfect, but the uncommitted votes were quite strongly "anti-Clinton" votes ("better no one than her".)

Stevie

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Wednesday March 05, 2008 · 8:06 AM PST

2008/03/05 · 08:06

There is a recommended diary right now on delegate math that claims the Slate delegate projector is flawed because it assumes a proportional allocation of delegates, whereas the actual delegate process is highly non-linear -- you have to cross specific percentage thresholds (like 62.5% of the two-candidate vote) to gain any extra delegates. Since Clinton is unlikely to cross these thresholds on average , the diary argues that even if Clinton goes on to win, for example, every single remaining contest by 55-45%, her delegate margin would end up much less than her popular vote margin.

The argument is quite misleading, because it looks at averages but ignores the all-important cross-district variance. In fact, the diary is completely wrong because of that omission. Don't just believe me -- follow me to the flip and I will illustrate.

Stevie

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday February 12, 2008 · 6:48 PM PST

2008/02/12 · 18:48

Clinton pollster and political guru Mark Penn is a man who believes the demographics are destiny -- he can tell by your income, race, gender, occupation and place of residence exactly who you are. In his book "Micro Trends" he tells businesses the significance of you being in one of 70 demographic categories, including

"Impressionable Elites," "Caffeine Crazies," "Neglected Dads," "Unisexuals," "America's Home-Schooled," and "Late Breaking Gay".

On Amazon.com, his book is described as a triumph of "nano sociology."

Real social scientists described it as a triumph of bullshit, spinning too-small samples into ridiculous generalization. Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton has embraced his belief that demographics are destiny. If she loses, I think this is the biggest reason why.

Stevie

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday February 08, 2008 · 9:38 AM PST

2008/02/08 · 09:38

I am an Obama supporter, but I am an open-minded guy and I am very interested in why many of my family and friends support Hillary. Obama says that one of our biggest problems as a nation is a lack of empathy and "lack of empathy" certainly describes much of the candidate commentary around here. I want to tell you, particularly fellow Obama supporters, what I have learned. Partly as a exercise in empathy and community. Partly as a warning: don't dismiss Clinton supporters as somehow lacking in commitment or drive.

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RSS

$200-300 Billion Stimulus Announced

Victory!

Krugman Bashes Obama on Mandates!

Alert: D Kos Invaded by Right Wing (updated x2)

How to Get 15 Million More in Single-Payer PO

You are Wrong about the Public Option

Superdelegate Sunday: (Updated) 3-0 for Obama

No, She Didn't

The MI & FL Solution: Split the Baby!

Delegate Math: Slate is Correct

Tiny Demos: Mark Penn's Failure

Portrait of a Clinton Activist