Mike Lux on the healthcare fight:
This is the biggest issue for Barack Obama, and his ability to get anything else significant done will die if health care dies.
Er, no. Obama already faced his biggest issue - is this country a democracy or an oligarchy?* And on that one, he already made his decision - trillions of dollars for Wall Street, a pittance for the rest of America. Why do you think the costs of healthcare are such an issue? Because dude already spent all of our money on Wall Street.
Look at the columns on the right. Any ONE of those things is a presidential legacy (for good or ill). Obama has already spent more money than all of them COMBINED. His legacy is already written. In one of the worst economic periods in our country's history he pissed away trillions of dollars on his Wall Street buddies, leaving us too broke to help anyone else. Just because he didn't call up a bunch of bloggers and ask for them to help him do it, as he has with healthcare, does not mean it wasn't important.
NOTE - Obama's answer - oligarchy - not only screws us on the economy as a whole, it specifically screws us on healthcare. An oligarchy is not going to care about real healthcare reform.
NOTE 2 - While TARP was a Bush proposal, Ian Welsh correctly notes that it was dead until Obama stepped in last October and saved it and so he, and the Dems, own it now.
(h/t Vastleft)
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On TARP and Obama's whipping it
I have Obama-supporting colleagues who have actually denied that Obama did that, when I mentioned it, and said, "No, that was McCain" (recalling, I guess, an earlier incident where McCain broke off, or threatened to break off, campaigning to go vote on a similar bill).
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
Y'know, I kinda think he doesn't want an oligarchy as much as a
corporatocracy, 'cause it makes it tougher to pin blame on an individual. YMMV.
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
Not sure I agree
TARP, for as involved as he was in selling it, was contrived by a lot of different parties (namely the Bush's Treasury) during a time in which he didn't control all the levers of power. It was a joint venture with the Bush Administration. Failing on health care will be his very own utter failure. Obama owns 100% of this failure.
Placing all or even most of the blame on him for TARP reminds me of the tactic folks on the right used to try and lay great gobs of the blame for the start and continuation of the Iraq War on the likes of Hillary and John Kerry. Obama was part owner/investor in TARP, he wholely owns this bowel movement that he's calling health care "reform".
But, we've always been at war with Eastasia...
I Don't Mean the Optics of It
I'm sure you're right, Damon, and if healthcare fails our famously free press will go on and on about Obama (on the other hand if he passes something even if it's shit, they'll give him credit). And perhaps given the crappy coverage of the bailout people will associate Obama more with healthcare - good or bad.
But I still think the bigger issue was the financial crisis and the economy. Since TARP and since Obama was inaugurated so much money has flowed to Wall Street. Obama could've stopped it, but not only did he whip for TARP (it was dead legislatively until he stepped in and saved it), his Administration ensured the money continued to flow (and continues to flow) to Wall Street and in greater amounts. His stimulus was also too small and aimed in a lot of the wrong places.
What's more, at the same time all this money was going to Wall Street, Obama did not support interest rate caps on credit cards (that bill died so Dems could pass his weaker bill), HOLC, or whip for cram down (and we're about to have more waves of foreclosures, nicely done, Democrats). The latter he claimed to support and then did little to make sure it passed.
Certainly the Bush Administration owns a lot of the causes of the financial crisis and part of that chart. But that chart is a bipartisan one and represents the joint Bush-Obama policies in response to the crisis. And because of that chart, we're screwed for the foreseeable future because we're broke. There's no more money.
But even more importantly, IMO, we aren't going to get better healthcare for the same reason why Obama didn't stop -- and actively aided and abetted - the robbery of the American people, on the really big issue, he agreed with Bush - corporations and the rich rule America. The rest of us will have to suffer so that they don't. Hell, it was one of the themes of his inaugural address.
And having ensured Wall Street keeps its power and the rest of us lose a little bit more of ours, the die has been cast. Obama's power is only going down from here. As the GOP regroups. As the economy doesn't miraculously recover. As the win for Wall Street empowers and emboldens their lobbyists. As his election victory starts to seem a very long time ago.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
You really nail it
I think that the whole issue of universal healthcare--or any real healthcare reform-- in the U.S. was DOA the minute that the banksters, backed by Bush and then Obama, got their money NOW NOW NOW.
DOA unless....
...we take the insurance companies rents away from them. It's all about the rents.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi