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Cato Daily Dispatch for October 28, 2003

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Hill Negotiators Drop Health Savings Accounts
Senators Plot to End Judicial Filibusters
Middle East 'Road Map': Path to a Dead End?

Hill Negotiators Drop Health Savings Accounts

"Congressional negotiators struggling to find a compromise on Medicare prescription drug legislation have rejected a $163 billion plan favored by House conservatives that would create a major tax break for Americans who set up savings accounts for their medical expenses, according to congressional sources," The Washington Post reports.

"The sources said that the lawmakers participating in the secret negotiations have, in recent days, abandoned the most expensive of several tax provisions the House grafted onto its bill to redesign Medicare. Senators had warned that the issue would ruin the chances that a final agreement could pass in that chamber."

In "Medical Savings Accounts: Answering the Critics," Michael Tanner, Cato's director of health and welfare studies, writes: "It costs an employer more than $5,400 to provide health insurance for a typical American worker today, his or her spouse, and two children. Wouldn't it be better if, instead, the employer bought a catastrophic policy (with, say, a $3,000 deductible) for approximately $2,400 and paid the worker the $3,000 difference? The employee could then put that money in an MSA [Medical Savings Account]. Any money that wasn't spent would roll over to the next year. Since 90 percent of Americans spend less than $3,000 per year on health care, in a very short time the worker would have a tidy pool of money available to use in the future. When the balance reached a certain level, the worker could transfer the funds to an IRA or other retirement fund."

Senators Plot to End Judicial Filibusters

"The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee is negotiating with Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) to add as many as two new Michigan-based federal judgeships in exchange for lifting a filibuster against all of President Bush's judicial nominees from that state," The Washington Times reports.

"Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) hopes to end a nearly two-year blockade of Mr. Bush's appellate-court nominees from Michigan, but some fellow Republicans are comparing the plan to 'negotiating with terrorists.'"

In "Minority Rules: Filibustering the Constitution," former Cato Senior Fellow James Swanson writes that "when the filibuster is being used not to debate, but to kill their nominations by denying the majority its right to consent to them, serious constitutional issues arise."

"Yes, the Constitution permits the Senate to set its own rules," Swanson writes. "But that is hardly a blank check entitling the Senate to amend the Appointments Clause by raising the confirmation bar from simple majority to super majority, to aggrandize power by upsetting the balance between the congressional and the executive branches, and to threaten the independence of the third branch, the federal judiciary. The conclusion is inescapable. Whenever Senate Democrats, a minority of the body, filibuster judicial nominations, obstruct an up or down vote, and deny the majority its right to consent to the appointments, they subvert the Constitution."

In "How Constitutional Corruption Has Led to Ideological Litmus Tests for Judicial Nominees," Roger Pilon, Cato's vice president for legal affairs, argues that "as the backlog of nominees grows, Democrats are quite explicit about the politics of the matter: Their aim is to keep 'highly credentialed, conservative ideologues' from the bench."

Middle East 'Road Map': Path to a Dead End?

"Just four months after President Bush launched the road map at a peace summit in Jordan and pledged aggressive involvement, the White House has retreated. The turning point was the September 6 resignation of Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who Americans and Israelis hoped could negotiate a peace deal where longtime Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had failed," USA Today reports.

"Speaking to reporters last week, Bush said, 'When the Palestinian Authority comes up with a leader who is willing to genuinely fight and dismantle terrorist organizations, the process will pick up where it left off.'"

In "Road Map to Nowhere," Cato Vice President Ted Carpenter writes: "President Bush has put his prestige on the line with a bold initiative to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unfortunately, that 'road map for peace' will likely lead to another dead end.

"Israel's acceptance of the road map was highly conditional. Only after the Bush administration reversed its initial position and agreed that there could be changes to the plan did the Israeli government endorse it. By permitting changes, though, the United States has set the stage for endless demands and quibbling by both sides.

"Israelis and Palestinians will achieve peace only when they conclude that they can gain far more from negotiations and compromise than from violence. At that point, they can achieve peace without a high-profile U.S. role. Until then, no amount of creative diplomacy, prodding or bribery by the United States will produce a breakthrough.

Wyatt Dubois, editor, wdubois@cato.org