It’s clear by now that Democrats have to do something big and fast if they are to avoid political gloom, or even Armageddon, in the November elections.

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Top Democrats, including those within the Obama administration, are celebrating the first round of applicants accepted into the new Early Retiree Reinsurance Program, created as part of the landmark healthcare reform law enacted earlier this year.

The program is designed to help make health coverage affordable for Americans aged 55 years and older but not yet eligible for Medicare.

Nearly 2,000 employers, representing large and small businesses, state and local governments, educational institutions, non-profits, and unions have been accepted into the program and will begin to receive reimbursements for employee claims this fall, according to an announcement by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Created by the Affordable Care Act as a bridge to the new health insurance exchanges to be established in 2014, the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program provides $5 billion in financial assistance to employers and unions to help them maintain coverage for early retirees age 55 and older who are not yet eligible for Medicare. Businesses and other employers and unions that are accepted into the program will receive reimbursement for medical claims for early retirees and their spouses, surviving spouses, and dependents. Savings can be used to reduce employer health care costs, provide premium relief to workers and families, or both. The program ends on January 1, 2014 when state health insurance exchanges are up and running for consumers to use to purchase more affordable coverage.

“In these tough economic times, it is difficult for employers to keep up with skyrocketing health care costs for employees and retirees. Many Americans who retire before they are eligible for Medicare see their life savings disappear because of medical bills and exorbitant rates in the individual health insurance market,” says Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “The Affordable Care Act’s Early Retiree Reinsurance Program will make it a little easier for employers to provide high-quality health benefits to their retirees as we work to put in place market reforms to lower costs for all.”

Separately, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also touted the first applicants to be accepted into the program. A strong force in getting healthcare reform passed through Congress, Pelosi also took a swipe at Republicans who now call for repeal of the healthcare reform law.

“Today’s announcement is a crucial step in ensuring that hundreds of thousands of Americans aged 55 to 64, who retire but are too young to qualify for Medicare, have access to affordable health care, by providing businesses with the resources they need to guarantee that coverage,” she says. “It is the height of irresponsibility for Congressional Republicans to continue to call for repeal of health care provisions that would deny early retirees both peace of mind and access to quality health care — and hurt America’s businesses struggling to create and save jobs and do the right thing by their employees.”

The administration’s top official representing workers also touted the benefits of the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program as part of ensuring an overall secure U.S. economy.

“In these tough economic times, the combination of rising health care costs and lower revenues has made it increasingly difficult for private companies, unions, nonprofits, religious organizations, and state and local governments to provide quality and affordable health coverage for their retirees. And, as Labor Day approaches, I want to recognize those employers who are committed to maintaining adequate benefits for their workers and retirees in spite of these challenges,” Labor Secretary Hilda Solis says.

“Access to affordable health insurance is a not only a key component of retirement security but an important aspect of ensuring good jobs for everyone,” Solis adds. “I commend Secretary Sebelius for her leadership in this area as well as the private companies, unions, nonprofits, religious organizations and governments that successfully applied for grants that will make health insurance more affordable for their retirees.”

The publisher of the news site On The Hill, Scott Nance has covered Congress and the federal government for more than a decade.

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The last of the combat troops pulled out of Iraq a couple of weeks or so ago. This evening, in an address to the nation, President Obama said “…tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.”

Thank goodness Bush’s war is finally over. Well sort of… Read: Iraq: What Did We Win, And What Did It Cost?. Now maybe we can work on the economy.

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Democrats will begin running a television ad on Tuesday in the no-holds-barred race to hold onto the seat of retiring Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.).

The ad, paid for by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), calls out GOP candidate Sean Duffy for his support for a leading Republican’s economic proposals, particularly Social Security privatization.

Democratic state Sen. Julie Lassa is vying with Duffy to succeed Obey, the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee who has represented Wisconsin’s 7th District for more than 40 years.

Although Duffy, a former reality TV celebrity, claims not to support privatizing Social Security, the DCCC says he has twice stated his support for Rep. Paul Ryan’s “budget blueprint” that would privatize Social Security.

A fellow Wisconsin lawmaker, Ryan has emerged as a GOP point man on economic policy.

The DCCC cites video footage in which Duffy appears to endorse Ryan’s budget blueprint.

The DCCC, the arm of the Democratic Party charged with electing Democrats to the House, also cites an independent analysis that finds Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future” includes changes to Social Security including diverting large sums from Social Security to private accounts.

“It also would divert substantial sums from the Social Security trust funds into private accounts and then maintain Social Security solvency by transferring funds to Social Security from the rest of the budget,” the Washington-based Center for Budget and Policy Priorities says of the Ryan plan.

Further, the DCCC cites the libertarian Cato Institute as saying that there’s no difference between privatization and personal accounts. The DCCC quotes the the Star Tribune newspaper as saying, “The word ‘privatization’ has been part of the Social Security debate for many years and has been used by many Republicans. The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington and an advocate of the idea, used to call its effort ‘the project on Social Security privatization.’”

Republicans, however, are also reportedly spending on advertising in Wisconsin’s 7th District in an attempt to pull it from Democratic hands.

The district, however, has increasingly tilted Democratic in recent years. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) narrowly carried it with 51 percent in his failed 2004 presidential race, and President Obama won the district by an even wider 55.91 percent four years later.

The publisher of the news site On The Hill, Scott Nance has covered Congress and the federal government for more than a decade.

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A post over at BooMan Tribune caught my eye a short time ago, via Memeorandum. BooMan quotes a blurb from Robert Gibbs today on Politico:

Asked if the stimulus bill was too small, Gibbs says: “I think it makes sense to step back just for a second. … Nobody had, in January of 2009, a sufficient grasp of … what we were facing.” He adds that any stimulus was “unlikely to fill” the hole the financial meltdown created.

“What the Recovery Act did was prevent us from sliding even into a deeper recession with greater economic contraction, with greater job loss than we have experienced because of it,” he says. (2:35 p.m.)

BooMan nailed Gibbs saying:

Plenty of people had a sufficient grasp of the situation to recommend a much bigger stimulus bill. The no one could have predicted line of argument is not a political winner under any circumstances but it really stinks when it isn’t true.

And Paul Krugman chimed in with some serious ire:

The truth is that some of us were practically screaming back in January 2009 that the administration was proposing too small a program. Start with this post and work forward. And no, the point isn’t that I’m so smart — it is that given the forecasts we had at the time, and given historical experience of recessions after financial crises, it wasn’t at all hard to see that the plan was too small.

Robert Gibbs response today was a crock. A lot of people saw this coming, from economists to bloggers, to average Joe’s on the street who can’t find work… still. Gibbs statement today, was profoundly unhelpful.

And as BooMan noted, President Obama’s statement on the economy wasn’t much better. Republican obstructionists who are holding back on more stimulus need to get the hell out of the way. There are too many people out of work. There are too many small businesses going under. Enough is enough.

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Rep. John Boehner plans to criticize President Obama regarding the war in Iraq on the same day that Obama plans to address the nation about the end of combat operations in that nation.

Boehner will deliver his remarks at a meeting of the American Legion, the nation’s largest veterans service organization. It is being billed as a “major speech,” the second such event the Ohio Republican has held in as many weeks. Last week, Boehner blasted Obama for his economic policies.

The House GOP leader, Boehner is running a fierce campaign against Obama and his fellow Democrats in an attempt to regain House control in this year’s midterm elections. Boehner likely would become speaker if Republicans succeeded in wresting the speaker’s gavel away from current Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Previewing Boehner’s speech Tuesday, in a statement the American Legion cited an op-ed published Aug. 27 in the right-wing newspaper Human Events, in which Boehner said the Aug. 31 shift of U.S. forces from combat to an advisory mission “was made possible by the very surge that President Obama and Vice President Biden opposed,” referring to votes against a 2007 troop increase that Obama and Biden took as members of the Senate.

“With all due respect to them, our troops who have served so courageously in Iraq deserve the credit for the success of the surge and, along with the Iraqi people, the turnaround in Iraq,” Boehner says.

Boehner’s speech to some 10,000 members of the American Legion will come as Obama visits with soldiers at Fort Bliss, Texas, and just hours before an Oval Office address, both intended to mark this month’s end of combat operations in Iraq. The pullout, a promise on which Obama campaigned in 2008, came ahead of schedule. Some 50,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq for training and advisory purposes.

Obama has long opposed the war in Iraq, which began early in 2003 under then-President George W. Bush.

