White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to give in to all of Joe Lieberman’s demands.

So Reid did. We have a “health insurance reform” bill with no public option, no trigger, no Medicare buy-in. And it will probably continue to get worse from here.

There is no point in pretending that President Obama wanted any comprehensive bill to pass. There was zero pressure on Lieberman to cave, no talk of using the budget reconciliation process–only pressure on Reid to give Lieberman everything.

Emanuel didn’t just leave it to Reid to find a solution. Emanuel specifically suggested Reid give Lieberman the concessions he seeks on issues like the Medicare buy-in and triggers.

“It was all about ‘do what you’ve got to do to get it done. Drop whatever you’ve got to drop to get it done,” the aide said. All of Emanuel’s prescriptions, the source said, were aimed at appeasing Lieberman–not twisting his arm.

Organizing for America will get a rude awakening when they try to round up canvassers and phone bankers. All the volunteers and donors and voters who brought Obama where he is turned out to be less important than one senator from Connecticut who campaigned for John McCain.

Yes, you early Obama supporters out there have every right to be furious. My candidate before the caucuses turned out to be a jerk in his personal life, but he was right to warn against replacing “a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats.”

UPDATE: Darcy Burner explains why the Senate bill is worse than doing nothing on health care.

Today is “Young and Future Generations Day” here at the International Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen, and I'm here with my wife Wahleah and our two-year-old daughter Tohaana. Along with thousands of other young people, we're doing everything in our power to convince world leaders to commit to a fair, ambitious, and legally binding international agreement based on a target of 350 parts per million (ppm), which is the safe upper limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Less than 400 miles away in Oslo, Norway, President Obama is accepting the Nobel Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” If ever there was a time and place to live up to that honor, now, in Copenhagen is it.

Tonight President Barack Obama addressed cadets at West Point and announced:

And as Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative, while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan. […]

The 30,000 additional troops that I am announcing tonight will deploy in the first part of 2010 – the fastest pace possible – so that they can target the insurgency and secure key population centers. They will increase our ability to train competent Afghan Security Forces, and to partner with them so that more Afghans can get into the fight. And they will help create the conditions for the United States to transfer responsibility to the Afghans.

Charles Lemos posted the full text of the speech here. My comments are after the jump.

So many campaign stories the past few days, so little time.

After the jump you’ll find lots of links about various campaigns for U.S. Senate, House, governor and state treasurer.

It's coming up on the end of the year (believe it or not) and I thought it might be some good, lighthearted holiday discussion to think about who or what might be Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2009.

There are no real requirements for what a Person of the Year can be. It could be anything from a single person (Barack Obama, 2008), a group of people (Bono, Bill and Melinda Gates, 2005), or an abstraction (The Endangered Earth, 1988; You, 2006). The only criterion, since the establishment of the yearly issue in 1927 is that the nominee has “for better or for worse, …has done the most to influence the events of the year.”

That said, here are, in my opinion, the ten most likely contenders (in no particular order).

Barack Obama’s job approval in Iowa fell to 49 percent according to the latest statewide poll by Selzer and Co. for the Des Moines Register. His lowest marks were for his handling of the budget deficit (30 percent approve, 61 percent disapprove), leading Kathie Obradovich to suggest that “Cut spending and balance the budget” should be at the top of Obama’s to-do list.

No matter what today’s polls say about the deficit, it would be poor economic policy and foolish politics to make deficit reduction a priority now.

The Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program released a report yesterday on last year’s government bailout of the insurance giant AIG. Timothy Geithner headed the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the time, and he failed miserably.

Good news, part 1: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced yesterday that the health care bill he’ll bring up on the Senate floor will have a public health insurance option. That means opponents of the public option will have to try to strip out the measure with amendments on the Senate floor. They don’t have 60 votes to do that.

Good news, part 2: at yesterday’s press conference, Reid “definitively stated that a trigger bill wouldn’t get a [Congressional Budget Office] score – effectively taking it off the table as a legislative option.” The insurance industry and its allies in Congress, including Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, have pushed the “trigger” idea because it would virtually guarantee that the public option would never go into effect.

Bad news, part 1: Reid’s compromise would allow states to opt out of the public health insurance option, and limits participation in the public plan in many other ways too.

Bad news, part 2: At crunch time, President Barack Obama did nothing to help progressives fighting to strengthen the health care bill. On the contrary, he urged Reid to drop the public option in favor of a “trigger.”

More thoughts on that betrayal are after the jump.

Americans won’t be happy to learn that Wall Street salaries may be higher this year than they were before the current recession began:

Major U.S. banks and securities firms are on pace to pay their employees about $140 billion this year — a record high that shows compensation is rebounding despite regulatory scrutiny of Wall Street’s pay culture.

Workers at 23 top investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers and stock and commodities exchanges can expect to earn even more than they did the peak year of 2007, according to an analysis of securities filings for the first half of 2009 and revenue estimates through year-end by The Wall Street Journal.

Ian Welsh wrote a depressing post at Open Left yesterday:

All they did was throw cash at the problem, without dealing with the underlying issues, which is why they didn’t manage (as Jerome points out) to kickstart ANY net private spending.  They didn’t break up major banks.  They didn’t allow bankruptcy judges to rewrite mortgages.  Their mortgage program kept hardly anyone in the house.  And their money for financial firms did not increase lending by one cent. […]

This is going to be the worst “recovery” of your lifetime, unless you’re in the financial sector at a relatively high level.  Bank profits have recovered but ordinary people are not, in a generation, going to see a full recovery from this clusterfuck – employment will not recover to pre-recession levels before the next recession, and I don’t expect it to recover after that recession either.

At this point, in fact, I am expecting this to turn into a double dip recession-this “recovery” will not have any significant legs.

Continuing George Bush’s Wall Street bailout policy will prove to be a costly mistake for President Obama. Watch the Huffington Post Investigative Fund’s interview with Neil Barofsky, who “monitors a dozen separate bailout-related programs that now account for nearly $3 trillion in financial commitments.” Among other things, his research has confirmed that the bailout did not increase lending to the business sector.

Republicans pretend that Iowa Democrats are to blame for all our economic troubles, but the factors impeding employment growth are nationwide problems, like falling wages and major banks cutting back on loans to small businesses.

Just announced today:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.

For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world’s leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama’s appeal that “Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.”

Oslo, October 9, 2009

Jerome Armstrong notes that only two other sitting U.S. presidents have won the Nobel Peace Prize: Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

I agree that Obama has outlined a compelling vision of international relations, but I find it strange that the committee made this award before waiting to see whether Obama escalates the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan or keeps his campaign promise to get us out of Iraq. Obama hasn’t proposed reductions in the U.S. defense budget yet either (just a smaller increase than what the military requested).

I’m encouraged that Obama is open to cutting our nuclear arsenal. We have way more warheads than we need for deterrence, and they are expensive to maintain. But for all of Obama’s good intentions here, he hasn’t struck an agreement with Russia yet.

According to MSNBC, even the White House was surprised by this award.

Maybe John Deeth is right that the Nobel committee basically gave this prize to Obama for not being George W. Bush.

Post any thoughts about this or previous Nobel Peace Prizes in this thread. Most ridiculous choice ever? For my money, Henry Kissinger.

Mr. desmoinesdem thinks it’s a shame that Czech dissident-turned-president Vaclav Havel never did win this award.

UPDATE: The Washington Post reports:

In response to questions from reporters in Oslo, who noted that Obama so far has made little concrete progress in achieving his lofty agenda, committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said he hoped the prize would add momentum to Obama’s efforts. At the same time, Jagland said, “We have not given the prize for what may happen in the future. We are awarding Obama for what he has done in the past year. And we are hoping this may contribute a little bit for what he is trying to do.”

Jagland specifically cited Obama’s speech about Islam in Cairo last spring, as well as efforts to address nuclear proliferation and climate change and use established international bodies such as the United Nations to pursue his goals.

Sounds to me like they are hoping this prize will make Obama more likely to follow through on his rhetoric. I’ve got a friend heading to Iraq soon, and I want the U.S. to stop sending people over there on tours of duty. If winning the Nobel Peace Prize deters Obama from keeping our troops in Iraq for the long term, I’m all for it.

If Obama fails to deliver concrete achievements to back up his vision, however, the Nobel Committee will have discredited itself with what Glenn Greenwald called a “painfully and self-evidently ludicrous” prize.

SECOND UPDATE: Chris Bowers lays out the arguments for and against giving this award to Obama at this time.

Nick Berning disputes the Nobel Committee’s contention that the U.S. is now playing “a more constructive role” on combating climate change.

THIRD UPDATE: After the jump I’ve posted a mass e-mail President Obama sent out today. Excerpt: “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize — men and women who’ve inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.”

All of the health care reform bills under consideration in Congress would prohibit insurance companies from refusing to cover people because of prior health problems. “Guaranteed issue” is the wonky name for this ban on discrimination because of pre-existing conditions. Unfortunately, various economists and health care experts told David Hilzenrath of the Washington Post that “simply banning medical discrimination would not necessarily remove it from the equation […].”

If insurers are prohibited from openly rejecting people with preexisting conditions, they could try to cherry-pick through more subtle means. For example, offering free health club memberships tends to attract people who can use the equipment, says Paul Precht, director of policy at the Medicare Rights Center.

Being uncooperative on insurance claims can chase away the chronically ill. For people who have few medical bills, it is less of a factor, said Karen Pollitz, research professor at the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute.

And to avoid patients with costly, complicated medical conditions, health plans could include in their networks relatively few doctors who specialize in treating those conditions, said Mark V. Pauly, professor of health-care management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. […]

America’s Health Insurance Plans, a lobbying group for health insurers, has endorsed the idea of guaranteeing individuals access to coverage regardless of their medical history — if that guarantee is part of a larger plan to help the uninsured pay for coverage and bring everyone into the insurance market.

At a more nuts-and-bolts level, AHIP has been trying to shape the legislation in ways that could help insurers attract the healthy and avoid the sick, though it has given other reasons for advancing those positions. In a recent letter to Baucus, AHIP President Karen Ignagni said benefit packages “should give consumers flexible options to meet diverse needs.”

If the final health care reform bill has no public health insurance option, many chronically ill Americans are likely to be left outside the system as insurers find new ways of denying coverage or dropping policy-holders.

Even if the final bill includes a limited public option, cherry-picking by private insurers could set up the public plan for failure. President Obama has endorsed the idea of making the public option available only to people who are currently uninsured, meaning it will serve a disproportionate number of chronically ill people. That will drive up costs of operating the public plan.

I don’t have an answer for this problem, beyond feeling depressed that corporate groups like AHIP have so much sway with Congress. If Americans with prior health issues are still facing discrimination after Obama signs what he claims to be sweeping “health insurance reform,” the political backlash against Democrats could be severe.

UPDATE: MyDD user Bruce Webb wasn’t impressed by Hilzenrath’s article. I’ve posted his rebuttal after the jump.

As expected, the Senate Finance Committee rejected two amendments yesterday that would have added a public health insurance option to the health care reform bill Chairman Max Baucus drafted with a big assist from industry lobbyists. Five Democrats voted with all the committee Republicans against Senator Jay Rockefeller’s amendment, which would have created a national public option tied to Medicare rates. Three Democrats also joined Republicans to vote down Senator Chuck Schumer’s much weaker “national level playing field” public option. CA Berkeley WV liveblogged yesterday’s hearing for Congress Matters.

Senator Chuck Grassley sang the same old song about the “government run plan” forcing private insurance companies out of business. He got a little tripped up when Senator Chuck Schumer asked him for his views on Medicare, though.

“I think that Medicare is part of the social fabric of America just like Social Security is,” Mr. Grassley said. “To say that I support it is not to say that it’s the best system that it could be.”

“But it is a government-run plan,” Mr. Schumer shot back.

Mr. Grassley, a veteran Senate debater, insisted that Medicare did not pose a threat to the private insurance industry. “It’s not easy to undo a Medicare plan without also hurting a lot of private initiatives that are coupled with it,” he said.

Chairman Baucus scored highest on the chutzpah meter, praising the public option even as he refused to support it. Grassley also held out false hope that maybe someday some other bill will accomplish that goal.

