Specifically:
Why can't the president move the numbers? One reason may be that he keeps talking about details of the proposal while voters are looking at the issue in a broader context. Polling conducted earlier this week shows that 57% of voters believe that passage of the legislation would hurt the economy, while only 25% believe it would help. That makes sense in a nation where most voters believe that increases in government spending are bad for the economy.
When the president responds that the plan is deficit neutral, he runs into a pair of basic problems. The first is that voters think reducing spending is more important than reducing the deficit. So a plan that is deficit neutral with a big spending hike is not going to be well received.
But the bigger problem is that people simply don't trust the official projections. People in Washington may live and die by the pronouncements of the Congressional Budget Office, but 81% of voters say it's likely the plan will end up costing more than projected. Only 10% say the official numbers are likely to be on target.
As a result, 66% of voters believe passage of the president's plan will lead to higher deficits and 78% say it's at least somewhat likely to mean higher middle-class taxes. Even within the president's own political party there are concerns on these fronts.
A plurality of Democrats believe the health-care plan will increase the deficit and a majority say it will likely mean higher middle-class taxes. At a time when voters say that reducing the deficit is a higher priority than health-care reform, these numbers are hard to ignore.
Voters also fear being forced to switch insurance that most are satisfied with at present.
Karl Rove details the political perils of Democrats using reconciliation to pass ObamaCare. His details about political risk are eye-opening, but even more so is this nuggets about the full extent of the finagling of cost numbers in ObamaCare projections--Congress stacked the deck even more than I had realized:
The Senate bill's tax increases and Medicare benefit cuts kick in right away while its benefits (subsidies for health-care coverage) don't start until 2013 and aren't fully operational for seven years. So there are lots of reasons for Democrats to worry that voters will punish them for passing this reform.
Michael Barone sees multiple political land mines facing Nancy Pelosi's push to pass ObamaCare:
There's a more fundamental problem for the Democratic leadership: Their majority is not as strong as their 253-178 margin suggests.
A Democratic House majority tends to have fewer members with safe seats than a Republican majority. Consider that in 2005 Speaker Dennis Hastert had 214 Republican members elected in districts Mr. Bush carried, just four seats short of a majority. Today Speaker Nancy Pelosi has 208 Democratic members elected in districts Mr. Obama carried, eight seats short of a majority.
The Democratic bedrock is actually slightly smaller than the Republican bedrock was four years ago, even though the Democrats have 31 more members. That's partly because of Republican gerrymandering earlier in the decade, but it's more because Democratic voters tend to be bunched in relatively few districts. Mr. Obama carried 28 districts with 80% or more; John McCain didn't reach that percentage in any district.
Read his op-ed in full for more detail on why ObamaCare Democrats face an uphill road ahead. The latest House ploy under consideration is the "Slaughter soltuion" named after House Rules Commitee Chairman Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY). It is a doozy. As described by a Washington Examiner posting):
Each bill that comes before the House for a vote on final passage must be given a rule that determines things like whether the minority would be able to offer amendments to it from the floor.
In the Slaughter Solution, the rule would declare that the House "deems" the Senate version of Obamacare to have been passed by the House. House members would still have to vote on whether to accept the rule, but they would then be able to say they only voted for a rule, not for the bill itself.
Slaughter represents New York's 28th District, located in the Empire State's northwestern corner. It includes Buffalo (Siberia West), and abuts Lake Ontario and hence, Canada--indeed, it juts north into Canada, so some of Canada is south of parts of of the 28th. A territorial swap of upstate New York for British Columbia (we may need to throw in parts of New England--I have not done the land-area arithmetic) is looking increasingly attractive.
A ruling by the Senate Parliamentarian spells trouble for ObamaCare:
Republicans said the Senate parliamentarian threw up a hurdle to congressional Democrats’ plans to pass changes to U.S. health-care legislation through a process called reconciliation.
Republicans said guidance they received from the parliamentarian means that President Barack Obama has to sign a Senate health bill into law before the House and Senate can approve changes to it. Some House Democrats, who object to provisions in the Senate measure, wanted Obama to hold off signing the legislation until reconciliation passed.
“The Senate Parliamentarian’s office has informed Senate Republicans that reconciliation instructions require the measure to make changes in law,” Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, said in an e-mail.
Meanwhile, February 2010's record monthly federal budget deficit augurs for a deficit number topping $1.5TR this year, making for $3TR for 44's first two years. The longer-term deficit outlook will be EVEN WORSE if economist Nouriel Roubini, who forecast 2008's financial implosion, is right about a possible double-dip recession on the way.
Bottom Line. It is hard to see 44 sealing his ObamaCare deal with the huge price tag at a time when trillions of dollars in prospective ed ink have made the deficit a front-burner issue for voters for the first time.
Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Economy, Conservative Politics
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