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Why Liberals Hate Max Baucus
Yuri Gripas, Reuters / Landov
Max Baucus unveiled his health care bill on Tuesday—without its heralded GOP backers. Michelle Goldberg on how the once-unstoppable Senate Finance Committee Chair became persona non grata on the left, too.
The Democratic Party is famously disunited, but one would think they could stand together in opposition to Congressman Joe Wilson’s boorish eruption at President Obama’s health-care speech. After all, the South Carolina Republican wasn’t just violating long-standing norms of political protocol when he screamed, “You lie” at the president. Wilson was also himself lying, since there was nothing remotely untrue in Obama’s insistence that the Democrats’ health-care plans exclude illegal immigrants.
If a Democrat had so insulted a Republican president, he or she would doubtlessly be forced to apologize on the House floor. Instead, Montana Democratic Senator Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, has acted as if Wilson had a point. This week Baucus said that, in order to address Republican concerns, his committee’s bill would tighten restrictions on illegal immigrants’ access to insurance, thus legitimating and even rewarding Wilson’s outburst.
Given the scope of health-care reform, this is a small matter. It’s symbolic, though, of what makes Max Baucus such an obtuse and maddening figure. Though ever ready to marginalize more progressive members of his own party, he is exquisitely sensitive to the demands of Republicans. A Washington Post headline from Monday about his committee’s effects at health-care reform summed up his whole counterproductive approach: “Reform Bill Will Address GOP Fears.” As if reasonable concerns have kept the Republicans away! This is DC’s fetish for bipartisanism elevated to the level of farce.
Somehow, the most important progressive legislation in a generation has ended up in the hands of a conservative, unimaginative man whose coffers are stuffed with health-care industry dollars, and who represents a state with less than half the population of Brooklyn.
For weeks now, Baucus has been working on a compromise health-care bill with his so-called Gang of Six—a group of senators, half Democrat and half Republican, who range across the ideological spectrum from slightly to very conservative. This has resulted in numerous Democratic concessions—particularly on the public option and on the amount of subsidies to help people buy insurance—with absolutely no Republican reciprocation. No doubt, the bill that eventually comes out of Baucus’s committee will be better than nothing at all. But his role as health-reform kingmaker has done nothing but slow the process down and ensure that when a law finally passes, it will be weaker and less effective than it could have been.
Somehow, the most important progressive legislation in a generation has ended up in the hands of a conservative, unimaginative man whose coffers are stuffed with health care industry dollars, and who represents a state with less than half the population of Brooklyn. Indeed, Baucus exemplifies much of what’s wrong with the Senate—both its fealty to corporate donors and the inordinate amount of power it accords to people from small, conservative-leaning states.
The combined populations of Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, North and South Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arizona and Alaska are about equal to those of New York and Massachusetts. The former states have 22 senators; the latter, at the moment, have three. That creates a tremendously high bar for progressive legislation, even if that legislation is supported by a majority of Americans. Worse, campaign funding compounds the rightward tendencies of small-state senators. As Nate Silver pointed out last month, senators from small states, having a smaller fundraising base among their constituents, are more reliant on donations from corporate political action committees. “Senators from the ten smallest states have received, on average, 28.4 percent of their campaign funds from corporate PACs, versus 13.7 for those in the ten largest,” wrote Silver, who concluded that small state senators have even more incentive than their colleagues to “placate special interests.”
Baucus is a case in point. Only twelve senators, most of them Republicans, receive a greater share of their fundraising from PACs. Among his biggest donors are the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries—according to the Center for Responsive Politics, in the last five years he’s raised more than half a million dollars from each.
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Michelle Goldberg is the author of The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power and the Future of the World and Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism. She is a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and her work has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, the Los Angeles Times, Glamour, and many other publications.
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Michelle Goldberg is the author of The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power and the Future of the World and Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism. She is a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and her work has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, the Los Angeles Times, Glamour, and many other publications.
