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- Given that current polling is an electoral wash for Democrats regardless of whether they pass health-care reform, the question comes back to how Democrats want to go into the midterm elections: with their failure to pass reform with large congressional majorities thrown back in their face by Republicans eager to exploit vulnerability, or with a reform bill that can be improved over time that has tangible and immediate benefits for Americans this year. I should think the choice would be obvious. And as Jon Chait points out, the real negative consequence of failing to pass reform will be a heavily demoralized Democratic base that guarantees a bloodbath come November.
- You'd think that the glee with which the usual Beltway sources greeted the "start of the election season" (the Illinois primary) that Rod Blagojevich had taken a leave of absence from whatever reality show he's starring in to run in a race. You might also think it strange of me to dwell on political journalists focusing on the horse race, since this is what they do every two years. But it's not the horse race coverage that bothers me so much as the fact that these journalists are fully self-aware of their use of horse race imagery ("And we're off...") while simultaneously pretending that they are merely detached observers with no control over how elections are decided and how narratives are formed.
- I'm glad Sen. Jim Webb has the good sense to claim that defense spending shouldn't be "sacrosanct," and I'm glad he was able to actually name some specific defense programs/expenses to cut. But it's clear when looking at the proposed 2011 budget that the bulk of defense spending is in operations and maintenance, and that the real balloon in the overall federal budget is health-care costs. The "scalpel" approach to the budget has created a situation where individual senators can propose small cuts here and there that deal with waste while doing nothing to alter the structural factors driving the deficit.
- Remainders: The proposed 2011 budget assumes health-care reform will be passed; John McCain is not a principled man; rumors about the death of the Chicago School are greatly exaggerated; don't blame seniors for high medical costs (talk to doctors); Andrew Rudalevige explains the relevant history of the federal budget bureaucracy; it's like a game of reverse tribute when it comes to "earning" votes to be the next Senate majority leader; and federal regulatory agencies might have been reinvigorated under Obama, but is it a "revolution?"
--Mori Dinauer
