This particular bit of news has been covered in the past by a few pro-lgbt blogs. But as the furor over the Ugandan anti-gay bill…

But what matters to you – what matters to our country – is not what happens in the next election, but what we do to lift up the next generation.  And the fact is, there are few issues that speak more directly to our long term success as a nation than issues concerning the education we provide to our children.

President Obama announced in his weekly address this morning an “overhaul” of the No Child Left Behind Act that his administration will deliver to Congress Monday, a revision, he said, that will concede that while “the federal government can play a leading role in encouraging the reforms and high standards we need, the impetus for that change will come from states, and from local schools and school districts.”

His address led by sounding an alarm regarding a report released last week indicating other countries are surpassing America in the educational realm, and he pointed to the glory days of the 20th century–replete with new schools, the GI Bill for veterans and excellence in math and science–as a model to remember as we move ahead. Our current inadequacies, he said, are a major cause for concern.

Not only does that risk our leadership as a nation, it consigns millions of Americans to a lesser future.  For we know that the level of education a person attains is increasingly a prerequisite for success and a predictor of the income that person will earn throughout his or her life.  Beyond the economic statistics is a less tangible but no less painful reality: unless we take action – unless we step up – there are countless children who will never realize their full talent and potential. 
 
I don’t accept that future for them.  And I don’t accept that future for the United States of America.  That’s why we’re engaged in a historic effort to redeem and improve  our public  schools: to raise the expectations for our students and for ourselves, to recognize and reward excellence, to improve performance in troubled schools, and to give our kids and our country the best chance to succeed in a changing world.

His remarks were short on specifics, long on generalities: good schools will be rewarded, districts with failing schools will be asked to “commit to change,” teachers will be better prepared and supported. While it’s encouraging to hear even a generalized commitment to improving education in this country, it sure would be nice if the entire subject of education wasn’t always tied to simply churning out better workers (Obama’s by no means alone in this — almost everyone who addresses education takes this same dispiriting tack). Yes, competing in the global economy, fostering prosperity, having marketable skills are all important. But it would be refreshing to have more than lip service paid to the value of education’s enrichment of a human life and of our shared civilization, instead of focusing solely on income potential and/or the value American citizens bring to businesses as drones and cogs in the economic engine.

The full transcript can be found at the White House website and beneath the fold.

“There’s been ample time to review the bill.”

Unconstitutional.

Nancy Pelosi has refused to take possession of the hot potato.

“We’re talking about something that is not going to be part of the legislation,” Pelosi said, noting “with sadness” that the public insurance option won’t be part of legislation. “I’m quite sad that the public option is not in there,” she said….

“I’m not having the Senate, which didn’t have a public option in its bill, put any of that on our doorstep,” she said. “It did not prevail. What we will have in reconciliation will be something that is agreed upon, House and Senate, that they can pass and we can pass… It isn’t in there because they don’t have the votes.”

Progressive activist Adam Green, who’s been leading an outside effort to reintroduce the public option into the debate, said that Pelosi’s whip count is unconvincing. “When the Senate Whip says he will aggressively whip the House reconciliation bill through the Senate unamended and onto the President’s desk, the Speaker doesn’t get to say the Senate lacks the votes,” said Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “Mark Warner, Tom Harkin, Herb Kohl, Claire McCaskill, and other undeclared senators are not going to vote against the president’s top priority, and if Speaker Pelosi refuses to even allow a vote on the public option, than she killed the public option. She needs to step up.”

Whatever the political reality in the Senate — and it does appear that the votes exist there — Pelosi faces her own public-option problems in the House. Even were she to push for a public option, she might not be able to get it through her chamber this time around, despite succeeding the last time. Several Democrats who have backed the bill, and are supporters of the public option, are bucking the Speaker this time, objecting that their restrictive abortion language is not in the legislation. Pelosi said after the briefing, asked if abortion law changes could be made in the reconciliation, that the process must stick only to budget matters.

