Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints. While they were the underdog going into the game, there were numerous statements by the sportscasters to the effect that after hurricane Katrina, it would be nice if the city could celebrate a Super Bowl win. And they did.
The half-time show of The Who was something to behold. The best parts were when nobody was singing. They can play their instruments well, but the voices and the energy in the voices, weren't impressive at all. There sure have been a lot of fairly old musicians in the half-time show recently. Probably because by that time, they are total professionals who won't embarrass the league. I wonder when that will change.
Best Super Bowl ad: That one that takes place at the Asteroid Alert Station. When disaster looks immanent, the staff of the observatory conclude that all is lost, shrug their shoulders, break out the Bud Light beer, and party. Especially like the scene where a lab-coated astronomer yanks the rings off of a model of Saturn and gleefully hurls it like a Frisbee.
On the other hand, that ad was considered one of the worst shown.
President Obama made a dramatic attempt to jump-start the stalled health care debate Sunday, inviting Republicans in Congress to a half-day summit on the subject to be televised live later this month.
Obama challenged Republicans to come to the discussion armed with their best ideas for how to cover more Americans and fix the health insurance system.
"I want to consult closely with our Republican colleagues," Obama told Couric. "What I want to do is to ask them to put their ideas on the table... I want to come back and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats to go through, systematically, all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward.
(...)
In a statement, House Republican leader John Boehner said that he is looking forward to the discussion and is "pleased that the White House finally seems interested in a real, bipartisan conversation on health care. The American people have overwhelmingly rejected both of the job-killing trillion-dollar government takeover of health care bills passed by the House and Senate. The problem with the Democrats' health care bills is not that the American people don't understand them; the American people do understand them, and they don't like them."
Boehner added that "The best way to start on real, bipartisan reform would be to scrap those bills and focus on the kind of step-by-step improvements that will lower health care costs and expand access.""
Let's see what kind of progress Obama can make with Boehner. Probably a lot, huh?
Alan Greenspan wants to dishonor the special Treasury bonds held by the Social Security Trust Fund:
No other way to interpret what he said on Meet the Press. Note that he's talking about Social Security, not Medicare or other programs that are paid out of the general fund.
MR. GREENSPAN: Well, I, you know, I, I agree with what Hank is saying. I think the thing that disturbed me most in the last week or two was when the discussion was involved in, I believe, in the Senate on the issue of forming a commission--a congressionally-authorized commission, as I read it, there was a 97-to-nothing vote to exclude Social Security from the deliberations of that commission. That said to me that we have gotten to the point in this country where spending is untouchable. I have no doubts that we have to raise taxes in order to close this huge deficit. But we cannot do it wholly on the tax side because that would significantly erode the rate of growth in the economy and the tax base, and the revenues that would be achieved would be far less than anybody'd expect. We have to recognize the fact that one of the things that we have to do, as tough as it's going to be, is that benefits are going to have to be paired in conjunction with tax increases to resolve this very serious long-term budget problem.
Of course, David Gregory had no follow up question to those remarks.
It was the 1983 National Commission on Social Security Reform (aka Greenspan Commission) that increased payroll taxes which went towards purchasing the special Treasury bonds that the Trust now holds.
ABC News' Jonathan Karl reports: Minutes after he was sworn in by Vice President Biden, newly minted Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) says the stimulus “hasn’t created one new job.”
The comments came at Brown’s first press conference as a U.S. Senator when I asked him if he is willing to work with Democrats on a jobs bill. Based on his response, that seems unlikely.
“The last stimulus bill didn’t create one new job and in some states the money that was actually released hasn’t even been used yet,” Brown said.
“It didn’t create one new job?” I asked.
“That’s correct. We lost another 85,000 jobs again, give or take last month,” he responded. “And in Massachusetts, it hasn’t created one new job and throughout the country as well. It may have retained some but it hasn’t created any new jobs. I need to see the bill.”
Brown’s comments are at odds with the analysis of the Congressional Budget Office, which says the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, aka “stimulus”, saved or created 600,000 to 1.6 million jobs in the third quarter of 2009. The White House’s Recovery Act website, recovery.gov, says stimulus grant recipients reported creating 9,261 jobs in Massachusetts during the fourth quarter of 2009.
The Obama Administration says Brown’s got his facts wrong.
“Economists of all political points of view, including those from the non-partisan CBO, estimate that the Recovery Act has created or saved between 1.5 - 2.4 million jobs across America,” said Jay Carney, spokesman for Vice President Joe Biden, the administration’s top Recovery Act booster and watchdog.
To review:
"Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) says"
"the Congressional Budget Office ... says" (see who vouches for its non-partisanship at the end of this list)
"The White House’s Recovery Act website, recovery.gov says"
"The Obama Administration says"
"Economists of all political points of view, including those from the non-partisan CBO ... said Jay Carney, spokesman for Vice President Joe Biden"
Nowhere in that report is a clearly identified unbiased judge of the situation. The CBO? That's proclaimed to be non-partisan by a partisan.
Jonathan Karl couldn't be bothered to seek out a non-partisan assessment (or declare that the CBO is non-partisan - which he may feel is not his role as a reporter). This is a fine example of terrible reporting.
