Many Americans may be hard pressed to claim that they are better off today than they were four years ago. We tend to forget how bad things were just four years ago. During the six months leading up to the 2008 election, America lost a total of four million jobs from the private sector. Even the most cynical Republican would not predict that is what will happen in the six month period we are in now—leading up to the 2012 election.
After a somewhat rocky start to his presidency, in which the unemployment rate topped out at 10 percent nine months after he was inaugurated, the American economy has stubbornly clawed its way back to some semblance of normalcy. The jobless rate has dropped .9 percent in the last year and today is hovering at 8.1 percent.
Some Democrats insist that the unemployment rate itself will not determine whether or not President Obama will be re-elected, at least not as much as the trajectory of the jobless rate will. In other words, if the economy continues to improve, voters will support the president’s management of it. The question in the back of everyone’s mind however, is how significantly must the economy improve? As voters listen to both candidates this summer, how many more months of steady improvement will the president need?
Another nightmare scenario for the Obama administration is what if the economy simply stalls? History teaches us that there are lessons to be learned in years of a volatile economy, but what if there is simply stagnation?
Despite Republicans visceral accusations to the contrary, it is well documented that President Obama inherited a wrecked economy, one teetering on the brink of total economic collapse and during the first year of his presidency, the unemployment rate skirted around double digits. The rate failed to shrink noticeably until it fell from 9.5 percent to 9.4 percent in June of 2010, then again from 9.8 percent to 9.4 percent in December of that same year.
The worse however was yet to come. The rise of the Tea Party with all its vicious attacks not only threatened the careers of long standing Republican Congressmen and Senators but also created a legislative environment where the GOP became hell-bent to not support anything that came out of the White House. This political nightmare along with the reality of the overall economy choking itself into a state of near-unconsciousness caused an actual reversal of the economy during the summer of 2010.
Since the beginning of 2011 however, things have begun to improve. After stalling at between 8.9 percent and 9.1 percent from January to October 2010, unemployment has steadily dropped to 8.1 percent. The rate is now .9 percent lower than it was last April.
If the economy remains right where it is today, the election of 1984 suggests that President Obama could win the White House for a second term.
Ronald Reagan won reelection over Walter Mondale under very similar conditions that mirror the state of the economy today. In April of 1984, the economy had recovered aggressively over the previous year, with unemployment dropping 2.5 percent to 7.7 percent. Reagan faced challenges similar to the President today—the unemployment rate was way too high but its trajectory was dropping—the right direction.
Between May and June of 1984, the rate dropped an additional .5 percent and over the last six months of the election, it even rose briefly, with the rate finally settling in November to where it had been in June. With 7.2 percent unemployment on Election Day, a recovery that had seized in place was enough to save President Reagan.
It bears mentioning however, that during the six months leading up to the 1984 election, the economy actually worsened and then improved, with unemployment peaking at 7.8 percent in June before it dropped .6 percent at the end.
I have to say here that in all honesty, the example of President Reagan’s reelection in 1984 doesn’t precisely match the conditions President Obama faces today and despite what some want you to believe, the unemployment rate isn’t everything—unless of course, you are one of the unemployed. Take the jobless rate out of the equation however, past examples like Reagan’s tell us at minimum, that President Obama needs to demonstrate additional recovery in the very near term. He is in better shape than President Bush in 1992; consequently, after some slow but steady improvement over the last year, Obama can afford to be linked to a flat jobless rate for the final six months of his campaign as President Reagan did in 1984.
What Obama cannot afford however, and neither can the country, is for the American economy to worsen in the near term, even if unemployment continues to drop.
The Obama presidency has been like traumatic surgery in the operating room. Someone comes in, shot in the neck, the chest and their legs. Action is taken immediately to stem the flow of blood, get any toxins caused by the bullets and gunpowder out of the victim’s body, repair damaged organs and limbs and then sew the patient closed. The surgery can take hours and more than likely will have to be repeated many times over because the body cannot withstand the shock of so much surgery done at one time. Then the process of healing begins and the time it takes to heal physically can be months—even years while the time to heal mentally and emotionally can last forever.
The one thing you never do however is once the patient has been stabilized and recovery is underway, you never—and I mean never—fire the doctors who took someone moments away from death and brought them back from the abyss.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Immigration: The Albatross around the GOP's Neck
It may have taken the U.S. Supreme Court just an hour to complete its discussion of illegal immigration this past week, but American politicians cannot seem to get enough of the subject. It will be months before the Court rules on the case in question, which of course concerns the infamous Arizona state law, but Democratic leaders in the Senate are already developing a strategy designed to overturn the decision if the Arizona law is upheld. That vote, would presumably fail, thanks in large part to Republican opposition, but it would allow the Democrats to keep immigration as an election issue in the public eye. Democrats are also attacking Mitt Romney, the presumptive GOP nominee for president, for supporting the law. In response, Mr. Romney has dismissed the attacks from the left as an effort to distract Hispanic voters from President Obama’s failings as steward of the economy. The outcome of this presidential race it seems, could conceivably hang on voter’s perception of the state of the economy or laws like Arizona’s that generate indignation among most Hispanics and many Americans across the country.
Just to refresh your memory, Arizona’s bill passed in 2010 was designed to discourage illegal immigration by making it a crime under Arizona law as well as federal law and by instructing state authorities to proactively be on the lookout for illegal immigrants. Civil liberties groups are alarmed by the law’s proclivity to encourage racial profiling resulting in anyone with brown skin being subjected to undue harassment since there is no simple or obvious way for law enforcement to determine a person’s citizenship status without multiple stops and checks.
The prospect of unwarranted checks seemed to particularly concern several justices during the oral arguments on the law before the Supreme Court. But the Obama administration’s solicitor-general explained he was not challenging the law on the grounds that it would discriminate against Latinos. Instead, he argued that the law pre-empts the federal government’s power to set and enforce immigration policy.
The Supreme Court’s verdict will determine the fate not just of Arizona’s law, but of similar measures in five other states. As successive presidents have promised but failed to resolve the question of America’s 10 million or so illegal immigrants, frustration at the federal government’s failure has increased, especially among conservative politicians and the conservative voters who put them in office. Consequently, various Republican controlled state legislatures around the country have attempted to take matters into their own hands, The need for a crackdown on illegal immigration seems to have become a point of faith among Republican primary voters and the presidential bid of Rick Perry¸ the governor of Texas, collapsed into ruin partly because he had signed a law allowing certain undocumented students to pay the same rates as other state residents at state universities.
Even as the debate regarding illegal immigration has become shriller, as debate surrounding so-called social issues tend to become in this country, the phenomenon itself has become less and less of a reality. Our recession has almost more than anything else, helped to stem the tide of job-seekers across America’s borders. This has also been manifested in lower numbers of people caught trying to steal into our country because there are simply fewer people making the attempt. Ironically, as the Supreme Court wrapped up its arguments on the case this week, the Pew Hispanic Center, a research institute, released a report showing that Mexicans, once the largest group of illegal immigrants in the United States are now leaving the country in greater numbers than they are entering it.
Nonetheless Mr. Romney cheerfully joined in the denunciation of Mr. Perry for his breach of party doctrine. By the same token, when Newt Gingrich, another candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, suggested that illegal immigrants of good character and long standing should be allowed to stay, Romney attacked him too. He argues that life should be made so difficult for illegal immigrants that they will choose, in a horrible phrase, to “self-deport”. Democrats hope that all this will dent Mr. Romney’s prospects among Hispanic voters, many of whom see Republican foaming at the mouth against illegal immigration as stony-hearted, if not racist. In a survey conducted last year on behalf of the Pew Hispanic Centre, two-thirds of Hispanic registered voters said they favored the Democrats. Just 20% identified themselves as Republican. In March a FOX News Latino poll found that, in a head-to-head match-up, Mitt Romney would carry just 14% of the Hispanic vote. Earlier polls had found Romney doing better than that, but still considerably worse than the 31% John McCain managed to amass, even while losing in 2008, or the whopping 40% the Spanish-speaking George W. Bush posted in 2004.
Hispanics made up 16% of the population in 2010, according to that year’s census. They are a fast-growing group, although a relatively large proportion of them are below voting age and even those eligible to vote are less assiduous about it than Anglos are. But they account for over 20% of the population in several swing states, including Colorado, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico. Democrats hope to make Arizona a swing state this year, thanks both to the 30% Hispanic share of the local population and to the acrimony inspired by the state’s immigration law. A recent poll put President Obama within two points of Mr. Romney in the state, which has been a Republican stronghold recently—not least because of John McCain’s candidacy for the US Senate in 2010 which because of a hotly contested Republican primary drove John McCain further to the right than he has ever been.
Republicans have long tried to find common cause with Latino voters. They point out that, in some respects, Hispanics seem natural conservatives: religious, hard-working and with close family ties. There is even talk that presidential candidate Mitt Romney might bolster his standing among Latinos by picking one as a running-mate—Marco Rubio, a senator from Florida, say, or Susana Martinez, the governor of New Mexico.
Since the immigration debate has such a nativist tone, however, Democrats are doubtful that Republicans can win over many Hispanic voters. “You can’t do it when at a very baseline level you make American citizens feel unwelcome in their own country,” says Joaquin Castro, a Democratic state representative from San Antonio, Texas. It will not help that in the middle of the campaign the Supreme Court will draw attention once again to the Republicans’ conservativism on the issue by ruling on the Arizona law.
Just to refresh your memory, Arizona’s bill passed in 2010 was designed to discourage illegal immigration by making it a crime under Arizona law as well as federal law and by instructing state authorities to proactively be on the lookout for illegal immigrants. Civil liberties groups are alarmed by the law’s proclivity to encourage racial profiling resulting in anyone with brown skin being subjected to undue harassment since there is no simple or obvious way for law enforcement to determine a person’s citizenship status without multiple stops and checks.
The prospect of unwarranted checks seemed to particularly concern several justices during the oral arguments on the law before the Supreme Court. But the Obama administration’s solicitor-general explained he was not challenging the law on the grounds that it would discriminate against Latinos. Instead, he argued that the law pre-empts the federal government’s power to set and enforce immigration policy.
The Supreme Court’s verdict will determine the fate not just of Arizona’s law, but of similar measures in five other states. As successive presidents have promised but failed to resolve the question of America’s 10 million or so illegal immigrants, frustration at the federal government’s failure has increased, especially among conservative politicians and the conservative voters who put them in office. Consequently, various Republican controlled state legislatures around the country have attempted to take matters into their own hands, The need for a crackdown on illegal immigration seems to have become a point of faith among Republican primary voters and the presidential bid of Rick Perry¸ the governor of Texas, collapsed into ruin partly because he had signed a law allowing certain undocumented students to pay the same rates as other state residents at state universities.
Even as the debate regarding illegal immigration has become shriller, as debate surrounding so-called social issues tend to become in this country, the phenomenon itself has become less and less of a reality. Our recession has almost more than anything else, helped to stem the tide of job-seekers across America’s borders. This has also been manifested in lower numbers of people caught trying to steal into our country because there are simply fewer people making the attempt. Ironically, as the Supreme Court wrapped up its arguments on the case this week, the Pew Hispanic Center, a research institute, released a report showing that Mexicans, once the largest group of illegal immigrants in the United States are now leaving the country in greater numbers than they are entering it.
Nonetheless Mr. Romney cheerfully joined in the denunciation of Mr. Perry for his breach of party doctrine. By the same token, when Newt Gingrich, another candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, suggested that illegal immigrants of good character and long standing should be allowed to stay, Romney attacked him too. He argues that life should be made so difficult for illegal immigrants that they will choose, in a horrible phrase, to “self-deport”. Democrats hope that all this will dent Mr. Romney’s prospects among Hispanic voters, many of whom see Republican foaming at the mouth against illegal immigration as stony-hearted, if not racist. In a survey conducted last year on behalf of the Pew Hispanic Centre, two-thirds of Hispanic registered voters said they favored the Democrats. Just 20% identified themselves as Republican. In March a FOX News Latino poll found that, in a head-to-head match-up, Mitt Romney would carry just 14% of the Hispanic vote. Earlier polls had found Romney doing better than that, but still considerably worse than the 31% John McCain managed to amass, even while losing in 2008, or the whopping 40% the Spanish-speaking George W. Bush posted in 2004.
Hispanics made up 16% of the population in 2010, according to that year’s census. They are a fast-growing group, although a relatively large proportion of them are below voting age and even those eligible to vote are less assiduous about it than Anglos are. But they account for over 20% of the population in several swing states, including Colorado, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico. Democrats hope to make Arizona a swing state this year, thanks both to the 30% Hispanic share of the local population and to the acrimony inspired by the state’s immigration law. A recent poll put President Obama within two points of Mr. Romney in the state, which has been a Republican stronghold recently—not least because of John McCain’s candidacy for the US Senate in 2010 which because of a hotly contested Republican primary drove John McCain further to the right than he has ever been.
Republicans have long tried to find common cause with Latino voters. They point out that, in some respects, Hispanics seem natural conservatives: religious, hard-working and with close family ties. There is even talk that presidential candidate Mitt Romney might bolster his standing among Latinos by picking one as a running-mate—Marco Rubio, a senator from Florida, say, or Susana Martinez, the governor of New Mexico.
Since the immigration debate has such a nativist tone, however, Democrats are doubtful that Republicans can win over many Hispanic voters. “You can’t do it when at a very baseline level you make American citizens feel unwelcome in their own country,” says Joaquin Castro, a Democratic state representative from San Antonio, Texas. It will not help that in the middle of the campaign the Supreme Court will draw attention once again to the Republicans’ conservativism on the issue by ruling on the Arizona law.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
How Scandal Gets Politicized
While most of us have felt some sense of outrage regarding the Secret Service prostitution scandal, in which at least 11 (I have actually lost count) members of the president’s elite protective service along with several military personnel were found to have solicited “escorts” in Columbia, when they were supposed to be engaged in conducting advance work for the president’s visit.
Again, I think most of us would agree that it is a stupid idea for the people who are in charge of protecting our president to position themselves in such a way that they could be vulnerable to sexual blackmail and while those who were stupid enough to behave in this manner should be disciplined, it is certainly not the stuff of a national or for that matter, an international crisis.
