Mere Cracks in Democrat Leadership or Will Emanuel, Obama Attacks Lead Teachers, Other Public Workers to Sit Out 2012 Presidential Race?

On the one hand, we have this story that hints to cracks in Democratic leadership, suggesting that some Democratic Party leaders, or elites, are disgusted with Rahm Emanuel's fight against Chicago schools and teachers. (Chicago Mayor Emanuel is continuing predecessor Richard Daley's school closing program.) Rev. Jesse Jackson has called Rahm Emanuel's school policies, "educational apartheid." Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog reports that Nance Pelosi will appear this morning at Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition headquarters, where she is expected to endorse son Jesse Jackson, Jr.'s reelection bid to Congress to the 2nd Congressional District of Illinois.

But don't hold your breath for open breaches in the Democratic Party elite. The wind is blowing in the direction of more of the same public sector austerity. Take note:
In New York there is Governor Mario Cuomo who is on a holy war crusade against organized labor, government employees and their pensions: from Bloomberg Business Week, January 27, 2011: "Cuomo’s New York Budget Faces Union Fight on Pensions, Teachers".

Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- New York Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed a $132.5 billion budget that links an increase in education spending to a new teacher-evaluation system and raises the retirement age for future workers, a move already drawing opposition from unions.

Cuomo’s spending plan for fiscal 2013 closes a $2 billion deficit with no new taxes in part by finding $1.14 billion in savings from consolidating purchasing and human resources, he said yesterday in Albany, the capital. A tax deal reached last month that raised rates on those earning $2 million or more added $1.5 billion in revenue.

The proposal follows through on Cuomo’s pledge to raise spending on Medicaid and education by about 4 percent. The boost in school aid will be tied to compliance with a new statewide teacher-evaluation system, a plan similar to one proposed last week by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The governor suggested he expects opposition from the teachers’ unions.

One wonders what is driving Cuomo to do this. Most likely is a pandering to middle class voters wincing at taxes, and willing to cut living and retirement standards of public employees.

From public employee unions we do not hear much, but Danny Donohue, president of the Civil Service Employees Association, the state’s largest public-workers union said,

“The proposal for a new public employee pension tier is an assault on the middle class and a cheap shot at public employees . . . . It will provide no short-term savings and will mean people will have to work longer, pay more and gain less benefit.

. . . . . . . . .

Then we have Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy, who apparently is now beginning to pursue a war against teachers. (This is an about-face to his pandering to teachers in his 2010 election campaign: "Malloy’s pitch to teachers: pensions to stay, binding arbitration a right, Foley would slash funds," from the Raising Hale site, September 22, 2010.) In his February 8, 2012 State of the State he said, “…only thing you have to do is show up for four years.” (No, he was not talking about being governor, he was speaking about teachers.) He is the state's first Democratic governor since 1991 and he is making this anti-tenure statement?
Malloy further said,

“Since 2009, 31 states have enacted tenure reform, including our neighboring states of New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. It’s time for Connecticut to act. ”

Jonathan Pelto's "wait, what?" blog pointed out that Malloy conveniently skipped over the fact that Connecticut with its four year probation length is one of the nine states with the longest probationary period for new teachers.

Democratic Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, "Quinn looks to shift teacher pension funding to local school districts", February 4, 2012.

And in Maryland, with Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley and Democratic-led Senate and House, we are seeing the impact of the kind of shift of pension funding to local districts. The effect is local layoffs, cuts to libraries: from CBS Baltimore, February 29, 2012, "Counties Warn Of Cuts If They Pay Md. Pensions,"

Montgomery County school officials say they would have to cut 600 teachers and increase class sizes if lawmakers in Annapolis approve Gov. Martin O’Malley’s proposal to shift teacher pension costs to the counties.

Board of Education President Shirley Brandman told the County Council on Tuesday that class sizes could increase by an average of 2.4 students per class. She says that would be the result if the school system has to pay $38 million in pension costs in the 2013 fiscal year.

Prince George’s County officials say they’re also worried the shift would lead to cuts in the workforce and services.

Politicians, Democratic and Republican, love to use the words, "cut," "trim." But they are skipping over the fact that those things mean the diminishing of the quality of life for public workers AND for the USERS of public services (schools, police, libraries, medical facilities).

