Read Robert Reich on healthcare reform

I simply adore Robert Reich - well, Mr. Maven comes in ahead of him hands down in other ways, but still… Reich is able to call ‘em as he sees ‘em.

That’s a quality all too rare in this day and age of political correctness and ideological posturing.

FYI: Read my post on just what a reconciliation vote is.

Read on:

 It’s Time To Enact Health Care With 51 Senate Votes

Sunday, February 21, 2010

This week the President is hosting a bipartisan gab-fest at the White House to try to tease out some Republican votes for health care. It’s a total waste of time. If Obama thinks he’s going to get a single Republican vote at this stage of the game, he’s fooling himself (or the American people). Many months ago, you may recall, the White House and Dem leaders in the Senate threatened to pass health care with 51 votes – using a process called “reconciliation” that allows tax and spending bills to be enacted without filibuster – unless Republicans came on board. It’s time to pull the trigger.

Why haven’t the President and Senate Dems pulled the reconciliation trigger before now? I haven’t spoken directly with the President or with Harry Reid but I’ve spent the last several weeks sounding out contacts on the Hill and in the White House to find an answer. Here are the theories. None of them justifies waiting any longer.

1.    Reconciliation is too extreme a measure to use on a piece of legislation so important. I hear this a lot but it’s bunk.

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Obama needs a lesson in Foghorn-style Ass Whuppin'

As a fan of economist, Paul Krugman, I get his blog posts on my Kindle, and lately he’s been referring back to some posts earlier this year (which I read), wherein he suggested more aggressive economic policies to remedy the financial crisis we’d found ourselves in. He wasn’t alone in this.

On a different tack, I’ve heard the same thing about healthcare reform. Please, Mr. President … bipartisanship is a hopeless dream. Be aggressive and shoot for the moon. But, this is ‘No drama, Obama’ we’re talking about, and it could foretell the trap he may find himself in after it’s too late to get out.

It’s the soft, soft, softly incremental approach that the more progressive Dems have been bitching about. They seemed to complain unfairly about the slowness of Obama’s approach, but I think what they were really touching on was this apparent timidity.

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Should be on your nightstand: "Supercapitalism - The Transformation of Business, Deocracy, and Everyday Life" by Robert B. Reich

“Reich documents in lurid detail the explosive growth of corporate lobbying expenditures and campaign contributions since the 1970s … Supercapitalism is a grand debunking of the conventional wisdom in the style of John Kenneth Galbraith.” - The New York Times

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