Washington however, with its predictable knack for moral posturing that is driven more by hypocrisy than anything else, has transformed this incident into ammunition for the right-wing guns of moral outrage. Chuck Grassley, the U.S. Senator from Iowa who has managed to triumph over his own brand of adversity, and has somehow elevated himself to the position of ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has asked if any White House staffers also slept with escorts that evening. No investigator had even suggested that there was a possibility that this had happened, but Grassley had to ask—just in case. Senator Grassley appeared on FOX last night just to ensure that viewers are continuously exposed to baseless charges regarding White House staff.
Representative Pete King, Long island Republican and defender of smut, innuendo and lies, has ambushed Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan with a list of 50 questions about the scandal in order to make it seem as if he is conducting a serious investigation.
For those outside of Congress who belong to the Let’s Get Obama anyway we can club, the strategy is to attempt to use this scandal to prove once again, the failure of Obama as a leader and his shameful failure to make everyone who works for the federal government to stop being such awful people while simultaneously acting as harbingers of waste and fraud.
The National Review Online suggests that the real moral of this story is that the American taxpayer pays way too much for presidential security, especially for all those totally unnecessary agents with their fancy bullet-proof Suburbans. Sarah Palin, who for once had a right to be offended (I can hardly believe I am writing this) after it was discovered that the agent at the center of this scandal had written totally inappropriate sexist remarks on his Facebook page about her, was among the first to brand this scandal as evidence that the problem was with the “culture” President Obama has fostered at the White House. Karl Rove, by the way has suggested that politicizing the scandal is stupid and “counterproductive.” Also interesting is that Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan was promoted to his current position during the George W. Bush administration.
Unlike most American institutions linked to the government, the composition of the Secret Service is not driven by the politics of whoever lives in the White House. However like most American law enforcement entities, it is primarily white and extremely macho. It is very rare for right wing attack dogs to demonize these carefully selected and professionally trained public servants.
The reality is that the right has for years had a kind of Clint Eastwood fantasy of Secret Service agents as being heroic, blond, blue-eyed and steely-jawed. Courageous Americans putting their lives in jeopardy only to protect those lazy elitist phonies raised the blood pressure of every loyal right wing nut. The very idea that it was necessary to protect the Clintons, the Gores and now God forbid, the Obamas—these people are not worthy of such loyalty and sacrifice.
White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney has responded to the criticism of the Secret Service couched in terms of it being reflective of a kind of fault within the Obama administration saying, “It is preposterous to politicize the Secret Service.”
Carney criticized Palin and other politicians who have linked the Secret Service incident with other recent scandals, most notably the lavish spending by the General Services Administration that is currently under investigation and the recent killing of 16 Afghan civilians by an American non-commissioned officer.
“What they’re doing is trying to turn these incidents¬¬-one that is still under investigation¬-to political advantage” Carney said. “On the face of it, it’s a ridiculous assertion that trivializes both the very serious nature of the endeavor that our military is engaged in in Afghanistan and the very serious nature of the work that the Secret Service does, the apolitical nature of the institution, and the seriousness of the investigation under way.”
While what happened in Cartagena, Columbia was inexcusable, the insatiable thirst that Congress has to investigate should not be quenched this time. I would argue against an official congressional hearing over this and it is far too premature to call for the dismal of the Secret Service Director.
Salacious scandals feed the appetite of a 24-hour news cycle, but we should allow this one to take its course through the normal review process without the usual rush to judgment.
Again, I think most of us would agree that it is a stupid idea for the people who are in charge of protecting our president to position themselves in such a way that they could be vulnerable to sexual blackmail and while those who were stupid enough to behave in this manner should be disciplined, it is certainly not the stuff of a national or for that matter, an international crisis.
Washington however, with its predictable knack for moral posturing that is driven more by hypocrisy than anything else, has transformed this incident into ammunition for the right-wing guns of moral outrage. Chuck Grassley, the U.S. Senator from Iowa who has managed to triumph over his own brand of adversity, and has somehow elevated himself to the position of ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has asked if any White House staffers also slept with escorts that evening. No investigator had even suggested that there was a possibility that this had happened, but Grassley had to ask—just in case. Senator Grassley appeared on FOX last night just to ensure that viewers are continuously exposed to baseless charges regarding White House staff.
Representative Pete King, Long island Republican and defender of smut, innuendo and lies, has ambushed Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan with a list of 50 questions about the scandal in order to make it seem as if he is conducting a serious investigation.
For those outside of Congress who belong to the Let’s Get Obama anyway we can club, the strategy is to attempt to use this scandal to prove once again, the failure of Obama as a leader and his shameful failure to make everyone who works for the federal government to stop being such awful people while simultaneously acting as harbingers of waste and fraud.
The National Review Online suggests that the real moral of this story is that the American taxpayer pays way too much for presidential security, especially for all those totally unnecessary agents with their fancy bullet-proof Suburbans. Sarah Palin, who for once had a right to be offended (I can hardly believe I am writing this) after it was discovered that the agent at the center of this scandal had written totally inappropriate sexist remarks on his Facebook page about her, was among the first to brand this scandal as evidence that the problem was with the “culture” President Obama has fostered at the White House. Karl Rove, by the way has suggested that politicizing the scandal is stupid and “counterproductive.” Also interesting is that Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan was promoted to his current position during the George W. Bush administration.
Unlike most American institutions linked to the government, the composition of the Secret Service is not driven by the politics of whoever lives in the White House. However like most American law enforcement entities, it is primarily white and extremely macho. It is very rare for right wing attack dogs to demonize these carefully selected and professionally trained public servants.
The reality is that the right has for years had a kind of Clint Eastwood fantasy of Secret Service agents as being heroic, blond, blue-eyed and steely-jawed. Courageous Americans putting their lives in jeopardy only to protect those lazy elitist phonies raised the blood pressure of every loyal right wing nut. The very idea that it was necessary to protect the Clintons, the Gores and now God forbid, the Obamas—these people are not worthy of such loyalty and sacrifice.
White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney has responded to the criticism of the Secret Service couched in terms of it being reflective of a kind of fault within the Obama administration saying, “It is preposterous to politicize the Secret Service.”
Carney criticized Palin and other politicians who have linked the Secret Service incident with other recent scandals, most notably the lavish spending by the General Services Administration that is currently under investigation and the recent killing of 16 Afghan civilians by an American non-commissioned officer.
“What they’re doing is trying to turn these incidents¬¬-one that is still under investigation¬-to political advantage” Carney said. “On the face of it, it’s a ridiculous assertion that trivializes both the very serious nature of the endeavor that our military is engaged in in Afghanistan and the very serious nature of the work that the Secret Service does, the apolitical nature of the institution, and the seriousness of the investigation under way.”
While what happened in Cartagena, Columbia was inexcusable, the insatiable thirst that Congress has to investigate should not be quenched this time. I would argue against an official congressional hearing over this and it is far too premature to call for the dismal of the Secret Service Director.
Salacious scandals feed the appetite of a 24-hour news cycle, but we should allow this one to take its course through the normal review process without the usual rush to judgment.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Barack Obama for President in 2012--Part Two
Last week, we talked about some of President Obama’s domestic policy and why his work on the economy in particular, should earn him re-election to the White House. Today, I want to explore the President’s geo-politics and how they have been manifested by his foreign policy.
As off-base as the right wing in this country is on the matter of the kind of domestic President Mr. Obama has been, it is in the area of assessing his performance in the arena of foreign affairs where the right has become completely unhinged. Governor Romney, the presumptive GOP candidate for President accuses President Obama of apologizing for America while the criticisms of other Republicans all but call the president an appeaser at best and a traitor at worst. One reality however is that President Obama reversed President Bush’s decision from almost totally ignoring Osama bin Laden and instead, practically from his first day in office, set into motion a strategy that ultimately resulted in the capture and death of the world’s most wanted terrorist.
