Cars and health care today. Interesting news all around.
Sen. Harry Reid tells the Hill newspaper health care "reform" will occur by Fall with our without bipartisan support and perhaps with just a bare majority vote, rather than the traditional near "super majority" seen in the Senate.
Hispanic Caucus members are miffed about imagery included in a GOP web video, also noted in the Hill.
Politico reports on GOP branding efforts, on the Chairman Steele ongoing kerfuffle and on what former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich thinks about it all.
Finally, the Wall Street Journal has two column items of great interest. First, Kimberley Strassel writes in her "opinion page" column a clear and compelling summary of the Specter spectacle and what it means for the GOP:
"With a popular president now branding the GOP as the ‘party of no,’ there will be a strong Republican temptation to cut deals on health-care or energy, hoping to get credit for bipartisanship, or for making policies less bad. But the GOP will never win running as a less enthusiastic version of big government Democrats. Washington votes are the only way for congressional republicans to actually demonstrate a philosophy to voters, and it is here the party must reclaim its mantle of the party of limited government and entrepreneurship."
She adds:
"This is different from a message of outreach, which the party also desperately needs, but is accomplished primarily in the field. It involves members explaining to younger constituents why old-fashioned principles of choice and freedom still work for modern problems like health care. It means transmitting a welcome to those attracted to even one part of the conservative philosophy–free markets, strong national security, social values–even if not all. It requires recruiting candidates who aren’t held to stiff litmus tests, but who have a shot of winning in the Northeast, say, or Illinois."
Second, the Journal’s "Heard on the Street column (the back page of the Money & Investing section) gives a very useful summary of the Chrysler situation and what it means:
"A car company bought for $38 billion in 1998 gets unloaded to another buyer at a cost of about $1 billion almost a decade later. Two years after that, another company, [Fiat]…stands ready to take a 20% stake…in exchange for know-how, but no cash. Employees plan on taking a majority stake. Oh, and secured lenders to Chrysler get offered 33 cents on the dollar to go away."
Concluding, "So the president, the UAW and Fiat look set to win? Not completely. The administration risks distorting America’s capital markets: if the current plan is pushed through, then good luck to any unionized firm trying to raise secured debt on decent terms in the future. As for the UAW, making a success of the new Chrysler will likely required taking the sort painful decisions unions are programmed to resist."
Uh huh.
Strange days, indeed.