In two separate U.S. Supreme Court cases (here and here) the majority has held that the federal constitution requires a specific process for the passage of legislation; and identical text must pass in each house of Congress prior to going to the president for signature. What has been called the Slaughter solution in press accounts, for Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY), would deem the Senate bill to be accepted by the House as is without a formal vote on the text of the bill itself. Democrats, in effect, are proposing to use a stunt to pass legislation while being able to claim that they did no such thing. In reality, legislators sworn to uphold the constitution will be remaking one sixth of the U.S. economy through parliamentary gimmickry. Yet, it was precisely this sort of thing that the framers of the United States Constitution opposed.

There are now, and will forever, be disputes over what precisely is allowable or not under the federal constitution. However, rational people on the left and the right generally agree that its provisions offer broad support for personal liberty. For this reason, the first and fourth amendments to the U.S. Constitution are well known. The broad interpretations offered over many years of the fourteenth amendment to said constitution define rather broadly its guarantee of due process of the laws. The amendments to the U.S. Constitution, usually crafted to defend one’s rights against excesses of government power, are not the only portions of the world-renowned ocument safeguarding personal liberty.

Disputes over due process often arise in instances if criminal law. However, its pertinence applies to the law generally, and the framers of the U.S. Constitution had a precise reason for establishing two legislative chambers to comprise the Congress. Nearly any student of the U.S. political system knows that the two houses of Congress are apportioned differently to prevent any one state from dominating the national government. Inferring though that such is the reason why the Congress is bicameral would be inaccurate. Indeed, James Madison’s Virginia Plan called for a bicameral Congress wherein both chambers were elected on the basis of population. The formation of the United States Senate resulted from a compromise between that Virginia Plan and one offered by William Paterson of New Jersey which would have given each of the thirteen states equal representation regardless of population. The purpose of bicameralism on the federal level was to better secure the liberties of individuals and the states within the Union. To pass health insurance reform through the Slaughter solution, or its proper name, the “self-executing rule” would undermine bicameralism and fundamentally go against the best values of the U.S. political system.

One thing was actually correct in the justly maligned changes proposed to the Texas school curriculum; the government of United States of America is a constitutional republic, not a democracy. While this constitutional republic functions democratically, unbridled democracy can produce the greatest of human tragedies. The pure democracy affirms the interest of the collective over that of the individual in every possible instance. A purely democratic system is one in which the leader can be voted more power without checks on his new authority.

Civil libertarians were correct to criticize the excesses of the previous administration in its efforts to combat terrorism. Yet, there has been little more than silence from them now that the party and president in power are engaged in every activity imaginable to grow the power of the state in another area of public policy. This is particularly disturbing when considering the expanse of the present measure and its lack of any real fiscal constraint. The use of the self-executing rule in the House and budgetary reconciliation together to pass health reform would be the largest single abuse of federal authority since FDR proposed packing the Supreme Court with sycophants in 1937 to further his partisan agenda.

Democrats, to defend their legislative shenanigans, have argued that Republicans have used the budget reconciliation process numerous times in the past. Quality, however, matters more than quantity; adjusting rates of taxation or adding a prescription drug benefit to an existing program is substantively different from overhauling the entire health insurance system. Using reconciliation, as has been proposed, for health care reform would go against the fiscal policy nature of the process. Senator Byrd (D-WV) opposed using reconciliation for the aborted 1993 health reform plan precisely because of its substantive reach beyond short-term fiscal policy, and the constraints on debate imposed by such a process.

The Tea Party movement has been widely criticized. For the record, this author has shown concern over its excesses in the past. Speaker Pelosi in recent weeks suggested that Democrats share some sentiments with the Tea Partiers. Unfortunately, it seems the sentiments shared aren’t those pertaining to personal liberty, but rather those disdaining good governance and blind partisanship.

The President, in his weekly address Saturday, sought to reassure members of Congress that there would be aspects of the health insurance overhaul which would occur right away. A very real concern seems to exist among members of Congress that voting public will not experience the expected benefits of reform until sometime after this year. Knowing this, Republicans wisely selected member of Congress and former Democrat Parker Griffith to deliver their response to President Obama’s saturday address. Nonetheless, it was President Obama, in his effort to reassure wavering Democrats, who made the stronger case against the present legislation and approach.

