Olympia Snowe and the trigger option
“The trigger concept is an idea with a constituency of one, but when that one is Olympia Snowe, it may be enough.” ~ Ezra Klein
At this point it’s almost impossible to know what will happen. With Democrats split in the Senate, and Olympia Snowe a verifiable wild card, now there’s news breaking that the House bill may in fact cost over $1 trillion dollars over the next ten years – a full $150 billion more than estimated. And this doesn’t even take into account the possible public costs of subsidies and Medicaid if poverty guidelines are adjusted to the new NAS standards.
Then there’s reports that Senate Majority leader Harry Reid may be as close as one or two votes short of a filibuster-proof “opt-out” public option. If he can get 60 Democrats, Olympia Snowe will no longer be a factor. It’s possible, if it came down to it, that even the most conservative Democrats would vote against a filibuster, even if they previously opposed the public option. There’s a great deal riding on this legislation’s success, even for the conservative Democrats.
And this may be the tipping point. Legacy considerations can’t be underestimated. Even Olympia Snowe may sacrifice a little principle in the end if it will win her a bit of a legacy in the long run. Does this mean she’d abandon her proposed “trigger” option and not stand in the way of the “opt-in” or “opt-out” public options? That’s hard to say. But I wouldn’t be surprised.
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- Obama Wants a Trigger, So Keep Calling Reid (fdlaction.firedoglake.com)
- Public Option Success Is Close – But White House Pushes for Snowe’s Trigger Instead. Say What? (crooksandliars.com)
- Senate Democratic aide elevates Snowe’s importance over progressive Democratic Senators (americablog.com)
- HuffPost: Reid one or two votes shy of opt-out public option (dailykos.com)
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I think David Sirota put it best when he said no one outside Washington knows or cares who Olympia Snowe is, and we shouldn’t be damaging health care by trying to get her onboard.
The government already has the money to pay for universal health and at the same time reduce the carbon footprint of office buildings by 50%.
The Federal government pays for almost one billion square feet of office space. Most office space is very expensive yet it sits unused 70% of the time because most white collar work is scheduled for only one shift per day or only 45 hours out of a 168 hour week. 30% efficiency is completely unacceptable in today’s economic and ecological environment. Most buildings are open for 12 hours each day from 6 am to 6 pm. By keeping buildings open an additional 4 or 5 hours each day, we could schedule 2 shifts of white collar workers, thus increasing our efficiency by 100% and reducing our carbon footprint by 50%. We could cut the cost of overhead for each employee by 40 to 50%, half as much infrastructure, half as much office space, half as many computers and supplies. With the overhead for each of our 2 million Federal workers approaching $50,000 per year, the potential savings could be $50 billion per year, enough to pay for health care reform.
This simple plan will help our government and private industry in the following ways:
•Save federal gov a trillion dollars in next 10 years
•Exactly amount needed for universal healthcare
•Reduce white-collar overhead costs by 50%
•Reduce carbon footprint of office space by 50%
•Reduce budget deficits for most state governments
•Reduce our dependence on foreign oil
•Make workers competitive in the global economy
•Improve profits for all businesses and
•Increase tax receipts for state/fed governments
•Businesses can hire more employees & lower prices
http://www.youtube.com/user/greenspaceguy