Health Care Reform, Financial Services Overhaul get attention in D.C.

[Public Policy]

Campaign for Free Enterprise
According to the Washington Post, “Business has been on the ropes since last fall's financial collapse, but the first glimmerings of recovery are calling forth a capitalist counteroffensive. It's one thing for President Obama to face off against Fox News, the right-wing radio empire and Republican congressional leaders whose names are unfamiliar to much of the public. It's quite another to confront organized business. That's why last week's announcement by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of a new ‘Campaign for Free Enterprise’ could be one of the year's most consequential political developments.” The Politico reports U.S. capitalism is threatened by new government regulations and mandates, and quotes U.S. Chamber President Tom Donohue, “First of all, this is a positive campaign. It's the cornerstone of what we've believed for a hundred years,” Donohue said during an appearance on Fox News Sunday. “We believe it's time to go out and remind our own members, many of whom are lining up for stimulus money, and remind the Congress and remind the people across the country, that what creates the wealth, what creates the jobs in this country, is the free enterprise system, free capital markets, with free trade, and the ability to fail or succeed beyond your wildest imagination. It's time for all us - the Chamber, our members, our government, our Congress - to take a breath and bring us back to the system that creates the wealth, that creates the jobs, and is going to enable us to put this economy back to work.”

The Union Agenda
Organized labor getting “antsy" about potential Card Check compromise
Roll Call reports that with Democratic Senators continuing to work out a possible card check compromise, organized labor is getting “antsy” about the exact terms of the deal and worrying that its legislative window may be closing. A union lobbyist told Roll Call, “Right now, the entire movement is together. But then again, we don't have a piece of paper that says, ‘This is what we're going to do.’” According to “union sources,” they are hoping preliminary changes to the Employee Free Choice Act will emerge by the week long July Fourth recess, giving lawmakers enough time to vote on the bill by August. The bill, which would make it easier for workers to unionize, is the source of closed-door negotiations led by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who has made it clear he wants a vote next month.

Financial Services Overhaul
Business groups unified in concerns over Administration’s proposed financial overhaul
The Financial Times takes a look at former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s proposals to streamline regulation and notes his blueprint for reform, published in March last year, sounds rather similar to the overhaul due to be proposed by his successor. Republicans want fewer, better managed regulators. The most worrying sign of resistance for the administration, though, is in the Democratic ranks. The AP reports business intrerests will oppose a standalone agency “that cannibalizes regulatory expertise, adding yet another regulatory layer.” While
The Hill (6/17, Brush) reports some fear the bill, a priority for the Administration and the Democratic Congress, will attract policy ideas outside the scope of financial market reform. The Los Angeles Times notes there are arguments that the plan doesn't go far enough to streamline and coordinate government regulation of the financial industry. “There are too many regulators, too many gaps,” said David Hirschmann, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness. “We're not hung up on who gets merged with who, but you can't leave all the current dysfunction in place.”

New consumer agency would have broad powers
The Washington Times reports the Administration’s proposed new consumer agency would supplement, not replace, existing state laws - a scenario that worries many on Wall Street. Financial industry officials say such a system would complicate, not streamline, regulation and result in increased headaches, confusion and problems. “Creating a new regulatory authority is not a silver bullet for enhanced consumer protection. In fact, it may be a lead balloon,” said David Hirschmann, president and chief executive officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for capital markets competitiveness.

Health Care
President privately tells AMA he'll back steps to reduce malpractice lawsuits
On its front page, the New York Times reports that the AMA has long battled Democrats who oppose protecting doctors from malpractice lawsuits. But during a private meeting at the White House last month, association officials said, they found one Democrat willing to entertain the idea: President Obama. The Times adds that in closed-door talks, the President has been making the case that reducing malpractice lawsuits -- a goal of many doctors and Republicans -- can help drive down health care costs, and should be considered as part of any health care overhaul, according to lawmakers of both parties, as well as A.M.A. officials. That stance “could hurt Mr. Obama with the left wing of his party and with trial lawyers who are major donors to Democratic campaigns. But one Democrat close to the president said Mr. Obama, who wants health legislation to have broad support, views addressing medical liability issues as a ‘credibility builder.’”

