KeithHennessey.com

This page contains the most recent version of my list of “things you should know about the Kennedy-Dodd health care bill,” interspersed with parallel observations about the leaked outline of the House Democrats’ health care bill. I will post each time I update this page, so you can track it incrementally.  If you bookmark this [...]

Yesterday I posted and described the draft Kennedy-Dodd health care bill.  Today I would like to do the same for an outline produced by House Democrats. Here is a three-page outline of “Key Features of the Tri-Committee Health Reform Draft Proposal in the House of Representatives,” dated yesterday (June 8, 2009).

Over the weekend a draft of Senator Kennedy’s (D-MA) health care bill leaked.  After playing with Adobe Acrobat, here is the text of the draft Kennedy bill as a text file (173 K), and as a single Acrobat file (3.4 MB).  Update:  I fixed the broken link to the PDF. Unlike the leaked version, both [...]

This is the second in a series of occasional posts about the nitty gritty of working in the West Wing of the White House.  I am describing things as they were in the Bush Administration.  YMMV in the Obama Administration.  Again, it seems a bit silly to write about such trivial details, but given the [...]

I began this blog at the end of March after the stimulus bill had become law.  I had been struck by how much the stimulus debate had focused on whether the bill was efficient.  (It clearly was not.)  There was much less discussion of whether the stimulus would be effective, and of the timing of [...]

The White House has released a letter from the President to the two Senate Chairmen who are working on (different) versions of health care reform:  Senator Kennedy (D-MA), Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.  The letter is dated yesterday and [...]

Many of you are new to this blog since I wrote extensively about autos six weeks ago.  As background, I coordinated the auto loan process for President Bush last fall as the Director of the White House National Economic Council (the position now held by Dr. Lawrence Summers).  I wrote a series of posts on [...]

I wrote last Friday about the China/India hole in the American climate strategy: America appears to lack a high-probability strategy for how to get China, India, and Russia to agree to self-impose a significant positive carbon price. The Administration and its Congressional allies are trying to impose a significant carbon price in the U.S. through [...]

(Editorial note:  I was doing so well moving to shorter posts.  I fail miserably in achieving that goal here.  I went the comprehensive route instead.  I promise to return to shorter posts in the future.  Buckle up – this is a long ride.  I hope you find it’s worth it.) (Update:  There’s an important correction [...]

Today the Administration released more detail for the President’s budget.  The President tried to emphasize his fiscal responsibility by highlighting some of the programs he proposes to terminate or reduce.  Budget Director Orszag released the Terminations, Reductions, and Savings volume. This morning the President said, But one of the pillars of this foundation is fiscal [...]