Over the Heads of Congress: For Obama to Get Healthcare/Energy, Push Must Now Come to Shove
Although the so-called debates over healthcare reform and energy have been less than enlightening, the actual work of Congress marking up bills and launching trial balloons on costs and payments, plus the assembly of shifting coalitions may be seen, retrospectively, to have been time and breath well-spent. These are, after all, complex issues, they will affect everyone, and the implications of various alternatives are worth airing.
One might have hoped that those who really knew what they were talking about had more air-time rather than the "pundits" who, in the area I know something about, healthcare, rarely have a clue about what it is they are pontificating.
But, there will be neither healthcare legislation nor an energy bill that will magically come together on its own.
On the first Earth Day, 20 million Americans left the comfort of their homes to rally for the planet. During the next election, the first "dirty-dozen" polluter-apologist members of Congress were targeted. Seven lost (and recall incumbency provides a 90%+ retention rate). The next year, because of the message sent, Congress passed the landmark environmental legislation: the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the law establishing the Environmental Protection Agency. All while Richard Nixon was President!
President Obama has much more clout than the ragtag groups that rallied people for Earth Day. Nor did they have the internet to reach and mobilize people. Obama has passion for the initiatives, a land army awaiting mobilization orders, and multi-media ways of reaching and organizing them.
He needs to use it.
To get healthcare and energy legislation passed, this is what the President needs to do, using healthcare as the example:
1. Determine what the key elements of the bill shall be. Clearly, he does that in consultation with the Members who have been leading the efforts in these areas, but he has to choose from among the competing alternatives what he wants in the bills.
2. Then, he has go on television multiple times, indicating the direct action people need to take. The key is not a long explanation of the details of the legislation. Those interested can read about it. Most importantly, are the exhortations to do specific things: go online to a website he establishes, call their Congressmen and Senators, and so on.
3. Ask the people to ask their Members a very simple question: Why should their constituents be paying for good healthcare for them, when they themselves, whose servant the member of Congress is, are denied such coverage?
4. Inform people about what David Plouffe is doing. Obama's 13 million person online army, mobilized for the Presidential campaign, needs to be mobilized. If, for legal reasons, it has to be a paid political announcement by the President to do this, so be it. If Plouffe can average $10 per person, he will have $130 million to put on ads, mobilize door-to-door, do what is necessary to show the Members of Congress that we are watching.
Finally, he needs to let his Democratic Congressmen and Senators know the hard cold truth: that their fate and his are inextricably intertwined. Allow him to be defeated on one of these major initiatives, and a repeat of 1994 may be at-hand.
This is not, as many have cast it, a question of nice guy and bipartisanship versus arm-twisting and partisan politics.
It is, like Earth Day itself, a matter of transcendence. Everyone who supported Obama knew, and many who opposed him also knew, that to break the hammerlock that the vested interests (aka the permanent political class) have on Washington DC the populace must be mobilized. If there were any evidence needed, just consider how many former staffers to Democratic members have been hired by the vested interests to lobby against Obama's initiatives, i.e., money talks, and the permanent political class is, in the end, the one truly bipartisan group around.
On health care, one need know just one fact: ~70% of the people want a public plan option, and are willing to pay higher taxes to get it. Yet, whether a public plan is in the bill remains highly uncertain. Only the interests of the permanent political class could be holding it up.
This President has the inspirational talent, the right issues, an army awaiting mobilization, the communications' tools to organize and activate--that is, if the President wants healthcare and energy legislation to happen, he can have it.
For Obama: push must now come to shove.
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Obama will get us our public option. Don't yawl worry 'bout it.
I noticed if he said it, he does it.
My My My Mr. President - you have pissed off much of your base!
Why Mr. President? Did you think that you had more leverage if you reached out to Republicans or that the nation would respect you more as a moderate?
Guess what Mr. President - IF you fail on health-care we are looking at Jimmy Carter part deux.
You NEED to figure out Mr. President whether you want to be known as a "bright and articulate", guy or if you want to be known for FIGHTING for the best interests of the PEOPLE.
You are NOT going to outsmart the political class in Washington DC. Your only hope is too outfight them.
Is that too strong for you Mr. President? Do you need a little more cream and sugar in that cup of coffee?
James:
All that you say is true. However, whatever P-BO does, he will, in fact, be Jimmy Carter part deux. He has already accomplished that with his apology tour and spending spree with Congress' aide. Higher taxes have been created, and more to come to pay for the boondoggles Obama envisions.
If YOUR taxes have gone up, it's because you're one of the rich who have benefited from the largest wealth redistributions in history thanks to the Bush regime, so don't be so greedy and help your poorer neighbors who got trampled your ex-best friends!
The President does need to step up on these issues. However, I and many others are no longer donating to OFA or the President because he is abandoning real solutions in order to appease Republicans.