In news stories since the bin Laden affair, it has come to light that when crucial decisions were required, the president overruled both his Secretary of State and yes, his Vice-President to opt for the riskiest, albeit the most ambitious, plan offered. President Obama then assumed an even more direct role in the drama that resulted in Osama bin Laden’s capture and death by personally ordering the extra helicopters that ultimately prevented another disaster, a la the Jimmy Carter failed attempt to rescue American hostages from Iran more than thirty years ago. What has also not been discussed enough is that not only did the Obama administration succeed in eliminating a global terrorist they also confiscated a massive amount of intelligence that since the operation has served to diminish the capacity of al Qaeda even more than the killing of their leader.
If President Obama’s predecessor had managed somehow to eliminate bin Laden and decimate al Qaeda’s leadership as has been accomplished by this administration, Bush could have changed the U.S. Constitution, run for and got re-elected to the presidency. But where Bush acted like a rootin tootin cowboy, President Obama has quietly but inexorably destroyed our real enemies, while somehow managing to win the broader propaganda war as well. Since Barack Obama has assumed the presidency, al Qaeda’s influence in the Muslim world has all but vanished.
President Obama, if nothing else, is an astute student of history. His foreign policy is actually reminiscent of the Eisenhower administration’s in that it by-passes the short-term political benefits for the long-term strategic foreign policy advantage. It is driven by a president who is committed to protecting and advancing American interests as opposed to championing an ideology that ultimately leads to the poisoning of America’s soul because of the loss of international respect and more importantly, the loss of American life as manifested by an irresponsible rush to armed intervention. By careful assessment and with a willingness to share the international stage with like-minded allies (such as in Libya), this president has restored the desire of other countries to actively seek America’s assistance and in doing so, has returned the mantle of smart super power status to America. This strategy has almost all by itself, erased the doubt, ridicule and mistrust of America engendered by our war of Iraqi occupation.
As it is true with the domestic policy of this administration, and as is so often the case regarding an administration who governs from the middle, the right wing in America is not the only constituency that has it wrong. While the left is less undone by its criticisms, it is just as likely to miss the intellect and commitment behind the Obama administration’s strategy of protecting America’s global interests. Right from the beginning of his presidency, the far left attempted to call the shots in some kind of ridiculous notion that because Democrats had control of the White House and Congress that a liberal agenda was called for. What the left conveniently chose to ignore was that while the White House and Congress may have been dominated by Democrats, the country itself was hopelessly polarized.
The irony here (and for me the truly scary part) is that this polarization was due primarily to American Liberals almost total lack of response to a segment of America who refused to accept a black American as its leader. The visceral reaction from these Americans spawned such political nightmares for everyone such as the Tea Party which served to further de-stabilize the political arena beginning with a massive takeover of the Republican base.
Iconic but baseless in law and governance, the 60-vote majority in the U.S. Senate before anything substantive could happen, prevented even the majority party from managing to accomplish anything legislatively and resulted in the worse kind of gridlock since the Boston massacre.
As if to add fuel to the fire, the American left has accused President Obama of being unable and some even believe unwilling, to curb the actions of a Wall Street gone wild. They ridiculously accuse Obama of being an elitist who is unable to grasp the challenges of the average working American and they rant and rave against Obama’s presidency as one that failed at some kind of “Grand Bargain” on entitlement reform. They complain about his stimulus, which they claim was not large enough (I have been one of those) and they criticize his one-step-at-a-time approach to gay rights. But most of all, (and I am afraid I am in this group as well), they despair at his constant attempts to meet Republican assaults with calm appeals to unity and compromise.
Despite attacks from both the right and the left, a recurring pattern has emerged from the Obama White House. From as early as his inaugural address, the President began his foray into international waters by first extending the hand of friendship to everyone. When some responded with their fist, instead of an open hand, he immediately demonstrated that they were the source of the tension between them. As he exercised a kind of “moderate liberalism” he was able to give voice to his total disregard for policy driven by a rhetoric that is at once divisive. This was like turning a giant aircraft carrier 360 degrees—it took time. It also means that the President can appear to be incapable of defending his strategy or worse, it seemed at times as if others within his administration were defining him. This however, is where his detractors are truly out of touch with reality.
By failing to grasp the significance of Obama’s approach to foreign affairs, by making a mountain out of a molehill on one issue after another (the ridiculous “Let’s just have a beer at the White House affair) but most importantly, by projecting a kind of fantasy, brought into existence by the more severe extremes of both the left and the right, they have completely missed the reality that Barack Obama’s strategy is to play all nine innings. He did with the Democrats over health-care reform. He did with the Republicans over the debt. He did it with the Israeli government regarding the cessation of expanded settlements on the West Bank and with the Iranian regime by refusing to play the game by their rules, even as they gunned down innocent Iranian citizens in the streets of Tehran. No policy decision, no strategy, no political objectives can be understood regarding this administration, if there is a refusal to accept that Barack Obama has been playing for all nine innings—for eight years, not four.
If he is re-elected, the 2012 election will actually go down in history as more crucial than even the 2008 one. Reagan claimed after his first election that he had a “mandate” to govern, and immediately Gil Scott Heron exclaimed in one of his songs B-Movie, “Mandate my ass.” Well a return to the White House by President Obama will indeed be a mandate. It will be a mandate for a full paradigm shift away from Bush type inequality and reckless intervention abroad. It will mean an end to decades of irresponsible deficit spending. A re-election of the Obama team will make it possible for him to strengthen what he has done already and prepare for the future.
I am the first to admit that I am biased towards this President. My bias however is driven by the actual record of this administration, not the spin or the vitriolic cries for his head. I am biased towards a president who despite the fact that he has been subjected to more visceral attacks than possibly any other president in American history, has not once lost his cool, has not once lashed out at anyone but instead has conducted himself with calm and grace under fire. I am biased towards a President who has been confronted with one crisis after another and while it is almost unbelievable, has not had to spin down one single scandal, either personal or professional in his entire public career.
If the President’s team is guilty of anything, it is that they have as of yet, failed to convince the American people of the character and intellect of this President and worse, have failed to create an environment in which this President can be valued appreciatively as opposed to being derided from both sides of the political spectrum. I have faith however in the American electorate and I know that enough of them will come to see these last three years as I have—the beginnings of a return to America’s greatness.
As off-base as the right wing in this country is on the matter of the kind of domestic President Mr. Obama has been, it is in the area of assessing his performance in the arena of foreign affairs where the right has become completely unhinged. Governor Romney, the presumptive GOP candidate for President accuses President Obama of apologizing for America while the criticisms of other Republicans all but call the president an appeaser at best and a traitor at worst. One reality however is that President Obama reversed President Bush’s decision from almost totally ignoring Osama bin Laden and instead, practically from his first day in office, set into motion a strategy that ultimately resulted in the capture and death of the world’s most wanted terrorist.
