True, Mitch McConnell And Trump Are Blocking Medicare-For-All... But So Are Pelosi And Her Team

Nancy Pelosi by Nancy Ohanian

Immediately after Pelosi took over as Speaker, she and her leadership team insisted on ramming through a rule that will likely cripple any big-thinking progressive proposals like the Green New Deal, Medicare-For-All, free public college, etc. The rule, PAY-GO, and its impact-- purposeful impact-- was explained by Stephanie Kelton on Jimmy Dore's show at the time:

There was a big stir from progressive activists but Pelosi and Hoyer moved rapidly-- and relentlessly-- to clamp down on wavering progressives. She threatened some (regarding committee assignments) and bribed others. She persuaded the co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus by promising to allow an open debate and vote on the new and improved Medicare for All legislation that has been advanced by Pramila Jayapal (D-WA). In the end, only 3 brave souls had the courage of their convictions strongly enough to vote against PAY-GO: Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Ro Khanna and Tulsi Gabbard. That's it.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Pelosi lives up to her word and allows the debate and the vote. I've been noticing that more than a few Democrats who co-sponsored Medicare-For-All, when there was no chance Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy would ever allow it to reach the floor, have not signed on for 2019 now that it will be voted on. And where are the freshmen who campaigned on single payer? Only 11 are on board as of today:

• Chuy Garcia (D-IL)
• Debra Haaland (D-NM)
• Josh Harder (D-CA)
• Jahana Hayes (D-CT)
• Andy Levin (D-MI)
• Mike Levin (D-CA)
• Joe Neguse (D-CO)
• AOC (D-NY)
• Ilhan Omar (D-MN)
• Ayanna Pressley (D-MA)
• Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)

Did you campaign for, donate to. vote for anyone who promised to support single payer but who isn't on that list? If you want to call, the number for Congress is 202-858-1717.

But while Pelosi was promising Pocan and Jayapal that she would guarantee them a Medicare-For-All vote, she was already working to kill it. Ryan Grim had a powerful-- albeit horrible-- report at The Intercept yesterday, Top Nancy Pelosi Aide Privately Tells Insurance Executives Not To Worry About Democrats Pushing Medicare For All. She sent over her top healthcare advisor, Wendell Primus to talk withBlue Cross Blue Shield executives and reassure them that "party leadership had strong reservations about single-payer health care and was more focused on lowering drug prices." The message she wanted Primus to deliver was that her leadership team "would be allies to the insurance industry in the fight against single-payer health care." In return, they want the insurance companies to back them when they move to lower drug prices.

The debate over Medicare for All is playing out on a number of different levels, with no clear consensus over how the government-run, single-payer health plan ought to take shape. Presidential candidates are arguing over whose plan is stronger and gets to full Medicare for All faster, with a debate raging over whether private insurance should be banned outright or operate in addition to universal Medicare coverage.

In the House, even as the idea has picked up momentum with voters and members of the Democratic caucus, Democratic leadership has remained deeply skeptical. Pelosi’s consistent messaging, instead, has been around protecting the Affordable Care Act and lowering prescription drug prices.

“Speaker Pelosi has ensured that Medicare for All will have hearings in the House and tapped Congressman Brian Higgins to take the lead on Medicare buy-in legislation. For the first time, House committees will be seriously examining and tackling some of the questions and possible solutions raised by Medicare for All legislation,” said Connelly.

“The biggest obstacles facing Medicare for All right now are Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump,” he added.  “But in the near term, there is a window for Democrats to press Trump to help pass aggressive legislation to negotiate down the skyrocketing price of prescription drugs.”

...Primus is known in Congress as one of the staunchest foes of Big Pharma, while Pelosi’s posture toward Medicare for All is more complicated. Publicly, she has long said that she supports it aspirationally. “I was carrying around single-payer signs probably before you were born, so I, you know, I understand that aspiration,” she said in 2017 during an interview with TV host Joy Reid.

“This is an idea that if we had a tabula rasa, if we were just starting clean, would be the most cost-effective way to go forward. We don’t have that,” she said. “Over 120 or 150 million people in our country have employer-based access to their health coverage and insurance.”