The President's action (or inaction) on the health care issue is what more than anything else will show whether he is truly an advocate and activist for change or simply a Clintonesque "republican lite" politician. If it turns out he is the latter many people who voted for him will simply tune out of politics and likely sit the next election out thereby opening the field for yet another ideologically driven republican dumbell hack to enter the White House.
He is acting... he has held conference calls with those of us involved in Organizing for America and they have launched grass-roots efforts to inform the public and pressure legislators. Go to http://my.
he's not backing down on the public option
McCain would have sold that out day one.
Bill Moyers on the permanent political class:
"In other words, before you can cross the threshold in Washington to reach "the select few who will actually get it done," you must first cross the palm of some outstretched hand. [That is] why there is such a great disconnect between democracy and government today, between Washington and the rest of the country.
According to one poll after another, a majority of Americans not only want a public option in health care, they also think that growing inequality is bad for the country, that corporations have too much power over policy, that money in politics is the root of all evil, and that working families and poor communities need and deserve public support when the market fails to generate shared prosperity.
But when the insiders in Washington finish tearing worthy intentions apart and devouring flesh from bone, none of these reforms happen. Oh, they say, "it's all about compromise, all in the nature of the give-and-take of representative democracy.
That, people, is bull — the basic nutrient of Washington's high and mighty.
It's not about compromise. It's not about what the public wants. It's about money, the golden ticket to "the select few who actually get it done." And nothing will change. Nothing. Until the money-lenders are tossed out of the temple, and we tear down the sign they've placed on government — the one that reads: "For sale.""
Ready to tear down that sign?
I want to know why Congress and the POTUS are exemp from having to use this health care plan.
If it is good enough for us why is it not good enough for them?
Because, that is why! Congress has a bad habit of exempting themselves from the laws and regulations they impose on us, their "subjects".
Thomas Jefferson said: "Where people fear their government there is tyranny. Where the government fears the people, there is liberty."
We would be wise to learn and adhere to that philsophy. Too many beleve the government is the solution to their problems, when, in many cases, government is the cause.
if obama and the demos don't deliver on a health care public option then my support for his administration and any other democrat who held things up will be over. I say any democrat that doesn't fight for a public option be openly campaigned against.
Give us a health care public option or it'll be ONE AND DONE OBAMA.
and i have NEVER voted for anyone other than a democrat. MY vote wil lgo only to the green party....b
That Pres Obama has not mobilized his supporters in the manner that he mobilized them during the campaign tells me he really doesn't care as much about change as we thought he was. He seems much more interested in having a legacy as the Most Popular President than in having one as the Most Likely to Succeed President.
Excellent points Paul. What seems to be missing is Obama's will to wield that big stick we provided him with. There are enough of us out here to easily fund an effective advertising campaign.
Trouble is, Obama has not demonstrated a willingness to fight for the big stuff. He has, however, criticized progressives for attacking "centrist" Democrats.
Not an encouraging sign.
"New politics" is an utter farce. It may have been a good campaign slogan, but it is a completely ineffective way of governing.
The Administration will pick fights with his base but not stand up and fight the conservative movement head on.
So what we end up with is like the stimulus package. Watered-down, ineffective legislation that conservatives vote against anyway.
FDR, a four-term President, said "I welcome their hatred". He wasn't afraid to stand up and fight the conservative movement of the day.
If the President wants health care reform he's going to have to fight for it. I believe he has the courage and the skill. But does he have the willingness or the false belief that coming together is more important that getting the right policy through Congress.
Unfortunately, we also have the weakest Senate Majority leader in all of our lifetimes.
If any health care reform gets through the Senate that doesn't require us to buy crappy private insurance under penalty of taxation if we don't it will be a miracle.
"New politics" just doesn't work as a governing strategy.
the plan can be funded with tax revenues now lost due to money being squirreled away in swiss bank accounts
huffpost editors
move this column to center stage
WITH A BIG HEADER
Obama does not and has never supported the kind of healthcare that the American public desire. Obama has been acting as a broker rather than a statesman with a vision. He claims to have these lofty ideals which he leaves at the first sign of pressure. Obama, the community organizer and Obama, the President of the USA are two completely different individuals. YES HE CAN force the Dems into submission to push through legislation that he hinted at during his campaign (even though it isn't the best option) but he will not because of his affiliations to the very groups who have caused so much pain and suffering to the American people.
What America needs to do is wake up from their slumber and abandon both these parties and exercise REAL democracy. Only then will these leaders realize that they have to obey the voters and not their financiers!
I would suggest:
5. Start prosecuting Bush administration officials for corruption, lying to Congress, obstruction of justice and war crimes.
It may seem unconnected, but without that, they can forget number 4.
A little info on Obama's health care plan. While there check out the other interesting items.
Health Care: http://www
OK Truth you punked me and anyone who followed your link. This is a thinking crowd trying to have a serious conversation and you post that?!? Ihope this is some attemt at very weak humor but I think you thought you were making a point.
your screen name is incorrect, it should be "liesNPolitics"
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