Obama has institutionalized Bush rather than rolling him back

[Karmadillo]

http://www.ianwelsh.net/when-medicare-is-destroyed-is-only-a-matter-of-when/

When Medicare is destroyed is only a matter of when
2011 April 514 Comments
by Ian Welsh
.
Folks, this won’t pass this year, but a version of it will pass:

That plan would transform Medicare from a government insurance program to one in which seniors would chose from private, federally subsidized coverage. Americans 55 and older would stay in the current system.

Remember, Obama’s health care reform was essentially the Republican plan from the 90s. The Republicans, whom everyone was sneering at for running crazies, have put in place a team of hard right ideologues, who have moved DC significantly to the right even of where it was. AT some pointe they will pass this, because they want it badly, and the Democrats have no alternative vision other than “right wing, but not as right wing”, which goes nowhere.

I’ve said this before: get out. If you can’t get out, get your kids out. This is not going to end well. Obama has institutionalized Bush rather than rolling him back, and in some areas, such as civil liberties and unilateral Presidential war powers, has actually moved further to the right than Bush was. It is not impossible that this will get better in the next couple decades (as 5 year old Ian once argued, almost nothing is impossible), but it is unlikely. Americans spent the last 35 years spending their retirement, their children’s retirement and running infrastructure and capital into the ground, and they were good with that. Every effort to repeal Prop 13, for example, failed miserably. America is the culture of the free lunch, what Americans don’t realize is that they’re the free lunch.

That doesn’t mean the US couldn’t fix its problems, in theory, but the point is that socially and politically, the US does not want to fix its problems. It wants to continue to make them worse. Yes, a majority of Americans may prefer different policies on some issues, but they aren’t willing to MAKE it happen or to actually pay for it (see Prop 13 above). They aren’t willing to die for it, and at this point, that’s what it would take because your elites see no reason not take everything you have and turn you into slaves in all but name. You will be debt slaves, who own almost nothing, not your house, not your phone, not your car, not your books. Anything which can be rented to you, rather than than sold, will be.

more...

[Avant Guardian]

1. I just hope he doesnt reach another 'agreement' with the republicans

...and give us a budget that, 'contains every republican idea'. republican 'ideas' wreck everything they touch.

[ThomCat]

6. Obama clearly LIKES republican ideas.

The only thing he likes about the left is Kicking the left. He doesn't seem to like supporting ideas from the left nearly as often as he likes supporting ideas from the right.

His average hasn't been good for supporting ideas from the right vs left.

If the best way to predict someone's future actions is to look at past actions, then don't expect Obama's actions to be very promising. :(

[sad sally]

15. Too bad he couldn't learn from his hero Reagan and raise taxes.

Professor DOUGLAS BRINKLEY (Rice University): Ronald Reagan was never afraid to raise taxes. He knew that it was necessary at times. And so there's a false mythology out there about Reagan as this conservative president who came in and just cut taxes and trimmed federal spending in a dramatic way. It didn't happen that way. It's false.

HORSLEY: Reagan's budget director, David Stockman, explains the 1981 tax cut blew a much bigger hole in the federal budget than expected. So over the next few years, Reagan agreed to raise taxes again and again, ultimately undoing about half the savings of the '81 cut.

Mr. DAVID STOCKMAN (Former Director, Office Management and Budget): He wasn't very happy about it. He did it reluctantly. But at the end of the day, the math was overwhelming.

FLINTOFF: That's because Reagan was never able to match his 1981 tax cuts with a comparable cut in federal spending. A modest reduction in domestic spending was dwarfed by Reagan's big buildup in the Pentagon budget. And, Stockman says, Reagan never made a serious effort to challenge middle class entitlement programs, after an early proposal to curtail Social Security benefits was shot down.

Mr. STOCKMAN: The White House and President Reagan himself retreated within three days when it became clear the enormous political resistance that would occur if you were going to cut entitlements.

