The Wrongologist

What’s
Wrong Today:

No
one knows how this game of chicken will end in Washington. In some ways, that
foundation of American democracy, majority rule, is on trial, due to a rump group in the Republican
party that has forced a government shut-down and in all likelihood, will hold an
increase in the debt ceiling hostage as well.

Yesterday,
the Wrongologist proposed that Mr. Obama could dodge
the debt ceiling by issuing a debt instrument known as Consols. That will
work, but it isn’t a strategy to deal with Speaker Boehner and his Tea Party Republican
nihilists who are apparently able to bring the government to its knees at least
twice a year. From today’s New
York Times:

The NYT quotes Rep. Raúl R. Labrador, (R-ID):

The Teahadists often speak about “the will of the American people“.
Their point is that since Obamacare doesn’t poll well, it isn’t what the people
want, and the House should shut down the government until it is delayed or
defunded.

But let’s change the issue from Obamacare to
gun control; an issue with much more lopsided poll results than the ACA. A CBS poll from March indicates 90%
of America want gun control, a Washington Post/ABC
News poll from April shows an 86% approval rating, a CNN poll from April shows
an 83% favorability rating. So, a question for our Teahadist
brothers and sisters: 


If the best argument against the ACA
is that a majority of the American people don’t want it and therefore it must be
stopped in its tracks by any means necessary, why doesn’t the same thinking
apply to background checks/gun control? Remember this vote in the Senate last Spring?

The Times reported
that Mr. Obama has summoned the Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress
to the White House today to urge the passage of measures financing the
government and increasing the nation’s borrowing limit — without add-ons like a
limitation on his health-insurance law.

But
that is the wrong strategy for Obama:
That meeting is unlikely to produce anything unless Obama gives something to
get something. He needs to make the debt ceiling increase the cornerstone of the discussion. He could then give something in order to get
something big. Let’s say he offers to agree to the delay of the Individual
Mandate for one year. That was the key part of the last House CR, along with an anti-women “conscience
clause” and the repeal of the medical
device tax in Obamacare.

In
return he asks for a permanent removal
of the Congress’ control over increases in the debt limit.  Here is the relevant section of 31 USC 3101
from yesterday’s column:

That
would be a fair trade. The President can maintain that the debt ceiling is only
about financing debts that Congress has already approved, so a second Congressional approval
is irrelevant. The Teahadists get a win, delaying a key element of the hated ACA,
and the country doesn’t have to go
through the hostage-taking around the debt ceiling ever again.

Delaying
the individual mandate isn’t the same thing as delaying Obamacare; everyone who
wants a policy can still buy one. And the mandate on small companies was already
delayed a year, which is part of the Republicans’ rationale for delaying the individual mandate.

Back
to negotiation about the shutdown: If the shutdown cannot be ended immediately,
and without a cheap 45 day extension, Mr. Obama should threaten to attach one
or more bills to the Senate’s next CR, perhaps the removal of the tax exemption
for religious organizations, for example.

Then,
both houses can go to conference committee, which Boehner says he wants, even though
he has turned the Senate down multiple times earlier in the year when they proposed
a budget conference.

Mr.
Obama would insist the House delete the conscience clause, which allows
employers and insurers to opt out of preventive care and birth control for
women which they find objectionable on moral or religious grounds. Most
insurers are required to provide such care for free under current Obamacare
rules.

He
shouldn’t agree to eliminate the tax on medical devices, which the Teahadists
and Boehner have complained “costs jobs”. Despite some disinformation, the
medical device tax
does not apply to eyeglasses, contact lenses, hearing aids, wheelchairs,
and any other medical device that the public generally buys at retail for
individual use. 

It
does apply to such devices as coronary stents, artificial knees and hips,
cardiac pacemakers, irradiation equipment, and imaging technology. Off The Charts Blog reports that
Obamacare will boost sales of these taxed medical
devices, largely offsetting the effect of the tax.

The logic is that by adding 25 million Americans with health care, demand
for medical devices will increase and so will the revenues of device manufacturers. They
quote a study by Wells Fargo Security that found that
health reform would increase device sales by 1.5% in 2014 and by 3.6%
cumulatively through 2022. This increase, the study concludes, “will be
sufficient to offset” the tax. Clearly, the medical device tax will not have
the dire effects predicted by Republicans.

In
this way, Mr. Obama can negotiate with Mr. Boehner, each offering some give and
take, and the Republic can be better off for it. The debt ceiling is off the
table permanently, but we are probably stuck with the risk of a shut down forever.
 

But
look, that is probably how it should be. The budget is our national policy in
motion. It is supposed to start in the House and then go to the Senate. They
hash out the differences in conference committee and it goes to the President
for approval. Except that, since the parties can’t really decide anything, the
CR has become our tool for letting the government operate and getting money to
those it owes.

Dysfunction
has bred dysfunction. Or more precisely: it has bred hyper-partisanship So,
shitty laws give us hyper-partisanship. Hyper-partisanship gives us more shitty
laws.

Lather,
rinse, repeat.