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Michelle Goldberg is the author of The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power and the Future of the World and Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism. She is a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and her work has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, the Los Angeles Times, Glamour, and many other publications.
Max Baucus is a JUDAS reincarnation.
It's not just "liberals" who oppose Baucus. He has gone against the views and principles of almost everyone in the Democratic Party.
While I agree that Baucus is in thrall to corporate PACs, this article is lazy and glib. She offers virtually nothing on what exactly Baucus' committee has jurisdiction over or how it fits into the overall process, of which is a part. This is second rate.
It isn't her job to educate you on Senate mechanics. She is reporting -- quite well -- on how one Dino senator is sabotaging health care and what salient political factors are at play. If you want a civics class, take a civics class.
No, she's not reporting. This is an opinion piece, that's why it's in the blog section. It's simply her own uneducated rantings about how, in her myopic view, one man is standing in the way of her vision of some progressive utopia. There's no reporting here whatsoever, at least nothing that couldn't be looked up by an intern. She simply blasts a man that has given 30 years of his life to serving his state and his country, when he could have walked away at anytime to make millions doing exactly what she's doing -criticizing. (I thought we were about civility here, or is that just when someone comments on the President) If Michelle has some problem with the way the federal government works, she can leade her friends an neighbors in NY and MA and the rest of New England and seceed. They'll be a third world country in 2 years.
"Wilson was also himself lying, since there was nothing remotely untrue in Obama's insistence that the Democrats' health-care plans exclude illegal immigrants."
One could also say that there was nothing remotely untrue about Wilson's accusation either using her standard.
Nothing true in the sense that the bill would state illegals aren't covered, but if you don't check a person's legal status, how can you exclude them?
Baucaus' bill is one of 5 and like the final legislation will be a cut and paste of those items that , hopefully, meet the provisions the president laid out in his speech last week.
We have allowed Senators to have too much power by not insisting on term limits. I think twelve years Senate , two terms, and 12 years House, six terms, is enough.
When someone like Baucaus who does NOT represent the interests of a sizable number of citizens has so much power the system is out of whack.
Not term limits--that gives even more power to the two major party organizations, both of which have benefited financially from the summer of our discontent (ok discontent is a mild word for it...) The key is to limit direct and indirect political spending. Then the desperate need for constant fundraising goes away, and so does the leverage of big donors.
Agreed: Term Limits are the only way Americans can gain control of politicians like Baucus and many others. The Senate is a thumb in the eye of Americans of all political persuasions.
Term limits come in the voting booth. The problem is money. Two things need to happen to fix it: (1) Public Financing of elections, to level the field between incumbents and challengers and end the shameful buying of the people's lawmakers, and (2) The rescindment of citizenship status for corporations to strip them of the Constitutional guarantees of political participation that were intended solely for the PEOPLE.
I have long supported term limits, but I am doubtful they can fix this problem. What is the difference if the lobbyists influence 1 senator from 1 state for 12 years or 2 different senators for 6 years each. The real answer to the the problem is the American people really watching what their elected representatives do in office, these same people developing a real fact-based understanding of what that means to our interests (and stop listening to idiots like Limbaugh who tell people lies about what it means), and then voting out people who are not working for the interests of the majority. We are too fast to blame the political system and too slow to recognize our culpability in the problems. It is government of the people, but most people in the US only get interested right around election time, and then we slack off the rest of the time. Let's step up and take on some of the blame that we deserve as much as our politicians do. They only act the way they do because they know they can get away with it. Besides that, even though we want to paint all politicians with the broad brush of useless, there really are some who care about and work for the people, even some who have been there for a long time.
The problems is that lobbyists can target senators from small states for a lot fewer bucks than others, $1.2 million goes lot farther in Montana than in New York.
It's absolutely silly that the notion of proportional representation has never ben part of the U.S. political discussion.
As someone said, the U.S. is not a democracy, it's a republic, whatever that means.
Mixpixlix: Term limits merely give more power to lobbyists.
Elections are expensive, you know.
I sure hope Max Baucus is strong and does not let us suffering American Citizens down! I need health care, and I cannot wait! I am disabled unable to work! SSI takes forever!
Good article.
One thing no one has explained to me is how any illegal immigrant could apply for medical insurance. Do they somehow qualify to apply for other types of insurance like car insurance, house insurance or life insurance as well? I'm pretty sure that they don't. To apply one must show - proof of citizenship, government identification, etc. - end of story. If they can't, they can't apply.
I suspect the theory is that because illegal immigrants, like other uninsured people, use the ER for basic care, you can reduce more costs by having them buy insurance and go in the front door as well. If everyone is required to carry health insurance, it's hardly fair to exclude illegals when they use health services too. Because they will--it's not ethically or logistically feasible to turn people away from the ER. Then too, when illegals have contagious diseases that go untreated, the rest of us suffer.
Many illegal immigrants use fake social security numbers and actually pay taxes. That money goes into a black hole as far as they are concerned. In addition, they avoid going to the emergency room to avoid being deported. "Illegals" are gaming the system proportionately less that uninsured homeless and what Republicans would have you believe.
They must show proof of citizenship to get benefits from the government.
But if there's no requirement to show proof of citizenship -- that is, they don't check for it -- how would the government know whether they're citizens? It wouldn't.
The Republicans tried to put the verification step in. The Democrats removed it.
This is why Wilson called Obama a liar becuase there was, in fact, no requirement to show citizenship at all.
You, essentially, made the same argument that Wilson made.
So, you are saying you would like a national ID card?
From the Stephanopoulos show this past Sunday with Tim Pawlenty, Stephanopoulos said "..there has been a study done by the House oversight committee that showed in these Medicaid provisions, they spent about $8 million to enforce it and caught 8 illegal immigrants."
The facts are that illegal immigrants use "borrowed" social security numbers to get jobs and pay taxes. (Nobody can mess with the IRS). Other than that, they stay away from government benefits, even ones that they are eligible for. Their intent is to live "under the radar" to avoid discovery and deportation. The most cost effective deterrent is to simply state that they are not eligible for the program. Anything beyond that is expensive, uninformed emotionalism.
"GOP Sympathies?" Come on, only a blind partisan would call it that. Baucus is an old fashioned word, a moderate, and actually believes what he says. Since the public option will never pass, he is the hope of millions of people who will now have access to insurance that they didn't have before this.
I'm sorry, but he has NOT LISTENED to Democrats at all--not in any way, throughout this entire process. He has simply ignored the views of the majority in his own party, in favor of writing a bill designed to please the Republicans and the insurance companies.
Baucus has simply refused to listen to the members of his own party at all.
wolverine1987: I would almost believe you if he hadn't taken so much money from special interest lobbyists.
Whatever, we don't need Baucus...this all became a formality in mid-August when the real theatrics began. I think every time the GOP lies 5 "compromises" come out of the bill...in about 3 days we'd be back to a strong, 100% full-blooded bill that will actually help this country.
My thoughts, give them enough rope to hang themselves. Then we'll get HCR with the Public Option.
Max Baucus is simply a shill for the insurance industry, and not worth a second thought.
We have Reconciliation. Bush used it to ram through a tax cut for the rich that cost more than twice as much as what a single payer system would have cost.
It's time to go nuclear. If the insurance industry wins on this, it means the American people have lost control of their country. That would be an abomination that must not stand.
I concur wholeheartedly. This issue is much too important to settle for anything less than real reform. The Reconciliation rules essentially permit a reform package to be passed without having to rely on (unreliable) Republicans or spineless wimps like Baucus. The window of opportunity is open. The time to act is now.
And considering Obama supports Baucus and the blue dogs, he is also to blame.