At the time, her objection to Medicare for All was that it distracted from the fight to defend the ACA, which Republicans were trying to gut. “So right now, I’m going to be crude. Now we’re in my living room, so I can be crude. It isn’t helpful to tinkle all over the ACA right now,” Pelosi said. “Right now, we need to support the Affordable Care Act and defeat what the Republicans are doing.”

At other moments, she has said that single payer isn’t popular, arguing, also in 2017, that “the comfort level with a broader base of the American people is not there yet.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which operates under Pelosi, in 2017 presented House Democrats with survey data, claiming that it showed that single-payer was a political loser, and that Democrats should focus their messaging on lowering drug prices and protecting the ACA.

Yet a significant number of Democrats who flipped Republican districts blue in 2018 were publicly supportive of Medicare for All, suggesting that it isn’t necessarily the albatross Pelosi and the DCCC believe it to be. A poll from October found that more than half of Republicans support the concept.

Pelosi’s agreement to hold House hearings on Medicare for All came after pressure from the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Yet the hearings will be held by the Budget Committee, which, unlike the powerful Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce committees, would not have final jurisdiction over Medicare for All in the event of a genuine attempt to pass it.

Primus, like Pelosi, is well-known to be a deficit hawk, and both subscribe to the argument put forward by the late Pete Peterson that the debt and deficit are among the gravest threats facing the country. When Peterson, a billionaire who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to push Washington policymakers toward austerity, died in 2018, Pelosi delivered a floor speech that praised him and his vision effusively, speaking of the man as if he’d dedicated his life to eradicating child malnutrition or curing cancer, rather than as a Wall Street tycoon who spent millions pushing for major cuts to Social Security and Medicare. “Pete was a clarion voice for fiscal responsibility, and a strong moral conscience in Washington,” Pelosi said in her House floor eulogy of Peterson, who, by 2012, had already spent half a billion dollars targeting Social Security, Medicare, and other spending programs.

“Pete’s prophetic voice on the importance of fiscal sustainability brought together generations of policymakers, no matter their political background,” Pelosi said. “His legacy will endure in many ways, but especially through the work of the Peterson Foundation, which continues to focus on solutions to America’s fiscal and economic challenges.”

Two of Primus' five objections to single payer before the Blue Cross audience related to such alleged fiscal challenges. That argument, though, runs headlong into a surge of new interest among Democrats in Modern Monetary Theory, the idea that policymakers are still constrained by a mindset that was justifiable when the U.S. was on the gold standard, but is no longer defensible. Now that the U.S. issues a currency independent of its gold reserves, the obstacle to government spending is inflation, not the debt or deficit, proponents of MMT say. “This zero-sum mentality has no place in a post-Bretton Woods world,” said economist Stephanie Kelton in reaction to Primus’s argument that spending on Medicare for All would foreclose other priorities. (Post-Bretton refers to the global agreement that the dollar will be the global economy’s reserve currency, ultimately decoupled from gold.)

“The U.S. dollar is no longer tethered to gold, which means the federal government is not constrained in its spending by the need to raise revenue. The federal government cannot run out of dollars. This should be painfully obvious, but the gold-standard mentality continues to grip many lawmakers,” Kelton said.

As long as inflation remains low, the government can continue to authorize additional spending. That’s not so much an argument as it is simply an observation of the post-gold-standard reality that austerity advocates like Peterson have spent billions to distort. “The government can afford any new program it chooses to fund. The limits are in the real economy-- if producers can’t keep up with the additional demand, inflation will result,” said Kelton, a former adviser to the Senate Budget Committee when it was chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders. “The federal government-- as the issuer of the U.S. dollar-- can create all the money that is needed to guarantee health care for all of its people. It’s the rest of us-- who merely use the dollar-- who have to worry about costs and where to come up with the money to pay a huge medical bill when our private insurer refuses to cover the cost of care.”

This reality has been recognized by former Federal Reserve Chairs Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, as well. “The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So, there is zero probability of default,” Greenspan once said.

Meanwhile, if you missed this-- Bernie's response to the illegitimate fake "president's" State of the Union address-- last night... it is well worth watching today:

Medicare For All vs Pay-Go?

