Obama governs: DC or Chgo?
December 26, 2009, 11:20 am
Posted by Margaret O'Brien Steinfels
Adam Nagourney has this analysis of Obama and the Left-wing of the Democratic party in the Times (December 26). In reading it, I was reminded of all the reasons I voted for Obama, and yet I am not surprised by the way he is governing. Nagourney’s take is inside DC politics; but there is something very Chicago about Obama’s manner of governing. Is there any way to govern the U.S. except from the middle? Analysis here:
Is that what the Catholic Hospital Association and the nuns’ Leadership Conference of Women Religious were thinking when they expressed support for the Senate bill. “Just days before the bill passed, the Catholic Health Association, which represents hundreds of Catholic hospitals across the country, said in a statement that it was “encouraged” and “increasingly confident” that such a compromise “can achieve the objective of no federal funding for abortion.”’
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/26/health/policy/26abort.html?_r=1&hp
No Republicans and no bishops supported the bill. Does that tell us someething?
I understand Obama’s support of the bill. It really is historic and a beginning. It might even be irresponsible not to support it since the more ideal legislation probably would not happen this year.
The link seems to be broken.
Link fixed.
Thanks Mollie.
This may be the best bill to be had at this time, with this Senate. However, I think along with people who really know, Paul Starr, that a lot of remedial work will be needed and probably pretty quickly. The mandate without cost controls look like a looming disaster unless there’s something I’ve missed and well may have.
Quick question: if the divide continues, will there be a real move to change the 60 vote rule in thje Senate?
(Forget about reconciliation.)
There is such a minimal center today and so much vitriol (as also per NYT) that governing therefrom is the trickiest course possible.
Anyone have a full explanation of how we got to the unconstitutional 60-vote “rule.” I have a vague memory of someone telling me the Senate voted to do it, though obviously it is not constitutional and not democratic. Anyone?
I suppose the obvious way to break it is to have an interlude when the Senate is paralyzed by Republican efforts to fillibuster and to fail at it. But not sure the Dems can afford to let that happen.
However, you slice it this will be humongous victory for Democrats and a feather in their cap. It makes sense for the opposition to oppose it since universal health care is a historic happening and really the right thing to do. Republicans know that if all this passes they will find it very difficult to regain power.
When the Republicans said health reform would be ‘Obama’s Waterloo’ they guaranteed every Democratic vote. They gave the insider Dems a two word ralling cry almost equal to Remember Pearl Harbor. dumb is as dumb does. now the republicans think they will be victorious in the 2010 fall elections. They forget to count the 31 million newly insured as if they don’t exist, don’t vote, don’t matter. A small base that builds a high wall and moat around itself remains a small base when no one is invited in and no matter how much noise it makes.
Rick Pildes over at the Balkinization blog gives a summary on the history of the filibuster:
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2009/12/history-of-senate-filibuster.html
In today’s *26 Dec.) Washington Post David Broder says much the same things about centrist rules.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/25/AR2009122501283.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Thanks Mr. Manetti, That is certainly a history I’ve never heard of. And Pildes is right, it is counter-intuitive. Recommended read.
From the Broder piece: “As a loyal Democrat, [William] Daley insisted in the closing paragraphs of his op-ed that his party is not doomed to ruin. It can still avoid anything more than a minimal setback in 2010, he said, if it will simply “acknowledge that the agenda of the party’s most liberal supporters has not won the support of a majority of Americans — and, based on that recognition . . . steer a more moderate course on the key issues of the day, from health care to the economy to the environment to Afghanistan.”
Here’s William Daley’s op ed in the Wash Post (he is former secretary of commerce and brother of Mayor Richard Daley of you know where).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/23/AR2009122302439.html
Maybe off topic, but I saw Cathleen Kaveny mentioned in a NYT story today about the Catholic Health Association and the senate health reform bill – Catholic Group Supports Senate on Abortion Aid
The only chance that the Democrats can avoid future electoral disaster is by following the House bill on funding the new healthcare initiative with an income tax surcharge on the rich. If they tax the insurance companies as required by the Senate bill, the tax will be passed on to the insured with plenty of publicity. The Senate bill will put all the cost on the working and middle classes. The House bill, on the other hand, taxes only the rich. The Democrats would be much better off to anger a small minority rather the overwhelming majority in the middle.
The causes and effects of good and bad government were measured differently in the Middle Ages, nowhere more effectively than in the Lorenzetti frescoes in Sienai. If a mere picture is worth a thousand words, his memorable frescoes are equivalent to googols of words.
http://blogs.nybooks.com/post/267840306/when-heaven-was-more-interesting-than-hell
Certainly we have new and improved forms of pride and avarice but I doubt that we have succeeded in lowering their level. We need the Congressional Budget Office to do a study, in a meticulously nonpartisan manner of course, of the vices and virtues concealed in our grand legislation.
Re: Posted by Bill Mazzella on December 26th, 2009 at 11:43 am
“Is that what the Catholic Hospital Association and the nuns’ Leadership Conference of Women Religious were thinking —”
This just posted by Jim Martin SJ, on the America blogsite:
http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=38996629-3048-741E-3144529182954415
From the CHA article linked by Jimmy Mac above:
“I understand that it doesn’t make a good story to say (CHA and the USCCB) are working together,” Sister Carol added. “But it would have been an honest story.”
Zing!