As Democrats, we have ourselves to blame. Why do we have rules that allow a Republican in Democrat's clothing head a major committee? Seems to me it should require more than a label to merit a committee chair.
The healthcare insurers got their moneys worth. Sen Baucus is doing just what they want. He is a puppet.
I agree. Just like Wall St. got exactly what they wanted from Obama. When will the bailouts stop? No one can answer that question, yet everything is fine with the economy? All politicians are subservient to their special interests and constituents. I agree with term limits, we should have gotten rid of Ted Kennedy a long time ago.
The Wall Street bailout came from Bush, or have you forgot that? You are confusing stimulus with bailouts. Would you rather nothing to have been done as we spiral into depression? It was the Bush administration that held interest rates down and let unregulated markets run wild in the name of "Reaganomics".
Why do so many people type the word "Obama" when they mean to type the word "Bush?"
While I don't disagree with the fundamental points Goldberg makes about Baucus in this column, she misrepresents the fundamental principle behind having two senators for every state. Regardless of whether one likes the outcome of the Senate and its legislative process regarding healthcare, disproportionate influence of senators like Baucus, and the seniority system---or not, the design point behind the Senate is to offset the unequal membership by state built into the House of Representatives, and explicitly to avoid effectively neutering states with small populations in the larger national system of governance. Were states with smaller populations to be represented proportionately to their population in the US Senate, either those states would share one senator with several others, or the Senate would look something like the US House of Representatives.
I suggest that Goldberg revisit Civics 101.
I have read History 101, and more than that, so I know that James Madison and Benjamin Franklin really wanted a one-house legislature based on population, which is the only fair way of representing everyone equally. I think this idea of each state having two Senators to make them "equal" to the others is a s Bogus as Baucus himself. I'd just have a one-house legislature and give the little states two or three more representatives if that will make them happy.
mcmchugh99: If Franklin had had his way, there would not be a United States of America today.
The smaller states were terrified of being dominated by large states such as New York.
Baucus is a disgrace. He's given away the store. We Dems should learn how to eat our own just like Republicans do. Get rid of the Blue Dogs DINOs! Send money to his opponent next time he's up for reelection. A Republican couldn't be any worse.
Few Democrats really knew who Baucus was before all this, but we know him all too well now. On health care reform, he has completely ignored the views of people in his own party, and spent months delaying and watering down the bill to appeal to the Republicans, only to get no votes from them anyway.
We have felt frustrated, enraged and powerless at this, since he simply wasn't listening to Democrats at all, even though he's supposedly in our party. They just refuse to listen to us. It goes without saying that we need a new chair of that finance committee. We want this guy out of there, and replaced with someone who at least pretends to be a Democrat once in a while.
Doesn't anybody realize what state Baucus is from? Goldberg said it at at the beginning: Montana. When was the last time they voted Democrat? And by the way, who was the one elected promising a new era of bipartisanship in Washington? I don't condone Baucus' actions but he's towing the President's line. Sure it would be more convenient to scrap bipartisanship altogether with the Democrats majority but maybe someone ought to tell the President first.
This is usually what happens. Even with a majority, the Democrats cave to the Republicans. I don't get it. The Republicans would never do the same. The first few years of the Bush administration prove that.
Hawnzz: Republicans are authoritarian.
Democrats are, well, democratic.
Democracies are messy compared to dictatorships.
Democrats' most self-destructive behavior is trying to enlist the cooperation of Republicans, who prove time & time again that they have no interest in bipartisanship. All the GOP ever does is delay, obstruct, & try to inflict political damage on the POTUS. They have abdicated their right to "a seat at the table." The Democrats would be serving both the nation & themselves if they could use Reconciliation rules to pass a REAL reform bill (with a strong public option !), unlike Baucus' gift to the insurance industry. Do they have the cojones?
