Morning Must Reads — Public Option Bait and Switch

If only writer Sheryl Gay Stolberg had read her colleague David Kirkpatrick’s Thursday piece about how the White House had been working intimately with the Senate Finance Committee on a compromise health care bill that doesn’t initially include a new national health plan.

Perhaps the Times has cut reporter subscriptions in these hard times, but had she read Kirkpatrick’s piece, perhaps Stolberg would have been less credulous about the administration’s Sunday roll out of its openness to dropping a public option.

Conservatives are calling it a surrender and liberals say it’s a betrayal, but the public shift is really just the start of the final stage of the administration’s convoluted effort to pass health reform.

There are not enough votes in the Senate for a new national plan. That was true in March, and the non-profit, private co-op has been the only hope for months of the 60 votes needed to pass a unified plan.

The real issue is how robust the co-op plan will be. Republicans would accept truly private enterprises operated at the state or perhaps regional level. The White House will be pushing for a national co-op with liberal provisions for a government-run plan to kick in when the under-funded, over-tasked co-op flops. Without that Trojan horse approach, liberal Democrats who are already feeling Swiftboated by “angry mobs” would likely kill the plan themselves.

The real issue is how far back the president set himself by adopting the bait and switch approach with voters. Now, by publicly giving up on the one point on which he had been somewhat clear – the new national plan – President Obama has confused things even more. Health care looks like a debacle and the administration is unlikely to turn around public opinion by announcing a change in the degree of openness to an abstruse policy point in a larger issue about which people have become deeply skeptical.

But Stolberg didn’t even need to read Kirkpatrick’s story to see all that. She just needed to listen to her own sources:

“On Capitol Hill, the Senate Finance Committee is expected to produce a bill that features a nonprofit co-op. The author of the idea, Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Budget Committee, predicted Sunday that Mr. Obama would have no choice but to drop the public option.

‘The fact of the matter is, there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option,’ Mr. Conrad said on ‘Fox News Sunday.’ ‘There never have been. So to continue to chase that rabbit, I think, is just a wasted effort.’

The co-op, modeled after rural electric and agricultural cooperatives in Mr. Conrad’s home state, would offer insurance through a nonprofit, nongovernmental consumer entity run by its members. Mr. Axelrod said one downside of a co-op, from Mr. Obama’s point of view, was that it might be unable to ‘scale up in such a way that would create a robust’ competitor to private insurers.”

 

Wall Street Journal — Atlanta Protest of Health-Care Overhaul Draws Thousands

Writer Alex Roth shows how the lessons learned by conservatives and libertarians during the April tea parties are paying off during the health care debate.

On Sunday, the Gasden Flags were flying in Atlanta as thousands of folks showed up to raise hell about the idea of an expensive, invasive health care plan.

The show of strength for the opponents of Democratic ambitions were the brainchild of a local ad man and a candidate for state insurance commissioner that got picked up by local talk show hosts and then really got going online.

The Right is proving more adept than expected at using social networking than expected. As with TV and direct mail in the past, an innovation on the Left may become a more potent tool when used by the Right.

So far, the dismissive, scolding tone adopted by Democrats has only made the conservative protesters stronger. What fun is it to protest if no one notices? If you can get on a White House watch list, you feel like you’re making a difference.

“Loretta Wakefield, part of a group that drove 150 miles from Alabama to attend Saturday’s rally, said she worried that the proposal would result in too much government intervention.

‘I totally want reform,’ said Ms. Wakefield, 55, a retired health-care administrator. ‘After 20 years of dealing with all the issues of health care, we do need reform. We do not need a government take-over.’

The most common theme of Saturday’s event was concern about meddling by the federal government. ‘We need to start peeling away the layers,’ said Bill Spencer, 45, an electrical engineer from suburban Atlanta.”

