UPDATE 1-Winter storms to distort US jobless figures-Summers | Reuters.

WASHINGTON, March 1 (Reuters) – White House economic adviser Larry Summers said on Monday winter blizzards were likely to distort U.S. February jobless figures, which are due to be released on Friday.

“The blizzards that affected much of the country during the last month are likely to distort the statistics. So it’s going to be very important … to look past whatever the next figures are to gauge the underlying trends,” Summers said in an interview with CNBC, according to a transcript.

Construction activity was hit particularly hard by the storms, but many restaurants and stores also had to close, putting the brakes on hiring plans and temporarily throwing some employees out of work.

Summers, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, also said the United States was closely monitoring Greece’s debt problems and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was encouraged by what he had heard from European officials about the issue.

“With respect to Europe, I am obviously very concerned about what’s happening in Greece and Portugal, in Spain, in Italy, on the European continent,” Summers said.

“I think there have been increasing signs of recognition both in Greece and in the major countries of Europe that this is a situation that has to be managed; that combination of getting the Greek budget under better control and providing more support is necessary to stabilize this situation.”

Summers brushed aside speculation that he was interested in changing jobs.

“I like what I’m doing,” he said. “My view is if the president asks me to do something in which I think I can make a contribution, the right approach to it is to say yes, and that’s why I’m very pleased to be here working at the National Economic Council.”

If Martha Coakley loses the Massachusetts Senate seat, the Democrats won’t be able to pass health care reform with an 18-vote majority.

Ace offer you this:

One calamity requires a nearly-immediate statement to reassure the public.

The other one can wait until after golf and pineapple mimosas.

President Barack Obama signaled to House Democratic leaders Wednesday that they’ll have to drop their opposition to taxing high-end health insurance plans to pay for health coverage for millions of uninsured Americans.

In a meeting at the White House, Obama expressed his preference for the insurance tax contained in the Senate’s health overhaul bill, but largely opposed by House Democrats and organized labor, Democratic aides said. The aides spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private.

House Democrats want to raise income taxes on high-income individuals instead and are reluctant to abandon that approach, while recognizing that they will have to bend on that and other issues so that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., can maintain his fragile 60-vote majority support for the bill.

AP sources: Obama OKs taxing high-end health plans – Yahoo! News.

Hot Air » Blog Archive » WH putting health-care off until … February?.

The longer that debate drags, the further Obama drops in the polls, which is why this move only makes sense if the White House sees weeks more futility in the health-care overhaul debate.  Even liberal commentators like the Seattle Times editorial board want Democrats to shelve ObamaCare and start paying attention to the fact that unemployment has spun out of control on their watch.  Deficits are even more wild, as Obama’s OMB Director Peter Orszag was forced to acknowledge when he admitted that he had underestimated deficits over the next ten years by 22%, or $2,200,000,000,000.

Unfortunately for Democrats in Congress, that move tosses them under a very big bus.  They wanted to close this debate as early as possible in order to allow anger over the unpopular measure to ebb in time for their re-election campaigns.  Under the new timing, Congress would have to consider ObamaCare and cap-and-trade in rapid succession, just in time for the summer and fundraising time.  Unlike last year, Democrats won’t be able to avoid appearing in public and being surrounded by Tea Party protests, and those two agenda items will provoke them to even more fury than last year.

The other term for “hard pivot” is “dithering.”  The more Obama dithers, the less likely ObamaCare becomes.

Sen. Ben Nelson announces support for health-care bill.

Nelson secured full federal funding for his state to expand Medicaid coverage to all individuals below 133 percent of the federal poverty level. Other states must pay a small portion of the additional cost. He won concessions for qualifying nonprofit insurers and for Medigap providers from a new insurance tax. He also was able to roll back cuts to health savings accounts.