In news stories since the bin Laden affair, it has come to light that when crucial decisions were required, the president overruled both his Secretary of State and yes, his Vice-President to opt for the riskiest, albeit the most ambitious, plan offered. President Obama then assumed an even more direct role in the drama that resulted in Osama bin Laden’s capture and death by personally ordering the extra helicopters that ultimately prevented another disaster, a la the Jimmy Carter failed attempt to rescue American hostages from Iran more than thirty years ago. What has also not been discussed enough is that not only did the Obama administration succeed in eliminating a global terrorist they also confiscated a massive amount of intelligence that since the operation has served to diminish the capacity of al Qaeda even more than the killing of their leader.
If President Obama’s predecessor had managed somehow to eliminate bin Laden and decimate al Qaeda’s leadership as has been accomplished by this administration, Bush could have changed the U.S. Constitution, run for and got re-elected to the presidency. But where Bush acted like a rootin tootin cowboy, President Obama has quietly but inexorably destroyed our real enemies, while somehow managing to win the broader propaganda war as well. Since Barack Obama has assumed the presidency, al Qaeda’s influence in the Muslim world has all but vanished.
President Obama, if nothing else, is an astute student of history. His foreign policy is actually reminiscent of the Eisenhower administration’s in that it by-passes the short-term political benefits for the long-term strategic foreign policy advantage. It is driven by a president who is committed to protecting and advancing American interests as opposed to championing an ideology that ultimately leads to the poisoning of America’s soul because of the loss of international respect and more importantly, the loss of American life as manifested by an irresponsible rush to armed intervention. By careful assessment and with a willingness to share the international stage with like-minded allies (such as in Libya), this president has restored the desire of other countries to actively seek America’s assistance and in doing so, has returned the mantle of smart super power status to America. This strategy has almost all by itself, erased the doubt, ridicule and mistrust of America engendered by our war of Iraqi occupation.
As it is true with the domestic policy of this administration, and as is so often the case regarding an administration who governs from the middle, the right wing in America is not the only constituency that has it wrong. While the left is less undone by its criticisms, it is just as likely to miss the intellect and commitment behind the Obama administration’s strategy of protecting America’s global interests. Right from the beginning of his presidency, the far left attempted to call the shots in some kind of ridiculous notion that because Democrats had control of the White House and Congress that a liberal agenda was called for. What the left conveniently chose to ignore was that while the White House and Congress may have been dominated by Democrats, the country itself was hopelessly polarized.
The irony here (and for me the truly scary part) is that this polarization was due primarily to American Liberals almost total lack of response to a segment of America who refused to accept a black American as its leader. The visceral reaction from these Americans spawned such political nightmares for everyone such as the Tea Party which served to further de-stabilize the political arena beginning with a massive takeover of the Republican base.
Iconic but baseless in law and governance, the 60-vote majority in the U.S. Senate before anything substantive could happen, prevented even the majority party from managing to accomplish anything legislatively and resulted in the worse kind of gridlock since the Boston massacre.
As if to add fuel to the fire, the American left has accused President Obama of being unable and some even believe unwilling, to curb the actions of a Wall Street gone wild. They ridiculously accuse Obama of being an elitist who is unable to grasp the challenges of the average working American and they rant and rave against Obama’s presidency as one that failed at some kind of “Grand Bargain” on entitlement reform. They complain about his stimulus, which they claim was not large enough (I have been one of those) and they criticize his one-step-at-a-time approach to gay rights. But most of all, (and I am afraid I am in this group as well), they despair at his constant attempts to meet Republican assaults with calm appeals to unity and compromise.
Despite attacks from both the right and the left, a recurring pattern has emerged from the Obama White House. From as early as his inaugural address, the President began his foray into international waters by first extending the hand of friendship to everyone. When some responded with their fist, instead of an open hand, he immediately demonstrated that they were the source of the tension between them. As he exercised a kind of “moderate liberalism” he was able to give voice to his total disregard for policy driven by a rhetoric that is at once divisive. This was like turning a giant aircraft carrier 360 degrees—it took time. It also means that the President can appear to be incapable of defending his strategy or worse, it seemed at times as if others within his administration were defining him. This however, is where his detractors are truly out of touch with reality.
By failing to grasp the significance of Obama’s approach to foreign affairs, by making a mountain out of a molehill on one issue after another (the ridiculous “Let’s just have a beer at the White House affair) but most importantly, by projecting a kind of fantasy, brought into existence by the more severe extremes of both the left and the right, they have completely missed the reality that Barack Obama’s strategy is to play all nine innings. He did with the Democrats over health-care reform. He did with the Republicans over the debt. He did it with the Israeli government regarding the cessation of expanded settlements on the West Bank and with the Iranian regime by refusing to play the game by their rules, even as they gunned down innocent Iranian citizens in the streets of Tehran. No policy decision, no strategy, no political objectives can be understood regarding this administration, if there is a refusal to accept that Barack Obama has been playing for all nine innings—for eight years, not four.
If he is re-elected, the 2012 election will actually go down in history as more crucial than even the 2008 one. Reagan claimed after his first election that he had a “mandate” to govern, and immediately Gil Scott Heron exclaimed in one of his songs B-Movie, “Mandate my ass.” Well a return to the White House by President Obama will indeed be a mandate. It will be a mandate for a full paradigm shift away from Bush type inequality and reckless intervention abroad. It will mean an end to decades of irresponsible deficit spending. A re-election of the Obama team will make it possible for him to strengthen what he has done already and prepare for the future.
I am the first to admit that I am biased towards this President. My bias however is driven by the actual record of this administration, not the spin or the vitriolic cries for his head. I am biased towards a president who despite the fact that he has been subjected to more visceral attacks than possibly any other president in American history, has not once lost his cool, has not once lashed out at anyone but instead has conducted himself with calm and grace under fire. I am biased towards a President who has been confronted with one crisis after another and while it is almost unbelievable, has not had to spin down one single scandal, either personal or professional in his entire public career.
If the President’s team is guilty of anything, it is that they have as of yet, failed to convince the American people of the character and intellect of this President and worse, have failed to create an environment in which this President can be valued appreciatively as opposed to being derided from both sides of the political spectrum. I have faith however in the American electorate and I know that enough of them will come to see these last three years as I have—the beginnings of a return to America’s greatness.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Barack Obama for President in 2012
The nightmare for some, comedy for others, generally referred to as the 2012 Republican primary for President of the United States, is finally almost over. With victories in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington, D.C. on Tuesday of this week, Governor Romney, short of being disclosed as the father of three illegitimate children, is the presumptive Republican candidate for President in 2012. So, let’s take a moment from the Republican campaign trail to look at the other side of the aisle, so to speak.
The right wing in America rants against President Obama, calling him a socialist. The left wing in America bellows that he is a sell-out and tries too hard to compromise with Republicans and their Wall Street keepers and independents just think the President lacks courage. The noise is everywhere and it is at such a fever pitch that now the common held beliefs are that Democrats are disappointed in the Obama administration and that the Independent voter is even more disillusioned. As for the Republicans, well they have worked themselves, as is normal for them, into an almost apocalyptic fever.
And while this is a common occurrence during the last year of any President’s first term and that first term presidents running for re-election always get attacked viscerally by the opposition, it seems that this time around, the complaints, charges, criticisms and even the outlandish lies are more prevalent than in any prior race for the White House.
The fact that unemployment is still at a stubborn but remarkable high level and that the national debt is also setting historical records fosters a political environment in which criticism of this administration has been, and on some level should be, fierce. In fact, I understand exactly why the right is so enraged and the left is so demoralized. There is enough bad news to upset even the strongest Obama supporter.