Members of Congress are legitimately concerned with the unpopularity of the health reform bill, and have expressed worries that little of any immediate benefit will come from the legislation in time for the elections this November. To assuage such fears, President Obama in his video address Saturday emphasized the provisions of the legislation set to come into effect upon his signing the bill into law or shortly thereafter. However, the provisions stated are those which happen to be the most popular, or could pass Congress with broad bipartisan support if enacted in a bill on their own.

In other words, to sell the faulty legislation before Congress, the President of the United States listed those broadly popular provisions while strategically glossing over the expense and largesse of his reform plans long term. Behind all of the progressive rhetoric about holding private businesses accountable is the reality that this legislation will not rein in spending, and could drive prices up due to the creation of a big business monopoly. President Obama decried the abuses of private sector bureaucrats, but seems indifferent to the far more consequential government bureaucrats. By mandating that every American above 26 have health insurance, as the present proposal before Congress does, Democrats not only invalidate the claim that they are against imposing their values on others, but also establish a monopoly favoring large, entrenched insurance firms over smaller, and stifle innovation through the imposition of unnecessary new regulations in the process. President Obama boasts in his weekly address that the bill would pay for itself. However, a bill which focused on the popular provisions he said would take effect right away and not not on increasing the role of government and its expenditures substantially would cost far less, and gather far more support.

The benefit to starting over, as some Republicans have proposed, is that it would present a clearer picture of these broad points of agreement. Simply put, if all the current legislation did was bar insurers from dropping the sick, require that coverage be available to those with preexisting conditions, and closed the Medicare “doughnut hole” alluded to in the video adress, then health care reform would pass easily and with Republicans voting with Democrats on this issue. Unfortunately, common sense was not the change President Obama sought to bring with him to Washington.

The Political Climate blog linked to a post here by Abby Alger from March of last year. However, it seems that the comments following that post are what drew the ire of the other blog. Since I commented on the post referenced, and the discussion seems to have been the focus of the decision to link here, I feel that the need to respond is pertinent.

On the merits of the broader Political Climate post, the author and I incidentally seem to agree; that conservative charges of bias in academia are overstated and unhelpful. College students generally are not necessarily that politically attuned. We agree further that students inclined towards political science are more likely to be civically attuned.

So long as institutions of higher learning instill in their students critical thinking skills, allegations of bias in the classroom are ridiculous. The criticism offered to the spinning of a poll conducted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute is quite valid; there should be no surprise that young adults are more socially liberal than many of their older counterparts. This topic has been touched on in previous NextGenGOP posts and discussions by various authors.    

However, just as it is bogus to cite a poll of college students as proof of liberal biases in the classroom, the absurd parallel drawn on the Political Climate between ethnocultural minorities and the disability community is equally bogus. Even as the author allegedly favors ethnocultural diversity, there is no way the quoted passage below is valid to this discussion as it compares apples to oranges.

We celebrate racial diversity; one does not celebrate a slow child merely for being different.  We offer him extra resources to help him overcome his challenges.   That process of achieving against the odds is laudable, but wallowing in inferiority is not something to be applauded.  Especially when there are ways to train your mind. 

Political colorblindness has nothing to do bona fide needs-based support, and everything to with upholding the best ideals of racial equality. If someone has a real need for unique help, then that assistance should be available to them. However, a wealthy black student lacking developmental disabilities ought to have neither more nor fewer political rights than his equally wealthy white counterpart also lacking developmental disabilities. Fortunately for all concerned, members of Congress from both parties are tackling issues faced by individuals with disabilities.

Ethnic and cultural diversity are valuable and desirable both inside and beyond academia. Nonetheless, such forms of diversity are not all of those important to the ability to think critically. Furthermore, such forms of diversity are judged too narrowly if differing perspectives are truly the aims sought by liberals in their promotion of politics based on race.  The 2000 United States Census found that German-Americans (15.2%) and Irish-Americans (10.8%) both outnumbered African-Americans (8.8%), the largest racial minority group in the country. All three of these groups, albeit to vastly different extents, have faced prejudices earlier in American history. In Census 2010, Hispanic Americans are expected to outnumber African-Americans. Thus, to value one particular cultural group over another of demographic significance in the country is silly without specific context. Yet, to many on the left it seems as if color matters more than other defining factors.

Religious background can add another layer of diversity insofar as fostering greater understanding is concerned. But, religious background or lack thereof is rather more crucial to what is arguably the core aspect of critical thinking; competition among ideas. Spirituality can be an absurd topic to debate as there is nothing to be proven in such discussions. Though rather not absurd, the discussion of political ideas involves competing visions and philosophies, many of which also cannot be proven despite a (theoretical) basis in fact for such notions.

Many on the right may miss the point when it comes to the value of post-secondary education, but so those on the left when they prefer differences in ancestry to contrasts in ideas. While it would not be accurate to draw ideological parallels in these terms, the Soviet Union championed ethnic and cultural diversity just as long as the various groups shared a common ideology. While this does not mean that liberals are communists (sorry Glenn Beck) it does mean that race and critical thinking are generally unimportant concepts with respect to one another.

Republicans, however, must do a better job of reaching out to various communities in the country where its following is presently lacking. To be clear, the goal of such outreach is to grow the party, add to it more perspectives, and enhance its base of support. Despite what some may believe, people of a particular color or culture do not all think alike, as the Conservative Political Action Conference this year demonstrated.

While their points of view differed, it is clear that both sides agree that reform is prudent in some form. In a just world, this would wipe away the liberal lie that Republicans intend only to be obstructionist. While both sides distort and mislead to score cheap points in politics, real policy development does actually occur. President Obama and Democratic senators have asserted that the Senate bill and the modificaions proposed to it by the administration include Republican ideas. However, to use a phrase that got then-candidate Obama into some trouble on the campaign trail in 2008, including Republican ideas in legislation disliked by congressional Republicans is tantamount to putting lipstick on a pig.

If it is indeed true that Republicans and Democrats agree on some aspects of reform, then those should be the basis for what the President seeks to have passed into law. This means abandoning the existing legislation, and working from scratch on the basis of those points of agreement. If the present proposal put forward by President Obama was as urgently needed as Democrats suggest, then it would come into effect far sooner than is written in the legislation itself. By 2012, if the economy has recovered, then with more people employed, the number of uninsured will presumably go down anyway, making the need for broader reform slightly less urgent.

No one in the Obama administration nor in Congress has answered a fundamental question coloring the reform debate. Until it is clear why an overhaul of the entire health care system is needed to insure ten percent of the U.S. populace, reform will be slow to advance. A side-by-side comparison of existing reform plans-Republican and Democratic-reveals that only around thirty million additional people would be insured if these changes were enacted. In a nation of over three hundred million, thirty million is not that significant.

With existing proposals, such as Senator Coburn’s bill,  Republicans have provided a framework for actually embracing reform. Both pieces of legislation, no doubt imperfect as they may be, provide a framework with which to test the obstruction hypothesis. The question moving forward is whether or not President Obama is willing to risk unpopularity with the firmly statist left by actually building consensus and getting reform implemented. In a move truly representative of change, Barack Obama once suggested he would forego a second term if it meant actually achieving health reform. Sadly, for the President of the United States, reelection seems to be a more pressing goal.

The effective use of technology provided a boost to the Brown campaign absent in far too many Republican operations to date. Scott Brown wisely talked about bread-and-butter issues throughout his campaign, and offered to the electorate a pragmatic contrast to Martha Coakley. Like Obama, Scott Brown had been a state legislator. Whereas President Obama grew strength from the experiences of his youth and background, Senator Brown likely benefited from his professional life, as a lawyer married to a television reporter, and as a member of the Massachusetts National Guard.

The charismatic and articulate forty-first member of the present Republican caucus in the United States Senate has thus galvanized his party in ways others had not. This was true even as the prospects for electoral success by Republicans was growing nationally. In this sense too, Brown is for the right what Obama is to the left; indeed, despite the excitement surrounding his win, 2008 was a Democratic year.

Much of the excitement generated by President Obama during his first year in office has faded away as the realities of governance have set in. Now, there is a growing despondence being felt in the Democratic Party over the actions and inactions of the Obama administration. The State of the Union speech this year was well-tuned enough for the president to possibly regain some traction, but deep fissures of his own creation remain.