The American Legion this week is holding its 92nd American Legion National Convention. The organization also notes that members of the Obama administration, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Air Force Secretary Michael Donley also will address the Legion members.

Others scheduled to speak include: Sen. Russell Feingold, (D-Wis.); Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.); Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif.); and Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.). The convention is being held in Milwaukee.

The publisher of the news site On The Hill, Scott Nance has covered Congress and the federal government for more than a decade.

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Republicans have spent the last 20 months hammering the American poor and unemployed at nearly every turn. From the economic stimulus, to extension of unemployment benefits, Republicans have tried only to stand in the way of offering any help to those who borne the worst of the Great Recession.

Scott Nance has covered Congress and the federal government for more than a decade. Capitol Idea is his regular column from Washington. This article was first published as A Republican’s Worst Nightmare: The Poor Vote on Blogcritics.

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An alliance of U.S. truck drivers and environmental, labor, community, faith, civil rights and public health groups cheered the news that a federal judge on Thursday lifted an injunction and upheld the Los Angeles Clean Truck Program in its entirety. The coast-to-coast coalition of more than 125 organizations has advocated for L.A.’s award-winning model, and has led the fight to protect and replicate it nationwide for several years.

Supporters of clean port programs, which are credited with cutting diesel pollution by 70 percent, say congressional action is needed to protect them from future legal challenges. Environmentalists and others would like to expand the L.A. model to clean up other ports around the country.

The Los Angeles Clean Truck Program took 2,000 of the most polluting trucks out of service at the Port of Los Angeles, replacing them with nearly 6,000 new, clean vehicles operating at the port. The Port of Los Angeles is the nation’s busiest.

However, the American Trucking Associations, the Washington trucking lobby, obtained an injunction 16 months ago, unraveling much of the nation’s most successful program to slash heavy-duty diesel truck emissions by shifting the financial burden of cleaner commerce off the capitalized companies and onto low-wage workers they contract with. The industry special interest group has already announced it will file an appeal to continue its legal assault.

Judge Christina Snyder of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California earlier this year ruled key parts the program illegally regulate interstate commerce, citing provisions within the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA).

Snyder this week reversed that injunction, allowing the clean trucks program to move forward.

“Judge Snyder’s ruling affirms that the Los Angeles Harbor Commission, City Council, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa got it right from the beginning in enacting an economically sound, environmentally sustainable program to reduce deadly diesel truck pollution and create good green jobs in our communities,” says Tom Politeo, a San Pedro resident and representative of the Sierra Club, also party to the case along with the Coalition for Clean Air.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates 87 million Americans now live and work in port regions that violate federal air quality standards where diesel soot-induced asthma, cancer and respiratory illnesses rates are disproportionately high. In 2008, Los Angeles officials sought a local solution to the market failure that has earned U.S. seaports the notorious reputation as “the place where old trucks go to die.”

Lax oversight allows some 5,500 port trucking companies nationwide to skirt tax laws and push all the costs of doing business onto their drivers by misclassifying them as independent contractors. Accordingly, academics put average driver take-home pay at $10 to $11 an hour making it no surprise that this workforce can only afford to haul in the oldest, most decrepit clunkers. Ninety-five percent of the nation’s 110,000 port trucks fail to meet current EPA emission standards.

Los Angeles’ attractive financial incentives leveraged $600 million in private investment from both small and large trucking companies to put 6,600 clean diesel and alternative fuel vehicles in service until the trucking association blocked the program in court.

The industry’s vigorous opposition compelled Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and more than 65 House co-sponsors to back HR 5957 to clarify federal transportation law so local governments can fully implement market-based solutions that will protect public health, spur green job creation, and pave the way for vital port infrastructure projects.

Nadler called the ruling a “very welcome development” in the “longstanding efforts to modernize the nation’s truck fleets and reduce diesel pollution. Judge Snyder’s decision is good for the environment and good for labor, and paves the way for the implementation of other clean truck programs around the country. Now we must pass my legislation, the Clean Ports Act, in order to bring federal law up to date with the current realities of our ports and the needs of U.S. truck drivers, and to ensure that future legal challenges do not impede environmental progress.”

A Long Beach, Calif., mother of a child who suffers from respiratory illness due to pollution agreed.