In the piece Saturday about the Congressional Progressive Caucus idea of Pay-Go legislation rather than having opposed it as a rule, I neglected to mention how hard it would have been to go back and fight for the negotiated package the CPC had decided to prioritize-- the Medicare-For-All debate agreement perhaps being the most important part of it-- had the package been defeated. Writing for the Washington Post last week, Dave Weigel noted that previously Medicare-For-All proposals have been "typically sidelined, even when Democrats had power; in 2009 and 2010, when the House passed the Affordable Care Act, the “Medicare-for-All” package was not part of the discussion. [In 2017] for the first time, a majority of House Democrats co-sponsored HR 676."... [O]n Wednesday, Jayapal got Pelosi’s commitment to hearings in the Rules and Budget committees. The incoming chairmen of those committees, Reps. Jim McGovern (D-MA) and John Yarmuth (D-KY), support Medicare for All.

With Democrats locked out of power in the Senate and the White House, Jayapal said that supporters of universal health care were proceeding “one step at a time” and that getting the first real hearings on the bill-- for years, it has been aspirational, and not even subject to a Congressional Budget Office score-- would force a larger discussion.

  “This will ensure that Medicare for All is part of the 2020 Democratic presidential platforms,” said Jayapal.

...While Democratic leaders have pointed out that the spending rule is statutory and would remain active in the Senate no matter what the House does, a number of left-leaning Democrats have accused Pelosi of preemptively making it harder to pass major reforms. Jayapal, a co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who helped reshape the rule, said that those concerns were unfounded.

“The critical thing here is: Do we have a commitment to waive paygo on critical bills? I think we do,” she said. “I think we’ve not only got a commitment for that, but for hearings on those bills, and we’ve never had that before.”

Forget about conservatives for a moment-- we know they (now members of the GOP) will oppose Medicare-For-All the same way they have opposed all progressive initiatives starting with the Declaration of Independence. But Jayapal is far from unaware that she will have a tough battle with conservatives in her own party, the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- Blue Dogs and New Dems.

Over the weekend, Pramila told me that "Even if we had been able to get the votes to vote the entire [Rules] package down, what would have happened is that we would have then gotten into a fight over everything else that we won in the package. Don’t think for a moment that they would have agreed to simply take out Pay-Go and not lose anything else in exchange. Conservatives and moderates would have fought like hell against taking Pay-Go out (and they comprise 60% of the caucus still, remember that) and then we would have been in the position of potentially losing some of the things we won. For what?"

We often think, proudly, about how there is finally a majority of Dems backing Medicare-For-All, but it's important to remember there are plenty of tenacious opponents from the Republican wing of the party, many who will fight as hard as a Republican in opposition. A few examples of Democrats who refused to sign on to HR 676, starting with all 7 of the officers of the New Dem Caucus:

• Derek Kilmer (New Dem-WA)
• Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL)
• Gerry Connelly (New Dem-VA)
• Ron Kind (New Dem-WI)
• Kathleen Rice (New Dem-NY)
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)
• Jim HImes (New Dem-CT)
• Suzan DelBene (New Dem-WA)
• Debbie Wasserman Schultz (New Dem-FL)
• Cheri Bustos (BlueDog-IL)
• Tony Cardenas (New Dem-CA)
• Joaquin Castro (New Dem-TX)
• Juan Vargas (New Dem-CA)
• Kurt Schrader (New Dem-OR)
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)
• Val Demings (New Dem-FL)
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-CA)
• Pete Aguilar (New Dem-CA)
• Charlie Crist (Blue Dog-FL)
• Raul Ruiz (New Dem-CA)
• Brad Schneider (Blue Dog-IL)
• Lisa Blunt Rochester (New Dem-DE)
• Seth Moulton (New Dem-MA)
• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)
• Julia Brownley (New Dem-CA)
• Ami Bera (New Dem-CA)
• Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)
• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)
• Ann Kuster (New Dem-NH)
• Denny Heck (New Dem-WA)
• Bill Keating (New Dem-MA)
• Bill Foster (New Dem-IL)

To make it completely clear what this meant, Pramila continued that "Getting a stated commitment from the Speaker of the House herself to hold hearings on Medicare for All was deeply tied into the Pay-Go battle. We did have a commitment from Rep. Jim McGovern-- who is a strong progressive and supporter of Medicare-for-All-- to waive the rule for MFA and progressive legislation but I thought we needed more than that. I wanted the Speaker’s public commitment to this as well-- which I was able to negotiate as part of this discussion. This is an enormous victory! There have never, ever been hearings in the House on Medicare for All. To get the Speaker’s commitment to support holding hearings in multiple committees in the House means that we will be able to have formal, televised hearings on my bill for the first time in history-- and that helps to build the momentum even more. And if the fear around Pay-Go is that it will stop progressive legislation from moving forward, then the antidote to that fear was to ensure that it does NOT do that."