President Obama spent the first year of his administration overexposed. The White House took a risk by putting the president front and center on one big policy reform initiative after another. Now, President Obama has been left with little to show for all the attention paid. As likable as the president is, and as popular as he remains in much of the country, he could not deliver to Martha Coakley the seat once held by Ted Kennedy.

In Scott Brown, Republicans certainly have a rising leader on the national stage. However, he should be weary of repeating the mistakes made by President Obama. Being the person out in front on a particular issue set comes with risks. Due to his domestic policy prominence in his first year, President Obama has left himself room to take some of the blame for the prolonged recession, the health care debacle, and the recent unpopularity of Democrats nationally.

Scott Brown should be one of many leading voices in the Republican resurgence. However, he is a single person. A movement to succeed always needs more than one prominent figure. Some who voted in 2008 for the first time may now be learning this lesson, but it is relevant to Republican strategists too.

I admit that I believe that the GOP is on the verge of a 2010 blowout.  As for the magnitude of said blowout, I think it’s too early to say, but in my mind there’s a real chance that Republicans could retake one of the chambers of Congress.  However, as I’ve previously cautioned, I don’t believe that a blowout this year will mean things are better for the Republican Party.  Winning back seats is great, but as Mindy Finn writes, those on the right must “stop gloating” — and start thinking about building a sustainable majority. A major victory this year will not be the product of a new-found love for the Republican Party; instead, it will be the product of voter disgust and discontent with the status quo, namely with President Obama and Democrats in Congress.  The Republican Party is still enormously unpopular itself, and a midterm election blowout due to the aforementioned reasons is not exactly how a sustainable majority is built.

On the other hand, converting what are traditionally considered to be safe blue seats in places like Massachusetts and California (I’m looking at you, Barbara Boxer) to red ones — and finding ways to hold onto those seats — is certainly a step toward a sustainable majority.  The same is true of fielding candidates in all 435 Congressional districts every cycle.  Embracing transparency and continuing to authentically fight to limit government is another building block in a sustainable majority.  Effectively using technology while embracing today’s Age of Participation through peer production is another step.  Offering substantial and real policy options that differ from those of the White House and the Democrats is similarly critical.

To the contrary, getting sucked back into the ways of Washington by growing government and increasing spending is a sure way to cede momentum right back to the Democrats.  Failing to broaden the base with different demographics, like young voters, Hispanics, or African Americans is another way to likely guarantee that 2010 will be a one-and-done year for Republicans.  And of course, growing content with success at any point will inevitably lead right back to defeat.

Like your favorite sports game, momentum is critical in politics.  Republicans clearly have the momentum, and barring a dramatic change in the political wind, this momentum will significantly change the composition of the Congress this November.  When that happens, the ball will be in the GOP’s court.  The crucial question will then be:  What will they do with it?

As in the gubernatorial contests last November, Independents are fueling the success of the Republican candidacy. However, as a rule, the GOP brand remains unpopular thus far with too many outside of the party. With this in mind, party leaders must focus their attention not on rigid issues of social policy in planning for the November midterms, but rather in dealing with the economic concerns of the electorate. Indeed, instead of tackling job growth, the present admininistration in the seat of our federal union has focused continuously on its ideologically-driven policy goals rather than tackle the immediacy of the sagging economy.

The reform of health insurance access and delivery is an important goal. However, a populace out of work is one which cannot be expected to pay the taxes necessary to carry on the ever-increasing functions of government. While it is true that President Obama inherited a recession, he can act to mitigate its effects. The Democrats did pass, and President Obama did sign, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. However, it failed in its basic aims of job creation and reducing unemployment. The Obama approach to tackling the economy has not worked. However, Republicans must provide a clear alternative if GOP candidates are to succeed in the congressional races this year.

John McCain was hurt in the presidential race less than two years ago by failing to offer an actual economic plan. The electorate knew what McCain opposed, but not what he favored. To President Obama’s credit, he gave an indication of what his approach to the economy would be, even if he was for some ideas before being against them. Conservatives were broadly against the Bush bailout. Obama supported that bailout, and enacted more of his own as president. From McCain in 2008 came a bold pledge to temporarily suspend campaigning to offer a better proposal, and then he failed to devise one. The esteemed senior senator from Arizona, who has since losing the presidential election, emerged as an important leader in the Republican Party, might be in the oval office today had he offered a real contrast on the campaign trail.