Whatever the political reality in the Senate — and it does appear that the votes exist there — Pelosi faces her own public-option problems in the House. Even were she to push for a public option, she might not be able to get it through her chamber this time around, despite succeeding the last time. Several Democrats who have backed the bill, and are supporters of the public option, are bucking the Speaker this time, objecting that their restrictive abortion language is not in the legislation. Pelosi said after the briefing, asked if abortion law changes could be made in the reconciliation, that the process must stick only to budget matters.
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That means Pelosi needs to flip ‘no’ votes who thought that the earlier House bill was too liberal, and adding a public option could complicate that process.

It doesn’t help Pelosi that the Obama administration has shown no interest in the public option over the past year.

Pelosi argued that she should not be blamed for the failure to implement the public option, charging that she has been a supporter of single-payer health care before most reporters at her briefing were born.

She makes a good argument when it comes to the blame game. Of the three parties involved in these negotiations, the House, Senate, and White House, the only entity to actually pass the public option and to keep it alive was the House, propped up by a fired up base and activist network that saw both the key policy reasons for the public option, as well as the political popularity of it–popularity that would have done the Dems some much needed good come November. Common sense, however, rarely seeps through the walls of conventional wisdom in DC. So if–and if we know anything, it’s that this entire process is iffy–the public option is dead the smoking gun isn’t in Pelosi’s hand. Jon Cohn is right on this one, the Senate killed it. Although they had an accomplice in the White House, which obviously felt it was a disposable element. Had Obama wanted it, and fought for it like he did the highly unpopular excise tax, it probably would have survived in some form, just like the excise tax.

The push hasn’t ended. Rep. Grayson is gaining steam with his Medicare buy-in public option proposal, a smart idea. We know that a different version of Medicare buy-in, one that would allow people over 55 to obtain Medicare coverage, only had one real opponent in the Senate–Joe Lieberman. Smart progressive congress people and Senators would do well to keep that in mind as they are whipped for their votes.

The public option hot potato is still in play. Watching the Obama and Reid and the Senate Dems tossing it back and forth all year, it’s like the old “Life” cereal commercial. “I’m not gonna kill it, you kill it. I’m not gonna kill it, you kill it.” They’ve apparently figured out the answer. “Let’s get Nancy to do it.”

If House Democrats include a public plan in the reconciliation bill they craft to “fix” the Senate’s legislation, Durbin will work hard to make sure the provision (as part of the reconciliation package) has the votes for passage. If it’s not in that reconciliation package, he won’t lift a finger. In fact, he will work against efforts to add it as an amendment.

“Sen. Durbin and the rest of the Senate Leadership will be aggressively whipping FOR the public option if it is included in the reconciliation bill the House sends over,” [Durbin aide Joe] Shoemaker wrote in an email that he authorized PCCC founder Adam Green to make public. “Conversely, the Leaders will whip against any attempt to alter or amend the bill if the public option is not in it (or as your email says — whip against adding the public option as an amendment in the Senate.)

“The reason is simple. There can be no amendments – good or bad – to the reconciliation bill once the House passes it and sends it to the Senate. The House will not do step one (passing the Senate healthcare bill in the first place) if they do not have assurances that the fixes they want (i.e., the fixes in their reconciliation bill) will be passed unchanged by the Senate.”

Shoemaker continued: “I believe the progressive community’s best hope of seeing a public option in the healthcare bill is to lobby members of the House to include it in the reconciliation bill they send to the Senate and to continue to get senators to pledge their support for it.”

….

At this point, there hasn’t been much focus on whether Pelosi is considering adding that measure to her reconciliation bill. While the House passed a public plan in its initial legislation, the White House has made it clear they don’t want it in the final package. But Green and allied groups are mounting a campaign pressuring her to take Durbin’s bait. PCCC, Democracy for America and Credo launched a campaign on Friday targeting the speaker with online ads and phone calls.

“The fate of the public option is now in Nancy Pelosi’s hands,” read a joint statement from the three groups. “The votes and the leadership are there in the Senate, and the public option will live or die based on Nancy Pelosi’s next moves. She’s been a hero on this issue in the past, and we hope that she steps up at this historic moment.”

Regular profiles in courage, these guys are, particularly considering that the public option has remained one of the most popular pieces of the hcr debate throughout all of these months, at least everywhere but in Congress. There actually can be amendments to the reconciliation fix, though admittedly it’d be a big headache to have to take it back to the House for yet another “conference” on the changes.