Nelson will vote for cloture

Every man has his price, apparently, and Harry Reid found Ben Nelson’s price for a cloture vote on ObamaCare.  Nelson announced this morning that the language in the manager’s amendment on aborti0n will be enough to secure his support for Reid’s compromise bill, but Think Progress reports on what really sold Nelson — or bought Nelson, depending on your perspective.

Nelson caved on abortion and sold out for an extra year of federal Medicaid subsidies.

“Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother,” Obama told DeFazio during a closed-door meeting of the House Democratic Caucus

via Pelosi, Rahm do not scare Rep. DeFazio – TheHill.com.

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Reid: Those tonsil vultures stole my vote.

Reid brought the bill to the floor in an effort to secure the support of doctors groups such as the American Medical Association (AMA) for the future fight over an overhaul of the nation’s healthcare system.

Reid’s gambit, however, backfired, leaving Reid blaming the AMA for failing to secure GOP votes and the AMA retorting that the leader misinterpreted its pledge.

Reid told colleagues that the AMA said it could deliver 27 Republican votes for the legislation, according to two Senate Democratic lawmakers, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Some Democrats wondered whether it was reasonable to expect that as many as 27 Republicans would support a 10-year freeze in light of the fact that only 17 Senate Republicans voted for a one-year freeze last July. Of that group, only 11 remain in the Senate.

Joe Gandelman has an excellent roundup on this topic

–Ed Morrissey:

Winners take responsibility, while losers look for scapegoats. Last I looked, the AMA doesn’t have any leadership role in the Senate. They don’t “deliver” votes, and it’s not their role anyway. Perhaps a real Senate Majority Leader would have enough pull to count his own votes and make his own case, rather than leave that to a lobbying group and then get shocked, shocked to discover that most Republicans would not allow Reid to play his shell game with $250 billion that should get counted in the full ObamaCare proposal instead of hidden from the CBO.

Besides, let’s not forget that Reid has 60 Democrats in the Senate. Why should the AMA have to deliver any Republican votes? Reid can’t even deliver his own caucus. The cloture vote wasn’t even close at 47-53, which means that a number of Democrats defied Reid and rejected the shell game, too. Reid can sob all he wants about Tonsil Vultures, but the problem is that Reid is pushing legislation so radical and dishonest that he can’t deliver his own caucus.

–McQ:

Vote counting is a tried and true art within legislative bodies and any competent leader would pretty much know what to expect before ever putting a bill or amendment up for a vote. In fact, Reid missed by 27 – just on the Republican side.

Apparently he wasn’t aware of the 13 Democrats who were going to vote against it as well. That’s 40 no votes in a body of 60. That’s a pretty big miss.

Then he whines about things being run by a minority – a game he was more than happy to play when he was the Minority leader.

Harry Reid – incompetent (not that I’m complaining, mind you – just pointing it out), and the opposition’s best friend.

–My DD’s Charles Lemos:

How is it that the nation is being held hostage by a caucus of forty?

Nor is it terribly reassuring that the Majority Leader can’t keep his own caucus in line. A dozen Democrats and one independent crossed party lines and voted with the Republicans on the 53 to 47 roll call. The Democrats who voted against the party leadership were Senators Evan Bayh of Indiana, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Bryon Dorgan of North Dakota, Jon Tester of Montana, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Bill Nelson of Florida, Mark Warner of Virginia, Jim Webb of Virginia, Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Ron Wyden of Oregon. Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut also joined the GOP in defeating the measure.

Still it is more concerning that the Democrats are being outwitted tactically by Senator Mitch McConnell.

This news won’t help the Democrats’ efforts:

Also, career government economists within the Department of Health and Human Services dealt a blow to the House bill Wednesday, releasing a report concluding national health care spending would increase because newly insured people would seek care.

Unlike the analyses produced by the Congressional Budget Office, which looked at the impact of legislation on the federal government alone, the HHS report examined the impact on the national economy. The report complicates President Barack Obama’s pledge to sign a bill only if it slows the rate of health care spending.

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