The End of Obama's Presidency?
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Tuesday's election represented an effective end to Obama's Presidency. When it comes to passing any major legislation the he campaigned on, that ship has now sailed. It's not just losing the 60th vote that makes things tactically difficult, it's the psychological defeat that will, and in fact already is, prove to be the undoing of a party that's full of nervous bed-wetters even in the best of times. At this point, if a President as radioactive as Obama supports something, the majority in Congress will oppose it.
Controversial and arguably counterproductive measures like comprehensive immigration reform and cap and trade were DOA long before anyone heard of Scott Brown, but a stake has officially been driven into the heart of health care reform at this point too and any efforts to funnel desperately needed government money into jobs programs will be obstructed by the chuckleheaded descendants-of-Hoover worried about the deficit in the middle of a depression. Had these people gotten their way on TARP, the auto bailout, and the stimulus, we'd be looking at 25% unemployment and a $5.4 trillion deficit this year rather than 10% unemployment and a $1.4 trillion deficit, but you can't reason with crazy.
It's also amazing to listen to teabaggers and naive "moderates" whipped up into a frenzy over anti-health care reform propaganda cheer on the prospect that we can now "start over" with health care reform. THIS IS IT, FOLKS! This was our only shot at health care reform in the next generation....and you blew it. Public gullibility fueled by right-wing hacks and insurance industry barons turned once-promising reform legislation into a pale shadow of its former self and has now officially doomed it.
Presidents and Congresses for 60 years have been trying to reform our increasingly dysfunctional health care system and everyone has failed because of the complexity of the issue and the fact some front-end sacrifice is needed from the health care haves in order to help the health care have-nots be able to live. We don't do "sacrifice" in America, and the very possibility of it is enough to derail any health care reform plan worth having by turning the majority of the public against it. We guess what, you Scott Brown-supporting geniuses. There ain't gonna be another one. The magic elixir health care reform legislation that lowers premiums, costs nothing to implement, and requires no sacrifice does not exist and it'll be another generation before the next naive President and Congress are willing to destroy themselves by trying. Bottom line: we're stuck with the worst-run health care system in the world for many years to come, and sure as the sun rises in the east, said system will continue to get worse and worse and worse with each passing year.
Angry rants aside, the political reality is that this is where the country is at. They demand improved health care but think it should be free. They want the government to focus exclusively on the economy but won't accept a rising deficit to get there. They insist we need to create "jobs, jobs, jobs" and that we need to do it by running budget surpluses, voting down auto bailouts, and opposing economic stimulus plans. But as toxic as the political environment was on January 18, it became that much worse on January 19.
The only reason 1994 wasn't even more devastating for Democrats is that they mostly held their ground in the northeast. Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts means Republicans are winning places in 2010 that were out of their reach even in 1994. With that in mind, my long-standing prediction that Republicans would win 70 House seats and eight Senate seats now seems too timid. Right now, I'm looking at GOP gains of nearly 100 House seats and 11-12 Senate seats. Knowing that this is coming, Obama can be officially certified a lame-duck President 10 months before even Clinton's Presidency was effectively ended in November 1994. Like Clinton before him, Obama's only prospects of bouncing back is to govern like a lame duck and merely looking less crazy to voters than Mitch McConnell and John Boehner will when they attempt to ram through $3 trillion tax cuts (not a hypothetical....the GOP minority actually tried this in February 2009). Any chance of governing on the offense and passing legislation that could conceivably reverse this country's decline has passed.
Controversial and arguably counterproductive measures like comprehensive immigration reform and cap and trade were DOA long before anyone heard of Scott Brown, but a stake has officially been driven into the heart of health care reform at this point too and any efforts to funnel desperately needed government money into jobs programs will be obstructed by the chuckleheaded descendants-of-Hoover worried about the deficit in the middle of a depression. Had these people gotten their way on TARP, the auto bailout, and the stimulus, we'd be looking at 25% unemployment and a $5.4 trillion deficit this year rather than 10% unemployment and a $1.4 trillion deficit, but you can't reason with crazy.
It's also amazing to listen to teabaggers and naive "moderates" whipped up into a frenzy over anti-health care reform propaganda cheer on the prospect that we can now "start over" with health care reform. THIS IS IT, FOLKS! This was our only shot at health care reform in the next generation....and you blew it. Public gullibility fueled by right-wing hacks and insurance industry barons turned once-promising reform legislation into a pale shadow of its former self and has now officially doomed it.
Presidents and Congresses for 60 years have been trying to reform our increasingly dysfunctional health care system and everyone has failed because of the complexity of the issue and the fact some front-end sacrifice is needed from the health care haves in order to help the health care have-nots be able to live. We don't do "sacrifice" in America, and the very possibility of it is enough to derail any health care reform plan worth having by turning the majority of the public against it. We guess what, you Scott Brown-supporting geniuses. There ain't gonna be another one. The magic elixir health care reform legislation that lowers premiums, costs nothing to implement, and requires no sacrifice does not exist and it'll be another generation before the next naive President and Congress are willing to destroy themselves by trying. Bottom line: we're stuck with the worst-run health care system in the world for many years to come, and sure as the sun rises in the east, said system will continue to get worse and worse and worse with each passing year.
Angry rants aside, the political reality is that this is where the country is at. They demand improved health care but think it should be free. They want the government to focus exclusively on the economy but won't accept a rising deficit to get there. They insist we need to create "jobs, jobs, jobs" and that we need to do it by running budget surpluses, voting down auto bailouts, and opposing economic stimulus plans. But as toxic as the political environment was on January 18, it became that much worse on January 19.
The only reason 1994 wasn't even more devastating for Democrats is that they mostly held their ground in the northeast. Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts means Republicans are winning places in 2010 that were out of their reach even in 1994. With that in mind, my long-standing prediction that Republicans would win 70 House seats and eight Senate seats now seems too timid. Right now, I'm looking at GOP gains of nearly 100 House seats and 11-12 Senate seats. Knowing that this is coming, Obama can be officially certified a lame-duck President 10 months before even Clinton's Presidency was effectively ended in November 1994. Like Clinton before him, Obama's only prospects of bouncing back is to govern like a lame duck and merely looking less crazy to voters than Mitch McConnell and John Boehner will when they attempt to ram through $3 trillion tax cuts (not a hypothetical....the GOP minority actually tried this in February 2009). Any chance of governing on the offense and passing legislation that could conceivably reverse this country's decline has passed.
posted by Mark at 9:24 AM
1 Comments:
I think Barack Obama should simply resign the Presidency within the next few weeks. The deal was that we would elect him and he would pass healthcare reform. Now that he is blown that, he needs to make the right decision and step down. He does not have the brains or the political skill for this job. He needs to ride off into the sunset.
Post a Comment
<< Home