On March 5th of last year, firefighter Travis Ulerick, of Dublin, Indiana, introduced President Barack Obama at a White House summit on health care. Upon hearing the first rumblings of dissent about the President’s plan, Ulerick tells USA Today he thought at the time: “I definitely think it’s going to have to be a huge consensus.” It’s now 12 months later, and the only consensus that exists among the American people is strong opposition to the President’s health care plan.The White House, however, is now completely uninterested in establishing a consensus for their health care plan before they jam it through Congress. Today, in a speech from the White House, President Barack Obama will urge Congress to move swiftly to pass his health care plan by implementing a legislative tactic that can be used to pass legislation that has failed to gain broad support among the American people. It’s known as reconciliation.
Reconciliation has been used in the past, but only for procedural reasons, not because the underlying policy change was unable to muster 60-vote support. So, for example, the 1996 welfare reform law signed by President Bill Clinton was passed through reconciliation, but it also ended up getting 78 votes in the Senate (28 of them from Democrats). President Ronald Reagan also passed seven bills through reconciliation, but every single one of those bills passed through a Democratically-controlled House and won Senate votes from both parties. Never has reconciliation been used to pass any bill on purely partisan lines.
In an attempt to provide some political cover for his nakedly-partisan health care push, President Obama released a letter yesterday identifying “four policy priorities” that “I am exploring.” Specifically he is “open” to: 1) random undercover investigations of health care providers that receive reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid; 2) $50 million in cash for states that reform medical malpractice laws in ways the White House approves of; 3) increased spending on Medicaid; and 4) language that clearly allows Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) to qualify as health insurance.
The White House has not yet released any legislative language for any of these “policy priorities.” In fact, his letter does not even promise that whatever legislation the White House does eventually offer will contain language on each of these issues. He only says he is “exploring” the issues. This is beyond a sham of bipartisanship. Details matter. The American people must be allowed to see real legislative language and they must be allowed the time to read and comment on it before any votes are taken.
Most importantly, simply adding so-called conservative ideas to the bill does not change the fundamental direction of the proposal. The bills before Congress, including the President’s new additions, would still result in a massive shift of power over health care financing and delivery of care to Washington politicians and bureaucrats. The public has spoken, and it does not want a federal take over of health care.
Julia Denton of Yorktown, Virginia, another of the Obama administration’s hand-picked March 5 health summit attendees, tells USA Today: “The legislation as proposed is so long and tough to read that people are afraid of it. Health care is such a highly personal issue. I cannot see how anyone will win if unpopular reforms are forced through over vigorous opposition.” Denton is 100% correct. The American people should not have unpopular health care reform forced down their throats in the face of strong bipartisan opposition. At a bare minimum they should have the opportunity to see actual legislation from the White House and be allowed to speak to their members about it while they are home in their districts over Easter break.
Conservatives should continue to press the Administration and leaders in Congress for bipartisan solutions that are based on elements of common ground, including letting states take the lead on health reform, tackling the tax treatment of health insurance, sensible insurance market reforms, and an honest commitment to fixing existing health care programs that the government already controls.
For real bipartisanship to work, the President must set aside the current proposals that are based on consolidating power over health care in Washington and instead embrace solutions that would give individuals and families more control over health care dollars and decisions. Simply adjusting the magnitude of the existing proposals or adding so-called conservative provisions does not change this fundamental direction.
Quick Hits:
- Twice as many Texans voted in the Republican Gubernatorial primary election than in the Democratic primary. The reverse was true in the 2008 Presidential primary.
- Ethically-challenged Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) is still chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, but he will be taking a “leave of absence” until the investigation is over.
- Oral arguments at yesterday’s Supreme Court hearing on a gun control case suggest the majority seems willing to extend the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms to the states.
- After a slew of scandals and polls showing the number of Americans who believe that climate change is a scientific conspiracy has more than doubled since 2008, scientists now realize they are facing a crisis of public confidence.
- Privately-owned Ford Motor Co. surpassed Obama administration-owned General Motors Co. in sales last month for the first time in at least 50 years
As unemployment and debt both spiral up, the US economy should brace itself to avoid what could be a real knockout punch. Even before the financial market collapse a year ago, several key countries have voiced their growing concern over the role of the US dollar as the reserve currency in world trade, and many have suggested a new world currency take its place. The world mandate to Obama and Congress is that they are spending too much money and the rest of the world does not want to be stuck with the bill. It’s time for our government to start listening to these serious and dire rumblings.
China, India, Russia and France have all expressed concern that a growing US deficit and debt have the potential to make their $6.5 Trillion in currency reserves worthless. China holds the most US debt including over $800 Billion in Treasury bonds. And while our Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner makes the case for the need of a “strong dollar”, one must wonder how the world views his words with the US deficit approaching $2 trillion.
The UN has repeatedly called for a new reserve currency again and again. UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, Sha Zukang stating on Tuesday that
“Important progress in managing imbalances can be made by reducing the reserve currency country’s ‘privilege’ to run external deficits in order to provide international liquidity.”
Translation: The world is tired of paying our bills and is willing to dethrone the “almighty dollar”.
The dollar has served as the world’s reserve currency since the Bretton Woods Agreements in 1944. These agreements established that foreign countries were to redeem their currencies into dollars, then be able to convert their dollars into gold held by the Federal Reserve. This system fell apart over the next thirty years due to a negative US trade balance and high inflation brought about by a vast increase in the money supply. Then in 1971 president Nixon officially “closed the gold window”, stating the US would no longer redeem dollars into gold, and the world went officially on a complete fiat money system.
The move by Nixon signaled to the world that the US had no intention (and no ability) to pay back foreign gold redemptions and the move to a total Dollar reserve allowed the US to run even higher trade deficits than before. The world, having used the dollar as a semi-reserve over the previous 28 years, had little choice but to accept the new system which provided considerable benefits, especially from 1980 through 2000.
Now, though, with US running trillion dollar deficits and calls for the debt ceiling to be raised above $12 trillion, the rest of the world has had enough. While the prospect of a currency move does not look imminent and China continues to support the dollar-as pointed out by Heritage research fellow Derek Scissors yesterday-, if the rest of the world does decide to officially drop the dollar quickly, our economy would suffer on a scale that would make the Great Depression look like a picnic.
The solution is clear: Washington must stop spending immediately. The questions facing Congress about which new programs to fund should be replaced with which programs need to be cut. The party is over for the US and the rest of the world has proclaimed they have no desire to clean up our mess. President Obama and the Congress must recognize the disastrous long-term implications of their course, including the world’s eventual reaction, and head us away from the iceberg rather than toward it.
For more information on the current US budget crisis, these Heritage reports lay out what’s ahead for the country.
David Gentile currently is a member of the Young Leaders Program at the Heritage Foundation. His views do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm