On Deck: June 11, 2009

From GOP.com
Doctors’ Group Opposes Public Insurance Plan (NYT) Note: In an interview, Dr. Nancy H. Nielsen, president of the American Medical Association, said she was delighted by Mr. Obama’s plan to address the doctors. “Health care reform is as important to us as it is to him,” Dr. Nielsen said. “We will be engaged in discussions in a constructive way. But we absolutely oppose government control of health care decisions or mandatory physician participation in any insurance plan.”

Dems Vs. Dems On Health Bill (Politico) Note: Amid the signs of party discord, Obama is stepping up his personal efforts to push a public plan, with his first health-care town hall event Thursday in Green Bay, Wisc. On Monday, he’ll travel to Chicago to address the annual meeting of the American Medical Association, which is not on board with a government insurance program. AMA President Nancy Nielsen has raised concerns that the public option would underpay doctors, and the New York Times reported Thursday that the organization will oppose the proposal, which would deal a serious blow to Obama's effort to convince lawmakers and voters that a government plan is the way to go.

The 'Paygo' Coverup (WSJ) The Obama pattern: Spend, repent, spend again, repent.(Wall Street Journal, Editorial) Note: But Mr. Obama must think the press and public are dumb enough to buy it, because there he was Tuesday re-selling the same "paygo" promises that Democrats roll out every election. Paygo is "very simple," the President claimed. "Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere." … The truth is that paygo is the kind of budget gimmick that gives gimmickry a bad name. As Mr. Obama knows but won't tell voters, paygo only applies to new or expanded entitlement programs, not to existing programs such as Medicare, this year growing at a 9.2% annual rate. Nor does paygo apply to discretionary spending, set to hit $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2010, or 40% of the budget.

Here is what’s On Deck for Republicans:

• Following President Obama’s Town Hall Meeting today on Health Care, Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) will hold a press conference call today at 3:30 p.m. EDT with reporters to respond to President Obama in WI.
  
  
• Republican Leader Boehner, Whip Cantor and Conference Chairman Pence will hold a pen and pad and conference call with regional reporters today at 3pm EDT in H-204 at the Capitol.
  
  
• GIVE IT BACK, ARLEN! The Pennsylvania Republican Party has launched a new Web site, www.GiveItBackArlen.com, “which will allow donors to more easily request a refund of their contribution from Senator Arlen Specter’s campaign.” See full release here (PA GOP).
  
  
• Transparency We Can Believe In: (Politico) Politico reports the White House “has refused a request from Sen. Chuck Grassley for all the exemptions it’s granted to President Barack Obama’s ethics policy. And that’s got the Iowa Republican on a mission to make public every ethics waiver and recusal issued to administration officials.” In a letter to the director of the US Office of Government Ethics, Grassley said, “The American people deserve a full accounting of all waivers ... to better understand who is running the government and whether the administration is adhering to its promise to be open, transparent and accountable.”
  
  
• Congressman Mike Pence appeared on CNBC’s Kudlow Report discuss the House Republican energy legislation. View interview here.

On The Democrat Side – What To Watch For:

COOKING THE BOOKS
As Obama Pitches Health Care Reform, Senate Finance Chair Pressures CBO to “Get Creative” on Costs. Listen To Baucus Here

TODAY’S WASHINGTON POST: “The stakes are enormous. The nonpartisan budget office was created by Congress to serve as Washington's official scorekeeper, offering independent estimates of the cost of legislation. If the CBO says a health plan will break the bank, lawmakers generally will assume it's true. [Sen. Max] Baucus [D-MT], the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and a key figure in the health debate, has publicly lectured Elmendorf, saying he has a moral duty to be ‘creative’ and deliver the favorable budget estimates ‘we have to have’ to win broad support.”(Lori Montgomery, “What Would A Health Overhaul Cost? All Eyes On The CBO,” The Washington Post, 6/11/09)

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Sen. Finance Chair Max Baucus (D-MT): “And I cannot think of anything that depends so much on CBO as this, especially, as a time when we're -- it's new territory. It's new -- this is not the -- it's not -- we're not in the old situation where Senator Grassley once said whatever CBO says is God. You're God … There's a whole new area, and -- you might be Moses, but not God … Where you, as I said earlier, it's not too much of an overstatement to say CBO can make or break health care reform. And I mean that because it's -- we've got to go by your numbers … And I do believe there are several different intellectually honest pathways to get from here to there. It's not just one automatic. And so it means we've got to be evermore creative to find intellectually honest pathways to get the savings that we're going to have to have practically as well as politically to get health care reform.” (Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 2/25/09)

· Also Vice President Joe Biden will hit the road for another PR swing on the “stimulus.” See RNC research piece on “All PR and No New Jobs.”

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