The Democrats will in fact meet Bush's spending limit. They say they'll try to fund their priority programs over Bush's, and may add funding in "emergency" spending. The worst possible scenario is if they do an across-the-board cut, meaning human needs programs will get cut pretty bad. We'll probably know by tomorrow what the plan is.

The Republican's year-long campaign of obstruction is getting results. These results include: 4 million children to go without health care coverage, maintaining a massive tax loophole for some of the wealthiest people in the country, another year of war and occupation, and the yet-undetermined human damage from cuts in cancer research, Head Start, WIC, and whatever else is squeezed. Congrats.

CBO Director Peter Orszag editorializes in the Wall Street Journal today on long-term budget problems. It's a great piece. Key excerpts:

The bottom line is that while we need to address the effects of the coming retirement of the baby boomers and the projected imbalance in Social Security, we have to pay even more attention to the health-care costs that exert the dominant influence on our fiscal future. Policy makers will face both challenges and opportunities in trying to reduce these costs...

But it's too soon to conclude that the fiscal picture is hopelessly dismal. There remains the promising possibility of restraining health-care costs without incurring adverse health consequences. It may even be possible in some cases to reduce cost growth and improve health at the same time. Costs per beneficiary in Medicare, for example, vary substantially across the U.S. for reasons that cannot be explained fully by the characteristics of the patients or price levels in different areas.

One thing to look out for is whether congressional leaders or the presidential candidates listen to Orszag. Getting this message in the media seems like a good first step and the best way to challenge the dominant take on the issue, which is epitomized by wretch-inducing Robert Samuelson columns.

It now appears that the SCHIP expansion is sunk. CQ (subscription) is reporting that a one-year extension for SCHIP, with some additional funds to prevent cuts, will be tied to a bill that tweaks Medicare payments. That means a funding increase will have to wait until probably the year after next.

A key vote on the Farm Bill, which includes increases in funding for anti-hunger programs, is set for December 7th (tomorrow). The Food Research and Action Center and the Coalition on Human Needs are asking people to call their Senator in support of the increases.

The vote is on whether to filibuster the bill, and it's probably even more important than the vote on whether to actually pass it. We need 60 votes to avoid a filibuster. We need only a majority to pass the bill, and previous votes have shown that there's a clear majority in favor of the bill.

Here are CHN's tips for contacting your Senator:

Message: Hungry people can't wait. The Senate must finish its work on the 2007 Farm Bill and pass a Farm Bill with a strong nutrition title as soon as possible in December.

Toll-free line: Use a toll-free line to the U.S. Capitol (1-800-826-9624) that has been made available by AARP while the Senate Farm Bill is pending. (You will hear a short message about the nutrition title before being transferred to an office). Or call your Senators via the Capitol switchboard (202-224-3121).

What's at Stake: The House approved its Farm Bill (H.R. 2419) on July 27th. That bill provides $4.2 billion in new five-year funding for nutrition programs, mainly for food stamps and TEFAP. For food stamps, H.R. 2419, among other things, would raise the minimum benefit, increase the standard deduction, more fully reflect a food stamp household's expenditures on child care, not count extra combat pay against military families, and allow food stamp households to have more in savings and still be program eligible -- by excluding education savings and retirement accounts and starting to index the $2,000 and $3,000 asset limits applicable to most households and households with elderly and disabled members, respectively. H.R. 2419 also provides $250 million per year and then indexes that amount for TEFAP commodity purchases.

The Senate Agriculture Committee voted out its Farm Bill on October 25th, with $4.3 billion in new five-year funding for nutrition programs (of which $3.2 billion would support improvements in Food Stamp Program benefits and accessibility and TEFAP commodity purchases). On November 1st, Senate Agriculture Committee leaders announced a bipartisan agreement to take more than $1 billion in offsets approved in another part of the bill to further strengthen the Food Stamp minimum benefit and asset tests and to increase TEFAP funding. In addition to the asset rule changes contained in H.R. 2419, the Senate bill would increase asset limits from $2,000 and $3,000 to $3,500 and $4,500, respectively. Several pending amendments would build on those provisions, including a boost in the minimum benefit to a more meaningful level.

Check it out. Hopefully this means that we can outsource posts on say, Robert Samuelson's disgusting and wrong column on health care policy?

The Samuelson column really is awful, and if Orszag lays into it publicly, perhaps Samuelson will lose so much credibility that he'll shut up. If you do read it, remember that the central problem with health care is not overspending, but price, i.e. we're buying stuff that isn't worth the price we're paying.

Posted by Matt Lewis, 11:48:26 AM

Monday, December 03, 2007