Once we have gotten all of our disappointments off our collective chests however, the reality is that both the right and left analysis of this administration’s performance over the past three years is just simply wrong. Despite the rhetoric ranging from the sarcastic to the vile, the reality that is left for us to deal with is that President Obama has performed admirably, given the state of the Union when he was inaugurated.
There have been instances over the past three years where I have disagreed with the Obama administration. Some of those disagreements have found their way into posts to this blog. I was disappointed that the President did not accept the Bowles-Simpson debt commission findings as warm heartedly as I thought he should have and I have been terribly disappointed that the perpetrators of Bush-era war crimes have not been brought to justice, but given the state of the American economy since before he took office, it seems to me that what the Obama administration has accomplished balanced against what it promised coming into office, demonstrates that the President has delivered in a way that right wing nuts and left wing purists cannot grasp because of their own deep-rooted silliness. Their endless whining has kept them from appreciating the work that this administration has only begun and why it needs four more years to build on the successes of the first four years. As critical as his election was in 2008, the re-election of Barack Obama is even more essential for 2012 if this country is ever to complete its recovery from the Republican forged economic debacle of the George W. Bush era.
Those who oppose him from the right claim that President Obama has governed as a radical socialist attempting to implement a “fundamental transformation” of the American way of life. Governor Romney has accused the President, whenever he can take time to beat back his Republican opponents, of wanting to turn America into a “European welfare state.” He has pointed his finger at the President claiming that be does not believe in free enterprise and that he has no real understanding of how a capitalist economy is supposed to function and most of all, he riles the President for apologizing for America around the world while simultaneously appeasing our enemies. According to Romney, the President is a mortal threat to “the soul” of America and is an “empty suit” who couldn’t run a business, let alone a country.
Here is what actually happened: when Obama assumed the presidency, our economy was losing some 750,000 jobs each month. The last quarter of FY2008 saw an annualized plummeting of job growth near nine percent. This was the most dramatic drop since the 1930s and there was the real danger of a systemic collapse of the entire global financial system. Added to that was the frightening possibility that unemployment and debt were about to get a lot worse. Even the most virile right wing nut who carries picket signs depicting Obama as Hitler or the devil cannot blame President Obama for the economic earthquake that fully erupted in 2007 and wreaked havoc on the American family through 2008-2009 resulting in after-shocks through 2010 and most of 2011—that have only recently begun to subside. Economies in general and the American one in particular take time to change course.
Upon being sworn into office, Obama went right to work. He continued the bank bailout that had begun under his predecessor, he implemented a bailout of the American auto industry and he worked hard to push a stimulus package of more than $780 million through Congress.
Despite the howling from the right, these decisions and actions were far more successful than anyone has yet to give the Obama administration credit for. The monitoring of the number of job losses each month has now been transformed into an assessment of job gains each month, with Republicans still screaming that the increase in employment is not enough—a point never disputed by the President.
Since the stimulus began to finally impact the jobs market, America has added 2.4 million Americans to payrolls across the country. Again, that is not enough, but it is far better than what Romney would have you believe and even more importantly these jobs represent more than the net jobs created under the entire Bush administration! Just this past year, 1.9 million private-sector jobs were created, while a net 280,000 government jobs were lost. Overall government employment has declined almost three percent over the past three years. Listening to the Republican wannabes on the campaign trail would make one think the opposite is true, but the facts are indisputable.
I admit it, I am biased. Anyone who knows me recognizes that I am an Obama supporter—not an apologist—but a steadfast supporter. This President has conducted himself with a sense of grace and calm that even when a member of the U.S. Congress shouted him down as a liar during a STOU address he failed to lose his cool. I have a fundamental belief in the intelligence and common sense of Americans, and it is my hope that enough of us will come to recognize the need to keep President Barack Obama in office for four more years, letting him finish what he has started.
Next week, let’s talk geo-politics...
The right wing in America rants against President Obama, calling him a socialist. The left wing in America bellows that he is a sell-out and tries too hard to compromise with Republicans and their Wall Street keepers and independents just think the President lacks courage. The noise is everywhere and it is at such a fever pitch that now the common held beliefs are that Democrats are disappointed in the Obama administration and that the Independent voter is even more disillusioned. As for the Republicans, well they have worked themselves, as is normal for them, into an almost apocalyptic fever.
And while this is a common occurrence during the last year of any President’s first term and that first term presidents running for re-election always get attacked viscerally by the opposition, it seems that this time around, the complaints, charges, criticisms and even the outlandish lies are more prevalent than in any prior race for the White House.
The fact that unemployment is still at a stubborn but remarkable high level and that the national debt is also setting historical records fosters a political environment in which criticism of this administration has been, and on some level should be, fierce. In fact, I understand exactly why the right is so enraged and the left is so demoralized. There is enough bad news to upset even the strongest Obama supporter.
Once we have gotten all of our disappointments off our collective chests however, the reality is that both the right and left analysis of this administration’s performance over the past three years is just simply wrong. Despite the rhetoric ranging from the sarcastic to the vile, the reality that is left for us to deal with is that President Obama has performed admirably, given the state of the Union when he was inaugurated.
There have been instances over the past three years where I have disagreed with the Obama administration. Some of those disagreements have found their way into posts to this blog. I was disappointed that the President did not accept the Bowles-Simpson debt commission findings as warm heartedly as I thought he should have and I have been terribly disappointed that the perpetrators of Bush-era war crimes have not been brought to justice, but given the state of the American economy since before he took office, it seems to me that what the Obama administration has accomplished balanced against what it promised coming into office, demonstrates that the President has delivered in a way that right wing nuts and left wing purists cannot grasp because of their own deep-rooted silliness. Their endless whining has kept them from appreciating the work that this administration has only begun and why it needs four more years to build on the successes of the first four years. As critical as his election was in 2008, the re-election of Barack Obama is even more essential for 2012 if this country is ever to complete its recovery from the Republican forged economic debacle of the George W. Bush era.
Those who oppose him from the right claim that President Obama has governed as a radical socialist attempting to implement a “fundamental transformation” of the American way of life. Governor Romney has accused the President, whenever he can take time to beat back his Republican opponents, of wanting to turn America into a “European welfare state.” He has pointed his finger at the President claiming that be does not believe in free enterprise and that he has no real understanding of how a capitalist economy is supposed to function and most of all, he riles the President for apologizing for America around the world while simultaneously appeasing our enemies. According to Romney, the President is a mortal threat to “the soul” of America and is an “empty suit” who couldn’t run a business, let alone a country.
Here is what actually happened: when Obama assumed the presidency, our economy was losing some 750,000 jobs each month. The last quarter of FY2008 saw an annualized plummeting of job growth near nine percent. This was the most dramatic drop since the 1930s and there was the real danger of a systemic collapse of the entire global financial system. Added to that was the frightening possibility that unemployment and debt were about to get a lot worse. Even the most virile right wing nut who carries picket signs depicting Obama as Hitler or the devil cannot blame President Obama for the economic earthquake that fully erupted in 2007 and wreaked havoc on the American family through 2008-2009 resulting in after-shocks through 2010 and most of 2011—that have only recently begun to subside. Economies in general and the American one in particular take time to change course.
