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The Bitter Man strikes back.

Democratic moderates who control the balance of power on health care legislation balked Tuesday at a government-run insurance option for millions of Americans, underscoring the enormity of the challenge confronting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid one day after he unveiled the plan as a consensus product.
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The decision to include a government insurance option in his legislation had obvious appeal for liberals who account for a strong majority inside the Senate Democratic caucus, and it is likely to please labor unions and party activists in Nevada.

But it has gained less-than-effusive support from Obama, who is eager to have at least a dollop of bipartisanship for his signature domestic issue. Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, the only Republican who has sided with Democrats in committee this year, has announced she will not support the bill Reid drafted.

Still, if Reid is pressed in coming weeks by moderates to fall back, he can explain to liberals that he was forced to do so because his preference — a government insurance option — proved to be unobtainable in the Senate. Already, that pressure is evident...read on

Joe Lieberman is a bitter old man who was looking for some media juice yesterday when he decided to spit in the face of Americans who want real health care reform. Can you trust either his motives or what he says anymore?

Joe Lieberman has once again rolled a political hand grenade into the Democrats’ tent.

The Connecticut independent obliterated any illusion that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) can quickly ram through health care reform with a public option, telling reporters on Tuesday that he would join Republicans in a filibuster to prevent a vote on Reid’s plan if it isn’t changed first.

“We’re trying to do too much at once,” said Lieberman, who signaled he would vote with Reid on the first procedural vote that requires 60 votes, the motion to proceed.

The media will never call out Lieberman over his bullshit.

And Lieberman’s justification on this is just nonsense – the public option would SAVE money for the government, to the tune of $100 billion dollars over 10 years according to the Congressional Budget Office. It also would cost nothing to the taxpayer, being financed by individual premiums.

The public option saves money and Holy Joe knows it. And the Senate will never take action against another Senator no matter how outrageous their behavior is.

But Lieberman’s fellow Connecticut senator, Democrat Chris Dodd, who faces a tough reelection fight in 2010, dismissed the idea that Lieberman would incur any retribution.

“No, no, no. People are going to be all over the place,” he said when asked if Lieberman should be punished. “The idea that people are going to be reprimanded because somehow they have a different point of view than someone else is ridiculous. That isn’t going to happen.”

Lieberman can thank President Obama for retaining his committees and unless he gets caught in bed with a goat, he gets to do whatever he wants. The House of Lords always protect their royal status over their constituents. Well, Mr. President -- it's time to reign in this herd of Conservadems if you really want the public option. All this could be the awesome kabuki dance that pols do as they negotiate legislation through the media. Well, Mr. President, you got him -- you own him now so make him pony up. Oh, wait -- Senators are immune to any type of accountability. Sorry, I forgot what I wrote earlier in this piece.

Too bad Ned Lamont didn't win in 2006, but we forced Joe out of the Dem Party and Ned is still speaking up against Lieberman. They did debate health care and Holy Joe was for "universal health care" at the time, but now he has a Republican base to protect.

I asked Lamont if he thinks that Obama, who intervened last November to keep Senate Democrats from stripping Lieberman of his committee chairmanship, was guilty of trusting Connecticut's junior senator too much.

"I would really hope that Senator Lieberman would have returned that courtesy by talking to the president's team before walking out on this filibuster plank," he replied.

Lieberman's seat will be up in 2012. His polls numbers have improved a little this year, but they're still very shaky, a 48-45 percent approval rating among all voters in the state. But among Democrats, they're poisonous. Does Lieberman's latest move mean he's abandoning any thought of running as a Democrat again in '12?

"He got re-elected in '06 with overwhelming Republican support," Lamont said. "So I guess he's just taking care of his base."

Do me a favor and contact Joe's offices and tell him to give us an up-or-down vote on health care and not to join Republicans in a filibuster. He likely won't listen, but it's important that he hear our voices.

One Constitution Plaza
7th Floor
Hartford, CT 06103
(860) 549-8463 Voice
--
706 Hart Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-4041 Voice

And please: Donate to Blue America's Campaign For Health Care Choice so we can continue to fight for health care reform. We have several actions we're working on...

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Looks like American's for Prosperity's Tim Phillips has resorted to hiring some cheap help with their tour bashing the Employee Free Choice Act. Who better than Mr. Fake Plumber Joe Wurzelbacher? I guess these guys couldn't find any real plumbers to go out there and attack unions. From KDKA Pittsburgh:

'Joe The Plumber' Speaks In Green Tree

Samuel Joseph Wuerzelbacher was there to rally against the Employee Free Choice Act – a bill that's supposed to make it easier for unions to organize.

Some local unions organized against Joe at the event.

President Obama supports the Employee Free Choice act.

It appears to be dead for now in Congress due to opposition from Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter.

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(Oddly, still is)

Since its enactment in 1947, the famous (or infamous) Taft-Hartley Act (or Slave-Labor Bill as some call it) has been in an almost constant state of proposed revision. But never getting off the ground. Initially vetoed by Truman in 1947, it was overridden and set into law by the Republican led 80th Congress. Amendments have been proposed ever since.

In 1949, part of the America United Series, moderated by David Brinkley, approached a panel consisting of a young Eugene McCarthy newly elected Congressman, Thruston Morton, Anthony P. Alfino from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Tom Harris who represented the CIO.

Tom Harris (CIO): “The question you ask, ‘How Should The Taft-Hartley Act Be Amended’ is an easy one in our judgment to answer. It shouldn’t be amended at all but should be replaced with an entirely different statute, along the lines of the Wagner Act. That is essentially what the Thomas-Lezinsky Bill does. We think that should be done because the approach of the Wagner Act to industrial relations was sound. While that of the Taft-Hartley Act is wholly wrong. The ideas behind the Wagner Act were very simple; they were first, to permit workers to form strong unions if they wanted to. Secondly, to require employers to deal with those unions on wages, hours and so on. The authors of the Wagner Act hoped by these means to promote industrial peace and to raise the living standards of workers. With consequent benefit to the entire community. The idea behind the Taft-Hartley Act is also very simple; it’s to weaken unions. The men who wrote the Taft-Hartley Act just didn’t believe in labor unions. The Taft-Hartley Act is a composite of all the anti-union devices which reactionary congressmen were able to think up during the years of the New Deal. When they got into power, briefly as it turned out, in the 80th Congress, they wrote these numerous devices into law. That’s the Taft-Hartley law. And its bad in its entirety and should be stricken from the books.”

In 1949 they wanted to amend it. It's 2009 - still waiting.

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From Democracy Now:

A group of Iraqi labor leaders are here in the United States trying to bring international attention to the lack of a basic labor law in Iraq guaranteeing the right to unionize without repression. Although the United States has scrapped several Saddam Hussein-era laws since the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, a 1987 law banning unions in all public-sector workplaces remains in place. Last week the AFL-CIO adopted a resolution defending Iraqi labor rights. We speak to Iraqi labor leaders Rasim Awadi and Falah Alwan.

Once again, Amy Goodman is covering the stories the mainstream media won't touch. Most of their coverage of Iraq has fallen completely off the map. I'm glad to see the AFL-CIO getting involved in trying to do something to make these people's lives better after we went over there and blew up their country.

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Iraq, where Vice President Biden recently pressed Iraqi leaders to enact further regulatory and financial protections to make Iraq more attractive to foreign investors. Speaking to Iraqi officials in Baghdad’s Green Zone last week, Biden called for the Iraqi Parliament to adopt laws to offer more incentives on oil concessions. He also noted the Iraq Business and Investment Conference in Washington next month could encourage private US investment in the country.

Well, as the Vice President was in Iraq promoting privatization last week, a group of Iraqi labor leaders were here in the United States attending the AFL-CIO convention, trying to bring international attention to the lack of basic labor law in Iraq guaranteeing the right to unionize without repression.

Although the United States has scrapped several Saddam Hussein-era laws since the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, a 1987 law banning unions in all public-sector workplaces remains in place.

The AFL-CIO adopted a resolution defending Iraqi labor rights last week, and US Labor Against the War is urging Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to press the Iraqi government to protect labor rights.

You can watch the rest of the interview and read the transcript at Democracy Now's web site.

h/t danieljbmitchell:

In 1971, President Nixon proposed a national health insurance plan built on heavily employer private coverage. Senator Ted Kennedy proposed what would today be called a single-payer plan. In 1974, the debate had morphed into Nixon vs. Kennedy-Mills vs. Organized labor. Despite the prediction in the second clip shown, the result was stalemate rather than passage in 1974 or 1975.

So the logical question is, exactly who does Max Baucus serve? Surely not the residents of Montana:

Fifty-five percent of Democrats in Montana disapprove of how Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has handled healthcare reform, according to a new Research 2000 poll given to The Hill by a liberal activist.

Liberal advocacy groups and labor unions have been running television ads and running grassroots operations in Montana this summer targeting Baucus and criticizing his tepid support for a government-run health insurance program.

It appears the campaign has begun to impact Baucus’s public standing.