White House caught In intra-party “battle” over tax hikes to finance reform
The Washington Post reports on its front page that the White House is caught in a battle within its own party over how to finance a comprehensive overhaul of America’s health-care system as key Democrats advocate a tax plan that could require Obama to break his campaign pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class. Democrats “are deeply divided over which taxes to raise, and the issue has become a central stumbling block in the push to enact legislation by fall.” Obama “has revived a tax plan he first offered in February: limiting itemized deductions for the nation’s 3 million highest earners. Polls show the idea is popular.” However, many Democrats, particularly in the Senate, have balked at the idea, saying they prefer a tax that has some hope of winning Republican support. In legislation that could be unveiled as early as this week, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) is expected to propose a new tax on the health benefits that millions of Americans currently receive tax-free through their employers. Meamwhile, CBS News reported, “Many in the business community contend the proposal would make it harder for employers to maintain a payroll with decent wages as well as the required benefits, and the Washington Examiner notes estimates that 60 percent of the uninsured are working for small businesses, and they advocate the creation of a federally regulated association of health plans for small businesses, which would lower costs. But if the government begins to mandate insurance for small businesses, it would eliminate 1.6 million jobs, according to the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

Energy & the Environment
Democrats “remain at odds” over Climate Bill
The Washington Post reports that Democrats “remain at odds” over provisions of a House climate bill and a Senate energy bill, even as congressional leaders and Obama administration officials are pressing to complete work on the legislation. After meeting to address concerns over the climate bill, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin C. Peterson and the two chief sponsors of the bill, Reps. Henry A. Waxman and Edward J. Markey, emerged without an agreement, gave reporters curt expressions of optimism and left without taking questions. Said Waxman, “There's no deal, but I'm optimistic.” Peterson, who wants to make the bill more favorable to farmers and agricultural businesses, said after the meeting only that “we made good progress.” However, the Peterson problem is just one of many that stand between the Waxman-Markey bill and the ultimate adoption of a climate bill, as "lawmakers also differ over provisions in an energy bill being drafted by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which would open up the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling and would water down an Obama campaign proposal setting minimum requirements for the use of renewable energy.

Meanwhile, the White House expected to push climate, energy legislation
According to “key lawmakers, aides and lobbyists,” The Politico reports, the White House will make an intense push to pass climate and energy legislation next week, even as the Administration “faces new obstacles to passing a controversial cap-and-trade bill, causing environmentalists to grumble that the White House has not put enough political capital into passing comprehensive energy and climate legislation this year.” Cabinet officials, including energy advisor Carol Browner and energy secretary Steven Chu, will be dispatched to push the administration’s energy agenda and urge Congress to pass climate legislation, while Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman engages in intense negotiations with “rural and fiscally conservative Democrats.” On Wednesday, Waxman said, “We're very close to an agreement. I want us to see if we can get it on the floor next week.”

Energy bill meets with criticism from environmentalists
The Washington Post notes that a Senate energy bill, which is “rife with controversy over new offshore drilling plans near Florida, the sharing of federal offshore oil and gas royalties, and a mandate for renewable energy,” was voted out of committee this week, but not before losing the support of two Democrats and a dozen leading environmental organizations. Although the bill would require 15 percent of electricity to come from renewable sources by 2021, environmentalists argue that goal is too weak, because the bill would also allow exemptions that would diminish that target. In a joint letter to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, twelve environmental groups voiced their opposition to the bill, adding that the “renewable-electricity standard [is] too lax because it allows noncompliance fees to go back to companies, exempts new nuclear plants and certain new coal plants from baseline calculations, and allows energy-efficiency savings to substitute for renewable energy.”

Immigration
Immigration courts overwhelmed
The New York Times reports on a study released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse which found that “nearly three years after the Justice Department found that the nation’s immigration courts were seriously overburdened and recommended hiring 40 new judges, only a few hirings have taken place and the case backlog is at its highest point in a decade.” National Association of Immigration Judges President Dana L. Marks said the system is “at its breaking point.” Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller said the increased time to resolve cases did not mean that the courts were overwhelmed or inefficient, but he added that “the department was hiring 19 new immigration judges and had requested 28 more judges and 28 clerks for 2010.”

Transportation
House Transportation & Infrastructure chairman releases Housing Trust Fund reauthorization plan
The Wall Street Journal reports House Democrats are crafting a transportation spending bill that would cost roughly $450 billion over six years, but no consensus has emerged on how to fund it. The bill for the first time would establish standards -- like reducing oil consumption and spurring economic growth -- that would influence which highway and transit projects get federal funding. It would also consolidate to six or fewer the number of Transportation Department programs used to channel money to states, giving local officials more flexibility to combat their transportation challenges. The Journal of Commerce notes that gasoline and diesel levies haven't changed since 1993, and several business groups and two congressional commissions have recommended increases. But notes that at the words “’gas tax hike,’ congressional nerve melts faster than butter in a frying pan.”

Secretary LaHood suggests 18-month extension of current transportation measure (SAFETEA-LU)
The New York Times reports Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Wednesday that he thought it was unlikely that the House and the Senate could agree on a new transportation bill before the current law expires at the end of September. Rather than face a series of three-month extensions of the law, which has happened in the past, Mr. LaHood said it would be less disruptive for everyone to plan for an year-and-a-half extension now. The Times says the Obama Administration’s “six-year, $450 billion” proposal is “hung up over the question of how to pay for it.” The most recent authorization was 22 months overdue when finally adopted in August of 2005.