In July of last year, the American people were mostly undecided about Obamacare: equal numbers opposed and supported the health care bills that the White House was shepherding through Congress. But then August happened and informed Americans turned out at townhalls across the country to express their strong disapproval of Obamacare. The larger American public noticed and pluralities of the American people began to oppose Obamacare. The White House concluded they had a “communications problem” so they scheduled a prime time speech in front of a rare Joint Session of Congress. But the President’s speech arrogantly dismissed the concerns of the American people and after a brief uptick in support (from the low 40s to the mid 40s), opposition to the President’s plan grew.
Then in November, liberals lost governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia as opposition to President Obama’s signature policy priority inched towards 50%. Again the White House concluded that nothing was wrong with their policy agenda and they dismissed their setbacks in two states that had voted for President Barack Obama as local elections with weak candidates. Instead of rethinking their policies and procedures the White House doubled down and pushed for a speedy passage of Obamacare with as little debate as possible. Over the next two months the White House bought support for their health care plan with the Louisiana Purchase, the Cornhusker Kickback, and big labor tax breaks. And their behind-closed-doors, backroom-deal tactics almost worked … until Massachusetts happened.
Just like in August and November, Sen. Scott Brown’s (R) upset win over Attorney General Martha Coakley (D) took the Obama administration completely by surprise. Again, the White House concluded they had a “communications problem” so this time they scheduled a six-hour health care summit that is supposed to take place at The Blair House, across the street from the White House, this Thursday. But like everything else that has come out of the Obama administration during this health care debate, the President’s effort to “seek common ground” at the summit is completely disingenuous. The New York Times reported this past Friday that the White House is drafting, and will release this morning, a final health care bill they expect Congress to pass quickly. And this bill is specifically designed to pass without any conservative support:
Democratic officials said the president’s proposal was being written so that it could be attached to a budget bill as a way of averting a Republican filibuster in the Senate. The procedure, known as budget reconciliation, would let Democrats advance the bill with a simple majority rather than a 60-vote supermajority.
And a “simple majority” does not mean they need 51 Senators. The nuclear option the White House is now pushing, reconciliation, only requires the Obama administration to muster 50 votes before Vice President Joe Biden can cast a tie breaking vote in favor of a government takeover of health care.
And make no mistake, a government takeover of health care is exactly what Obamacare is. Just last night the White House revealed that one new feature of their legislation will be to give the federal government sweeping new authority to set prices for health insurance. This is on top of the sweeping new authority that Obamacare already grants the federal governemnt to micromanage the coverage details of every single health insurance policy in the country. And since the nuclear option only requires 50 Democratic Senators for passage, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has signaled that an outright government run health insurance company, the public option, will also be included in the final bill.
There is a reason that the longer this health care debate has dragged on, more and more Americans have become solidly against Obamacare: the plan has been exposed as a welfare state takeover of our health care sector that can only be passed by the most partisan and venal tactics. If the President was capable of listening to the American people, and learning from August, November, and Massachusetts, then he would abandon the legislative disasters still pending in the House and Senate and start over. That is what the American people want.
Quick Hits:
- At the same time the White House is trying to add 15 million people to the Medicaid rolls, virtually every state is making or considering substantial cuts in Medicaid.
- The California Senate passed the “Amazon tax” last week, a bill requiring Amazon.com and other online retailers to charge sales taxes on purchases in California.
- Internal documents show Toyota views the Democratic Congress as “activist” and “not industry friendly,” and anticipates a “more challenging regulatory” environment under the Obama administration.
- Climate scientists were forced to withdraw a 2009 study that claimed sea levels would rise by up to 82cm by the end of century.
- Career lawyers at the Department of Justice concluded Friday that Bush administration attorneys Jay Bybee, John Yoo and Steven Bradbury did not violate rules of professional conduct for their work on detainee treatment legal memos.
This week marks the one year anniversary of the president’s election to commander chief, but it seems more like an occasion for concern than for slapping high-fives.
It is not hard to craft comparisons between Carter and the current occupant of the Oval Office. Both entered office with high expectations; both vowed to change the tone in Washington and remake the world. Carter had a terrible sophomore slump. America’s enemies took stock of his foreign policy in his first year in office. The next year they exploited the weaknesses they found. His presidency never recovered. Obama may also be setting himself up for the fall.
In many ways, Obama has mimicked Carter’s foreign policy priorities. The most noticeable Carter-like act from the White House is gutting defense. Faced with a poor economy and a post-Vietnam distaste for military power, Carter took a “peace dividend” that left the military hollow. He disguised his defense by arguing he was transforming the military with a new strategy. That certainly did not fool the Russians, who took American retrenchment as a sign to step up aggression from South Asia to Africa to the doorsteps of the US in Latin America.
Obama is trying a similar strategy. Heritage defense analyst Baker Spring rightly argues that the administration’s long-term plans for the Pentagon are a train wreck just waiting to happen. Even our allies see this one coming. Recently, Australia produced its new defense blueprint and pushed through a surge in defense spending, predicted largely on the belief that they could not longer count on the America as a resolute defense partner in the years ahead.
The president has also opted on the old tried-and-totally unproven strategy of arms control “uber alles.” He has subordinated virtually every defense and foreign policy priority to signing new treaties limiting strategic weapons. Most damaging, he has started to gut the missile defense programs that would protect the nation and its allies from attack. While the White House has denied they are taking large backward steps, Heritage analysis finds otherwise. Indeed, it is likely that the administration’s course on arms control may result in more states owning nuclear weapons and the missiles that carry them.
On the foreign policy front, the administration’s “soft power” strategy that relies almost exclusively on negotiations and international institutions like the UN has little to show for it—other than how other nations can manipulate the White House dependence on diplomacy. Most striking has been the US bartering with Iran that has failed to produce any practical result. As Heritage Middle East expert Jim Phillips has pointed out time and time again, the Iranians use these negotiations to their own ends. Additionally, even if the US did get an agreement it would probably mean little. Iran, he notes, “probably still has nuclear chess pieces hidden under the table that it will reveal triumphantly at the end of the game. At that point, with a nuclear weapon in hand, Tehran will declare checkmate – or in Farsi: “shah mat” (“the king is ambushed” or “helpless”).”
Finally, and perhaps of greatest concern, is that the administration has shown little understanding that it knows how to use “hard power.” Almost a year after the president took office he still can’t seem to decide on an appropriate strategy for Afghanistan.
When our enemies look at the US they see a president soft on hard power and hard over on doing whatever it takes to make soft power look smart. How they choose to use this knowledge may make the second anniversary of the president’s election much less of a cause for celebration.