“This victory inspires us to keep fighting for a permanent fix at the federal level. Ports around the country should not have to waste so much time and money to fight industry bullies that want to continue evading responsibility,” says Silvia Martinez. “Our fight will continue until Congress passes the Clean Ports Act of 2010, because mothers like me shouldn’t have to show our 3 year olds how to use an inhaler.”

The publisher of the news site On The Hill, Scott Nance has covered Congress and the federal government for more than a decade.

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The fervent anti-government populism of the so-called tea party movement way well provide Republicans with short-term gains in the 2010 midterm elections, but it isn’t enough to establish the GOP as a majority party in the long run, according to a left-leaning political analyst.

Ongoing shifts in demographics, such growth in minority voters, young voters, and even white college graduates, all point to trouble ahead for a staunchly right-wing Republican Party, says Ruy Texeira, senior fellow at the Century Foundation and the Center for American Progress, and author of the study, “Demographic Change and the Future of the Parties.”

Texeira is scheduled next week to participate in a panel discussion in Washington on the question, “Can conservatism survive mass immigration?” That event is set for Sept. 1, at 9:30 a.m. at the National Press Club.

Immigration has become a heated issue as lawmakers consider comprehensive reform at the federal level, and at the state level given the controversy over the Arizona immigration statute that was partially struck down by a judge.

Meanwhile, tea-party-backed candidates including Sharron Angle of Nevada, Ken Buck of Colorado and Rand Paul, of Kentucky, continue to fill the ranks of Republican candidates for the November midterm elections in which Democrats must defend their majorities in the House and Senate.

Heavily Democratic minority voters, who went 80 percent for President Obama his election, increased their share of votes in U.S. presidential elections by 11 percentage points between 1988 and 2008, Texeira notes in his study.

The United States will be a majority-minority nation by 2042, and by 2050, the country will be 54 percent minority as Latinos double from 15 percent to 30 percent of the population, Asian Americans increase from 5 percent to 9 percent, and African Americans move from 14 to 15 percent, his study says.

But immigration and ethnicity is but one shift that, over time, could well drive more voters to the Democrats unless Republicans change course radically, he adds.

The Millennial generation (those born between 1978 and 2000) is adding 4 million eligible voters to the voting pool every year, and this group voted for Obama by a an overwhelming 66-32 margin in 2008, Texeira’s study says. By 2020—the first presidential election in which all Millennials will have reached voting age—this generation will be 103 million strong, and about 90 million of them will be eligible voters. Those 90 million Millennial eligible voters will represent just under 40 percent of America’s total eligible voters, the study adds.

Even the GOP’s hold on the white working class is not secure, and if that slips, the party doesn’t have much to build on to form a successful new coalition, the study finds.

“That probably also means offering these voters something more than culture war nostrums and antitax jeremiads,” it says.

What this means, Texeira says, is that the GOP must begin proposing new solutions to problems beyond mere promises of tax-cutting. “In short, the ‘party of no’ has a limited shelf life,” he says, referring to the moniker Republicans have picked up as a result of sustained opposition and obstruction during the Obama administration.

Republican solutions “should use government to address problems but in ways that reflect conservative values and principles,” Texeira’s study says.

“For that, a conservatism must be built that is not allergic to government spending when needed and even to taxes when there is no responsible alternative,” it says. “The party must paradoxically find a way to combine its standard antigovernment populism with pro-government conservatism.”

The publisher of the news site On The Hill, Scott Nance has covered Congress and the federal government for more than a decade.

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I’d be remiss to not mention here today that it is the one year anniversary of Senator Ted Kennedy’s death.

I’ve thought many times over the past year, each time the Senate faltered on important legislation, that if Kennedy were still alive we’d be getting this stuff passed.

As Peter S. Canellos notes today in the Boston Globe: “The sad truth is that Kennedy died at just the moment when his blend of skills and relationships — particularly with Obama — was most needed.”

Yes, he is missed… The Senate isn’t functioning worth a damn with out him… And, the little people lost a great champion when Kennedy passed away.

Now, we can only sit back and reflect on the legacy he left behind, as Vincent Bzdek does his book,  ”The Kennedy Legacy: Jack, Bobby and Ted and a Family Dream Fulfilled.” 

“The dream lives on…”

Listen to: Remembering Ted Kennedy, 1 Year Later and read: Kennedy is remembered in Worcester and on the Cape.

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