In Rep. Ellison’s district, the health care reform bill will:

• Improve coverage for 358,000 residents with health insurance.
• Give tax credits and other assistance to up to 159,000 families and 18,400 small businesses to help them afford coverage.
• Improve Medicare for 76,000 beneficiaries, including closing the donut hole.
• Extend coverage to 40,500 uninsured residents.
• Guarantee that 9,700 residents with pre-existing conditions can obtain coverage.
• Protect 900 families from bankruptcy due to unaffordable health care costs.
• Allow 57,000 young adults to obtain coverage on their parents’ insurance plans.
• Provide millions of dollars in new funding for 28 community health centers.
• Reduce the cost of uncompensated care for hospitals and other health care providers by $101 million annually.

There’s an analysis for each district in Minnesota. See the impact on your district by following the links below:
MN-1; MN-2; MN-3; MN-4; MN-5; MN-6; MN-7; MN-8.

This isn’t a political issue, or at least it shouldn’t be. This is about complying with our constitution and making sure our government has the information it needs to make decisions. It’s particularly important in Minnesota this year; any undercounting could easily lead us to lose a seat in Congress. Please do your civic duty and make sure very Minnesotan is counted.

You may be a bit confused because the definition has changed. Under Republican rule, it was known as Democracy.

Cynicism is that there’s one, two press people in this gallery. We’re talking about Eric Massa 24/7 on the TV! We’re talking about war and peace, $3 billion, 1,000 lives and no press! No press! [TPM]

The video is uncomfortable, but very much worth a watch.

In a move that could bring an end to the $40 cup of coffee, Bank of America said on Tuesday that it was doing away with overdraft fees on purchases made with debit cards, a decision that could cost the bank tens of millions a year in revenue and put pressure on other banks to do the same.
…
Banks are bracing for a new federal rule that will require them to get permission from account holders before providing overdraft services for debit purchases and A.T.M. withdrawals. That change was already expected to wipe out billions of dollars in overdraft revenue for the banks.

“What our customers kept telling me is ‘just don’t let me spend money that I don’t have,’ ” said Susan Faulkner, the bank’s deposit and card product executive, who said the overdraft changes were part of a broader push to build trust among its customers. “We wanted to help them avoid those unexpected overdraft fees.”

In other words, Bank of America has no choice in the matter, so they decided they’d make the change slightly early and try to get a PR boost from it. Would the bank have made this change on its own, without impending government regulations? It’s unlikely, to say the least.

I find it incredible that it took government intervention to get the banks to stop letting people spend money they don’t have. The whole concept of the debit card is that it’s not like a credit card — it takes money directly from your checking account, meaning if there’s no money there, you shouldn’t be able to spend it. But for nearly two decades, banks have made a fortune off of overdraft protection.

Now, I can hear some commenters already, saying that it’s your own fault if you try to spend money you don’t have. But let’s not forget, all too often the reason there’s no money there in the first place is because the bank holds off on approving a deposit. They’ve had a classic scam going. Let’s suppose you had $20 in your checking account and you made a $200 deposit after the end of business. The next day, you buy a $3 cup of coffee, then 10 minutes later, you get $25 worth of gas, figuring your deposit will clear first. The bank processes the transactions like this:

- First, the largest charge, even though it was the last thing you did. You get an overdraft charge.
- Next, the smaller charge, although you no longer have any money left. You get an overdraft charge.
- Finally, your deposit from the previous day. $68 dollars of your $200 is taken for the “service” of allowing your account to be overdrawn.

At the very least, the new rules will force banks from allowing you to spend money they haven’t cleared yet. At best, hopefully it will remove the incentive for banks to hold on to your deposits, hoping to create overdraft charges.

“I’ll just tell you this,” Limbaugh said to a concerned caller. “If this passes and it’s five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented — I am leaving the country. I’ll go to Costa Rica.”

Here’s the funny part, though — Costa Rica has universal health care. The Wonk Room explains:

Costa Rica’s hybrid government-private health care system provides comprehensive universal coverage to all residents — and even sells affordable policies to soon-to-be visitors like Limbaugh. The government owns several major public hospitals and operates small clinics in almost every community. Workers are required to contribute 15% of their salaries to health insurance and the unemployed “obtain public funding for all health services, including prescription drugs.”

There’s practically no developed nation where Rush could go to escape the “evils” of affordable health insurance for everybody. Perhaps his only choice is to move to a libertarian paradise.