ED SCHULTZ INSISTS OBAMA PLAY CHICAGO POLITICS ON PUBLIC OPTION

"I don't know if I can support Obama in the next election if he caves in on public option."

"I cannot support President Obama if he does not play Chicago politics."
{{{Call the White House, say no to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's trigger option. No to giving the health insurance industry seven to ten years to clean up their act. Go back to President Barack Obama's original public option idea. 202-456-1111 --as Jack and Jill politics says and Daily Kos says}}}

WE GOT ED!

Ed Schultz, the Rush Limbaugh-sound-alike on Air America Radio drew the line in the sand on public option, Friday, July 10, 2009. (Also on MSNBC .)

A snippet from a recent Huffington Post piece on Big Ed last month (June 24, 2009), Bill Mann, " 'Big Ed' Schultz Is Keeping Dem Senators' Feet to The Fire":

Big Ed's moved from being a publicity-hungry blowhard (remember "John McCain is a warmonger" last fall?) to expressing daily the kind of much-needed real passion for this critical legislation far too many Democrats (and, some might argue, the President) are lacking. Ed's gone on the attack. Someone has to do it.

The one-time pro football player is running interference for the Democrats who are actually doing something to move the ball toward the goal of meaningful national health care by calling out those playing footsie with HMO's and big pharma.

GET INVOLVED: MOVEON.ORG IS ORGANIZING ON THE YES ON PUBLIC OPTION ISSUE, AGAINST EMANUEL'S CAVING IN.

TALKING POINTS ON PUBLIC OPTION
Last December from Paul Waldman of Media Matters, writing in American Prospect:
The basics:

Although the public option wasn't the topic of a great deal of discussion during the campaign, for many progressives it amounts to a beautiful jewel hidden amidst a pile of compromise and disappointment. Ask average progressives what they think ought to be done about health care, and many will reply, "Well, a single-payer system would obviously be the best thing. But since that's politically impossible…" At the end of 2008, some things seem a little more possible than they used to.

That isn't to say a public option is just a modified single-payer system. It would be one option among many for individuals and businesses, and would leave the private insurance system in place (you can read more on the benefits of the public option here). But it does crack the door open for expanding the number of Americans who get their health insurance through the government. And this is what terrifies the insurance companies and conservatives. Their fear is that it will actually work. If the program operates well, more and more people will make the rational decision to choose it over private insurance (what we're supposed to do in a market, after all) and the insurance companies will lose customers.

For all their paeans to the power of private enterprise, we know that private insurers simply can't compete with the government, because they offer an inferior service at higher prices. We know this because of the example of Medicare, which operates more efficiently than private insurance (Medicare spends only around 2 percent of its costs on overhead, a fraction of what private plans do) and gets higher satisfaction ratings. We also know this because the government set up a program to allow private companies to compete directly with Medicare.

It's called Medicare Advantage, and the "advantage" was supposed to be that by allowing private companies to handle insurance for Medicare enrollees, costs could be reduced. Using their free-market mojo, the private firms would naturally bring in the coverage at a lower cost than having the big, bureaucratic government do it.

EXISTING SITUATION ESSENTIALLY MONOPOLY CONDITIONS IN CERTAIN GEOGRAPHIC MARKETS
From: "Health-Care Market Characterized By Consolidation, Not Competition"
By Zachary Roth - June 29, 2009:
Key excerpt:

But the notion that most American consumers enjoy anything like a competitive marketplace for health care is flatly false. And a study issued last month by a pro-reform group makes that strikingly clear.

The report, released by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), uses data compiled by the American Medical Association to show that 94 percent of the country's insurance markets are defined as "highly concentrated," according to Justice Department guidelines. Predictably, that's led to skyrocketing costs for patients, and monster profits for the big health insurers. Premiums have gone up over the past six years by more than 87 percent, on average, while profits at ten of the largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007.

Far from healthy market competition, HCAN describes the situation as "a market failure where a small number of large companies use their concentrated power to control premium levels, benefit packages, and provider payments in the markets they dominate."

So extreme is the level of consolidation, in fact, that one former top Federal Trade Commission official working with HCAN has sent a letter to the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, asking for an investigation into the health insurance marketplace.

