Some have argued that only something as dramatic as a public option will truly deal with the nation’s health care “crisis,” but that’s hard to swallow considering the sizable Democratic opposition to the idea in the House and the newly crafted Senate package.
Think about that reasoning for a moment. Who opposes the public option? Not the American people. They consistently express support for a public option. In fact, the public option is significantly more popular than the overall effort to reform health care. It’s the insurance corporations that hate the public option, and they have a lot of money to spread around in support of or in opposition to our politicians. So, isn’t it possible (even likely) that the lack of support we’re seeing in Congress for a public option is not a result of Congress representing the wishes of their constituents but instead a result of politicians looking to be rewarded or avoid punishment by corporate interests?
I’ve actually come to believe that the avoidance of punishment is the most important feature of our political landscape. Most incumbents have plenty of money for their reelection campaigns. They don’t really need any more money. Bundled corporate donations and PAC money helps them spend less time on the telephone begging for money, but that’s not the biggest motivator. Most so-called moderates, or Blue Dogs, represent poor, rural districts, and there just isn’t that much money available to raise from their constituents. What they’re mainly worried about is preventing corporate interests from funding their opponents. If they can keep their local Chamber of Commerce happy, their opponents won’t be able to find enough local money to make a serious challenge. And if they can prevent national groups from pouring money into their challenger’s coffers, they’re pretty much home free in their reelection effort.
Members from more affluent suburban districts can rely on lots of donations from liberal-minded professionals and the academic community. Where labor unions are strong, they can rely on their money and muscle as well. But most Blue Dogs don’t have these luxuries. That’s why the most corporate-friendly Democrats come from the South. It took me a while to figure this out because the South was originally hostile to Wall Street and bankers and corporations. There was a whole Jefferson-Jackson element to the Democratic Party, which was populist. I still think southern populism is an electorally viable ideology for southern Democrats on the merits. But sometimes, merit has nothing to do with it. Why win an argument with an opponent when you can drown out his voice so he cannot even make his case?
Rothenberg argues that the Democrats won no mandate for health care reform with a public option, or cap and trade, or the Employee Free Choice Act. But how can you win a mandate if not by telling the voters what you want to do and having them elect you to office (presumably, to do it what you promised)?
I understand that voters don’t endorse every piece of your agenda when they elect you, and that sometimes they are voting against the other team as much as they are voting for you. But I don’t think the Democrats are running into trouble because they are pursuing their election year promises. They’re running into trouble because they aren’t passing enough legislation and it looks like they are incapable of addressing the problems the country is facing. This is the goal of Republican obstruction. What they can’t stop, they slow down. Voters continue to sour on Washington, with both parties suffering in approval ratings as a result.
The Democrats’ agenda isn’t too radical, it’s too ineffectual. Between the Republican’s stalling games and Democrats who put corporations first, the people’s business is not getting done.
Stu Rothenberg is an idiot. He’s just another Villager of good standing. Hell, even Kos thinks he’s an idiot.
Of course it’s not radical. But since Lieberman and Ben Nelson have now shown that they just don’t want health care reform in any form, I don’t know how any agenda is supposed to get through minus a change in senate rules.
Nelson and Lieberman are at least making the case for using budget reconciliation. You’d think they’d be happy to water the bill down. They appear intent on killing it. That won’t happen. They will use reconciliation if they have to.
I certainly hope so.
I also hope we’ll get a permanent modification of senate rules at some point. If that makes it easier for republicans to put their agenda through next time they’re in power, at least it’ll be, well, a little more democratic.
Why not finally call it what it is: bribery? The system is built on it, so it can’t be prosecuted. It can’t even be discussed as such because that would be “unAmerican” — admitting at last that the system is rapidly picking up speed in its circling around the drain.
You’re probably right about the threat of punishment, but that should work both ways. If we really had a liberal establishment in power, we’d be hearing way more noise about the insurancecos’ monopoly exemption, and investigations of their use of policyholder money for political propaganda. They are all government contractors, after all. Their right to lobby and bribe legislators is supposed to be limited. At the very least their Medicare/Medicaid/etc contracts should be voided.
But that would be some other country. Americans are in a peculiar position: what is needed is an all-out confrontation by Dems with the corrupt, corrupting corporations. That’s about the only thing that could turn our Titanic away from the iceberg. But to even contemplate such a thing veers dangerously close to madness in this environment. The chickens are coming home to roost from the very core of our guiding American beliefs, and we are reduced to helplessly watching them on the TV as they destroy us.
I agree that the red state Dems are out of line with their voters. This was covered on television. Baucus, Conrad, et al, get a disproportionate amount of the their funding from healthcare organizations who are against reform. Given their need to run their campaigns through the media because of the sparsely populated nature of their districts, they’re afraid to rankle one of the biggest contributers.
Another factor that I would add is the balkanized nature of federalism and the ability of special interests to stop legislation. It’s not a matter of being for or against something; corporate interests have the ability to stop political action by pressing the various pressure points of the political process. Legislation that’s designed to serve the broad public interest dies the death of a thousand cuts whereas legislation designed to serve special interests goes largely ignored and unopposed. There’s a gradient to political action that favors special interests and constricts reform aimed at serving the public’s general interest, and there’s an accumulation of this over time, which changes the status quo. I’d compare it to a cancer or the invasion of non-native weeds that gradually choke an eco-system.
The really maddening thing is that the cure is easy and relatively simple: take the money out of campaigning. It’s conceptually easy but politically impossible. What’s worse is that even the so-called left refuses to make real electoral reform its core issue, even though the current corrupt system is obviously the engine that drives most of our more immediate threats, from the military/corporate complex to the tax system to healthcare and the rest of the social safety net. We are so consumed just warding off daily assaults that we can’t focus on a real step toward health.
What really frustrates me, is that once our guys are in the minority they don’t do the same. They always try to affect the legislation rather than stopping it in its tracks.
That’s frustrating. Only Republicans can actually get things done, but the only things they do are bad. It’s enough to make one wish for empire.
What really frustrates me, is that once our guys are in the minority they don’t do the same. They always try to affect the legislation rather than stopping it in its tracks.
That’s frustrating. Only Republicans can actually get things done, but the only things they do are bad. It’s enough to make one wish for empire.