Several Senate Democrats, including Tom Harkin, insisted yesterday that they will get some kind of public option into the bill that reaches the Senate floor. After the jump you’ll find lots of links on the battles to come.

I agree that the public option is not dead yet, but for it to survive, President Barack Obama and Senate Majority leader Harry Reid will need to do a lot more than they’ve done so far to lean on the Senate conservadems.  

A full six months after Senator Tom Harkin recommended Stephanie Rose and Nick Klinefeldt for the U.S. attorney positions in Iowa’s northern and southern districts, President Barack Obama sent Rose’s and Klinefeldt’s names to the Senate for confirmation. Radio Iowa posted the September 25 press release from the White House.

I don’t know when the Senate Judiciary Committee will take up these nominations. Some advocates have objected to Rose’s nomination because of civil liberties and due process violations in the wake of last year’s immigration raid in Postville. Senators should thoroughly explore Rose’s role in the Postville prosecutions during her confirmation hearing. Harkin’s office has defended Rose’s record and her work with the detainees from Postville.

Senator Jay Rockefeller was excluded from the bipartisan group of Finance Committee members who worked on the bill Chairman Max Baucus unveiled on Wednesday, so he spent part of his summer vacation researching the fake public option favored by some “gang of six” members. He reported on his findings in an open letter to Baucus and ranking member Chuck Grassley. You should click through and read Rockefeller’s whole letter, but here are some excerpts:

“First, there has been no significant research into consumer co-ops as a model for the broad expansion of health insurance. What we do know, however, is that this model was tried in the early part of the 20th century and largely failed. As the USDA states in its response letter, ‘Government support for the cooperative approach to delivering universal health care was reduced during [World War II] and terminated afterward.’ This is a dying business model for health insurance. Moving forward with health insurance cooperatives would expose Americans, who are hoping for a better health care system, to a health care model that has already been tried and largely failed in the vast majority of the country.

“Second, there is a lack of consistent data about the total number of consumer health insurance cooperatives in existence today, and there have been no analyses of the impact of existing health insurance cooperatives on consumers.

“Third, all of the consumer health insurance cooperatives identified by the [U.S. Department of Agriculture] and [National Cooperative Business Association] operate and function just like private health insurance companies. Therefore, it is unclear how expanding consumer health insurance cooperatives would actually achieve greater affordability for consumers or bring about greater competition in the private market…

The Congressional Budget Office doesn’t expect the co-ops to affect the cost of the Baucus bill:

(The proposed co-ops had very little effect on the estimates of total enrollment in the exchanges or federal costs because, as they are described in the specifications, they seem unlikely to establish a significant market presence in many areas of the country or to noticeably affect federal subsidy payments.)

The failure of co-ops to provide competition in Iowa bears out the CBO’s expectations:

In the 1990s, Iowa adopted a law to encourage the development of health care co-ops. One was created, and it died within two years. Although the law is still on the books, the state does not have a co-op now, said Susan E. Voss, the Iowa insurance commissioner.

Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield collects about 70 percent of the premiums paid in the private insurance market in Iowa and South Dakota.

It’s past time for President Obama to stop sending out White House staff and cabinet secretaries to signal that Obama might accept cooperatives as an alternative to a public health insurance option.

Here’s hoping that even in the absence of presidential leadership, Rockefeller can get strong amendments attached to the Baucus bill or make sure it never gets out of the Senate Finance Committee.

In his latest e-mail blast to constituents, Senator Tom Harkin touches on his priorities as the new chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. One point he mentioned hasn’t been on my radar screen this year:

The full agenda of the Committee will focus on reforming federal student loan programs so that we can stop subsidizing private banks and instead focus on loans that the federal government can make more cheaply.  We can save $87 billion over 10 years in that effort, and use that money to increase Pell grants for low- and middle- income college bound students, and to fund other important education initiatives.  

I had forgotten about President Barack Obama’s effort to reform the student loan system:

His plan is to do away with a system in which the Federal Government subsidizes banks and other private finance companies like Sallie Mae to lend money to students. The Administration essentially wants to cut such companies out of the game and run the system itself. Democrats claim the move will save $87 billion over 10 years, which can be used for a laundry list of education priorities, including increasing the maximum amount of Pell Grants, expanding Perkins Loans and investing in community colleges and other programs. […]

Educational institutions currently have two ways to offer federal loans to students. In the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL, pronounced “fell”) program, the government pays subsidies to banks and lenders to dole out money to borrowers and reimburses companies up to 97% of the cost of any loan that is not paid back. The second way is the direct-loan program, created in 1993 as an alternate option, in which the government cuts out the middle man, lends money directly and gets all the profits. If the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA) passes both houses of Congress, the approximately 4,500 colleges and universities that are currently signed up for FFEL will have to abandon the program and start using the direct-loan option by July 1, 2010.

Directing federal money toward programs that help needy students, such as Pell Grants, makes a lot more sense than subsidizing private banks to make student loans.

Finding 60 votes in the Senate for this proposal will be challenging, however. This is one banking bailout Republicans will fight hard to protect, and according to Time magazine, at least one Democrat (Ben Nelson of Nebraska) opposes the plan too. If this bill passes, it will probably be through the budget reconciliation process, which requires only 51 votes in the Senate.

Health care reform is sure to take up a lot of Harkin’s time this fall, but I’m glad the HELP chairman will also focus on other bills that could change many lives for the better. Even if the health care project falls apart in the Senate, Harkin could accomplish a lot this year if he gets the student loan bill through and brokers a good compromise on the Employee Free Choice Act.

I see only one downside to Harkin becoming the HELP chairman, and that’s Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas taking over the Agriculture Committee. Jill Richardson has been on this case at La Vida Locavore. I recommend reading her posts on industry lobbyists who used to work for Lincoln, Lincoln’s strong support for corporate ag interests such as Arkansas-based Tyson Foods, and Lincoln’s positions on trade, the climate change bill, and the Clean Water Act.

Now that we’re done with the Joe “You Lie” Wilson sideshow, I want to talk about a different kind of Republican disrespect for normal political disagreement.

Having been raised by a Republican of the now-extinct Rockefeller variety, I am often struck by how extreme the GOP has become. Chuck Grassley and Terry Branstad were on the far right in the early 1980s, but many Iowa conservatives now consider them “moderate” or even “liberal.”

Mainstream extremism in the Republican Party is depressing on many levels. It fosters ignorance, as when Iowa Republicans are led to believe that the judiciary is not supposed to interpret the constitution. It encourages politicians to put their theology ahead of civil laws.

Most troubling is when prominent conservatives use language that condones physical violence or “revolution” to resist Democratic policy proposals. I fear that people will get hurt or killed if some mentally unstable person takes these appeals too literally.

More thoughts on this subject are after the jump.

President Barack Obama goes before Congress this evening to urge passage of health care reform this year. I will update this post later when the prepared text of the speech becomes available. White House officials say Obama will make the case for a public health insurance option, but it sounds as if he will still leave the door open for Congress to take a different approach. That doesn’t look like a strong negotiating position to me.

Various polling firms will survey people who watch Obama’s speech tonight. Mark Blumenthal of Pollster.com discusses the methodology of instant reaction polls and gives a few reasons for you to be skeptical of their findings.

Speaking of polls, I was disappointed to learn from Greg Sargent that a recent White House memo omitted results from polls showing strong nationwide support for a public health insurance option. (Multiple polls earlier this summer also found majorities in favor of a public option. In fact, Republican pollster Rasmussen has found that support for health care reform drops sharply if there is no public option.

Still, expect to hear Republicans demagogue against government-run “Obamacare.” Yesterday The Iowa Republican blog hyped a new poll from the Winston Group showing that a plurality of Iowans oppose “Obama’s plan” for health care (whatever that is). I wasn’t surprised to read that the head of the Winston Group

has served as a strategic advisor to Senate and House Republican leadership for the past 10 years. He was formerly the Director of Planning for Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and advises center-right political parties throughout Europe. Additionally Winston was a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation where he did statistical policy and econometric modeling. He has served in a senior staff role to four RNC Chairmen.

Gee, I’m shocked that the Winston Group would produce a poll indicating that Obama’s plan is unpopular.

The president’s support has declined quite a bit among Democrats and independents recently. The obvious way for him to turn this situation around is to get behind a real health care reform package that doesn’t give away the store to corporate interests.

Speaking of giving away the store, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus finally made his health care plan public this week. Turns out K Street lobbyists had the draft before Baucus showed it to fellow senators or White House officials. Also, a Baucus staffer who used to work for WellPoint is the author of the document.

Ezra Klein thinks the Baucus plan isn’t as bad as you may have heard, but Chris Bowers explains why it is very, very bad. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell are correct, and the White House is sick of dealing with Baucus. But like Bowers, I am skeptical that Obama would push for any law encountering objections from the major industry it affects. Consequently, I have no confidence in Obama to reject the Baucus approach outright.

Post any thoughts about the president’s speech or health care reform in this thread.

UPDATE: The full text of the speech as prepared is after the jump. I didn’t watch, but I did read the speech and I am very disappointed. He made a big deal about the moral case for reform, then defended the public option by saying don’t worry, hardly anyone will sign up for it. The only veto threat he made was, “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or in the future.”

If we did health care reform right, we would save money and not add to the deficit. But on principle, I reject the idea that providing universal health care at reasonable cost is not worth doing if it adds to the deficit. Obama doesn’t mind expanding our commitment in Afghanistan, providing an open-ended bailout to Wall Street, extending most of the Bush tax cuts and any number of other things that add to the federal deficit. But for some reason, health care reform isn’t as important. Pathetic.

Corrupt Democrats will make sure that no real public option remains in the bill, which will drive up the cost, allowing Republicans to complain that Obama is breaking his promise not to add to the deficit. To keep costs down, Congress will probably reduce the subsidies available to citizens who will be forced to purchase private insurance. Huge bonanza for insurance companies, nothing to keep costs down, political suicide for the Democratic Party.

I don’t care what the instant reaction polls say; in my view this speech was a failure.

UPDATE: Two professional negotiators, Jerome a Paris and BenGoshi, discuss Obama’s negotiating strategy on health care reform.

Let’s say I’m trying to sell my house, and I have an interested buyer. I could tell the buyer one of two things:

1. The minimum offer I’ll consider for this house is $300,000.

2. This house is worth at least $300,000. Compared to the house down the street that went for $280,000, this house has an extra bedroom and a fully remodeled kitchen. In fact, my house has a bigger yard and more closet space than one in the neighborhood that sold for $310,000. Also, we just added more insulation in the attic and installed triple-pane windows, so you’ll spend less on utility bills than you would in a different house this size. Plus, this house is within walking distance of a good elementary school. But the bottom line is, my mortgage is expensive, and I need to sell my house this month. If you can’t pay me $300,000, I’m willing to consider another fair offer.

Which message is more likely to get me the offer I want: the one justifying my asking price, or the one making clear that I won’t settle for less?

Kid oakland has a simple request for those who supported Barack Obama’s presidential campaign:

This Labor day weekend, I would like to invite you join me in a very simple, direct project in support of comprehensive healthcare reform.

I’d like to invite you to write personal letters to the President about health care reform at his info@barackobama.com email address.

If Barack Obama inspired you should reply to him today. In particular, like msblucow, we need to root our principled requests for Obama to pass comprehensive health care reform in stories from our activism and our day to day lives, especially stories that tell the president about the urgent need for reform. The more principled, specific and rooted those stories are, the more they will break through the clutter of the health care debate. […]  

(The simplest way to write Obama is hit reply to the last email you received from BarackObama.com, that way you will be sure to use the email address they have on record for you.)

Kid oakland’s letter to Obama is here, and many more powerful letters have been posted in the comment thread at Daily Kos. Here’s a good letter from a former regional field organizer for the Obama campaign, and here’s one from a loyal supporter of Hillary Clinton during the primaries.

Please post your own thoughts or letters in the comments.