Whether it will ultimately succeed or not, this is an area in which the Scott Brown for U.S. Senate campaign has been successful. Within and beyond the locally-televised debates, Brown has offered up sound policy proposals which he feels would address the economic recession in the United States presently. Coakley, like McCain, has presented herself as a good person. Like McCain, she may well be a fundamentally good person. However, as the change agent-in-chief has made apparent over the last year, being intelligent or interesting is not as important as the capacity to tackle big problems.

What made Obama successful in the 2008 election weren’t the racist factors alluded to by the Senate Democratic Leader, but rather his ability to give the impression that he was a broad-minded leader who had pragmatic solutions to large problems. Conservatives weren’t wrong to portray candidate Obama as a celebrity per se; where they went wrong was in challenging him effectively on policy. It was policy ideas, not dissatisfaction with or disdain for Democrats that made Newt Gingrich Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Whether successful or not, the Brown campaign should remind Republicans going forward of the importance of both the moment, and the need to offer an alternative rather than meer opposition in the legislative process.

There is three-way race underway to choose a successor to interim U.S. Senator Paul Kirk, who was appointed on a temporary basis to fill the seat vacated by the death of Edward Kennedy, the last surviving brother of John and Robert Kennedy, former President of the United States and United States Attorney-General, respectively. The nomination of Kirk had the effect of giving Obama a sixtieth vote on the problematic Democratic health care reform plan. However, with a final bill not yet embraced by both chambers, Republicans have their opening now with State Senator Scott Brown.

The winner of the special election later this month will take power right away. While Massachusetts is a reliably Democratic state, there is potential here for an upset. Consider, firstly, that off-year and midterm elections typically draw out fewer voters than do presidential contests. It is elections like the one set to happen in Massachusetts that largely come to be dominated by those most enthralled with politics, party activists on both sides. In the gubernatorial contests last year in Virginia and New Jersey, Republicans won governorships that had been held by Democrats for eight or more years. A strong focus on bread-and-butter issues was credited in part with the success of the Republican campaigns in those two states.

Like the New Jersey gubernatorial contest last fall, the Senate special election will feature three candidates of significance with ballot access. Martha Coakley is the Democratic Party nominee and the sitting attorney-general in the Bay State. On the Republican side, she will be facing the aforementioned Scott Brown, whose campaign has rightly garnered much attention among conservatives. However, the wildcard is a man named Joe Kennedy, who is of no relation to the well-known Massachusetts political family.

Most polls show Coakley leading, but the presence of a Kennedy in the race, albeit not one of of famous family, and a well-advertised campaign by Brown could make things interesting. The issues which helped to decide the Virginia and New Jersey races last autumn still matter, and Brown has focused on the economy in his campaign messaging. Brown’s television advertisements have gained press attention in recent weeks. The most clever of these is featured below.

Scott is by no means guaranteed to win. Last November was also the NY-23 special election which saw the election of Democrat Bill Owens to fill the seat being vacated by John McHugh in a three-person contest. There, the conservative vote was split between Republican nominee Diedre “Dede” Scozzafava and Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. The fact that Joseph L. Kennedy is a Libertarian whose approach to health care reform would be far more market oriented than that advocated by either Brown or Coakley is a reason to be concerned because his presence in the race complicates the prospects for a Republican win an unlikely place.

For the record, Scott Brown wisely opposes the present health reform proposal. His campaign site suggests that he supports the current public system in Massachusetts. However, Brown’s lack of conservative purism on the issue of reform offers the voters of Massachusetts the opportunity to weigh in on whether or not Congress is moving too fast on a bad bill. The January 19th contest is not a must win for Republicans; rather, it is the contest for Obama’s sixtieth vote.

