CQPolitics.com

...Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at the University of California Berkeley and author of “The Great Risk Shift,” said Democratic leaders have been frustrated by several factors since taking the majority of the House and Senate after the 2006 elections: comparatively thin majorities, especially in the Senate; their insistence on adhering to pay-as-you-go budget rules that often require tax increases to support any substantial new spending; and the fact that relief bills such as the housing measure are limited in scope and largely throw money at a problem,… more

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. . .Based on what McCain has outlined so far, “the policies have been more on the blow-a-hole-in-the-deficit side than the pay-as-you-go side,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. . . The one saving grace, MacGuineas said, is that Hassett describes McCain’s economic plan as a work in progress, with plans for deeper cuts in spending likely this summer. “The McCain people will say, ‘Don’t judge us yet,’ ” she… more

Mandatory Spending Could Fund Vet Health Care, Group Suggests (CQPolitics.com)

An outside commission has suggested major changes to government health care for veterans in an effort to improve the long-term viability of the system.

At a forum at the New America Foundation on Wednesday, members of the Commission on the Future of America’s Veterans said they planned to release a report this summer that would call for a “government-chartered entity” funded by mandatory spending to provide health care for U.S. veterans. more

Survey: Dem ‘08 Candidates Savvy on Elements of Health Care Overhaul (CQPolitics.com) New America Foundation’s Len Nichols said the survey’s findings confirm what he already believes: that most Americans want employers or the government to provide mandatory insurance. Nichols is director of the Health Policy Program at the foundation, a self-described “post-partisan” public policy think tank. “These ideas always tend to poll well,” and the Democratic plans are tailored to those ideas, Nichols said.

For the past two years, Republican moderates in the House have grumbled as their party took up a right-leaning agenda, with votes to ban gay marriage, to make felons of illegal immigrants, and to prevent a brain-damaged Florida woman from being removed from a feeding tube, among other conservative causes...

On Tuesday, Republicans paid the price, their moderate wing says. Voters gave control of the House to Democrats for the first time since 1994 and provided cliffhanger gains in the Senate.… more