Hillary has stuck her political finger in the wind and discovered that 2008 is a good political year to find her inner populist and lash out rhetorically against oil companies, defense contractors, and health insurers who have benefited from nearly 8 years of Republican corporate welfare. Her rhetoric has rightfully appealed to many Americans, particularly blue collar whites who have seen their real incomes decline and their economic insecurity increase during the Bush years. But when one peals away the rhetoric and looks at Hillary's actual policies, one finds that many of them would actually do little for the working Americans she promises to help and would increase the profits of the very corporate interests whom she supposedly denounces.
In other words, Hillary's populism is largely fake.
The Clintons rose to power as leading lights of the Democratic Leadership Council, the corporate funded wing of the Democratic Party dedicated to wiping out the Democratic Party's liberal legacy in the name of a business-friendly centrism. Triangulation, the political strategy for which the Clintons became famous, was based upon the idea of playing the progressive wing of the Democratic Party against the most conservative wing of the Republican Party to arrive at some supposedly moderate center.
One cannot deny that the Clintonian '90s brought generally good economic times, helped in part by Clinton's early tax increase. But much of the prosperity of the '90s had less to do with Clinton's policies than with the overall increase in economic productivity brought largely by the geometric increase of computer power and the spread of the internet. The Clinton years left little in the way of a lasting progressive legacy. Democrats lost control of Congress, numerous governorships and state legislatures. Clinton's most lasting reforms were essentially Republican leaning policies of Welfare Reform, NAFTA and other "free" trade agreements, and further deregulation of the financial and other industries that started the trends which led to the current meltdown of the unregulated financial sector.
Now Hillary Clinton calls on every member of Congress to show whether they're on the side of the oil companies or the side of the people by taking sides on hers and John McCain's gas tax holiday proposal. This is the easiest of Hillary fake populist proposals to debunk as a fraud. As any economist will tell you, and many have, if you reduce the price of gas by temporarily eliminating the 18.4 cents a gallon federal excise tax, the oil companies will just increase the price of gas by the same 18.4 cents, pocketing the aggregate $10 billion difference, which otherwise would have gone to the federal highway fund to rebuild the nation's infrastructure and create thousands of jobs. The only way to prevent this oil company windfall would be to impose price controls which, while not necessarily a bad idea, would provoke a firestorm of political backlash. So, chalk one up for Hillary's anti-oil company rhetoric. Chalk $10 billion up for increased oil company profits. Fake populism.
When it comes to the mortgage crisis, Hillary rails against the banks and calls for a 90 day foreclosure moratorium. This, too, is a gimmick. After the 90 day moratorium is up, millions of homeowner who bought sub-prime mortgages would still be facing unaffordable mortgage increases and negative equity. This gimmick doesn't address the core of the problem which originated in financial deregulation during the Clinton administration and escalated under the Bush administration. Unregulated financial firms, often affiliated with, but legally separate from, more, regulated banks, could sell off packages of mortgages with no regulation as to the real value of the underlying asset.
Hillary's denunciations of NAFTA are no more credible. Bill Clinton has held up NAFTA as one of the singular achievements of his administration. Hillary is running based on her "experience" in Bill Clinton's White House, but wants to take credit for the popular parts and discard the unpopular parts of Clinton's legacy. The evidence that Hillary ever opposed her husband's singular achievement is extremely shaky. Her recently released appointment schedules reveal that Hilary lobbied Congress to support NAFTA. Her election year shift to a populist on so-called "free" trade is hard to buy.
Hillary's completely hypothetical threat to "obliterate" Iran (killing millions of innocent Iranian citizens) if it were to attack Israel with nuclear weapons, and to create an American nuclear umbrella for other Middle Eastern countries, guarantees that Hillary's administration would keep the profits of defense contractors high, denying billions of taxpayer dollars to more pressing domestic needs like education and heath care.
The National Intelligence Estimate revealed last fall that Iran has no active nuclear arms program. If it were to reactivate such a program, it would take years to develop a deployable nuclear arsenal that could deliver a nuclear attack against Israeli or other foreign soil. In fact, it would probably extent beyond an 8 year Hillary presidency. Israel is believed to have over 200 of its own nuclear weapons, as well as missiles and planes to deliver them, so is perfectly capable of providing its own deterrent. There are numerous multinational methods of diplomatic, political and economic pressure in coming years to prevent Iraq from obtaining a useful nuclear arsenal.
Thus Hillary's Dr. Strangelove threats against Iran are little more than a wink and a nod to the defense industry that she will be little threat to their profits.
Hillary's biggest populist fraud of all is her promise of universal health care for all Americans. Hillary's plan does not provide health care as a right to all Americans. It provides a mandate that all Americans will have to buy health insurance, accompanied by subsidies, the amount of which Hillary refuses to specify, that will almost certainly leave working Americans paying insurance companies thousands of dollars they can't afford for insurance policies that will then add thousands of dollars in deductibles, co-pays and payment caps before they can even get the benefits of this insurance. In other words, Hillarycare 2.0 provides millions of new customers to the insurance industry, padding their bottom line, under which nearly .30 cents of every health insurance dollar goes to profits, administration, marketing, paper-shuffling and executive salaries.
Hillarycare uses a rhetorical trick, confusing universal "health care" with universal "health insurance." Universal "health care" makes equal access to health care a right for all Americans and is paid for out of a modest payroll tax on employers and employees and certain other revenues. By eliminating the 30% private insurance load factor, it would cost employers and employees less altogether than the current private system and provide comprehensive universal care to all Americans. There are already 90 Congressional co-sponsors for universal health care, embodied in House Resolution 676 introduced by Congressman John Conyers.
Universal health insurance, now adopted by Hillary Clinton as the cornerstone of her health proposals, is actually a plan developed over many years by Republicans to block support for universal health care. Health insurance is very different from health care. Health care provides for the needs of patients as determined between them and their doctors. Health insurance increases insurance company profits by finding ways of denying care and passing increased costs on to consumers through premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and limits on benefits.
So don't be confused when Hillary promises universal health insurance. It not the same as universal health care. It will pad insurance company profits, won't provide for everyone's health care needs, and unless Hillary is willing to garnish peoples wages or withhold people's tax returns to pay for their mandated health insurance premiums, it won't be universal either.
Be careful of prophets bearing false gifts. Hillary Clinton and her speechwriters may be able to bluff a lot of working class voters who are economically hurting into voting for her in the primaries. After throwing back boilermakers, bragging about her girlhood prowess with a gun, and being unable to figure out how a gas station coffee maker works, she may convince many that she's just another working girl. But her actual policy proposals are more likely to pad corporate bottom lines than better the lives of those at whom she lobs her populist campaign rhetoric.