Moderate Dems slam the brakes on health care reform

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"Got a lot of farms in your district?" In Washington, Representative Dennis Moore, a six-term Democrat, fields that question all the time. People see that he's from Kansas and they jump to certain conclusions. But Moore's district is USDA-prime suburbia, more John Updike than L. Frank Baum, mile after mile of trim lawns, Panera Breads, Best Buys and carpooling parents. "What we grow," Moore likes to answer, "is a lot of small business."

And this helps explain why Moore is now saying, in his laconic Kansas drawl, "Slow down!" to the leaders of his party as they push ahead with a $1 trillion–plus overhaul of the nation's health-care system. Already this year, Moore has supported a huge spending package to stimulate the economy and a bill to cap carbon emissions. That's an aggressive agenda for a Democrat in a Republican-leaning district. As he looks toward 2010, the last thing Moore needs is a revolt of small-business owners. Yet they are among the constituencies targeted to pony up for expanded health coverage through new payroll taxes and a surtax on high incomes.

Throughout Congress, moderate Democrats like Moore have been stomping furiously on the brakes as health-care reform has appeared to pick up speed. Some are freshmen from Western states, like Jared Polis of Colorado and Dina Titus of Nevada. Their victories in 2008, part of a possible regional shift in favor of the Democrats, could be erased next year if polls continue to turn against new taxes and mammoth spending plans.

Others are veteran members of the so-called Blue Dog Coalition, which consists of Democrats from less-than-liberal districts. Seven of the eight Blue Dogs on the crucial House Energy and Commerce Committee have threatened to block health-care legislation unless it puts a lid on costs. Resistance strengthened after the head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office testified that the current House proposal would push costs up, not down, and would add some $240 billion to the federal deficit by 2019. That, in turn, has some Senators pushing back against the White House's early-August goal for passing health-care reform. With dissent spreading through his team's locker room, coach Obama was forced into pep-talk mode. "Now is not the time to slow down," he urged on July 17, "and now is certainly not the time to lose heart." (Read "Congress Seems Sure to Miss Deadline.")

For Moore, it's not a matter of heart. He strongly favors reform. "The American people have spoken, and they clearly want a better health-care system," he says. "If we don't act this year, costs for everyone are going to rise." The problem is runaway spending. "Voters want us to get some kind of a lid on costs," he continues. "They aren't looking for a huge tax increase. Small businesses are struggling to make ends meet as it is."

Most members of Congress don't have to worry much about voters from the other party because most districts are designed to favor either liberals or conservatives. But some mixed districts remain, and the Kansas Third is one of them. Moore's survival depends on winning votes from both sides.

And so Moore spent one recent morning hosting a forum on small-business financing in an auditorium deep in the sprawl of greater Kansas City. Constituents weren't asked to declare their political affiliation, but given the audience demographics — Kansas business owners — Moore could be confident that a number of them were Republicans. For an hour, panelists demystified Small Business Administration paperwork and shared tips for landing loans from local banks. Then the Congressman invited questions.

Carol Nichols, a jewelry designer, stood up, clutched a microphone and launched in. "There's an incredible amount of spending that we are being asked to finance," she began, "and we are not seeing the benefit." The $787 billion stimulus plan, she declared, has produced "underwhelming" results. Energy costs will go up to fight global warming. And now health-care costs will increase to cover the uninsured. She closed with an admonition: "Part of living within a budget is spending within a budget." Heads nodded as she sat down.

For Moore, a former prosecutor with a tinge of Hal Holbrook's hangdog air, such speeches are painful. As he explains, he has been a deficit hawk since joining Congress in 1998. Moore and his fellow Blue Dogs tried to win the Bush Administration's support for a budget-balancing proposal they called pay-as-you-go. "President Bush and the Republicans in Congress refused to support us," Moore says. "And in eight years of the Bush Administration, our debt went up $5 trillion."

Obama, who huddled with a group of Blue Dogs on July 21, has embraced pay-as-you-go, at least in theory, but the sheer scale of his agenda puts Moore on the spot. Each individual item may be worthy; piled onto a single plate, it's a lot to swallow. "I think President Obama has correctly identified a number of crucial long-term issues facing our country," Moore says, "and I hope that he'll see that we can't tackle them all at once."

After the forum, I spoke with Nichols, the jewelry designer, and no surprise: she's a Republican — with a keen understanding of Moore's political situation. Republicans outnumber Democrats in Kansas, but in recent years they have been more interested in internecine combat than in fighting the opposition. Splits over issues like abortion and creationism opened the door for Democrats like Moore and former Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius to win moderate GOP votes by focusing on education, the environment and economic development.

Now it's the Democrats who must worry about party splits. If a health-care compromise isn't reached in August — an increasingly likely possibility — then the first significant setback for the new Administration will have come from the inside, not from the opposition. An age-old truth reasserts itself in Washington: The only thing harder than building a majority is holding one together.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,...1912343,00.html

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Oh, well . . .

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I get the feeling this is also politics to make people think the Congressional Democrats can stand up to the Prez. Seriously. No sweat.

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No sweat.

You say that in the face of 40 years of Democratic failure on the health care issue?

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No sweat.

You say that in the face of 40 years of Democratic failure on the health care issue?

If it becomes another failure then I'll believe this latest round will be a bonus for the GOP in 2010.

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No sweat.

You say that in the face of 40 years of Democratic failure on the health care issue?

If it becomes another failure then I'll believe this latest round will be a bonus for the GOP in 2010.

Yes, but only because it will depress D turnout. Not because of a mass movement of voters to the thug side.