Loebsack, Miller-Meeks flap about much more than health reform

Recent barbs traded by U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack and his Republican challenger Mariannette Miller-Meeks are, at least on the surface, tied to a specific tax provision included in the health care reform bill pass earlier this year. At their core, however, they speak to how political campaign planning has become such a full-contact national pastime.

The back and forth began earlier this this week, when Miller-Meeks issued a press release that both voiced her concern over a tax-related provision in health care reform and encouraged Loebsack to join her in repealing the provision. Loebsack’s team shot back, noting that a vote was taken in late July that would have removed the provision without adding to the deficit, but that the bill was stopped by Republicans.

Dave Loebsack and Mariannette Miller-Meeks

Section 9006 of the health care reform bill mandates that beginning in 2012 all companies will need to issue 1099 tax forms to any individual or corporation from which they purchase goods or services in excess of $600. Since the tax law currently only calls for filing of 1099s in specific circumstances such as use of contract workers, the change will mark a massive change in paperwork for both the Internal Revenue Service and America’s businesses — something that both Miller-Meeks and Loebsack appear to be against.

On Thursday, Miller-Meeks called upon the ghost of presidential campaigns past to make her point about Loebsack’s votes.

“Rep. Dave Loebsack’s explanation that he worked against a health care provision that hits small business before he voted for the bill that includes it sounds exactly like 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry’s claim that he voted for funding the Iraq war before voting against it,” reads the first paragraph of the press release.

“It’s classic Washington stuff,” Miller-Meeks said. “Dave Loebsack says he tried to help small businesses but then he voted to hit them hard in the health care bill. He’s trying to have it both ways and the public is sick and tired of that stuff.”

While alluding to “Washington stuff” might make for vague fodder, in this case it is probably exactly on point.

The provision in question didn’t stem from the original reform bill put forth in the U.S. House, but from the U.S. Senate bill. Specifically, the provision was a result of negotiations that took place within the Senate Finance Committee — negotiations to which U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, played an important role.

“Information reporting improves tax compliance without raising taxes on small businesses,” an aide for the Senate Finance Committee told  CNN Money. “Health care reform includes more than $35 billion in tax cuts for small businesses … indicating that during these tough economic times, Congress is delivering the tax breaks small businesses need to thrive.”

Following months of negotiations between Democratic and Republican interests on the Senate Finance Committee, the bill that was finally passed in October 2009 garnered only one Republican vote from U.S. Sen. Olympia Snow of Maine. Grassley voted against it, and according to a quotation given to WebMD reporter Robert Lowes,  his vote wasn’t due to the tax provisions included in the bill but rather because he believed the bill was “moving on a slippery slope toward government control of medicine.”

When the time came for the bills passed by the U.S. House and U.S. Senate to be merged, a significant change had taken place in the Senate. Massachusetts Democrat Ted Kennedy lost his battle with cancer, and Democrats had lost their battle to maintain his seat. Scott Brown, the Republican who won the Massachusetts election, was clear that he supported “strengthening the existing private market system” and did not support Congressional efforts toward reform. The end-result was that although Democrats had the 50-plus votes necessary to pass reform, they no longer had the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster.

How Democrats were finally able to manage a health care victory in May 2010 was by having members of the U.S. House pass two separate bills — the merged Senate reform bill that included the tax provision, and a “fix” bill that removed some of the more controversial aspects of the merged Senate bill, including a sweetheart deal for Nebraska. Although the passage of the bill, and subsequent nod from the Senate to agree to the fixes, was hailed as historic, not one Congressional member felt the passage was the be-all, end-all of the health care reform debate.

The final reform bill, which had gone through more than a year of negotiations and debates, had the stark thumbprints of both Republicans and Democrats, was passed along partisan lines and set up a multitude of ideological differences that could be used in in the 2010 midterm and 2012 general elections. The bill was simultaneously branded as sweeping and weak; the dawn of socialism in America or merely a small stepping stone on the way to real reforms.

When it comes to laying blame, then, both Loebsack and Miller-Meeks are playing a political game for the benefit of their perceived voting bases. The only true pieces on the game board are the fact that Loebsack voted with Democrats to approve the health care reform legislation, and Miller-Meeks would have voted with Republicans to oppose it.

Loebsack voted for a bill he likely didn’t whole-heartedly support in part because doing so was the only way politically to make good on a year of Congressional work. When he voted in the affirmative, he did so with full knowledge that “tweaks” were not only promised by leadership, but guaranteed to occur. The fact that he has pushed for and supported such changes should not go without notice.

At the end of the day, both Loebsack and Miller-Meeks agree that the new 1099 tax provisions should be repealed. Congressional Republicans, who voted against the House bill that would have ended the provision, probably do as well. But holding off until after November gives their colleagues one more thing to use on the campaign trail.