Why in the world should we spend billions and billions of dollars subsidizing private loans when the government can make those loans more effectively? Not only that, the government is already making those loans to millions of students. I would love to hear somebody explain to me the fiscal sense of paying private companies billions of dollars to make loans with the exact same terms as the government’s Direct Loans.

In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that ending subsidies for private lenders would save over $80 billion over ten years, even after reducing interest rates for students. Is anybody really going to tell me that we should not be doing this?

That brings us to Lamar Alexander, R-TN, and this ridiculous op-ed:

Here is what they haven’t told us: The Education Department will borrow money at 2.8 percent from the Treasury, lend it to you at 6.8 percent and spend the difference on new programs. So you’ll work longer to pay off your student loan to help pay for someone else’s education — and to help your U.S. representative’s reelection.

Ummm… yeah, that’s how loans work. That’s how loans have always worked. And 6.8 percent is the current interest rate charged on all student loans, and has been for a few years now. Incidentally, it’s also the rate charged by private lenders — but we’re paying them over $80 billion to get them to charge that rate.

Maybe Alexander is arguing that we should be lending that money at 2.8 percent, giving students the loans at cost. I think that’s a great idea, but good luck finding a private lender that would be interested. I sincerely doubt that’s what Alexander is advocating. In fact, he’s not really advocating anything — he’s just trying to make people mad.

And there are some other things the government should tell you: The estimated $87 billion in savings isn’t real. According to a July 2009 letter from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), the savings are closer to $47 billion including administrative costs, if we use the same “scoring” (i.e., cost analysis) method that Congress required the CBO to use when it scored the Troubled Asset Relief Program last year because the method would more accurately calculate the cost to taxpayers.

Oh no! If you use a totally different method of scoring, we would save “only” $47 billion! That would be terrible!

Finally, the government should disclose that getting your student loan will become about as enjoyable as going to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

I don’t even know where to start with this one. First of all, getting my Federal loans was just about the easiest thing I’ve ever done. I filled out the FAFSA, was told what my maximum loan size could be, and told them how much I wanted. The end. Second of all, even if Alexander were right, is that what we’re paying private lenders $80 billion for? To make the student lending experience “enjoyable”? I don’t think many people with private loans that keep getting sold to different servicers find that “enjoyable.”

Is there something I’m missing? If anyone has a reasonable argument about why we should continue paying private banks billions to make these loans, please explain.

[via The Wonk Room]

1. Legislation needs 60 votes to pass the Senate.
2. Democrats are threatening to use reconciliation to pass health-care reform.
3. Reconciliation has never been used for health-care legislation.
4. Reconciliation has never been used for legislation this substantial.
5. Reconciliation has only been used for bipartisan bills.
6. As a senator, Obama himself was opposed to reconciliation.
7. The referee is biased.

The arguments are so specious that it takes Newsweek all of 150 to 200 words to debunk each.

In fairness, they also discuss one argument they say Republicans should be making against reconciliation, but aren’t. Read the full article here.

That was a pretty timely discussion, given that Tom Bak k has just proposed expanding the sales tax to clothing:

A key legislator say he wants to expand the state sales tax to clothing and use the revenue to reduce the budget deficit and pay off a school funding shift.

Senate tax committee chairman Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, outlined legislation today that he said will also reduce the deficit by $257 million in the first year and repay schools more than $120 million. He said in the second year the overall sales tax rate would drop by one quarter of one percent.

I’m in favor of the proposal, but to be frank, I think it’s going to have to wait until next year. It’s hard for me to imagine how the legislature is going to have the political courage to take up a proposal like this in an election year. In addition, next year we’re going to have a very lengthy debate about balancing the budget, and I think that’s the appropriate time to be dealing with an expansion of the sales tax. At the very least, though, I’m glad we’re starting to talk about this now.

While MDE has always been the site of “let’s throw this mostly-inaccurate-spin out there and see if it sticks with the media,” things keep getting worse and worse. It’s now flat-out lies from MDE, most from Luke Hellier, and it’s widely documented. By the way, if you haven’t figured it out yet, the site they’re linking to today goes to a parody site of the Communist Party, not the official site.

MDE was incredibly effective for the GOP with Michael Brodkorb at the helm as he’s incredibly media savvy and disgustingly manipulative. Brodkorb was able to use MDE to get the media and the public to believe things that weren’t true and have that spin reported. Now I don’t know if MDE is more of a joke than a failure.