Not to be a wet blanket after yesterday’s great special election victory, but the latest Pew Research Center poll should set off some alarm bells at the DCCC and DSCC:

Americans are extremely displeased with Congress, and there are already some signs that this could take a toll on the Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections. Currently, 37% express a favorable opinion of Congress, while 52% hold an unfavorable view. Positive opinions of Congress have declined by 13 points since April and are now at one of their lowest points in more than two decades of Pew Research Center surveys.

At the same time, intentions to vote Democratic in the next midterm election are markedly lower than they have been over the past four years. Voters are about evenly divided when asked how they would vote if the election for Congress were being held today: 45% say they would vote for a Democratic candidate in their district, or lean Democratic, while 44% say they would vote for a Republican or lean Republican. At about this point four years ago, Democrats led in the generic congressional ballot by 52% to 40% and went on to win a majority of the popular vote and regain control of Congress the following November.

Meanwhile, the Research 2000 polling for Daily Kos finds the Democratic lead on the generic Congressional ballot down to 6 points, with Democratic intensity “lagging badly”:

With Independents potentially sitting this next election out (as the numbers hint at), we’re in bad shape in a base election. Core Republicans are engaged and solidly home. Democratic constituencies are wavering (look at those African American numbers). The only key Democratic constituency to have moved more Democratic are young voters — from +30 Democratic to +37, but only because they are abandoning Republicans at a bigger rate than Democrats. And even those gains are threatened by the (non) geniuses in DC seriously contemplating a health care mandate without cost controls (like the public option).

At current rates, any 2010 losses would not stem from any resurgence in conservative ideology — Republicans are simply not making any significant gains anywhere — but in a loss of confidence in Democrats. There’s a way to change that dynamic — deliver on the promises made the last two election cycles. Failure to do that would make cynics out of too many idealistic political newcomers, while turning off base activists who do the hard on-the-ground work of winning elections.

But why deliver on campaign promises when President Obama can score points with the Beltway wizards by backing away from a strong public health insurance option?

I’m not saying next year’s elections will be determined solely by whether the Democrats deliver on health care reform. The condition of the economy will obviously play an important role too. But Obama has less control over the economic recovery than he has over whether he sells out the Democratic base. The correct choice is clear, especially when you consider that a stronger public health insurance option would make it easier to pass the bill through the budget reconciliation process in the Senate.

The Bean Walker, Iowa’s copycat version of The Drudge Report, was thrilled to link to the latest approval numbers from Survey USA yesterday:

Iowa

Pres. Obama: 45 / 51

Sen. Grassley: 54 / 34

Sen. Harkin: 49 / 38

Gov. Culver: 36 / 51

This statewide poll of 600 adults was conducted on August 26 and 27 and is said to have a margin of error of 4 percent. It’s the first time any pollster has found the president below 50 percent approval in Iowa, and the first time any pollster has found the governor’s approval in the 30s. For more details about various demographic groups in this poll, you can find Culver’s chart here, charts on Harkin and Grassley here, and Obama’s chart here.

Looking at Survey USA’s trendlines for Culver since he took office, I noticed that Culver’s disapproval number is basically unchanged this summer, but his approval number has dropped significantly from 42 percent in June and 44 percent in July to 36 percent in late August.

Before anyone panics, remember that Survey USA’s approval numbers for Culver tend to run low compared to other pollsters. In early July, the poll commissioned by The Iowa Republican blog found Culver’s approve/disapprove numbers to be 53 percent/41 percent. Later the same month, Hill Research Consultants’ poll for the Iowa First Foundation found Culver’s favorability at 52 percent. (The Iowa First Foundation did not release the governor’s approval number from that poll, but you better believe they would have if the number had been in the 30s or even the low 40s.) Meanwhile, Survey USA pegged Culver’s approval at 44 percent on July 20.

Survey USA’s numbers for Obama, Harkin and Grassley are also noticeably down in the latest poll. Obama is at a record low in Iowa. Grassley’s approval of 54 percent is the lowest Survey USA has found in at least four years. I couldn’t find a similar graph for Harkin’s numbers, but it’s been a long time since I can remember seeing his approval rating below 50.

Of course, it’s possible that the recession and the health care debate have affected Iowans’ view of all political leaders. Still, I would like to see these numbers confirmed by some other pollster. Even with the best sampling techniques, approximately 1 in 20 polls is wrong just by chance (“wrong” meaning that the true state of public opinion lies outside the margin of error for that poll). Right now this poll looks like an outlier.

I also agree with Steve Singiser that if Culver were this unpopular in Iowa, Democrat Curt Hanson probably would not have won yesterday’s special election in House district 90 (a swing district). The Republicans ran at least two television ads linking Hanson to Culver (see here and here).

I’m looking forward to the next Selzer and Associates poll for the Des Moines Register, which probably will come later this month or in early October.

Share any relevant thoughts in this thread.

Around 5:30 on Friday afternoon I received a robocall paid for by the Democratic National Committee on behalf of Organizing for America. The voice informed me about a rally for health care reform, scheduled for Saturday at 6 pm just west of the state capitol building in Des Moines. Press 1 if you plan to attend.

I didn’t press 1 and stayed on the line to see what would happen. The voice came back, telling me “The president needs you to show support” for reform.

The folks at Organizing for America have some pronoun trouble. It’s not President Obama who needs us. We need him to show support for real reform.  

The Congressional Democrats fighting for a strong health care reform bill need as much help as they can get, with the insurance industry increasingly confident that they will get the bill of their dreams: a mandate for all Americans to buy health insurance, with no public option to compete with private insurers that dominate most markets.

We should all agree on how stupid it would be to let insurance companies “reap a financial windfall” from reform, when so many of our current problems stem from those companies’ high overhead costs and bad-faith business practices. If cost containment is an important goal of health care reform, we’re not going to get there by requiring people to buy overpriced private insurance.

The political fallout would be just as disastrous. Like David Waldman says,

If I’m uninsured or poorly insured, and the answer coming out of Congress is that I now have to buy crappy insurance from some private company that has no plan to actually help me pay for my health care without raking me over the coals, then I’ve gone into this fight an ardent supporter of strong reform, and come out a teabagger.

Digby warned in this excellent post that selling out the Democratic base on health care could fuel a movement comparable to the one that delivered nearly 3 million votes for Ralph Nader in 2000. Glenn Greenwald added more thoughts on the political calculations here.

The alternative to this scenario is not complicated.

UPDATE: Some White House officials told Marc Ambinder that Sebelius misspoke, or the media misinterpreted her remarks. I would prefer a clear statement from the president.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius waved the white flag on Sunday:

Sebelius said the White House would be open to co-ops instead of a government-run public option, a sign Democrats want a compromise so they can declare a victory on the must-win showdown.

“I think there will be a competitor to private insurers,” she said. “That’s really the essential part, is you don’t turn over the whole new marketplace to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing. We need some choices, we need some competition.”

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said co-ops might be a politically acceptable alternative as “a step away from the government takeover of the health care system” that the GOP has assailed.

(continues after the jump)

At yesterday’s town-hall meeting in New Hampshire, President Barack Obama had nice things to say about Senator Chuck Grassley:

“Now, I think that there are some of my Republican friends on Capitol Hill who are sincerely trying to figure out if they can find a health care bill that works – Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, Olympia Snowe from Maine have been – yes, I got to admit I like Olympia, too. They are diligently working to see if they can come up with a plan that could get both Republican and Democratic support.”

In addition, Thomas Beaumont of the Des Moines Register noticed that Organizing for America is not mobilizing Obama’s supporters to show up at Grassley’s town-hall meetings in Iowa. Instead, Organizing for America is trying to drive turnout to events hosted by Iowa’s Democrats in Congress.

Grassley’s holding four public events today, and @iahealthreform is helpfully liveblogging them on Twitter. Look at how Grassley talks about health care reform and tell me whether Obama should praise Grassley’s efforts.

President Barack Obama signed a bill today allocating an additional $2 billion to the to the Car Allowance Rebate System, more commonly known as Cash for Clunkers. The money will come from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (the economic stimulus bill approved in February). The Senate approved the bill by a 60-37 vote on Thursday night. Senator Tom Harkin voted yes, and Senator Chuck Grassley, who criticized the program earlier this week, voted no.

I liked Harkin’s idea to put income limits on this program, but the Senate wanted to get this measure passed before the summer recess. If the Senate had approved a different bill from what cleared the House last week, the funding would have been delayed until September.

The Senate vote went mostly along party lines, but four Democrats joined 33 Republicans in voting no, and seven Republicans joined 53 Democrats in voting yes.

I’m pleased to learn that most consumers who have taken advantage of this program have traded in a “clunker” for cars that get significantly better mileage. (Click here for lists of the most popular vehicles traded in and the most popular purchased with Cash for Clunkers vouchers.) The way Congress wrote the bill, people could have traded in SUVs and trucks for similar vehicles with only minimal improvements in fuel economy.

Once upon a time, there was a guy who said this:

The system in Washington, D.C. is broken, rigged against middle-class Americans. Taking our country back requires more than just changing presidents. It requires changing the whole broken system. […] if we want real change, you can’t just negotiate with these special interests. You have to take their power away and return it to regular people.

The guy turned out to be a jerk in his personal life, but he was correct about the system being rigged because corporations have too much power in Washington. I was reminded of this while reading today’s article by David Kirkpatrick in the New York Times. (continues after the jump)

I’m no negotiating expert, but I know that if you’re not willing to walk away from a bad deal, no one will take your demands seriously.

Americans overwhelmingly want a public health insurance option and need that option for any number of reasons. Who you are and where you live strongly affects the kind of health insurance and health care you receive. Most Americans live in communities where one or two private companies dominate the health insurance market. Rural residents often have very limited access to health care providers. People of color also are shortchanged by our current system.

Despite all these problems, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has done his best in recent weeks to show that The Onion was right about him eight years ago. Baucus has continued to pursue a bipartisan agreement on health care containing a fake public option.

It’s time to cut Baucus off, and a great idea floated by Iowa’s own Senator Tom Harkin offers part of the solution. (continues after the jump)

You can share anything that’s on your mind in this thread. I’ll update later with links on President Barack Obama’s press conference.

MyDD’s Jonathan Singer and Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post are liveblogging the press conference. Most of the questions are about health care reform.

I was not able to watch President Obama’s health care forum on ABC Wednesday evening. ABC News posted a summary here. I liked that Obama defended the public option and said Republican senators who criticized it are wrong.

If you watched the program, what did you think of the questions and the president’s answers?

Consider this an open thread for any comment about health care reform, or any other political issue that’s on your mind.

At some point I’ll write about whether health care activists were right to draw a line in the sand early over a public option, or whether ragbrai08 is right that it was a mistake not to organize more strongly for single-payer (HR 676). What do other Bleeding Heartland readers think?

Following up on yesterday’s post, I see that a brand-new New York Times/CBS nationwide poll shows widespread support for a real public health insurance option. The wording of the question was clear: “Would you favor or oppose the government’s offering everyone a government administered health insurance plan like Medicare that would compete with private insurance plans?”

Results: 72 percent of respondents favored the public option, including 87 percent of Democrats, 73 percent of independents, and 50 percent of Republicans.

Senator Chuck Grassley works overtime to snuff out a public option, urging President Obama to support a bipartisan bill in the Senate. But in the real world, a strong public option has bipartisan support. Even half of Republicans favor making a “government administered health insurance plan like Medicare” available to all Americans.

A public option would increase competition and give Americans more choices while driving down costs. A recent report found that one or two companies dominate the health insurance market in most parts of the country.

Obama will speak to ABC News about health care on Wednesday. I’ll be listening carefully to see whether he endorses a strong public option, which the House Democrats’ draft bill contains, or whether he remains open to a fake public option such as regional cooperatives or a “trigger”.

UPDATE: To be clear, the CBS/NYT poll is not an outlier. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released last week found, “Three in four people said a public [health insurance] plan is extremely or quite important.” A poll “bankrolled partly by previous opponents of health care reform” showed that “a majority (53%) strongly back the availability of a public plan, while another 30% ‘somewhat’ support it.”

The White House and key Democratic senators, including Iowa’s Tom Harkin, appear to be walking into a trap for the sake of bipartisan agreement on health care in the Senate.

There is growing support for a fake “public option,” as opposed to a government health insurance plan that would compete directly with private insurance companies.

If Congress passes this kind of deal and President Barack Obama signs it, we will get a enormously expensive non-solution to an enormous problem, and Democrats will pay the political price.

After the jump I’ll explain why political hacks as well as policy wonks should refuse the latest efforts to derail the public option.  

The White House is apparently not responding to Gordon Fischer’s requests for a meeting with an official in the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, Radio Iowa reported today, citing Fischer’s Facebook page.

Any citizen who asks several times to meet with a White House official should at the very least get an answer, even if it’s just, “I’m sorry, so-and-so’s schedule doesn’t permit that meeting.” Ideally, a junior staffer or receptionist should seek further information about why the citizen wants the meeting before rejecting the request.

The lack of common courtesy is even more baffling when you consider all the volunteer hours Fischer put in for Barack Obama’s campaign, before and after the Iowa caucuses. He deserves a meeting with this official, or some reply with a explanation for why his request is being denied.

LATE UDPATE: Fischer says he is permanently “retiring” from politics.

I saw at Radio Iowa that President Barack Obama has nominated important early Iowa supporter John Norris to serve on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He’s well qualified for the job, as you’ll see from his official bio, which I’ve posted after the jump. Not only was Norris chairman of the Iowa Utilities Board from 2005 to 2009, he also handled different positions with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and the Organization of Midwest Independent System Operator States.

Norris has been Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack’s chief of staff since January, but he requested an appointment on the FERC in November, before Obama had named Vilsack to head the USDA. Although Norris has worked closely with Vilsack before as the governor’s chief of staff, the FERC position seems like a better fit for the more recent focus of Norris’s career.

I’m guessing that FERC commissioners also work less insane hours than chiefs of staff do. Norris and his wife Jackie Norris have three sons under the age of six. Jackie Norris recently was replaced as First Lady Michelle Obama’s chief of staff and will serve as senior adviser to the Corporation on National and Community Service.

LATE UPDATE: The Des Moines Register reported on June 21,

Norris said he always planned to move on from the USDA, because his real goal was a seat on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, an appointment he now has in hand. He’s waiting for Senate confirmation for that position.

Norris said Vilsack asked him to take the USDA job, knowing it would be temporary. He “wanted someone who knew him and someone he trusted to get set up at USDA.”

Norris said he tried to set up a staff that would work together across their various areas of responsibility, avoiding turf wars. “This isn’t a speedboat. It’s a tanker and you have to slowly bring it around,” he said.

Thomas Beaumont wrote about the Republican Party of Iowa’s revamped outreach strategy in Monday’s Des Moines Register. GOP chairman Matt Strawn is working on several fronts to bring the party back to power after three consecutive losses in Iowa gubernatorial elections and four consecutive elections in which Republicans lost seats in the Iowa House and Senate.

Strawn’s strategy consists of:

1) meeting with activists in numerous cities and towns

2) using social networking tools to spread the Republican message

3) building an organization with a more accurate database

After the jump I’ll discuss the strengths of this approach as well as its glaring flaw.

Senator Chuck Grassley didn’t take kindly to President Barack Obama’s weekly radio address about the need to accomplish health care reform this year. Early this morning, Grassley wrote on his Twitter feed,

Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us”time to deliver” on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND.

A little later, the senator Tweeted,

Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said ‘time to delivr on healthcare’ When you are a “hammer” u think evrything is NAIL I’m no NAIL

First of all, Obama recorded the weekly address before leaving for France. Second, it’s bizarre for Grassley to mock Obama’s “sightseeing in Paris,” as if that were the main purpose of his foreign visit. You can be sure that if Obama had not gone to France to commemorate the D-Day invasion, Republicans would be howling in protest.

Perhaps Grassley is venting because this week the president strongly affirmed his support for a public option in health care reform. Grassley has been working to forge a bipartisan consensus with no public option and published an op-ed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen on Friday warning against that approach. (Chase Martyn’s take on Grassley’s piece is worth reading.)

Or maybe Grassley’s just a little touchy lately. He wrote a letter to the editor of the Des Moines Register correcting a mistake from the Register’s vox-pop feature, “My 2-cents’ worth”:

In the Register’s Your 2 Cents’ Worth feature May 4, “Disgusted 50010 Woman” said I pay $40 a month for health insurance. In fact, I pay $356 a month for Blue Cross insurance coverage, a plan that is available to federal employees. This differs from health plans for state government employees in Iowa, where no portion of the premium is paid by the employee. There’s no basis for the assertion in her comments.

Fair enough, senator. But you have to admit, you’ve got a pretty good deal going. A couple half your age who purchase their own Blue Cross insurance plan could easily pay two or three times as much in premiums for comprehensive coverage. Even a bare-bones policy covering primarily catastrophic care could cost individuals more than $356 a month, and they’d have to pay out of pocket for most routine medical expenses and prescription drugs.

Natasha Chart recently looked into her health insurance options as a single 34-year-old woman. If she can afford it, she’ll pay $200 to $300 a month for less coverage than what members of Congress receive. I encourage Senator Grassley to read her post.

UPDATE: Greg Sargent received clarification from Grassley’s office about what the senator meant to convey in the hammer/NAIL tweet:

Senator Grassley has been urging the President to let the legislative process work so that health care reform legislation restructuring 17 percent of America’s economy will reflect broad consensus and garner bipartisan support from as many as 80 senators.

Still pushing the pipe dream of a large bipartisan majority for health care reform.

The White House announced today that President Barack Obama will nominated former Republican Congressman Jim Leach to chair the National Endowment for the Humanities. From the press release:

Jim Leach served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for the state of Iowa for 30 years. He founded and co-chaired the Congressional Humanities Caucus, which is dedicated to advocating on behalf of the humanities in the House of Representatives and to raising the profile of humanities in the United States. The Caucus worked to promote and preserve humanities programs and commissions such as the Historical Publications and Records Commission. Mr. Leach and his co-founder, Rep. David Price, received the Sidney R. Yates Award for Distinguished Public Service to the Humanities from the National Humanities Alliance in 2005. During his tenure in Congress, Mr. Leach also served as Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services (1995-2001), a senior member of the House Committee on International Relations and Chairman of the Committee’s Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs (2001-2006). In addition, Mr. Leach is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Vice Chairman of the Century Foundation’s Board of Trustees and has served on the boards of the Social Sciences Research Council, ProPublica, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Kettering Foundation. Since leaving Congress in 2007, he has taught at Princeton University and served as the interim director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Leach was one of the most prominent Republicans to endorse Obama for president last year. He was rumored to be under consideration for a diplomatic position when Obama sent him to speak with foreign leaders in Washington shortly after the presidential election. The National Endowment for the Humanities seems like a perfect fit for Leach.

Congressman Dave Loebsack, who defeated Leach in the 2006 election, released this statement today:

“As a native son of Iowa, Jim Leach has served Iowa proudly and with dignity for over three decades, and I applaud President Obama’s choice. The National Endowment for the Humanities makes critical contributions to the rich cultural tapestry of our country, and with Jim Leach’s experience, expertise, and dedication, I have no doubt that our nation’s museums, libraries, and cultural institutions will continue to grow and excel.”

Loebsack and Leach have set a fantastic example for politicians everywhere by speaking about each other with respect, both during and since the 2006 campaign.

Congressman Bruce Braley released this statement:

“President Obama couldn’t have made a better choice than Jim Leach to chair the National Endowment for the Humanities.  There are few individuals as qualified or as well-suited for this position as he is.  I’m proud that Davenport’s own Jim Leach will be continuing to serve the public in this capacity after his long and distinguished career representing the citizens of eastern Iowa.”

I was raised by a Rockefeller Republican who believed in funding the arts and humanities and cringed when well-known Republicans demonized the National Endowment for the Arts in the 1980s and 1990s. Leach’s commitment to supporting the humanities will serve him well in his new job.  

The big news of the day is that President Barack Obama nominated U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. If confirmed, she would be the third woman to serve on the high court and the first Hispanic justice of either gender.

Sotomayor reportedly sealed the deal during her interview with the president last Thursday.

Deoliver47 has more background and video clips in this post.

Senate Republicans will try to drag out the confirmation process, but there will be no long-term vacancy on the high court. Justice David Souter has made clear that he will retire once his replacement is confirmed.

I don’t know a lot about Sotomayor, but I look forward to learning more. She has the qualities I wanted to see in a Supreme Court nominee, even if she is not as progressive as I would like. Tom Goldstein of the SCOTUS blog previewed arguments for and against her nomination. Excerpt:

Objectively, her qualifications are overwhelming from the perspective of ordinary Americans.  She has been a prosecutor, private litigator, trial judge, and appellate judge.  No one currently on the Court has that complete package of experience.

On the other hand, this criminal defense attorney who has argued cases before her court isn’t too impressed.

On principle, I am glad that a hit piece on Sotomayor filled with anonymous quotes did not derail her nomination. More on that hit piece is here.

Before I open the floor for comments, here’s some Supreme Court-related humor from The Onion.

What do you think of Obama’s choice?

UPDATE: Greg Sargent points out that “Seven Republicans currently in the Senate voted for the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor in 1998 as U.S. Circuit Court judge[…].” That’s not counting Arlen Specter, who also voted to confirm her in 1998 but is no longer a Republican.

SECOND UPDATE: Sports fans may remember that as a U.S. district court judge, Sotomayor ended the baseball strike in 1995.

THIRD UPDATE: Senator Chuck Grassley released this statement:

“A lifetime appointment requires a thorough vetting, and I expect Judge Sotomayor to receive fair and deliberative consideration.  The United States Senate has a responsibility to carefully review nominees to the Supreme Court.   The Judiciary Committee should take time to ensure that the nominee will be true to the Constitution and apply the law, not personal politics, feelings or preferences.  We need to ask tough questions to learn how this individual views the role of a Supreme Court justice.  The last 25 years of Senate review of nominees has been entirely different than the first 200 years, and today the Senate can’t just be a rubber stamp for President Obama’s nominees.”

Grassley is incorrect to imply that the Senate has been a rubber stamp of Supreme Court nominees for most of this country’s history. During the 19th century, the Senate rejected approximately one fourth of the presidential nominees for this office.

Here’s a list of failed nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Members of Bruce Braley’s Populist Caucus were among 55 House members who took a stand against the Panama Free Trade Agreement today in an open letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

After the jump I’ve posted the full text of the letter, along with the list of those who signed. Here is an excerpt:

We believe trade agreements must meet basic standards protecting labor rights, environmental standards, food safety regulations, financial regulations, and taxation transparency. We are disturbed by Panama’s tax haven status and the use of this tax haven by U.S. financial institutions like AIG and Citibank. The U.S. is currently contemplating stricter financial regulations to protect our economy, but the Panama FTA will likely weaken any such effort. We believe the Panama FTA should be renegotiated in order to address these outstanding issues.

President Obama campaigned effectively on changing the trade model and his message resonated with the American people.  We believe the Panama FTA falls far short of that commitment and it is not in the best interests of the American worker, our economy, or our country.  We share your commitment to fighting for working families and believe you can be an effective advocate for our cause.

The House members who signed the letter mostly belong to the Populist Caucus, House Trade Working Group, and/or the Progressive Caucus. I noticed that Representative Dave Loebsack (IA-02) joined Braley (IA-01) among the 17 Populist Caucus members who signed. Representative Leonard Boswell (IA-03) was among six Populist Caucus members who did not sign. One Republican signed: Walter Jones (NC-03).

“Defending American competitiveness by fighting for fair trade principles” is one of the six key priorities for the Populist Caucus.

Later today, a U.S. Trade Representative announced that the Panama agreement “won’t be submitted to Congress for approval until President Barack Obama offers a new ‘framework’ for trade.” At Open left, David Sirota interpreted that announcement as a victory (albeit possibly only temporary) for the Populist Caucus, its allies and the AFL-CIO, which had already come out against the Panama agreement.

We’ll see whether the White House is willing to deviate significantly from the NAFTA model in this agreement. Whatever the final outcome, I am glad to see a large House contingent taking a stand for fair trade.

I still hope the Populist Caucus will get more involved in the health care debate.