Upon being sworn into office, Obama went right to work. He continued the bank bailout that had begun under his predecessor, he implemented a bailout of the American auto industry and he worked hard to push a stimulus package of more than $780 million through Congress.
Despite the howling from the right, these decisions and actions were far more successful than anyone has yet to give the Obama administration credit for. The monitoring of the number of job losses each month has now been transformed into an assessment of job gains each month, with Republicans still screaming that the increase in employment is not enough—a point never disputed by the President.
Since the stimulus began to finally impact the jobs market, America has added 2.4 million Americans to payrolls across the country. Again, that is not enough, but it is far better than what Romney would have you believe and even more importantly these jobs represent more than the net jobs created under the entire Bush administration! Just this past year, 1.9 million private-sector jobs were created, while a net 280,000 government jobs were lost. Overall government employment has declined almost three percent over the past three years. Listening to the Republican wannabes on the campaign trail would make one think the opposite is true, but the facts are indisputable.
I admit it, I am biased. Anyone who knows me recognizes that I am an Obama supporter—not an apologist—but a steadfast supporter. This President has conducted himself with a sense of grace and calm that even when a member of the U.S. Congress shouted him down as a liar during a STOU address he failed to lose his cool. I have a fundamental belief in the intelligence and common sense of Americans, and it is my hope that enough of us will come to recognize the need to keep President Barack Obama in office for four more years, letting him finish what he has started.
Next week, let’s talk geo-politics...
Thursday, March 29, 2012
It Has Finally Come Down to This,,,
Health insurers and supporters of the Obama administration’s healthcare reform law are currently in the midst of developing possible contingency plans just in case the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the Affordable Care Act’s (known derisively as Obamacare) individual mandate.
The insurance industry argues that premiums are likely to skyrocket without the individual mandate in place to facilitate the registration of millions of new enrollees into the marketplace as healthy people will be less likely to purchase insurance, while insurers will still be required to sell policies to all applicants. In fact, “A repeal of the individual mandate would increase insurance rates by 25 percent” according to a recent study released by none other than that venerable institution, the Robert Wood Johnson foundation. From the insurance industry itself came this observation offered up by Justine Handelman, vice-president of legislative and regulatory policy for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association trade group, ”The insurance reforms would have to change if the mandate were struck.”
Health insurance industry leaders say that if the individual mandate is repealed, then their first priority would be to begin the process of persuading Congress to repeal two other measures of the law; the requirement to cover everyone regardless of their medical history or pre-existing conditions, and limits on how much insurers can adjust premiums driven by age. Following that effort, the industry would then develop a rewards system for those people who purchase health insurance voluntarily and of course, sanction those who do not.
A cursive review of healthcare industry newsletters reveal other strategies the industry intends to deploy such as penalizing those who enroll outside of short annual windows, which in essence would deny treatment for specific conditions, especially immediately after a policy is purchased.
Rewarding certain insurance buyers by offering much lower premiums for younger and healthier people is another marketing strategy being considered as well as creating an expansion of the employers’ role in automatically enrolling employees for health insurance. The most dastardly policy under consideration by the industry however would be to urge credit rating firms to use health insurance status as a factor in determining an individual’s credit ratings.
The most visceral and loudest opposition to President Obama’s healthcare law comes from the political right, mostly under the banner of the Republican Party. What confuses me almost more than anything is that this law has a strong resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan as it builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican opposition to attempts on the part of the Clinton administration to reform healthcare In America.
The more liberal approach to healthcare reform, one which I championed, was the single-payer approach or expressed in words that causes Republicans to faint, a National Healthcare system. This option was dealt off the table at the beginning as the White House sincerely desired to have all parties play a role in shaping what would ultimately become law.
As we all are keenly aware today however, the Republicans were simply not willing to do much in the way of compromise and honest negotiating. What they were willing to do instead, was to develop a cornucopia of sophisticated lies regarding a healthcare reform plan beginning as far back as the 2008 presidential election (remember the death panels). At least, in this effort, they truly excelled.
The logic of a universal provision for health insurance purchase is beyond reproach from anyone that understands how insurance works. Only by having individuals pay premiums while they are healthy is money available when needed to cover costs when they or others cannot. Without universal participation, the costs of health insurance rises rapidly, if it is even available for persons with less than excellent health or for those that suffer from pre-existing conditions. On its face the opposition to the universal provision is economic insanity as demonstrated by existing out of control healthcare cost increases and swelling state and county expenses for the medical care of their respective uninsured citizens.
Although the mandate has been maligned by the political right in this country, it has been upheld in two separate appeals courts, but struck down in a third. The Supreme Court hearings just ended yesterday and an official ruling is expected to be delivered in June of this year.
From the right, Glen Beck said, “What we don’t have a right to is healthcare, housing, or handouts. We don’t have those rights.”
From the left, John Kerry stated, “Great physicians and nurses, skilled, caring and unparalleled in their training, intervened in my life and probably saved it. I was lucky but other Americans are not. It is time to speak again and stand again for the ideal that in the richest nation ever on this planet, it is wrong for 41 million Americans, most of them in working families, to worry at night and wake up in the morning without the basic protection of health insurance.”
Let’s hope that the Supreme Court makes the correct decision.
The insurance industry argues that premiums are likely to skyrocket without the individual mandate in place to facilitate the registration of millions of new enrollees into the marketplace as healthy people will be less likely to purchase insurance, while insurers will still be required to sell policies to all applicants. In fact, “A repeal of the individual mandate would increase insurance rates by 25 percent” according to a recent study released by none other than that venerable institution, the Robert Wood Johnson foundation. From the insurance industry itself came this observation offered up by Justine Handelman, vice-president of legislative and regulatory policy for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association trade group, ”The insurance reforms would have to change if the mandate were struck.”
Health insurance industry leaders say that if the individual mandate is repealed, then their first priority would be to begin the process of persuading Congress to repeal two other measures of the law; the requirement to cover everyone regardless of their medical history or pre-existing conditions, and limits on how much insurers can adjust premiums driven by age. Following that effort, the industry would then develop a rewards system for those people who purchase health insurance voluntarily and of course, sanction those who do not.
A cursive review of healthcare industry newsletters reveal other strategies the industry intends to deploy such as penalizing those who enroll outside of short annual windows, which in essence would deny treatment for specific conditions, especially immediately after a policy is purchased.
Rewarding certain insurance buyers by offering much lower premiums for younger and healthier people is another marketing strategy being considered as well as creating an expansion of the employers’ role in automatically enrolling employees for health insurance. The most dastardly policy under consideration by the industry however would be to urge credit rating firms to use health insurance status as a factor in determining an individual’s credit ratings.
The most visceral and loudest opposition to President Obama’s healthcare law comes from the political right, mostly under the banner of the Republican Party. What confuses me almost more than anything is that this law has a strong resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan as it builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican opposition to attempts on the part of the Clinton administration to reform healthcare In America.
The more liberal approach to healthcare reform, one which I championed, was the single-payer approach or expressed in words that causes Republicans to faint, a National Healthcare system. This option was dealt off the table at the beginning as the White House sincerely desired to have all parties play a role in shaping what would ultimately become law.
As we all are keenly aware today however, the Republicans were simply not willing to do much in the way of compromise and honest negotiating. What they were willing to do instead, was to develop a cornucopia of sophisticated lies regarding a healthcare reform plan beginning as far back as the 2008 presidential election (remember the death panels). At least, in this effort, they truly excelled.