The problem is most acute in small rural states, according to the report. In Shelby's own state of Alabama, the biggest insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield, controls 83 percent of the statewide market. There, and in nine other states -- Hawaii, Rhode Island, Alaska, Vermont, Maine, Montana, Wyoming, Arkansas and Iowa -- the two largest health insurers control at least 80 percent of the market. So much for Shelby's "marketplace for health care."

The report doesn't consider how this reality stands to affect the forthcoming congressional battle for reform. But extreme consolidation may actually be making it harder, not easier, to win support from lawmakers for a public option.

That's because insurers who control large swathes of a given market stand to see their bottom lines particularly threatened by the introduction of a lower-cost public option. So, in turn, they'll be particularly aggressive in pulling out all the stops to pressure lawmakers to oppose the plan. Given the healthy amount of campaign dollars that some wavering members take in from the major insurers, that's hardly encouraging.

OPPOSITION TO PUBLIC OPTION COMING FROM PROPAGANDA POINTS FROM INSURANCE COMPANIES
Note that the right wing buzz via Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh feeds into voters/listeners; and that IT COMES FROM THE INSURANCE COMPANIES that fear loss of profits.
Josh Marshall, "Bottom Line on Public Option" in TalkingPoints Memo noted this, June 29, 2009:

This won't come as the slightest surprise to those versed in health care policy issues. But I fear it's only barely permeated the health care reform debate in the country, certainly in Washington. And that's this: the opposition to a so-called 'public option' comes almost entirely from insurance companies who have developed monopolies or near monopolies in particular geographic areas. And they don't want competition.

Chief of Staff in doo-doo over Senate-for-sale scandal

First hints were a small story in taloids: "Rahm Emanuel mentioned 21 times in Blagojevich tapes." (paraphrased)
Now, the wire services (Associated Press) have bitten hard on the story, of Chief-of-Staff to-be Rahm Emanuel's connection with the Rod Blagojevich senate seat for sale scandal:

CHICAGO – Gov. Rod Blagojevich is legendary in Illinois political circles for not picking up the phone or returning calls, even from important figures like the state's senior senator, Dick Durbin.

But there was always one call Blagojevich regularly took, say his aides, and that was from Rahm Emanuel — his congressman, his one-time campaign adviser and, more recently — and troubling for Emanuel — one of his contacts with President-elect Barack Obama's transition staff.

The friendly rapport Blagojevich and Emanuel shared over the years has suddenly become a troubling liability for Emanuel and the new president he will serve as chief of staff.

Emanuel and Obama have remained silent about what, if anything, Emanuel knew of the governor's alleged efforts to peddle Obama's vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder.

Emanuel did contact the governor's office about the appointment and left Blagojevich with the impression that he was pushing Valerie Jarrett, a close Obama friend, so he wouldn't have to compete with her in the White House for Obama's attention, said a person close to Blagojevich. The person was not authorized to talk about the governor's discussions regarding the vacancy and requested anonymity.

It was not clear whether Blagojevich inferred Emanuel's motive for advocating Jarrett, or whether Emanuel discussed the appointment with Blagojevich directly or with John Harris, the governor's then-chief of staff who also is charged in the case, according to the source.

Emanuel's refusal to discuss the matter publicly, and the few comments offered by Obama to date, have prompted questions about Emanuel's ties to Blagojevich and what fallout he'll face as the criminal case unfolds, although sources have said he is not a target of prosecutors. Even so, any hint of scandal for Emanuel threatens to tarnish Obama's promise of new political leadership free of scandal and corruption.

Obama has said he will release a full accounting of his transition staff's interaction with Blagojevich and his aides over his Senate replacement once he receives the OK from prosecutors sometime this week. Until then, Obama has said it would be inappropriate for him or his aides to comment further.

Prosecutors refer in the 76-page complaint to the governor's discussions on FBI tapes about a "president-elect advisor," believed to be Emanuel, but they do not specifically cite contacts with Emanuel or anyone on Obama's transition staff.

Instead, the taped conversations reveal Blagojevich telling others to float his idea by the president's adviser of forming a nonprofit that he hoped would, with Obama's help, receive millions of dollars that the governor could tap later.