A majority of Montana Democrats disapprove of Baucus’s actions on healthcare reform while only 34 percent of Democrats approve, according to the poll, which was conducted from Aug. 17 to Aug. 19. The poll was commissioned by Daily Kos, an influential liberal website, according to the source.

Overall 42 percent of Democratic, Republican and independent voters approve of Baucus on healthcare reform while 44 percent disapprove. Nearly half of Montana Republicans polled, 49 percent, approve of Baucus’s role in healthcare talks.

More than a third of Democrats polled said they would be less likely to vote for Baucus if he opposed a public health insurance option while 52 percent said their vote would not be affected. About one in 10 said they would be more likely to support Baucus if he opposed a public option.

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Where to even begin with this segment from MSNBC's Morning Meeting. I've really got to wonder if a single one of these people has ever done a hard day of physical labor in their entire lives to be able to carry on trashing unions the way they did.

First, Dylan Ratigan asks if unions are against health-care reform because everyone having health-care benefits would mean union members' benefits are no longer better than other non-union members' benefits, and of course the only thing unions care about is getting bigger. Ratigan doesn't seem to understand that those benefits are bargained for and part of an overall compensation package, and that if we weren't having to bargain for the health-care benefits, that would likely play out in being able to negotiate for higher take-home pay or some other benefit instead.

He also ignores the fact that this would be good for unionized companies if the burden of paying health-care expenses were taken off of their backs, which would make them more competitive, thus also benefiting the workers at those companies. Bernard follows with this:

Absolutely, the labor unions right now simply exist for one reason. To self perpetuate receiving union dues and having political influence. I think it's absolutely amazing to watch that clip from The Rachel Maddow Show last night. This guy is, he's saying to President Obama, I'm strong-arming you buddy. And my answer to this would be they are showing themselves to be as ridiculous as many members of the American public think they are. What happened to pragmatism? What happened to competition, and what actually happened to winning?

Maybe it would be great for the Democratic Party to lose the support of labor unions because quite honestly a lot of labor unions are what holds America back and keeps us from being as good as we can be.

I'd like to see these clowns try to have this conversation with someone like Leo Gerard at the table. He'd have eaten them for lunch. Heaven forbid someone who represents labor might have a seat at this table.

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Matt Yglesias has a good post up on the importance of, you know, raising the damn money to pay for health-care reform.

Jonathan Cohn makes the important point that a bit lost in the week’s news that Harry Reid is cracking the whip on Max Baucus is the fact that this whip-cracking seems to have involved ruling out the idea of limiting the tax-exempt status of employer-provided health care as a revenue source for reform. Some important labor unions don’t like this idea and it doesn’t poll very well, but it’s too bad to see it ruled out because it’s a pretty good idea. And what’s more, even if you don’t like the idea you do need some idea of how to raise the $1 trillion to $1.3 trillion over ten years that something like the Senate HELP plan would cost.
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This seems like a good moment to issue my dozenth call for congress to take another look at the Obama administration’s original revenue proposal—limiting tax deductions for high-income itemizers. This would target basically the same group of people (rich people) as House liberals’ plan for a surtax on high-income couples but raise the money in a substantially more efficient way.

When possible, it’s better to raise money by broadening the tax base—curbing loopholes, deductions, and exemptions—than by simply raising the rates. The reason is that higher rates on a narrow base do a lot to encourage people to shift income into loopholes, which both undermines your revenue-raising efforts and also distorts the economy. Both the employer tax exclusion proposals and the itemized deductions proposal fit that good model.

Big Time Ezra says that Obama shouldn't be so stuck on telling people that they can keep what they have:

One of the president's health-care reform principles is that everyone must be able to keep what he or she currently has. But that means we're not really going to change, or improve, what they have. And that means they're not getting much in the way that's new. Higher taxes aren't buying them obvious benefits. Instead, they seem to be paying the health-care bills of poorer Americans.

If support for the overall effort were more robust, the polling on the tax exclusion would matter less. People are willing to pay for things they want to buy. But though they might abstractly favor health-care reform, it doesn't seem directly related to their lives.

So now the Senate is trying to find revenue options that fall on fewer people. That's one response. If health-care reform will only directly help the few, then its fiscal impact will have to be similarly narrow. But another would be to go in the other direction and gamble on policies that would make health-care reform a more direct contributor to the lives of the many, and so potentially something they'd be willing to pay for.

Playing it safe is not helping. I know President Obama is trying to reassure people so the right wingers can't scare them, but no matter what he does, the right wingers will scare Americans. It's in their nature and their only true talent. So start playing hardball because Americans want health care reform.

Sure, they have no idea what a Baucus or Reid or Grassley or a Lincoln means in this debate, but start framing it better and come out throwing hay-makers. The Democratic leadership should have had the money aspect of this worked out already, but you can't accommodate all sides.