A victory by Scott Brown will completely change the trajectory of messaging and agenda items for both parties in ways the now open contests in Connecticut and North Dakota this coming November never could. If indeed the Nelson bribe was necessary to prevent a filibuster on Democratic “reform” plans before, then negotiations will surely need to start again if Brown wins. Both the American people and the Republican Party would benefit from such a prospect. Scott Brown will be able to make abundantly clear, if he wins, whether the Obama White House now being taken to task over its broken C-SPAN campaign promise is more sincere in regards to its thus far unfulfilled pledges of post-partisan governance.

Now, another bi-partisan bill, proposed by Senators John McCain and Maria Cantwell, is attempting to make amends, and reinstate the provisions from Glass-Steagall that blocked the creation of these all-in-one banks. Unlike in 1999, the leadership of both parties seems to be against this bi-partisan bill, presumably because it actually is a good piece of legislation. The very same people on the Banking Committee back then (I’m talking to you, Senator Frank) will do their best to make sure Cantwell-McCain does see the light of day now. Not surprisingly, the major banks are going through great lengths to convince those who wield power that the combination of commercial and investment banking somehow makes sense and to break the two up would somehow hurt the economy. This argument has more holes than a sponge.

This bill presents an excellent opportunity for Republicans. Fair or not, we got blamed for the financial collapse that resulted from the Glass–Steagall repeal. The bill was signed into law by a Democratic President but the consequences came at the end of an already unpopular Republican Administration. Even though this new bill has the support of progressives and moderates alike in the Democratic Party, their leadership will never go for it. Conservatives are also expressing the populist support for this bill.

Democratic campaign officials, meanwhile, have already shown us their strategy for the 2010 elections: tie Republicans to Wall Street. If we come out in support of this bill as a party, two things will happen. First, the argument that Republicans are looking out for the super-rich and not the common man will be null and void. Just as important, Democrats will be forced to go along and support Cantwell-McCain for fear of looking pro-mega banks themselves.

The bill is a win-win for whichever party gets to take the credit for it. As long as the bank lobby does not effectively kill it, it will eventually gain enough support on both sides to pass. It would thus be a very wise move on the part of our Republican Congressional leaders to champion the cause.

There can be little doubt that the health reform “debate” which lacked too many voices not already committed to a particular set of statist reform ideas. Indeed, the partisan, government-growing approach embraced by the U.S. House led one member of Congress, Parker Griffiths of Alabama, to leave the Democratic Party for the GOP. This might not be of note were this particular ex-Democrat a supporter of the Howard Dean campaign in 2004 who has voted 85% of the time with Nancy Pelosi, breaking most significantly with that party over health care and the stimulus.

Also apparent is the way in which partisan appeals were used by Democrats to push the public option. A rather comical email circulated to Obama supporters offered praise to Senator Roland Burris, an ally of ousted Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who is not seeking election to a full term next year. Curiously, the email, dated December tenth, made no mention of whether or not the Senator from Countrywide and temporary Iowan Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) should be excluded from financial sector regulatory reform discussions. A relevant portion of the email from Jim Dean of “Democracy for America”, the remnant of his brother Howard’s presidential campaign apparatus, and progressive activist organization is available below.

*Insurance Interests have contributed over $80 million to the campaigns of Senate Democrats.*

Insurance Industry Senators like Blanche Lincoln, Joe Lieberman, and Ben
Nelson are working against the very people they represent: Voters in their
states back home.

Now is not the time to give up and accept less. We must fight for both.

*CALL ON SENATORS TO SAY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH AND REJECT ALL AMENDMENTS THAT
WEAKEN THE PUBLIC OPTION*

Let’s be clear. Joe Lieberman doesn’t care about the 68% of Connecticut
voters who want a public option. Joe only cares about himself. So when Aetna
and other insurance interests give Joe over $3,308,621, Joe’s ready and
willing to do their bidding and kill real reform.

And we all know insurance interests don’t just own Senator Lieberman.
They’ve spent $80 million funding the campaign of Senate Democrats like Ben
Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and Mary Landrieu.

We still have progressive champions who can beat back this so-called
“compromise.” Every amendment to the healthcare bill still needs 60 votes to
pass. We have Healthcare Heroes like Senators Russ Feingold, Bernie Sanders,
Rolland Burris, and Sherrod Brown who can stand up.