Blagojevich said he didn't want the idea associated directly in conversations about the Senate appointment or filling Emanuel's seat in the House, according to the complaint. However, Blagojevich is quoted as saying "I want it to be in his head" for later discussions about Emanuel's successor.

It was Blagojevich who, seemingly out of nowhere, yanked Emanuel into his scandal when answering reporters' questions the day before his Dec. 9 arrest, invoking his name in an apparent attempt to shrug off any perception of wrongdoing.

He said he wasn't concerned about a report in the Chicago Tribune that confidant and former aide John Wyma's cooperation had helped lead federal prosecutors to tape the governor's conversations.

Big deal, Blagojevich said. He said he's "always lawful" whenever he speaks, and he was confident Wyma has been "an honest person who's conducted himself in an honest way. That's the John Wyma I know and it's the John Wyma that Rahm Emanuel knows and a lot of other people know."

Blagojevich is right. Wyma does have ties to both him and Emanuel, those close to both have said. And Wyma's clients contributed to both — more than $100,000 to Emanuel's campaigns and causes, and more than $445,000 to Blagojevich's, according to campaign finance records reviewed by The Associated Press.

Wyma and his attorney, Zachary Fardon, did not respond to interview requests.

Emanuel's defenders say he is hardly an ally of Blagojevich.

"They were in different worlds personally and politically," said Peter Giangreco, a political consultant on Blagojevich's 1996 congressional campaign and his two gubernatorial races. "They only dealt with each other because they occupied the same political geography."

Emanuel's effort to promote Jarrett or anyone else for Obama's vacant Senate seat was more a part of his new job description and less a reflection of close ties, Emanuel's supporters have said.

But there was more to their relationship than a polite acquaintance. The two share a political past, rooted on Chicago's North Side, and a friendly relationship — although not a close friendship — that made Emanuel the obvious choice to push Obama's preferences to fill his vacant Senate seat, current and former Blagojevich aides said.

They at times joined forces politically, like in 2005 to promote importing prescription drugs from Canada and in 2006 to push for an increase in the state's minimum wage. Blagojevich, his aides say, wasn't shy about seeking the help of Emanuel, referred to in a 2006 Tribune article as his "Washington-based mentor."

Blagojevich was a congressman before he was governor and he represented the Fifth District, a small but heavily populated district in Chicago's northern and western suburbs, not far from O'Hare International Airport. His rise to Congress has been well documented of late, including the help he received from powerful Chicago Alderman Dick Mell — his now-estranged father-in-law.

When Emanuel returned to politics in 2002 after some years spent in investment banking, he targeted Blagojevich's Fifth District seat as he launched his reformist campaign for governor.

Due to his personal wealth and his national fundraising base dating to his work in the Clinton administration, Emanuel didn't have to go to Mell or to powerful unions because he already had acquired political clout.

Nancy Kaszak, who ran for Congress against Blagojevich in 1996 when both were state representatives and had a nasty battle against Emanuel in 2002, said she believes Mell quietly backed Emanuel. On Election Day that year, she recalls, Mell's poll workers passed out literature for both Blagojevich and Emanuel. Mell declined to be interviewed for this story.

Emanuel has described himself as a one-time adviser to Blagojevich. David Wilhelm, one of Emanuel's close friends who worked with him in the Clinton White House, informally assisted on that campaign for Blagojevich.

Emanuel, who has declined to comment since Blagojevich's arrest, told The New Yorker magazine over the summer that he, Wilhelm and Obama met once a week during the 2002 race to plot campaign strategy for Blagojevich. Wilhelm has said Emanuel overstated the group's role.

Also, Emanuel, Blagojevich and Obama all have hired David Axelrod, the Chicago political consultant who helped engineer Obama's presidential victory. Axelrod helped Blagojevich in 1996 and Emanuel in 2002.

The coming days will offer the first answers about Emanuel's recent interaction with Blagojevich and discussions about filling Obama's Senate seat.

Obama already has insisted that his aides did no bartering with Blagojevich to advance candidates for the appointment. But refusing the deal is only the first step to fighting corruption in a political culture that promotes it when others look the other way, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said earlier when announcing the charges against Blagojevich.

"We're not going to end corruption in Illinois by arrests and indictments alone," the prosecutor said. "What's going to make the difference is when people who are approached to 'pay to play' first say no, and, second, report it."