Bernie Sanders has said he’ll offer the amendment if it’s not included in the package. He will likely get his chance. Here’s the latest from Pelosi: “We had it; we wanted it,” Pelosi said. “It’s not in reconciliation.” She added: “We’re talking about something that’s not going to be part of the legislation.”

Update: Note that the timing of whether Pelosi made the statement before or after Durbin said he would whip for the public option–and whatever else–was in the House package. Note particularly this part of the statement:

“I’m quite sad that a public option isn’t in there.” Pelosi added. “But it isn’t a case of it’s not in there because the Senate is whipping against it. It’s not in there because they don’t have the votes to have it in there.”

If Durbin will whip it if it’s in there, then Pelosi’s declaring it gone might have come too soon.

Republicans have been lying about reconciliation being the “nuclear option” for weeks. So it should come as no surprise that CQ (subscription) now reports:

Republican aides, reporting the decision, interpreted it to mean the House would have to clear the Senate bill and President Obama would have to sign it before the reconciliation bill could be passed. House leaders had been hoping that the two bills could be passed almost simultaneously.

The parliamentarian, however, later reportedly clarified his position to Senate aides, saying that the reconciliation bill could be written in a way that would not require Obama to sign the Senate bill into law before the reconciliation bill is voted on.

Thank you, and have a pleasant day.

If you don’t have a CQ subscription, for now you’ll have to settle for Politico’s story:

[A]ccording to reporting by POLITICO’s David Rogers, the accounts aren’t accurate and misconstrue what the Senate parliamentarians have said. That is that reconciliation must amend law but this could be done without the Senate bill being enacted first. “It is wholly possible to create law and qualify law before the law is on the books,” said one person familiar with situation.

For example, if the big bill itself amends some Social Security statute, reconciliation could be written to do the same –with changes sought by the House. Then if reconciliation is passed and signed by President Barack Obama after he signs the larger bill, the changes made in reconciliation would prevail.
This jives with what Pulse sources were saying soon after the first wave of stories hit – in essence, don’t take the reported parliamentarian’s declaration to the bank.

CBO has updated its assessment of the Senate-passed health care bill that will form the basis of the final health care package once the reconciliation package of ‘fixes’ is complete:

Obama health bill gets boost from budget office

WASHINGTON (AFP) – In a boost to President Barack Obama’s flagship reform drive, the Congressional Budget Office said Thursday a Senate health care bill would cut the deficit by 118 billion dollars.

The release of the report thickened the intrigue in a tense period of vote hunting for Obama’s Democratic allies in the House of Representatives, with the White House pushing for a crucial vote on the measure within a week.

The non-partisan CBO said in its updated assessment that the Senate bill would cost 875 billion dollars over 10 years and reduce projected budget deficits by 118 billion dollars.

In a bid to thwart Republican obstruction tactics, Obama wants the House to pass the Senate bill along with a package of “fixes” in a delicate political maneuver that represents the last hope for his key domestic priority.

As it currently stands, the legislation would cover 31 million Americans and offer consumer protections to all Americans, eliminating the ability of insurance companies to deny people for pre-existing conditions or to rescind coverage to people who get sick. Its ten-year $875 billion price tag would be funded by Medicare cost-savings (without jeopardizing benefits) and a mixture of new taxes. It would reduce the deficit by $118 billion in the first ten years.

Remember, these budget numbers represent a baseline, and will likely change (presumably for the better) once the reconciliation package is complete. But it’s an important reminder that the net financial impact of reform will be a reduction in the budget deficit.

If Republicans want to argue that government should not provide a safety net insuring that all Americans have health insurance, that’s their right — but for them to argue that this bill is a fiscal calamity just isn’t grounded in reality.

Join the discussion in Bensonola’s recommended diary, CBO: Senate HCR Bill Reduces the Deficit by 118 Billion!.

By Michael J.W. StickingsI generally have quite a bit of time for Dennis Kucinich, even when I disagree with him. But his self-defeating opposition to Obama’s health-care reform package, and to the Democratic plan in Congress (Senate bill + minor patch…

At yesterday’s Progressive Media Summit with members of the Senate Democratic caucus, Chuck Schumer, Debbie Stabenow, Sherrod Brown, and Bernie Sanders fielded some tough questions and mutual frustration from said progressive media members over the reform process.

First, in answer to a somewhat convoluted question from Ed Schultz about why the House wasn’t just going to have to pass the bill, Schumer deflected back to the reality that the bill as it stands now–with the Nebraska deal et al.–won’t cut it, and gave a really decent asnwer on precisely why the House has good reason to be distrustful of the Senate. He talked about some of the very difficult votes that the House has had to take over the last year, only to watch in frustration as some really hard votes go to the Senate to die. His answer made it clear that leadership in the House, Senate, and White House are all on board with finding a mechanism that will lock 50 Senators in to supporting a reconciliation fix that will get 218 votes in the House.

More on the background of the process, Sanders gave a “lessons learned” sort of retrospective look at where we are, and who we got here, saying the “process of moving hcr has not been has efficient or effective as it might have been,” and then detailing the deficiencies. First, by not having single payer on the table, which sent a message to progressives that they weren’t going to be heard. He talked most forcefully about what he called the “major error” that existed, the “assumption that we had 59 or 60 votes…. We spent month after month after month negotiating with people who weren’t going to support the bill.” Sam Stein, who attended the event, has more.

Brown reiterated his support for the public option, and echoed one of the primary themes for the hcr discussion, that reconciliation is not an extraordinary process, and did some cheerleading to try to push progressive media through the rest of the process, saying that “all of us want more out of this healthcare bill,” and continuing “I know that a lot of you are discouraged about what has happened in the last year. Discouraged that the conservative, moderate wing of the Democratic Party too often seems to holds sway over both caucuses.”

I asked Stabenow whether the Senate progressives were involved in the strategy for dealing with Stupak, and she said that they were, and that there was no way that the Stupak language could pass in the Senate–hence the Nelson language. Given that Stupak says that he refuses to accept the Nelson language, the impasse continues.

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Wednesday to extend a host of soon-to-expire elements of last year’s economic stimulus measure, including help for the jobless and money to help financially strapped states pay for health care for the poor.
…

I’m going to take a small snippet of a WaPo article and put it under the Congress Matters microscope:

Democratic leaders huddled Tuesday night in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office for the first of what will probably be many strategy sessions, as Congress tries to complete the year-long health-care reform debate before the Easter recess begins March 26.

Participants said that once the Congressional Budget Office delivers a final cost estimate on the fixes bill, possibly this week, Democratic leaders would begin lining up House and Senate votes.

Wait, wait, wait!

The CBO could be delivering a final cost estimate on the fixes bill as soon as this week?

But, but, but… Kent Conrad said the House had to pass the Senate bill before the CBO could even consider the fixes bill!

Conrad also explained in new detail why he believes that the House must pass the Senate bill first, a view that has been denounced by some critics who want the Senate to pass its fix before the House acts.

Conrad said that under Congressional rules, for a reconciliation fix to be “scored,” it’s not necessary that it become law, but it is necessary for it to have passed both houses of Congress before getting fixed. “For the scoring to change it has to have passed Congress, and that means both houses,” he said.

“The only thing that works here is the House has to pass the Senate bill,” Conrad continued. “Then the House can initiate a reconciliation measure that would deal with a limited number of issues that score for budget purposes.” After that, the Senate would pass the same reconciliation fix, Conrad explained, because even on the fix itself the House must go first because the lower chamber must initiate “revenue bills.”

And yet here we are, with the Senate bill still unpassed by the House, and with no plans to pass it this week, but still the CBO score for the fixes is due any day now.

How did that work, Senator Conrad?  Why would you tell the media in such rigid terms that the order you described was “the only thing that works,” when just days later everyone would be able to see for themselves that it… wasn’t the only thing that worked?

With that in mind, I have to ask, are you the source for the assertion in the WaPo article immediately preceding the cite I began with?

But reconciliation rules seem to indicate that the House will have to pass the Senate bill first. Depending on how the Senate parliamentarian rules, Obama may even have to sign the legislation into law before the Senate can consider the House fixes.

Because I don’t think that’s right, either, and neither does former Senate parliamentarian Bob Dove.

So if you’re the source for that, should we take it with a grain of salt, given what you said about CBO scoring that also turned out to be a wee bit more spin and wishful thinking than rules-based reality?

This process is confusing enough without being misled by the people we’re trusting to get this done. If it’s open to question, then say it’s open to question. The current Senate parliamentarian may well rule just like Conrad thinks he will, but since he’s shielded from the media (as I suppose he should be), you’ll never really know whether his positions are being fairly represented by the Senators who take it upon themselves to assure you that “the only thing that works” is the way they tell you.

The Republican approach to the parliamentary maneuvering is to represent its complexity as reason in itself not to use it. Democrats shouldn’t contribute to this by making ironclad pronouncements about how things really work if they’re not yet sure that’s how they do really work.

By Michael J.W. StickingsFirst, just a couple of weeks ago, it was for voting with the Democrats to move a jobs bill forward, now it’s for announcing he’ll vote to end a Republican filibuster on an unemployment benefits and tax credits bill. It’s for c…

Should health insurance reform allow direct government subsidies for abortion? Yes, it should. Should we drop the Hyde Amendment, the law that has, since 1976, barred spending of government money for abortions under Medicaid except in cases of incest and rape, and when the woman’s life is at risk? Yes, we should.

But, contrary to what Rep. Bart Stupak and his congressional disciples in the House have been saying, the health insurance reform bill – the Senate bill – does not subsidize abortion. To repeat, it does not.

Stupak told the Associated Press yesterday that he is more optimistic than he was a week ago about getting this disagreement settled.

“The president says he doesn’t want to expand or restrict current law (on abortion). Neither do I,” Stupak said. “That’s never been our position. So is there some language that we can agree on that hits both points — we don’t restrict, we don’t expand abortion rights? I think we can get there.”

Ensuring that all women – including women without the requisite financial resources – have equal access to abortion would not, of course, be an expansion of “abortion rights.” What we’ve actually seen over the past 37 years – and early on in the case of low-income women – is a narrowing of reproductive rights as laid out in Roe v. Wade as law after law, including the execrable Hyde Amendment, has been passed to curtail freedom of choice. The Stupak Amendment would be another step down that same path. Whatever else it does or does not do, the Senate health reform bill sticks with current law on abortion.

As Timothy Noah pointed out last week in Slate:

Let’s go to Page 2069 through Page 2078 of the Senate-passed bill. It says, “If a qualified plan provides [abortion] coverage … the issuer of the plan shall not use any amount attributable to [health reform's government-funding mechanisms] for purposes of paying for such services.” (This is on Page 2072.) That seems pretty straightforward. No government funding for abortions. (Except in the case of rape, incest, or a threat to the mother’s life—the same exceptions granted under current law.) If a health insurer selling through the exchanges wishes to offer abortion coverage—the federal government may not require it to do so, and the state where the exchange is located may (the bill states) pass a law forbidding it to do so—then the insurer must collect from each enrollee (regardless of sex or age) a separate payment to cover abortion. The insurer must keep this pool of money separate to ensure it won’t be commingled with so much as a nickel of government subsidy. (This is on Pages 2072-2074.)

Stupak is right that anyone who enrolls through the exchange in a health plan that covers abortions must pay a nominal sum (defined on Page 125 of the bill as not less than “$1 per enrollee, per month”) into the specially segregated abortion fund. But Stupak is wrong to say this applies to “every enrollee.” If an enrollee objects morally to spending one un-government-subsidized dollar to cover abortion, then he or she can simply choose a different health plan offered through the exchange, one that doesn’t cover abortions. (Under the Senate bill, every insurance exchange must offer at least one abortion-free health plan.)

Stupak and his backers in the House, who, if they stick together, could be enough to keep a health care bill from reaching the President’s desk, seem determined to do so if they don’t get their way on something they are wrong about. To repeat one more time, the Senate health bill does not include subsidies for abortions. Does not.