Why is that Tea Party Convention, the one Palin is expected to speak at, being held the day before the Super Bowl? It doesn't seem like particularly good planning. Potential convention attendees are almost surely mega Super Bowl fans, and who is going to fly into Nashville on a Saturday and then be able to relax on Sunday for the big game?
They should have scheduled it the day before the Oscars.
Paul Ryan's Medicare plan = Senate health care bill
Guest blogging at Kevin Drum's blog, Baumann writes:
"The biggest problem with Ryan's plan is that it doesn't actually control health care costs. It simply shifts the burden of paying for them from the public sector to individuals. ... Medical costs will rise much faster than the value of the voucher will."
The Senate bill, with the excise tax that is indexed to CPI, eventually limits what will be PAID for medical services, with the individual becoming more "sensitive" to health care costs (and will presumably therefore limit 'unnecessary' treatment).
But Kevin, Ezra, Benen, Sullivan, et al, are all for the existing Senate bill. So what's so bad about Ryan's plan? It's functionally equivalent (with the caveat that Ryan's is for Medicare, the Senate for employer-provided health care.)
I oppose the Senate bill for the reasons that Baumann opposes Ryan's proposal - it shifts the burden of paying to individuals. But where is the opposition to the Senate bill?
UPDATE: Give Ezra Klein credit, he writes: (emp add)
Take Rep. Paul Ryan's health-care plan ... as the conservative pole on this issue. Then take single-payer and place it on the other side of the spectrum. Where does the Senate bill fall?
[The Senate bill is] closer to Ryan's plan than to single-payer. A lot closer, in fact.
Unlike single-payer, it does not try to save money by using federal bargaining power to force down the prices of various drugs and treatments. Instead, like Ryan's plan, it works to contain costs by creating a simpler, more transparent, more competitive market for private insurance, centered around exchanges that are meant to make it easier for consumers to comparison shop.
One third of self-identified Republicans are insane:
DATA. Note that these are "self-identified" and a large proportion come from the south. It does not represent all registered Republicans, but it accurately describes "the right". And they are the activists and reliable voters.
Is that hyperbole? (Related: which decade are we in? The first or second of the century?)
Right now the United States has a for-profit health care system. It already costs a lot and is expected to grow even more. This puts pressure on everybody: individuals, businesses, and the government. Especially the government.
But what if this country abandoned for-profit medical services and made it like a government run (or government regulated) utility? To see how that would impact the federal budget, take a look at this Health Care Budget Deficit Calculator.
Unclick the United States - Low Health Care Costs cell, and then click on France, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, et al.
Actually, the main reason for the projected increase in the deficit at the end of the decade is rising health care costs which will get passed on in higher costs for Medicare, Medicaid and other government programs. If the United States health care system were as efficient as those in other countries, the U.S. would be expecting huge budget surpluses in future decades.
All the nonsense about a deficit crisis, privatizing Social Security, increasing eligibility ages for Medicare and Social Security, and the like, evaporates if this country decides that it no longer wants a for-profit health care system.
Of course, if you want the big bucks to flow to the health care business, then you jump around calling for deficit commissions and the dismantling of social insurance programs. Which lots of people are keen to do.
NOTE: I've thought about that Budge Deficit Calculator a lot in recent days. Sure, it's speculative, and optimistic projections may be overstated. But if it's anywhere near correct, then we are fools to overlook the implications. If this country adopts a Japan/Canada/Europe system of health care, then the federal budgets will be in great shape, seniors can be well cared for, and existing programs do not have to be diminished.
That's why I call this post the most important of the decade. I don't want to hear anybody complain about budget squeezes and proposed solutions, while ignoring the incredibly huge factor of health care economics. And it's not radical. Developed countries are using it everywhere.
No mistake about it, the move to dishonor the Social Security bonds is on. One tactic to achieving this goal is to lie about seniors. David Brooks did that today:
... we are living in an age of reverse-generativity. Far from serving the young, the old are now taking from them. First, they are taking money. According to Julia Isaacs of the Brookings Institution, the federal government now spends $7 on the elderly for each $1 it spends on children.
Second, they are taking freedom. In 2009, for the first time in American history, every single penny of federal tax revenue went to pay for mandatory spending programs, according to Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute. As more money goes to pay off promises made mostly to the old, the young have less control.
Third, they are taking opportunity. For decades, federal spending has hovered around 20 percent of G.D.P. By 2019, it is forecast to be at 25 percent and rising. The higher tax rates implied by that spending will mean less growth and fewer opportunities.
Brooks would have you believe that the "spending" on the elderly is all part of general revenues (e.g. income tax) and discretionary outlays. That's false.
Watch closely. Brooks refers to "federal tax revenue", which includes Social Security taxes! Brooks is, in effect, complaining that
every single penny of taxes paid into trust funds went to pay for programs that the trust funds are designed for
The bump in federal spending is largely a result of the economic troubles of recent vintage, not due to greedy seniors.
There is almost nothing the Obama administration does regarding terrorism that makes me feel safer. Whether it is guaranteeing captured terrorists that they will not be waterboarded [or] reciting terrorists their rights ...
The Washington Post's liberal Richard Cohen.
Small point: these people, as guilty as they may seem to be, must be treated as suspects until a judgment is rendered.
"... the Federal Reserve and outside economists think it will take until around the middle of the decade to lower the double-digit jobless rate to a more normal 5 or 6 percent ..."