FLINTOFF: And without big spending cuts, Reagan faced a choice between raising taxes and an even bigger federal debt. He chose the tax hikes. Today the federal debt's bigger than ever, and policymakers are again staring at painful choices. President Obama's fiscal commission says both deep spending cuts and tax increases will be needed to bring the budget under control. But ever since Reagan, presidents who've tried to raise taxes are confronted with the myth of their tax-cutting predecessor.

http://www.npr.org/2011/02/04/133489113/Reagan-Legacy-Clouds-Tax-Record?du

[Enthusiast]

12. But how else will he avoid a shut down?!

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[FiveGoodMen]

2. ...so consistently that it has to have been the plan all along.

[enough]

3. That's a good way of putting it. By not working to roll back the worst of the Bush years,

Obama has essentially ratified it, and as you say "institutionalized" it.

[JackRiddler]

4. That's as good a way of phrasing it as I've seen. Thanks.

[ProSense]

5. "Remember, Obama’s health care reform was essentially the Republican plan from the 90s. "

Utter bullshit.

California and Vermont find more merit than a public option in the health care bill, and the teabaggers are in for a surprise.

[NYC Liberal]

7. Obama is a right-wing nutjob, worse than Bush. nt

[ixion]

8. Spot on. k/r

:applause:

[slipslidingaway]

9. CBO scored the Rivlin/Ryan plan back in November ...

at least that is how the CBO worded the ananlysis.

Today's article says that the plan Ryan has propsed is not exactly her plan, she would keep Medicare as an option, not sure what that would do to Medicare - see second link below.


http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/119xx/doc11966/11-17-Rivlin-Ryan_Preliminary_Analysis.pdf

"November 17, 2010
Honorable Paul D. Ryan
Ranking Member
Committee on the Budget
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Congressman:

The attachment to this letter responds to your request for analysis of the proposal
that you and Alice Rivlin have put forward to substantially change federal
payments under the Medicare and Medicaid programs. CBO has conducted a
preliminary analysis of the major provisions of that proposal, the results of which
are summarized in the attachment.

...Congressman Ryan and his staff recently provided specifications for a proposal that would
substantially change federal payments under the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Although an
extensive analysis of that proposal is not feasible in the time available, CBO has conducted a
preliminary analysis of its major provisions—the results of which are summarized here.

Key Features of the Proposal

MEDICARE

People who turn 65 in 2021 or later years would not enroll in the current Medicare program
but instead would receive a voucher with which to purchase private health insurance.
Although the voucher system would not be implemented until 2021, the amount of the
voucher would be calculated by taking the average federal cost per Medicare enrollee in 2012
(net of enrollee premiums) and growing that amount at the annual rate of growth in GDP per
capita plus one percentage point.

While the voucher program is being phased in, the voucher amount would be adjusted
downward to reflect the fact that eligible individuals would be younger and less
costly than the average Medicare enrollee..."


Paul Ryan oversells plan's bipartisanship
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/52622_Page2.html

"...Rivilin said that she had taken an interest in Ryan’s original economic roadmap where he had included an outline of a premium support plan, which was the starting point for the talks between the pair on the Bowles-Simpson debt panel. They served as co-chairs of the health care task force where they together drafted a “skeletal” framework for a premium support plan, in which beneficiaries could choose their plans over an exchange.

In the plan Rivlin advocates, she said seniors would have the choice between keeping their current form of Medicare or choosing to enter the pool. In Ryan’s version, he did not keep the beneficiaries with the choice to keep what Rivlin called the “default option.”

“I prefer keeping the old version as a choice,” Rivlin said.

...Rivlin said the two are still talking about Medicare reform and that she would be “delighted” to work further with him.

“The important thing to realize about the Ryan budget is that it’s an open bid in a negotiations,” Rivlin said.

[Karmadillo]

11. The "default" option. These guys are just terrible. I wish we could have just four years of

the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party in charge to see if it's possible to salvage our decline.

[slipslidingaway]

14. Wish we could have four years as well :) n/t

[unkachuck]

10. K&R....n/t

[Keith Bee]

13. Goddammit!

Reading the title, I thought Dubya had finally been sent to the funny farm! :grr: