NYT via HuffPo: Obama's Deliberate Effort To End What Historians Call "The Age Of Reagan"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

I had to include the link / content from the HuffPo home page just because it looks so...damn...GOOD.

:patriot:

WE'VE MOVED ON

NY Times: 'Obama's Deliberate Effort To End What Historians Call The Age Of Reagan'

In Health Care Bill, Obama Attacks Wealth Inequality
By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: March 23, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/business/24leonhardt.html?hp

For all the political and economic uncertainties about health reform, at least one thing seems clear: The bill that President Obama signed on Tuesday is the federal government’s biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago.

Over most of that period, government policy and market forces have been moving in the same direction, both increasing inequality. The pretax incomes of the wealthy have soared since the late 1970s, while their tax rates have fallen more than rates for the middle class and poor.

Nearly every major aspect of the health bill pushes in the other direction. This fact helps explain why Mr. Obama was willing to spend so much political capital on the issue, even though it did not appear to be his top priority as a presidential candidate. Beyond the health reform’s effect on the medical system, it is the centerpiece of his deliberate effort to end what historians have called the age of Reagan.

Speaking to an ebullient audience of Democratic legislators and White House aides at the bill-signing ceremony on Tuesday, Mr. Obama claimed that health reform would “mark a new season in America.” He added, “We have now just enshrined, as soon as I sign this bill, the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health care.”

[dionysus]

1. k&r

:patriot:

[Fumesucker]

2. An obligation to purchase health insurance does not imply a right to health care..

[NJmaverick]

6. Do you honestly believe repeating this enough times will some how make it true?

[joeybee12]

9. Do you honestly believe that he/she isn't right?

Crap is crap, no matter who signs it into law.

[Jakes Progress]

11. Honest isn't involved.

Some posters here just refuse to vary from the party line. One of the best things DU can do is tell truth to power. Power has its minions though who snark it down.

[NJmaverick]

14. I have often wondered how the superior ideology could be the distinct

and often powerless minority. Then I am reminded as to why things are the way they are.

[Jakes Progress]

21. Your definition of "superior" needs tweaking.

But your ego is just fine.

[MajorChode]

12. I honestly believe that he/she simply tried to pass off a fallacy for reason

The statement was fallacious for a number of reasons. First it assumes that all this bill does is to obligate people to purchase healthcare. Anyone who tries to pass that off as honesty is either woefully uninformed at best or intentionally misleading at worst. Next, it assumes that complicated issues can be broken down into their simplest form and still make sense. This was the classic dishonesty of Raygun. He was able to convince a large number of people that complicated issues can be solved with overly simple solutions. This is how "trickle down" Raygunomics was born. It had no basis in real economics, but it shows that if you present a solution that's so simple even stupid people can understand it, that solution will take hold no matter how wrong it is and those wrong ideas will persist for decades even after being proved wrong.

The healthcare problem in America is multifaceted problem and the solution singed by Obama is a multifaceted answer to that problem. It may not be the best answer, but it is a solid foundation which can be used to build even better solutions. To say or allege this bill doesn't help a very large number of people because someone didn't get what they personally wanted I believe is either pretty dishonest or it just expresses some of the same selfish greedy attitude that can be commonly found on the political right.

I'm not a Democrat because of what I think my party can do for me personally. I'm a Democrat because of what I think my party can do for America as a whole. I believe this is the primary difference that separates Democrats from Republicans, but apparently this attitude does not apply universally to all Democrats.

[NJmaverick]

16. WOW!

:wow:

:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

[Fumesucker]

31. Canada's health care bill is fourteen pages and seems to work just fine..

And it's written in two languages, English and French, so in reality it is but seven pages.

But then it's not based on an obligation to purchase private insurance.

[MajorChode]

32. I'm not sure how the length of the bill is relevant unless you subscribe to Boehner's bullshit

Each province in Canada has it's own rules and regulations which take up considerably more room on the register, so it's a bit longer than you'd have someone believe.

Unless you have none or very little income, you're also obligated to pay for health care through either payroll taxes, premiums, or both depending on what province you live. Unlike the US(despite what Boehner would have you believe), those obligations ARE enforced by rule of law and possible jail time.

[Fumesucker]

33. States have rules and regulations also, just like provinces.

People in the US are obligated to pay taxes enforced by rule of law too, they just don't get health care as part of the deal..

Being obligated to purchase health insurance does not necessarily imply having access to health care, I know it upsets some people to hear that but it is the truth.

[MajorChode]

35. I doubt that it upsets too many people any more than any other nonsense would

Just because a statement might be technically correct, does not mean it isn't misleading and isn't nonsense. If I want to hear irrelevant nonsense, I can tune into the Beck show and hear plenty of it. I tend not to get upset by it and instead find it a bit humorous that some actually believe such babble.

Canadians had their taxes increased when their national health care system was created, so they are NOT getting health care for free even if they live in a province that doesn't charge premiums directly. Other than Medicare, people in the US do not pay taxes that are specifically earmarked for their health care. Implying otherwise is uninformed at best and deliberately dishonest at worst.

[eridani]

37. They get health care that is free at the point of service

I'd love to pay more taxes to get that. I despise having mass murderers as intermediaries between me and my docotr.

[MajorChode]

39. I'd love to have a lot of things

I think France's system and a few others are superior to even Canada's system, much less what the US has. However the question that was asked regarded the honesty of another members post regarding what we do now have and I provided an answer. Now we can certainly opine all we want over what other countries have or what we could have had. I'm not sure how much good it does. Those countries aren't saddled with a high percentage of their electorate who are morans willing to vote against their own best interest, let alone the interest of their country.

[eridani]

40. Actually, Canada's single payer is more doable than France or the Netherlands IMO

Those countries directly dictate provider prices and so are actually cheaper per capita than Canada, which is more expensive precisely because providers have more negotiating power. Two political things: after 50 years, 59% of providers favor single payer, and I'd bet they'd prefer more negotiating power like in Canada. Secondly, it is far easier to dictate costs in a smaller county that has very little regional variation in costs.

As for political possibilities--slightly less than HALF of the PA sponsors of single payer are REPUBLICANS! I'm convinced this is our real model--CA passed single payer three times but on mostly partisan lines.

[MajorChode]

41. The thing I like about France's system is choice

Now perhaps Canada's system fits Canada better, but you're talking about a country with roughly the same area as the US with only the population of Texas so obviously the challenges they face are different. I don't think America is going to accept any system that doesn't offer a lot of choice and given that we are rapidly turning into a country of the have and have nots, the haves are never going to be satisfied with only what is available to the have nots. For that reason I think France's model has a bit more chance of success. But again, as I said, all of this is academic because politically any program that even can be wildly construed as being socialistic is doomed to fail before it begins. Morans like Beck are already bringing up the ghost of Stalin even though this bill has no government component that doesn't already exist.

[eridani]

48. The choices are all identical, though

At least for basic comprehensive policies. The add-ons are no different from those available to Canadians, who have to have them for drug coverage.

If we refuse to defend public goods just because some Repuke is going to holler socialist, we may as well just leave the country.

[Fruittree]

47. I also believe it was implemented incrementally...

I'm not an expert but didn't it start in one province then spread from there?

[HuckleB]

44. +1

[NJmaverick]

17. crap is crap is certainly a classic over simplification of an very complex problem

[mdmc]

26. Uh, it IS true

at least for me (fully insured and lacking access to affordable medical treatment)

[eridani]

36. Tell it to the Sarkisians.

Fuck the mass murdering SOBs.

[Fruittree]

46. Even with single payer

which I support, you still have to pay and honestly for most people as long as the bills get paid they don't care who does the paying.

[Lost4words]

3. move him to the stupid ideas pile next to milton friedman.

[eppur_se_muova]

15. better yet (***IRONY ALERT***) the "ash heap of history". nt

[calimary]

20. And immediately if not sooner!

It will warm my heart for the rest of my life to see that abomination of reaganomics turned out on its ass. One of the most damaging movements in this country - for such a long time, and on so many levels. It glorified greed, stingey-ness, selfishness, AND stupidity - among those who embraced it and were proud of being ill-informed. And of course many of them fell back on the increasingly validated religious default - "God is on OUR side." When you have that mixture, you have no ability to communicate, reach across party lines, or even making an attempt to understand the other side. Why should you have to accommodate somebody else's view when YOU have God on YOUR side? Because if God is supposedly on YOUR side, then you can make the claim that it's the opposite of God who's on the side of your own opposition. reagan managed to combine the nut-cases of all stripes together into a critical mass of nightmares for this country. It's been AWFUL. So much of what we fought for - for civil rights, for women's rights, for workers' rights, they hated and attacked, and reagan gave them cover, motivation, and validation. And his policies HURT A LOT OF PEOPLE. He HURT people. He initiated a world of hurt, AND hate, and even carnage and death. WHOLESALE sin against The Beatitudes - one of the key teachings of the Christ he relentlessly wrapped himself around.

reagan was in this respect The ALLTIME WORST president we've ever had, in terms of what he started, and to what and to whom he gave legitimacy. reagan is the FATHER of ALL of this shit, and ALL of these shitty domestic terrorists and domestic terrorism we're facing now.

It all got validation AND plenty of power boosts and other vitamin supplements, under reagan. He put it on the map and gave it rocket fuel. His era and what he did CAN'T COME TO AN END SOON ENOUGH!!!!! The day the reagan tyranny is completely reversed and rolled back is the day America's collective soul will finally be saved.

[eppur_se_muova]

22. seen these books?

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1568584105?&PID=32317
http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=141659762X

More people are waking up ...

[calimary]

24. And Thank GOD for that! Thom Hartmann's on about this all the time, too.

He's made a big case, for a long time, about how damaging reaganomics and the whole reagan approach has been to America, both short-term AND long-term.

[frazzled]

4. I was dumbstruck when I picked up the paper this morning with my coffee

That article, written by Business section writer David Leonhardt, was on the front page of this morning's Times. Why didn't they publish this earlier?

(Today's Time's also has the best examples of what this bill means to different hypothetical people I've seen to date--a full page graphic of what will happen to people in different income ranges, employment (or nonemployment) situations, with dependents or no dependents, work or private insurance, etc.

[Gman2]

5. Im clairvoyant

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Gman2/46

[NJmaverick]

7. That is what CHANGE is all about

:applause:

[Enrique]

8. I love the Huffington Post

this is a great article a lot of people will be talking about.

And I predict Huff Post will also run several articles challenging this one from the left. And there won't be anything wrong with that. Nothing for even the most ardent Obama supporters to hate.

[smoogatz]

10. This is a big fucking deal.

If Obama manages to even partially drive a stake through the greasy, selfish heart of Reaganism, he'll go down in history as a great progressive president.

[Romulox]

13. This fusion of government and multinational corps (ala HCR) is the natural evolution of Reaganism

A natural triangulation between Reaganism and Clinton's already compromised brand of "New" politics.

[glitch]

25. Indeed.

Screwy, ain't it?

[kenny blankenship]

50. It's where they go when they are out of gas and can't "make money the old fashioned way"

and of course it's where they go because they can. So why not? Sure it goes against the religion of free markets that they promoted for the last 30 years but then they never believed that crap, they just needed us to. Now they can do what they want, including contradict their own dogmas. They have chased all other people-based forces out of politics through their markets uber alles bullshit and bribery and so they can now create "privatized taxes" or "corporate tithing" or whatever you want to call it. Both political parties will enforce corporate rent-seeking schemes with their legislative programs.

They may be exhausted and unable to produce growth through the traditional ways of developing new products and markets, but they can squeeze us for every last cent through "partnership with a friendly government."

[high density]

18. Bottom up growth

I don't think he's forgotten about that. But congress certainly doesn't like the idea at all.

[eShirl]

19. FOR THIS ALONE O'Bama will be remembered as one of our greatest presidents.

End of the Age of Reagan

[JHB]

23. Which historians call it "the age of Reagan"?

Sure, there was the guy who wrote a book with that title, and doubtless members of his fan club, but among historians, how many actually use that term? I'm thinking that's not excatly a common term...

[Orsino]

27. Reagan only dreamed of this age.

He thought he could raid the middle class forever, with no affect on the nation's prosperity.

[Berry Cool]

28. Woo hoo hoo!!!!

And the beauty of it is...he's using some of the tools of Reagan to undo the evils of Reagan. Brilliant.

K&R

[LWolf]

29. Yet, Obama reminds me more of Reagan than any president since. nt

[Radical Activist]

30. He's a transformative President like Reagan was

but he's taking the country in a completely different direction. I guess the people who still don't understand what Obama was saying probably never will.

[ipaint]

34. Spin. nt

[amborin]

38. it is spin! Leonhardt is from the Biz section and has written his share

of off the wall articles

also: curious how suddenly the ny times is such a great source for so many here, who previously bashed it :eyes:

[Hekate]

42. Kick and Rec. Must read later. I knew that's why he said what he said about Reagan...

Candidate Obama didn't mean he admired what Reagan did, he wanted to emulate the fact that Reagan made great changes. :thumbsup:

Hekate

[FrenchieCat]

43. More...

[depakid]

45. Up is down- black is white and there's a sucker born every minute

Though sometimes, certain takes will still astonish.

[Jakes Progress]

49. Up is down if our guy says it is. Winning is all that matters.

And by that I mean winning little skirmishes. The war is going badly, but we stop fighting because we just captured the town dump back from the Corporatists. Yeah. Victory. Let's have a party and all go home.

Some people have been slapped in the face so often that they don't feel it anymore. I think they would miss it.