The logic of a universal provision for health insurance purchase is beyond reproach from anyone that understands how insurance works. Only by having individuals pay premiums while they are healthy is money available when needed to cover costs when they or others cannot. Without universal participation, the costs of health insurance rises rapidly, if it is even available for persons with less than excellent health or for those that suffer from pre-existing conditions. On its face the opposition to the universal provision is economic insanity as demonstrated by existing out of control healthcare cost increases and swelling state and county expenses for the medical care of their respective uninsured citizens.
Although the mandate has been maligned by the political right in this country, it has been upheld in two separate appeals courts, but struck down in a third. The Supreme Court hearings just ended yesterday and an official ruling is expected to be delivered in June of this year.
From the right, Glen Beck said, “What we don’t have a right to is healthcare, housing, or handouts. We don’t have those rights.”
From the left, John Kerry stated, “Great physicians and nurses, skilled, caring and unparalleled in their training, intervened in my life and probably saved it. I was lucky but other Americans are not. It is time to speak again and stand again for the ideal that in the richest nation ever on this planet, it is wrong for 41 million Americans, most of them in working families, to worry at night and wake up in the morning without the basic protection of health insurance.”
Let’s hope that the Supreme Court makes the correct decision.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Trayvon Martin: Another Senseless Victim of Racist Violence in America
As we are inundated with reports, commentaries and social media commentary regarding the senseless tragedy in Sanford, Florida where Trayvon Martin, a high school student from Miami, was gunned down by a white neighborhood crime watch member, my heart is burdened heavy with the realization that in some way, we are all responsible for this horror. Once again, I am forced to ask myself the self-damning question of why it had to come to this horrific tragedy for there to be outrage at a society that has failed to educate our young people so that they can successfully compete on the academic world stage while simultaneously being responsible for an environment in which the life of a young person of color is not as valued as a white person; a system with its roots in the three-fifths compromise that has allowed systemic racism and a culture of violence on both sides of the track to fester in our national psyche while creating a maelstrom of devastation across America.
God help us, but the story of Trayvon Martin is not a new story. The conditions that made it possible for Trayvon to be murdered have been in place throughout the history of our country with its murderous consequences eliminating Native Americans, gaining steam during the days of slavery and being energized in the basement of an Alabama Baptist church where the lives of four little black girls were violently snuffed out. Not long after that, two young white men who had the audacity to work with a young black man as they registered black citizens to register to vote in Mississippi were taken to a quarry, shot and buried there as if they were so much garbage.
The list is almost endless and now, in twenty-first century America, in addition to being home to the killing of Trayvon Martin, Florida has taken steps that threatens our democracy, fragile as it is, by legislating away the rights of Floridians who because of incarceration are now prohibited from earning a living, housing and voting. Florida has indeed shown compunction for denying African-Americans and other minorities who are already disproportionately shut out of the mainstream, to be additionally subjected to a kind of rabid racism reminiscent of the Jim Crow era. But, as one racially charged nightmare after another explodes across the national landscape, where is America’s unified outcry? Where are the sustained outpourings of justified anger towards those who would snuff out the life of another simply because of the color of their skin?
President Obama ran on a platform of change. How much has changed however when it is only acts of terror and tragedy visited upon our community such as the shooting of Trayvon Martin before we are willing to leave our television sets for a minute so that we can mobilize against the daily injustices and insults all people of color are forced to deal with. Celebrities like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson rush to the scene of the crime, galvanize us and then after they return home, we go back to business as usual, soon forgetting the cold, lifeless body lying on a sidewalk in a Florida city—or anywhere USA—until the next time when the cycle of righteous anger begins once again.
It is impossible for any fair-minded or thinking person to not wonder that if the racial roles were reversed in this horrific event, would law enforcement have allowed an African-American shooter to walk away from the scene of the crime after killing an unarmed white boy who, like Trayvon, was armed with nothing more than a can of iced tea and a bag of Skittles? Sadly and embarrassedly, racism in twenty-first century America still exists on a level that makes a role reversal of this shooting impossible to have the same outcome.
The real issue however, is that the time of categorizing incidents like this as simply “white versus black” must come to an end. We have an opportunity, both angered and emboldened by this senseless tragedy, to turn the discussion to what is right versus what is wrong. All of us, Americans of every color, heritage, faith, orientation, or even political persuasion, must come together with the realization that if we fail to unite ourselves in a righteous struggle against injustice, then we will continue to be a society that makes it possible for child killers and violent hate mongers to roam the streets of our communities—rural and urban—rendering the American dream an impossible dream.
We must not only remember Trayvon Martin the person, we must honor his memory. We have all seen enough tragedy to last a generation. The time to stop the violence is now. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.”
God help us, but the story of Trayvon Martin is not a new story. The conditions that made it possible for Trayvon to be murdered have been in place throughout the history of our country with its murderous consequences eliminating Native Americans, gaining steam during the days of slavery and being energized in the basement of an Alabama Baptist church where the lives of four little black girls were violently snuffed out. Not long after that, two young white men who had the audacity to work with a young black man as they registered black citizens to register to vote in Mississippi were taken to a quarry, shot and buried there as if they were so much garbage.
The list is almost endless and now, in twenty-first century America, in addition to being home to the killing of Trayvon Martin, Florida has taken steps that threatens our democracy, fragile as it is, by legislating away the rights of Floridians who because of incarceration are now prohibited from earning a living, housing and voting. Florida has indeed shown compunction for denying African-Americans and other minorities who are already disproportionately shut out of the mainstream, to be additionally subjected to a kind of rabid racism reminiscent of the Jim Crow era. But, as one racially charged nightmare after another explodes across the national landscape, where is America’s unified outcry? Where are the sustained outpourings of justified anger towards those who would snuff out the life of another simply because of the color of their skin?
President Obama ran on a platform of change. How much has changed however when it is only acts of terror and tragedy visited upon our community such as the shooting of Trayvon Martin before we are willing to leave our television sets for a minute so that we can mobilize against the daily injustices and insults all people of color are forced to deal with. Celebrities like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson rush to the scene of the crime, galvanize us and then after they return home, we go back to business as usual, soon forgetting the cold, lifeless body lying on a sidewalk in a Florida city—or anywhere USA—until the next time when the cycle of righteous anger begins once again.
It is impossible for any fair-minded or thinking person to not wonder that if the racial roles were reversed in this horrific event, would law enforcement have allowed an African-American shooter to walk away from the scene of the crime after killing an unarmed white boy who, like Trayvon, was armed with nothing more than a can of iced tea and a bag of Skittles? Sadly and embarrassedly, racism in twenty-first century America still exists on a level that makes a role reversal of this shooting impossible to have the same outcome.
The real issue however, is that the time of categorizing incidents like this as simply “white versus black” must come to an end. We have an opportunity, both angered and emboldened by this senseless tragedy, to turn the discussion to what is right versus what is wrong. All of us, Americans of every color, heritage, faith, orientation, or even political persuasion, must come together with the realization that if we fail to unite ourselves in a righteous struggle against injustice, then we will continue to be a society that makes it possible for child killers and violent hate mongers to roam the streets of our communities—rural and urban—rendering the American dream an impossible dream.
We must not only remember Trayvon Martin the person, we must honor his memory. We have all seen enough tragedy to last a generation. The time to stop the violence is now. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.”
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