We begin today's roundup with
Zoë Carpenter at The Nation who reminds us that Republicans are still as extreme on abortion as ever:
t’s tempting to probe the political significance of a few female Republicans having the will, and enough muscle, to scuttle a bill that passed the House in similar form just two years ago. Maybe this one instance in which GOP leaders resisted the far-right fringe signals they’re finally waking up to the conclusion, encapsulated in the 2012 election post-mortem, that the party’s long-term success depends on women and minorities. And maybe not. (Call me when the House takes up immigration reform.)
But don’t overestimate the practical significance. Republicans are increasingly policing their optics and broadening their rhetoric—read Ran Paul’s rebuttal to the State of the Union for some silver tongue work concerning poverty, for example—but they are not ending their siege of legal abortion at the federal level or in the states, where the worst damage is being done. This would not be the first time that a high-level Republican chose not to highlight their extreme anti-woman principles and yet stuck to them. The twenty-week ban is likely to come up again this year, and it would be a dangerous bill even with a broader exception for rape victims. And out of the shadow of the March for Life, a vote will still be merely symbolic, as it’s unlikely to get through the Senate or to cross the president’s desk without a veto.
Meanwhile,
Margaret Talbot at The New Yorker takes on "America's family-leave disgrace":
What do Papua New Guinea, Oman, and the United States of America have in common? They are the only three countries in the world with no paid-maternity-leave law. When you point out the deficiencies of the United States in this regard, somebody often replies, “This isn’t Scandinavia; we can’t impose cuddly capitalism”—the M.I.T. economist Daron Acemoglu’s phrase—“and still enjoy economic growth.” Granted, we’re not Sweden, but neither are we Romania, Uganda, Bolivia, or any of the hundred and eighty-five other countries that, according to a 2014 report from the U.N.’s Institute of Labor, provide their citizens with paid leave to care for a new child. Ninety-eight of those countries offer paid leave for fourteen weeks or more. In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Barack Obama vowed to make family leave and sick days a priority in the final two years of his Presidency. He has work to do.
Head below the fold for more on the day's top stories.
Slate's Alec MacGillis looks at the continued war on Obamacare:
Now that Republicans are in control of both chambers of Congress, the push to slay Obamacare by a thousand cuts is officially underway. But if the first stab is any indication, Republicans are going to need some sharper knives. [...]
Instead of leading the charge in eviscerating Obamacare, the 40-hour workweek bill is showing just how messy and politically fraught the business of gutting the law is going to be.
For starters, there is the basic problem that President Obama has made clear that he’ll veto the 40-hour measure. If he does, Republicans could still seek to use the proposal as a cudgel to attack the law politically, but even here there are problems. The Congressional Budget Office has given the measure a decidedly unfavorable review. It estimates that the bill would result in as many as 1 million workers having their hours cut to put them under the new 40-hour limit and thereby losing their employer coverage; about 500,000 workers being left without any health coverage at all; and the deficit increasing by more than $50 billion as a result of fewer employers paying the $3,000 fine, as well as more people turning to Medicaid and federal subsidies to purchase their own insurance after being denied employer coverage. Even worse, perhaps, several prominent conservatives have come out against the revision—notably Yuval Levin, one of the right’s most influential policy wonks, who wrote in National Review that changing to 40 hours would inevitably cause more Americans to lose hours than the 30-hour rule does, because there are far more workers just at or above that threshold than at the 30-hour threshold.
Jason Millman at The Washington Post adds:
If you care about the politics of Obamacare and the future of health-care reform, Arkansas's new Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson just gave one of the most important health-care speeches in recent memory. [...] The Medicaid private option needs 75 percent support from the Arkansas legislature to continue each year, and it just narrowly received that support in 2014. The state last November also elected Hutchinson, who had previously refused to take a position on whether the state should continue the private option, which added an element of suspense to his Thursday morning speech.
After months of silence, Hutchinson provided a clear message — the state must keep the private option, though he will look for cost-saving reforms that gives Arkansas policymakers more flexibility to administer the program.
The AP's
Nancy Benac uses the president's veto threats to preview upcoming showdowns in Washington:
President Barack Obama has a telling hit list.
The veto threats that he’s issued over the last three weeks are a microcosm of American politics, representing the roiling issues of the day, the power struggle playing out between Congress and the White House, and even the pique between the president and GOP congressional leaders.
Obama, who vetoed just two minor bills over the past six years, has been tossing out veto threats like confetti since Republicans took full control of Congress.
Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg examines the president's approval rating trends:
Could Obama ever rival Bush’s high point?
Republicans have behaved as if it was always safe for them to criticize whatever Obama did (the main exception being when Osama bin Laden was killed). The assumption is that Republican voters will invariably take their side and oppose him, and swing voters will conclude that the president's views are controversial and divide the nation.
But this strategy may have limits. If Republicans continue to say the economy is ruined when employment is surging, or if they criticize the president during a foreign crisis, or if they attack wildly popular programs, they risk a backlash. Or they may worry about a backlash, whether those fears are realistic or not.