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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (78517)	3/20/2010 1:10:57 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Big win for transparency By: Barbara Hollingsworth Local Opinion Editor 03/19/10 1:36 PM EDT A federal appeals court has ordered the secretive Federal Reserve Board to release records relating to the $2.14 trillion bank bailout requested by Bloomberg News under the Freedom of Information Act filed in 2008. Bloomberg was seeking the names of firms that received TARP funds or assets that were being used as collateral. FOIA requires federal agencies to hand over government documents on request. But the Fed refused, claiming an exemption in the law protecting confidential financial data permitted it to withhold the information because releasing it would cause bailed-out lenders “severe and irreparable competitive injury.” U.S. Circuit Judge Dennis Jacobs, chief of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan, found “no basis” for the Fed’s refusal to release the requested documents in the FOIA law, agreeing with Bloomberg lawyers that the public has a compelling right to know about the “unprecedented and highly controversial use” of tax dollars. This is a huge win for advocates of sunshine in all government activities. Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com

To: Sully- who wrote (78517)	3/20/2010 3:12:54 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

UPDATED: Smoking Guns? Daniel Foster The Corner Politico posted a leaked memo, allegedly from Congressional Democratic leadership to members, that seem to make it clear that the majority knows its health-care bill is not deficit neutral. At one point, the memo warns members not to discuss details of the CBO score, and specifically mentions avoiding discussion of a CBO disclaimer that its cost estimates include only mandatory, and not discretionary funding (the discretionary funding required to administer the bill would indeed raise its costs significantly): <<< We have increasingly noticed how right-wing fringe trying to pick apart the CEO score. We cannot emphasize enough: do not allow yourself (or your boss) to get into a discussion of the details of the CBO scores and textual narrative. Instead, focus only on the deficit reduction and number of Americans covered. There are two CBO letters Republican operatives have already begun distorting in their pursuit of killing our reform efforts: 1) CBO's March 11, 2010 letter to Leader Reid analyzing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as passed by.the Senate, and 2} CBO's letter to Leader Reid (November 18, 2009) with the initial score of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. I list these letters only to warn you of coming attscks from right-wing operatives and Republican sympathizers in the media. Those anti-reform extremists are making a last-ditch effort to derail reform. Do not give them ground by debating details. (For example, the March 11 letter has estimates of discretionary costs not accounted in the total). Again, instead focus only on the deficit reduction and number of Americans covered. In the critical remaining hours of debate we must drive the narrative of "health reform is deficit reduction." >>> Later, in what would be an even bigger indication that Democrats are being purposefully dishonest about the cost of the bill, the memo says that a permanent "doc fix" is being negotiated between the AMA and the White House for later this spring, but that it should not be discussed because it would "complicate" the narrative that the bill cuts deficits: <<< . . .[M]ost health staff are already aware that our health proposal does not contain a “doc fix.” Some Republicans have repeated CBO’s November 18 letter that says “the sustainable growth rate (SGR) mechanism governing Medicare’s payments to physicians has frequently been modified (either through legislation or administrative action) to avoid reductions in those payments, and legislation to do so again is currently under consideration in Congress.” The inclusion of a full SGR repeal would undermine reform’s budget neutrality. . . .As most health staff knows, Leadership and the White House are working with the AMA to rally physicians support for a full SGR repeal later this spring. However, both health and communications staff should understand we do not want that policy discussed at this time, lest it complicate the last critical push to pass health reform. When media raise the issue of the SGR, only say that Congressional leaders are working with the physician community on this issue. We do not yet want to discuss specifics about what inflationary measure (indexed to growing health costs) would replace the SGR. Congressional leaders and the White House Administration officials will hammer out those details in coming months. >>> I use all the "alleged" and "seem" language here because, frankly, the memo seems too good to be true. But if it is the genuine article, wow. Just wow. UPDATE: As I feared, Democrats are calling this memo a hoax. Politico has pulled it until they can "absolutely verify the document’s origin."

To: Sully- who wrote (78517)	3/20/2010 3:16:37 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

The Big Lie Yuval Levin The Corner If the leaked memo obtained by Politico this afternoon is for real, it is an absolutely astonishing example of brazen and unashamed dishonesty—amazing even for Congress. It simply proves the case conservatives have been making about the Democrats’ fiscal claims, and it shows the Democratic leadership is knowingly lying and telling members to avoid getting into debates that might reveal the facts. The memo basically says to Democratic staff and members: as you know, we won’t actually keep health-care costs deficit neutral because the extremely expensive “doc fix” will come later this spring, but we don’t want that talked about right now so that we can get fiscally conservative Democrats to vote for the bill, so just pretend it doesn’t exist. It’s hard to see how the Blue Dogs could still stomach the bill after this. It’s perfectly clear they’re being played for suckers. UPDATE: Politico now says the Democrats are questioning the authenticity of the memo, and they have pulled it to verify. We shall see. Either way, of course, the "doc fix" deception is an important part of the Democrats' case. .

To: Sully- who wrote (78517)	3/20/2010 3:45:36 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

*** If I read this correctly adding in the "doc fix" takes the farce CBO calculations from deficit reduction to adding to the deficit. * The Cost of the 'Doc Fix' By: Yuval Levin The Corner In response to a question from Paul Ryan (as Kathryn notes below), the CBO has now priced out the cost of the Democrats’ health-bill (including the reconciliation bill), together with the cost of the permanent “doc fix” they have proposed. CBO writes: “enacting all three pieces of legislation would add $59 billion to budget deficits over the 2010-2019 period.”** That, of course, is without even accounting for all the other gimmicks, empty promises, and implausible offsets in the Democrats’ bill. Together with all those gimmicks, keeping the “doc fix” separate from the health-care bills they are getting ready to vote on was key to allowing the Democrats to get a CBO score that seemed to keep the bill from raising the deficit. (As I note below, the memo that Politico posted earlier, which purported to state explicitly that this was the Democrats' strategy for giving the Blue Dogs cover for voting in favor of such a fiscally irresponsible bill, appears to have been a fake. Memo or not, however, this is clearly their strategy.) .