Keep your Obamacare powder dry, Mitch

LeRoy Goldman OPINION

January 24, 2015

Ashville Citizen-Times

The newly minted Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), is an insider’s insider. He’s been around a long time. McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984. He is Kentucky’s longest serving U.S. senator.

Last year the Democrats believed that they just might send him packing. They nominated Kentucky’s Secretary of State, Alison Lundergan Grimes, and throughout most of the campaign the race was too close to call. But, even with the active support of both Bill and Hillary Clinton, Grimes proved no match for the wily McConnell. When she refused to tell the voters for whom she had voted for President in 2008 and 2012, McConnell turned her into a punching bag. On election night Grimes only received 41 percent of the vote.

In his victory speech McConnell promised to end gridlock in the Senate. He said the Senate would “return to regular order” when the 114th Congress convened in January. And thus far he has been true to his word. The Senate is now debating the Keystone XL Pipeline bill, and McConnell is permitting the Democrats to offer amendments to the bill. That is what regular order is all about, and that’s exactly what McConnell’s predecessor, Democrat Harry Reid, would not allow. The Senate will pass Keystone. It will be approved on a bipartisan vote. Whether that vote will be sufficiently large to muster the 67 votes necessary to override a likely veto by president Obama is uncertain and unlikely.

And, if major bills like Keystone can’t be enacted because of veto after veto, then we’re right back to gridlock. There is, however, a way around the gridlock. It’s called Budget Reconciliation, and it was created when the Congressional Budget Act was passed in 1974. The budget reconciliation process is arcane and unknown to most Americans. Understanding it requires venturing into the tall weeds where Senate politics and Senate procedures intersect.

The fundamental advantage that attaches to budget reconciliation is that it enables the Senate to pass a piece of major legislation with only a 51-vote majority. Thus, it precludes the minority party from filibustering the bill to death. But there are significant limitations on the use of Budget Reconciliation. It is limited to a single measure, at the beginning of each year and that will require McConnell to carefully choose among competing pieces of legislation. In addition, even if a major piece of legislation clears Congress under the expedited reconciliation process, the President still retains the option of vetoing the legislation.

McConnell faces a fateful choice. It appears clear that he will soon decide to use budget reconciliation either to repeal much of Obamacare, or use it to enact major tax reform. The case for tax reform is by far the stronger. The Democrats blundered badly and unnecessarily in 2009 when they chose to make health care their central issue in the face of an imploding economy.

Although the economy has begun to rebound, there is still considerable malaise in middle-class America. Wages remain stagnant, and far too many Americans either have inadequate part-time work, or have stopped looking for work altogether. Comprehensive tax reform can and should be written in a way to directly alleviate these major economic challenges facing the nation. Comprehensive tax reform is likely to attract Democratic votes in Congress, maybe not many, but enough to make the bill bipartisan. Thus, there is some chance that when confronted with such a bipartisan bill that the president might sign it into law. And, if he vetoes it, the GOP will have at least demonstrated to the American people that it made a good faith effort to deal with a major issue in a bipartisan manner.

On the other hand choosing to waste budget reconciliation on the repeal of Obamacare is a loser. The House has already voted to repeal or gut Obamacare more than 50 times. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is a good working definition of insanity. And there is good reason to believe that Obamacare’s days are numbered anyway.

In March the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on King v. Burwell. The case will be decided by this June. If Chief Justice Roberts joins the four conservative justices and rules that Obamacare premium subsidies cannot be provided in the 36 states that chose not to establish a state exchange, Obamacare will implode.

Keep your Obamacare powder dry, Mitch. Help is on the way.

Goldman lives in Flat Rock. He was member of the federal government’s Senior Executive Service for many years.

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Hillary caught in a rundown between Yogi, Satchel Paige

Hillary caught in a rundown between Yogi, Satchel Paige

By LeRoy Goldman
Special to the Observer

Posted: Thursday, Jan. 01, 2015

Charlotte Observer

One of Washington’s most secret organizations is the Emil Verban Society. Founded in 1975, the Society is composed of a bipartisan group of famous Washington insiders that has included President Ronald Reagan, Vice President Dick Cheney, First Lady Hillary Clinton, columnist George Will, and others who are not so famous, including yours truly.

The Society takes its name from a Chicago Cubs second baseman, Emil Verban, who played for the Cubs from 1948-1950. Emil Verban typified the mediocrity of the Cubs both then and now. During his years with the cellar-dwelling Cubs he hit a single home run. His nickname was The Antelope, not because he was fleet of foot, but because he was slow.

The Society has no dues, no committee structure, no regular meetings, and no particular purpose for being. But from time to time it does hold a luncheon in Washington. At one such luncheon in the mid-nineties our featured speaker was First Lady Hillary Clinton.

You probably know that the book on Clinton is that she shines in small group events, while being stiff and off-putting on the Campaign trail. It’s true. Her impromptu talk to us that day was full of humor, warm, and demonstrated her grasp of baseball lore.

I tell you this so that you’ll know that Clinton will appreciate fully that she is now trapped between the thinking of the great Yankee catcher, Yogi Berra, and the Negro Leagues’ greatest pitcher, Satchel Paige.

Yogi Berra famously said, “It’s like deja vu all over again.” And it applies to Clinton.

In the run-up to the 2008 presidential campaign the stars appeared perfectly aligned for Clinton. Although the field of Democrats seeking the Democratic nomination was crowded, Clinton was the colossus that dominated the Democratic landscape. Her campaign was flush with money, its organizational bench was deep, and there was an air of inevitability about her candidacy.

But her quest for the nomination turned into a train wreck. Neither Clinton, nor her campaign staff adequately appreciated the threat from the left that was posed by the upstart candidacy of freshman Sen. Barack Obama. By the time Team Clinton realized the severity of the threat it was too late. The campaign’s confidence turned out to be misplaced overconfidence, as they ignored the caucus states where Obama built a lead of about 150 delegates that Clinton never overcame.

As Obama’s campaign gained traction, Clinton’s organization imploded amid internal bickering and recrimination. The candidate herself couldn’t compete with Obama in one-on-one debates. And she could never get out from under her vote for the Iraq war.

She lost, and with her loss began the planning for 2016. Today we are on the cusp of what will soon be her announcement that she will run again. This time the field will not be crowded.

Like 2008, most assume that her nomination is inevitable. Perhaps so, but danger again lurks to her left. Danger’s name is freshman Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

It’s deja vu all over again! Warren, unlike Clinton, is an ideologue. Unlike Clinton, she not only has well-defined, specific beliefs, she has no reluctance to articulate them. Unlike Clinton, she is a skilled and relentless debater. Unlike Clinton, she arouses passion among her supporters. Unlike Clinton, she is animated, not wooden, on the campaign trail.

In 2008 Clinton’s Achilles’ heel was her support of the Iraq War. In 2016 it will be her affinity for Wall Street money.

And there’s another dynamic to a Clinton/Warren confrontation that will bear no resemblance to 2008. In 2008 Clinton and Obama never took the gloves off because Clinton dared not enrage African-American voters, and Obama dared not enrage female voters. But no such constraints will apply in a Clinton/Warren smack-down.

Finally, Clinton has thin skin, and Warren knows it. Recall what happened when Secretary of State Clinton testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January of 2013 and was subjected to fierce questioning from Sen. Ron Johnson, (R-WI), about the attack in Benghazi. She lost it and said, “Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night and decided they’d go kill some Americans. What difference – at this point, what difference does it make?”

And that brings us to Satchel Paige who said, “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”

Something is, and we’re in for quite a spectacle.

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