So what was the point of those of us who were frantically calling our esteemed congress members and pleading with them to vote against the Pay-Go rule-- not to mention, the massive intellectual push from Paul Krugman, Stephanie Kelton and Robert Reich and from Bernie's camp (Warren Gunnels)? Was the stunning courageousness and savvy organizing demonstrated by Ro Khanna, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Tulsi Gabbard all for naught? No, I don't think so-- although it will be really tragic if Pelosi holds it against them and refuses to put Khanna and Ocasio-Cortez on the Ways and Means Committee they would like to serve on. The good cop/bad cop strategy-- Pocan forever and ever and ever the good cop, of course-- that helped make space for the negotiations, gave the good cops some teeth and actually may be helping to make the Congressional Progressive Caucus more effective than I've given it credit for being in some time. So, there's that-- and like Gunnels pointed out after the vote:

Now If Pay-Go Isn't Repealed It Will Be All Yertle's Fault

You can't out-progressive Pramila Jayapal. Her vote for Pay-Go Thursday evening made me go back and reexamine my own analysis of Pay-Go. (Spoiler: however well-intentioned she was, she still got this wrong in terms of a policy that defines the Democratic Party.) Ryan Grim did some important reporting at The Intercept yesterday from which I want to draw. Like me, he has nothing but respect for Jayapal. He wrote that she "came to Congress as an organizer and has played a key role in shaping the progressive Democratic agenda on issues like immigration, said she was frustrated about how the debate was framed on social media, in newsletters, and in part by some outlets-- this one included. The conversation, she said, lacked the full context of the ways in which the CPC had defanged pay-go."

OK, that's important and we need to look at it. Jayapal felt that the campaign on the left against Pay-Go "'is so hurtful to the progressive movement because we got so much out of this.' One result, she said, has been to take the focus off the CPC’s major organizing effort to pack powerful committees full of as many progressives as possible. Khanna and Ocasio-Cortez are both angling to land some of those coveted spots, and their opposition to the rules package could make it harder for them to do so." 

Supposedly, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus will get 40% of the seats on the important committees. Sounds good, right? One little problem there. Not everyone in the Congressional Progressive Caucus is actually progressive. Jayapal's co-chair, Mark Pocan, has made membership a farce by selling ($5,000 annual dues) them to "moderate" congressmembers who need cover-- protection from progressive activists-- back in home.

Not all the freshmen who joined the caucus are like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (NY), Rashida Tlaib (MI) and Ilhan Omar (MN). Democratic leadership isn't doing progressives any favors by counting members who are also-- for example-- New Dems. The New Dems are far more strict about ideology than Pocan is and if you're not a Wall Street shill, you don't get into the New Dems. How many members of the Progressive Caucus are also self-admitted, formal members of the New Dems? First the freshmen:

• Katie Hill (CA)
• Debbie Powell (FL)
• Angie Craig (MN)
• Susan Wild (PA)
• Veronica Escobar (TX)

In the good news arena, two of them, Debbie Powell and Veronica Escobar, have signed on as #GreenNewDeal supporters (as have Jayapal and Pocan) so that's a positive indication. How many other members does the CPC share with the New Dems? First of all, one of the most corrupt politicians in New Jersey-- and that is saying something-- was just made a CPC vice-president by Pocan: Donald Norcross, who doesn't have a progressive bone in his body. That's pretty horrifying. Other New Dems who have been allowed into the CPC-- along with their ProgressivePunch scores:

• Don Beyer (VA)- D
• Lisa Blunt Rochester (DE)- F
• André Carson (IN)- C
• Val Demings (FL)- D
• Brenda Lawrence (MI)- B
• Darren Soto (FL)- F
• Adam Smith (WA)- F

So that's 13, so far. Adam Smith, the chair of the House Armed Services Committee, is a living, breathing part of the military industrial complex. Last year only 5 members of Congress (4 Republicans + Pete Visclosky) took more moolah than Smith's $229,650 from the weapons-makers. Since being elected to Congress, the merchants of war have given Smith $1,156,750. And, of course he counts as part of the 40%. So does this guy, who prevented the formation of a Select #GreenNewDeal Committee. Alas, the much ballyhooed 40% has ZERO to do with backing progressive policies, just something to do with being in the club... for whatever reason. Is that a good deal? I can't wait to see the announcements of the new committee assignments!

Jayapal says she had been in serious negotiations with Pelosi "and won significant concessions, including seats on powerful committees, the repeal of a rule that required a supermajority for tax increases, hardened rules around sexual harassment, and strengthened language around the War Powers Resolution, which will make it easier for the House to vote to put an end to U.S support for the war in Yemen." Did Pelosi reluctantly give way on those things in return for Jayapal agreeing to deliver the CPC on Pay-Go, which Pelosi had called one of the three most important things she hoped to accomplish in 2019? Just asking. After all, Pelosi had to deliver for the Peterson Institute folks she's so devoted to here-- and to the New Dems-- even going fo far as to harass Ocasio allies who might have voted against the rule that voting against this rule meant more to her than voting against her for Speaker! Think about that for a second. Former New Dem chair Ron Kind (WI) had his way on this. 

Pelosi has guaranteed that the House will hold a hearing on “Medicare for All,” Jayapal said, noting that critics who argued that pay-go will get in the way of that are wrong. Pelosi and Rep. Jim McGovern, chair of the House Rules Committee, have both said that pay-go can be waived in such circumstances. “The waiving we’ve been working on for a while with McGovern, but honestly we were trying to keep it kind of quiet, because not all of the conservative members know this, and now they’re saying, ‘Oh, you’re going to waive the rules? What do you mean?’” Jayapal said. “So sometimes I’m just like, come on people, let’s be strategic about some of this in terms of what we take on.”

The rules, waivers, and statutes involved in the legislative process can get confusing, so let’s pause for a primer. In 2007, when Pelosi first became speaker, she instituted the pay-go rule. In 2010, under pressure from Blue Dog Democrats, Pelosi made pay-go not just a rule, but a law, one that was also passed by the Democratic Senate and signed by President Barack Obama. The law allows the president to unilaterally sequester money if Congress passes a bill that isn’t paid for, but if a bill specifically bars the presidents from doing so, then the pay-go statute is rendered moot. When Republicans took over in 2011, they converted pay-go to “cut-go,” meaning that any new spending had to be matched with cuts elsewhere.

Because a statutory waiver would have been needed, regardless of the rules package, the smarter play in 2019 was to nail down a promise of rules waivers and fight on other fronts, Jayapal contended, allowing leadership to keep pay-go officially in the rules. Under a scenario after 2020, when Democrats will potentially hold the White House, changing the rule would take on more significance, she said. (On Friday, Jayapal introduced legislation-- co-sponsored by Ocasio-Cortez, Khanna, and Pocan-- to repeal the statutory pay-go rule.)

Unlike the House rule, this would have to be agreed to by Yertle the Turtle and Donald J. Trump. It's an easy, going-nowhere-effort that everybody can sign onto as a cosponsor who didn't join Ocasio, Khanna and Gabbard to actually get rid of Pay-Go on Thursday. Everyone can go home and mislead their activist constituents and claim to have voted against Pay-Go. It's an intellectually dishonest effort by someone who seems embarrassed by her role in betraying her own heartfelt and lofty principles. Co-sponsors, ironically, include Alexandria Ocasio, Ro Khanna and Tulsi Gabbard, the three outstanding members who were ready to take the consequences for bucking Pelosi. The other great heroes of the Revolution who jumped at the chance to sign on to the legislation on day one-- which, may some day live to be vetoed by President Biden-Beto-Bloomberg-- are the crème de la crème of House progressivism: Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Pelosi lieutenant Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), Jimmy Gomez (D-CA), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Jim McGovern (D-MA), Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Grace Napolitano (D-CA), Joe Neguse (D-CO), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Chellie Pingree (D-ME), leadership lieutenant Mark Pocan (D-WI), still smarting over the loss of his beloved Joe Crowley, Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), José Serrano (D-NY), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Mark Takano (D-CA), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ). This is going to be some Congress, right Yertle?



Let me clarify something: the Rules package itself, largely because of Jayapal, was pretty amazing and dealt with a wide range of non-Pay-Go issues-- from sexual harassment to LGBTQ equality-- and for the first time. We can be pissed off about Pay-Go and still celebrate the strategy of actually getting the rest of it done, especially how the CPC used it to finally get a guarantee for a formal Medicare-for-All debate going. One of my friends accused me of introducing too much suspicion and cynicism into the movement. My animus is in no way directed towards the progressives who followed the CPC decision to give up on killing Pay-Go-- not even towards Pocan-- but towards Pelosi, Hoyer and, most of all, the real congressional villain behind this Pay-Go debate, Ron Kind.

First Votes Of the 116th Congress

First came the vote for Speaker. Pelosi, the lesser evil got 220 votes and Kevin McCarthy, the greater evil not 192 votes. That leaves 22 members of Congress who voted for neither. A man who can't wait to prove he's the biggest moron in the new Congress, aggressively reactionary Blue Dog Jeff Van Drew (NJ), shouted out "NO," which doesn't mean anything in this instance. But I'm sure it felt good and will get him some points from his benefactors at the NRA. Eventually the House Clerk counted Van Drew as a "Present" like two other dips hits, Jim Cooper, the Nashville Blue Dog, and Michigan New Dem Elissa Slotkin, off to a short, brutish congressional career.

But the biggest number of protest votes went to the Nazi Party candidate, Jim Jordan of the infamous Ohio bund. Who found McCarthy not right-wing enough? Herr Biggs (AZ), Herr Gosar (AZ), Herr Hice (GA), Herr Perry (PA) und Herr Massie (KY). Blue Dog Cheri Bustos came in next with 4 votes, two from the two worst freshmen in the class, racist Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA) and Wall Street's top new congressional puppet Mikie Sherrill (Blue Dog-NJ). They were joined by 2 other freshmen, Joe Cunningham (D-SC) and Jared Golden (D-ME). Two other putrid freshmen, Jason Crow (New Dem-CO) and Staten Island's Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY), voted for Senator Tammy Heidi-- lame military connection.

Libertarian Justin Amash (R-MI) voted for Herr Massie. NRA-delegate Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY) voted for someone whose record of destroying working families he no doubt hopes to emulate, Joe Biden. Wall Street's Ron Kind (New Dem-WI) voted for John Lewis. Another very right-wing Democrat (and political coward), Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania, voted for some Kennedy. Utah crackpot wing-nut Ben McAdams voted for a Murphy, presumably the corrupt and lazy New Dem chair, Stephanie Murphy. Worthless Blue Dog Kurt Schrader (OR) must think he proved he's not a racist by voting for Marcia Fudge. Turd-ball Kathleen Rice, who's being primaried in 2020, went him one better by voting for Stacey Abrams after she was told it wasn't good form to vote for herself. Walter Jones (R-NC) was smart enough to avoid the whole scene entirely.

And then came the first substantive vote for all these new freshmen-- the rules package with Pelosi's potentially-catastrophic Pay-Go in it. It passed 234-197, appearing like a standard party-line vote. But not quite. Three "Problem Solver" Republicans-- Tom Reed (NY), John Katko (NY) and Brian Fitzpatrick (PA) voted with the Democrats-- but, more importantly, three Democrats had the guts and heart and dignity to oppose it... despite a barrage of lies from Hoyer claiming it is somehow a "progressive" rule. The three Democrats who did us proud last night:

• Ro Khanna (D-CA)
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)
• Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI)

One last thing about this. When I was talking to members for the last few days, begging them to think twice before voting for PAY-GO, they mostly poo-poo-ed my concerns, telling me that Hoyer's team had assured them it didn't matter and that it was a minor thing. Really? Minor? Is that why Pelosi included it in the three top things she wanted to get done in 2019, along with healthcare? I have a feeling this is going to be a very disappointing Congress.