I enjoy reader's bashing the small states... Every blogger bashing a small state is probably from Florida, Cal, NY or New England. I enjoy that a bicameral legislature has worked pretty well for the past 230 years, but not so, when a small state senator has some power on a big issue. If you don't like the system, start a movement to change the constitution. Nobody from a smaller population knows nothing about nothing, seems to be the mantra here. What a bunch of hate filled people complaining about Baucus.
aackc1: It is apparent that you don't really believe in democracy, since you are okay with a few people in small states having power over many people in large states.
Our bicameral was a compromise necessary to get small states to sign the Constitution. (That and our crazy electoral college.) That doesn't make it right.
As for changing the Constitution, that requires votes from the same small states that have power now. Fat chance.
Max Baucus is exquisitly sensitive to any measure likely to kill healthcare reform. The insurance companies and big pharma gave him millions to kill healthcare and that's what he's doing. Republicans simply give him plausible deniability. If Baucus loses his seat in Congress, he'll do what Billy Tausin did and go to work as a lobbyist. He guy's a traitor. He has no shame.
Good, everyone is mad, and rightfuly so! Call and write your elected officials. First they offered Public option instead of Single Payer. Then oh, I don't think we have the votes for Public Option. Now what is being offered by Baucus, is called by Wendall Potter, "a insurance profit protection and enhancement bill". Remind your Senators and Representives, who won in November. The support for Health Care Reform is there.The President campaigned on Universal Health Care, and won with a large majority. The company, United Health Care United's "Astro-turf" are not the people who voted for them. Do we have to parade the thousands of sick and the dying who have been denied health care in front of them.Tell them to watch the movie online,sickforprofitt.com.The status quo is unsustainable. A califorina nonpartion study determined that in 2016 insurance premiums would be 41% of the average income. 60% of bankruptcies are due to medical costs. Despite this bad economy, insurance companies have made record profits. Some of the insurance ceos are making as much as $100,00 a hour. Insurance companies are this profitable at the cost of denying care to those people who have been paying their premiums. Over the last decade, insurance premiums have gone up 131%, while wages have gone up only 38%. A Public Option is neccesary to have the power to negotiate lower drug prices and lower prices from medical providers. America is the only industrialized nation without health care for all its citizens.
You know, when you step back and consider it, Senators like Baucus (and mine, Mary Landrieu) are costing people's lives and financial freedom just for purposes of furthering their own, personal career?
How much more criminal can you get? When do you, Senators Baucus and Landrieu, put on your statesman's hat and say to yourself, "On this particular issue, it's worth risking my own career."
But of course that's naive, since politicians aren't made up that way.
I did not vote for that damn jackass Max Baucus! I voted for Barack Obama... and if he does not stop being so damn naive about the opponents to the health care reform, including the public option, I will be sadly disappointed in the current President of the United States.
I have sat by for years and seen the Republicans slam thru more than one bill without the smallest
inclination to listen to the Democrats, and I am tired of the ruckus the Reps are mobilizing all the time to the peoples detriment.
Take the time recently ,Obama was praising that other jackass Grassley for working diligently to pass health reform, that very same afternoon Grassley was on his bullhorn yelling about NOT EVER PASSING health care reform.
When the President was in Montana a few weeks ago Baucus was in the audience when Obama was handing him accolades about his hard work for health reform. I almost threw up. What the hell is w rong with these people?
Sometimes I think there is not one honest bone in their bodies... Republican and/or Democrat.
Either Obama is deaf or he actually thinks the Republicans can be dealt with fairly...I am beginning to think it is time Obama showed some steel in his backbone....
I have s aid it before and I will say it again... if your representative takes money from the insurance companies they will vote for whatever the insurance company wants. PLAIN AND SIMPLE.
I will be happy when Obama stops flashing his dentyne smile and gets down to the business of the people.
Dear Mozart, You say, "you have sat by for years", well stand up and go to your elected officials local office. I have wondered about the President slow response to what is going on. I have concluded that he is waiting for the people who worked to get him elected to remember, "A Government for the People ,By the People, Means them! No President has been able to get this Health Care Reform Bill Passed. I believe this time, if enough people let their elected representatives know that NO is not an answer we will accept. Writing to your elected officials, is as easy as posting on this site. Corporations have been only too happy to take advantage of the fact, most Americans have not been interested in their government. I believe if we are to get health care reform pased this time, it depends on us, WE THE PEOPLE.
It's time to quit appeasing the radical republican party and get a health care reform bill that helps the majority of Americans. It's time to address their lies and call them out as such. Most of the people that support the wing nut protests against reform have no idea how much they would benefit from reform and are focused on lies and lunatic fantasies that the right wing has put in their head, and they like unwitting sheep just eat up. The republicans opposed FDR's policies in the 30's using the same kind of fear-mongering, as they have opposed every major reform over the last century. The republicans are interested in one thing - preserving the gravy train of greed that they have been riding high on. They have no qualms about using lies and deception and any other dishonest tactic to achieve their end. They are, simply put, an evil group of people and shame on them. The bible they love to thump (though I suspect somewhat disingenuously) has much to say about their behavior, and shame on them for being the new Pharisees that the same bible aptly describes and liars and hypocrites.
Baucus is using bipartisanship as a smokescreen - to cover up for his illegal agenda - sabotaging the bill for bribes. he's going to kill and maim thousands if not millions of americans so a few lousy ceo's can stuff their pockets with blood money.
True, true, true! Baucus knew from the get go that he would never get the Repubs involved in bipartisanship, so he should have loaded the bill with everything the liberals wanted and to hell with the Repubs. But he didn't. Why? The money he gets from the insurance people. Make no mistake, they wrote this bill.
Baucus did what he had to do to keep the Democrats from getting slaughtered in the next election.
You should thank him. Maybe he saved your majority.
You are joking? Americans will be required to have mandatory insurance,or pay a huge fine. And a public option is off the table. Republicans are well aware that failure of real Health Care Reform will be the President's Waterloo. That is a quote from Senator Demint, who also has told all republicans not to vote for it. A former insurance ceo, Wendall Porter said of this bill "You might as well call it an insurance profit protection and enhancement bill.
It is no accident that the states with small populations have the same votes in the senate as the large states.
This mechanism was quite pointedly and purposely put into the Constitution by the Founders to protect the minority against the tyranny of the majority, and to protect agricultural interests against the urban interests. Cities being seen by many of the Founders as centers of corruption. As indeed they were and are.
Without the two senators per state provision, the smaller states would have refused to join the new, powerful federal system. It would have been a non-starters.
So quit bitching about the very system that made our nation possible at all. And has made it work very well for 225 years, protecting the minorities against the majorities.
Great, now we only need to work out how to protect the majority from the minority.
That is easy , WIN MORE SEATS , you moron. and by the way win the presidency with more that 52 to 48 percent, then maybe you will be that majority at least on that day. 6 months later is total new ball game.
September/17/2009
Baucus is a whore.He has been bought by the health care
industry.Crooks like this Baucus should not be allowed to have
anything to do with the passing of the Public Health Care Bill
Barack Obama is wasting his time he needs to ignore the
republicans and concentrate on the democrats and pass the
Public Health Care Bill.
Barack Obama needs to follow Jimmy
Carter's advise ------> Stay away from the racists republican
senators.Most of the republican senators are racists.Most of
the republican senators voted against Sonia Sotomayor because she is a woman and a latina and because she does
not look like John Mccain et cetera!
We need to pass the Public Health Care Bill as soon as possible!.
Joe Wilson is a hypocrital person and he also is a
racist.This Joe Wilson needs to be removed from government
as soon as possible!.It is Ok for him and his large family to
have health insurance and at the same time he has been voting against the Public Health Care Bill for many years!.
END!
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What a stupid comment, Sotomayor is the racist, she is so full of his latino heritage that became a racist monster.
Thank you.
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