 

Washington Post — The Signs Don’t Point To a Typical Recovery

One of the reasons the White House has been tentative about heralding good news on the economy is that the indicators are still very mixed. And it’s not just the unemployment and wage numbers – lagging indicators, to be sure – that complicate things.

Writer Neil Irwin points out that new lending and borrowing practices, different consumer behavior, and the fact that there’s nothing left for the Federal Reserve to do except try to stave off ruinous inflation could mean that instead of a “snap back” recovery like the one that followed the 1981-1982 recession, the current downturn might just end. The long economic slog would also leave the national economy open to re-infection by the recessionary bug.

It’s a thought-provoking piece that looks at the real state of the economy. For the politically minded, it raises the question of whether the “new foundation” has been set at too low a level.

“Historically, recessions have come about when businesses over-invested or when the Federal Reserve aggressively raised interest rates. Once business inventories and staffing levels correct themselves, or once the Fed cuts rates, growth resumes.

Downturns caused by financial crises play out differently. The machinery of the financial system grinds to a halt; people cannot get credit to buy things and businesses cannot borrow money to expand.

According to an analysis of 14 financial crises around the world by economists Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, the unemployment rate rises an average of seven percentage points in a downturn (this one has increased the U.S. jobless rate by only 4.7 percentage points), and the crisis lasts an average of 4.8 years (this one is at the two-year point).

Growth spurts can emerge, and it appears increasingly likely that the U.S. economy will grow at a solid pace in the second half of the year, as companies restock depleted inventories. But it is unclear what would come after that, given the ongoing restrictions on credit.”

USA Today — Poll: 57% don’t see stimulus working

To get his stimulus plan passed quickly, the president signed off on including a lot of unstimulative pork that will help some members of Congress get re-elected but didn’t supply any of the rush that was promised. The cash for clunkers program has provided one of the only bright spots, and that was an afterthought.

But the Democrat’s 2010 strategy is to take credit for health care reform and blame Republicans for opposing the stimulus. Ouch.

Writer Brad Heath shows that skepticism and resentment of the stimulus is a pretty deep-seated thing. While enough folks with 401(k) accounts have seen things level off and even improve of late, the stimulus doesn’t seem to be benefiting in hindsight. And overall economic torpor prevents non-investors from seeing much of a recovery at all.

The survey shows similar skepticism (and perhaps some more cynicism) about the plan as other polls did more than a month ago when the administration was forced to admit that the plan hadn’t delivered the promised sugar rush. The lingering doubts will make 2010 a tough slog for the Dems.

“A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll found 57% of adults say the stimulus package is having no impact on the economy or making it worse. Even more —60% — doubt that the stimulus plan will help the economy in the years ahead, and only 18% say it has done anything to help improve their personal situation.”

 

Wall Street Journal — Afghan Road Project Shows Bumps in Drive for Stability

Writing from Afghanistan, Peter Wonacott looks at one of the issues kicking up dissent in advance of the Aug. 20 elections there: the failure of President Hamid Karzai to deliver a new road to connect the country’s cities and help fight the insurgency.

While most expect the opposition to be too fractious to unseat Karazai, the road – bogged down by insurgent attacks, corruption, and poor administration – stands as a monument to his struggling regime and the frustrations with American promises.

“’The government of Afghanistan needs to demonstrate it can have a road network and can keep it open. The insurgents recognize that and are working against it,’ says Brig. Gen. Frank McKenzie, a staff member for Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. The ring road, adds Gen. McKenzie, ‘is a symbol of governance.’

The attacks on the road, including bombings, kidnappings and drive-by shootings, reflect broader security woes underlying Afghanistan’s shaky transition to democratic rule ahead of the Aug. 20 national election, which Mr. Karzai is favored to win. According to internal government estimates, about 14% of the country’s polling stations are considered too dangerous for people to vote.

A reminder of the volatile situation came Saturday morning, as a Taliban suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden car near the heavily fortified headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Afghanistan task force in Kabul. The bomb killed at least seven people.”

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