We have to make sure they know we demand it. They must know we’ll have their
back. Because, we’re done negotiating. *Enough is enough.*

Were this email not comical enough with its allegations regarding the “true” motivations of those proposing the public option, one would surely find it amusing over its characterization of Ben Nelson. As it turns out, Senate Democrats led by Harry Reid would rather offer pork and generous concessions to individual members or their states-not to the private sector as the Dean email alleges-than work with Republicans to produce a better bill. Perhaps, in that sense, Democrats were done negotiating, and had moved on to payoffs. The bill passed by the Senate gives residents of Ben Nelson’s state, Nebraska, a potentially illegal and unwanted free ride at the expense of their fellow Americans in the other 49 states when it comes to sharing the burden of paying for Medicaid. Even Bernie Sanders, who was praised in the Dean email, earned concessions for his “yea” vote by adding to the bill assistance to small health centers, but this concession applies to those both within and beyond his state, Vermont. Other Democrats earned smaller concessions for their states. While Senators are elected to represented the people of their states, actually working with Republicans to produce a reform plan with broad support surely would have been both easier and more ethical than bribing members to sign onto a bad bill. As it turns out, the numerous Senate adustments to H.R. 3590 garnered only sixty votes, all within the Democratic Caucus. A truly bipartisan bill would carry support in both chambers, and even sime more progressive members could be brought on board. Consider, for example, that Jim Clyburn (D-South Carolina), a major proponent of the public option and the majority whip in the U.S. House of Representatives, has given indication that reform proposals excluding such a measure are acceptable to him. Such an approach may have also spared Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) his latest political headache.

However, since Jim Dean and his fellow progressives are concerned with ethics, perhaps they will come out against the blank check that Congress is issuing to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government-owned corporations whose lending and financial practices helped to cause the current recession. Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake is certainly one progressive who is sincere enough in her convictions to take the White House to task over its stonewalling on inquiries into the financial practices at the state-owned mortgage giants.

Early in the year, the main impetus presented for reform was a legitimate concern to address the burgeoning cost of health care in the United States. Now, as the year closes, the upper chamber of the United States Congress has passed a bill heavy on mandates and new regulation, but lacking in mechanisms to bring costs down. A measure requiring individuals to hold health insurance is one which by itself removes an incentive for cost containment. Essentialy, the Senate is praising itself for failing to do what it sought. Indeed, Senator Franken is emphasizing in his messaging on this legislation the unsupportable claim that the Senate bill will slow the increase in the cost of health insurance, even as the new coverage mandates will force providers and consumers to accrue new costs.

More troubling, however, is what the final product is likely to do for the deficit. President Obama made the lofty pledge that the health care bill should be “deficit neutral”. In reality, however, every gigantic social policy program enacted since the nineteen thirties has cost substantially more than was estimated. With Congress to date divided on how to pay for the Senate package, there should be no anticipation that the measure will ever pay for itself. Senator McCaskill (D-Missouri) had the audacity to compare Republicans unfavorably to a character in a children’s story best known for attempting to steal Christmas. Unfortunately for her, the bill she voted for will do more to steal Christmas from posterity than the proposals offered by Republicans to reform health care. As Joe Lieberman is learning, lacking common sense is becoming a prerequisite for good standing in the present majority caucus of the U.S. Senate.  It seems that a national debt already in excess of twelve trillion dollars is not enough for Democrats. In a separate measure, Senate Democrats voted to raise the debt ceiling for government spending. Vague, and likely meaningless attempts at requiring better accounting practices garnered a single Republican vote, that of the retiring George Voinovich from Ohio, who also voted with most Senate Democrats against a July bill to allow licensed gun owners to cross state lines with their weapons.

From day one of his administration to the end of this year, one thing is apparent above all else; that portrayals of the new commander-in-chief as a broad-minded and innovative moderate  were inaccurate at best. Indeed, President Obama has governed as a partisan, and has been reluctant to push for greater transparency in the debate process. His signature achievements to date have been passed without significant bipartisan support. The only change delievered by the Obama administration to date has been to replace one polarizing big-spending administration with another. With 2010 now merely days away, Democrats ought to reflect on what it was that caused Republicans their majority. A failure to put principle above party gave Nancy Pelosi her majority. We will know one year from now whether the same will give John Boehner his.