It is a complex issue to figure out, but all options have to be on the table, and if losing a seat in Congress is the price that has to be paid, who cares except for Rahm? Health care is too important to be worried about attack ads in 2010. Just get the job done.

President Obama has been reading out blogs and now says he will use his bully pulpit to push Congress on health care reform.
The NY Times: Obama to Forge a Greater Role on Health Care

After months of insisting he would leave the details to Congress, President Obama has concluded that he must exert greater control over the health care debate and is preparing an intense push for legislation that will include speeches, town-hall-style meetings and much deeper engagement with lawmakers, senior White House officials say.

Mindful of the failures of former President Bill Clinton, whose intricate proposal for universal care collapsed on Capitol Hill 15 years ago, Mr. Obama until now had charted a different course, setting forth broad principles and concentrating on bringing disparate factions — doctors, insurers, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, labor unions — to the negotiating table.

But Mr. Obama has grown concerned that he is losing the debate over certain policy prescriptions he favors, like a government-run insurance plan to compete with the private sector, said one Democrat familiar with his thinking. With Congress beginning a burst of work on the measure, top advisers say, the president is determined to make certain the final bill bears his stamp. “Ultimately, as happened with the recovery act, it will become President Obama’s plan,” the White House budget director, Peter R. Orszag, said in an interview. “I think you will see that evolution occurring over the next few weeks. We will be weighing in more definitively, and you will see him out there.”

Newt Gingrich was whining about this article on Face the Nation this morning.

In April, Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the Budget Committee chairman, balked at the idea of having the Senate consider health legislation under the fast-track process known as reconciliation, which could avoid a Republican filibuster. At a private meeting, Mr. Obama pressed him on it.

“ ‘I want to keep it on the table as an option,’ ” Mr. Conrad recalled the president saying. Not long after that, Mr. Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, visited Mr. Conrad on Capitol Hill. Mr. Conrad was not convinced, but decided not to stand in the way. “The Budget Committee chairman does not top the president of the United States,” he said.
“He’s doing good by staying out of it as much as he is,” Mr. Grassley said. “He’d better use kid gloves at the start.”

Why does Grassley need to be coddled and treated like a kid? What's wrong with these babies? This is not a bipartisan issue. Health care is an American issue. If Republicans want to get on the fast track of actually really helping American families and Corporations then they should get out of the way and work like Americans. Needing 51 votes seems like the right course of action. Republicans will block and obstruct any real change in health care and so will the Ben Nelson's on the left. By forcing reconciliation, it sends a real message to these un-American obstructionists.

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The cast of Morning Joe while fear mongering about the EFCA can't manage to name a single successful unionized company, even though they work for one. Media Matters and TPM are already all over this one. Jamison Foser at Media Matters:

The Morning Joe crew was on an anti-union tear this morning, claiming the union label on a company means "sell." Mika Brzezinski went so far as to say of unions: "They cripple the system that makes a company work." Collectively, the journalists on Morning Joe couldn't name a single "successful" unionized company.

.....

Oh, what the heck, let's take one more example. GE is one of the world's largest companies; in 2006, its revenues were greater than the gross domestic products of 80 percent of UN nations. The company made more than $18 billion in 2008 -- again, billion with a b, and again, those are profits, not revenue. All that despite (or, perhaps, because of) the fact that 13 different unions represent GE workers.

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The corporate right, already almost completely besides themselves at the prospect that the Employee Free Choice Act has been trying to come up with any reason at all as an excuse for stopping the bill. Especially when the reasons they give fall apart like an old cookie whenever they're confronted with facts.

The newest talking point is the notion that unions stifle job creation, which got the full endorsement of CNBC's Lawrence Kudlow and Michelle Caruso-Cabrera (who, we're reminded, graduated from Wellesley with a degree in history!).

Look, not only do unions kill jobs, they kill companies. Look at what's happening to General Motors.

Fortunately, Jonathan Tasini of the Labor Research Association was able to point out the basic falsity of the claim:

Total nonsense. I'd like to smoke what she's smoking. The fact is this: There is absolutely zero, zero empirical evidence that unions cost jobs. None. And she can't quote a single study, a single piece of information that -- it's just rhetoric.

Unfortunately, we're going to be hearing a lot more of this in the coming weeks. The corporate Right simply can't and won't be honest about their real reasons for opposing this bill: They hate unions and don't want to make it easier for workers to form them. In fact, they want to keep the game rigged the way they have it now, and they'll do anything to keep it rigged that way. Including lie through their teeth.