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http://www.clipsandcomment.com/2010/12/07/transcript-president-obama-press-conference-on-tax-cuts-dec-7-2010/
So I pass a signature piece of legislation where we finally get health care for all Americans, something that Democrats had been fighting for for a hundred years, but because there was a provision in there that they didn’t get that would have affected maybe a couple of million people, even though we got health insurance for 30 million people and the potential for lower premiums for 100 million people, that somehow that was a sign of weakness and compromise.
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HE passed it, not “we” or “Democrats and Democrats only”
Consider the hubris in that statement. But I am willing to take it at face value. He passed it, and we got the bill with the parameters that HE wanted and that HE and his White House negotiated. Those parameters included trading away the public option early on, even though he pretended to continue to publicly support its inclusion long past the time he personally knew it was an impossibility. Quite honestly, if I were President Obama, the very last thing I would be reminding people and carping about is the failure of the public option.
He then further denigrates it as only affecting “maybe a couple of million people”(!) Really? Then why did you make it a centerpiece of your reform and say you not “not sign a bill” that didn’t include it. Wasn’t it supposed to be the one thing that would keep private providers honest and provide real competition in the marketplace? You know that marketplace where health care providers STILL enjoy their anti-trust exemption? Wouldn’t that have benefited EVERY single person looking for coverage?
Who are these 30 million that you think you have covered? My understanding is that the figure of Americans without healthcare has actually RISEN given the fact of rising unemployment and that PREMIUMS HAVE RISEN and the fact that the temporary COBRA co-pay has ended. (THAT might have been a good thing to fight for) Also, the “high risk pools” that were supposed to cover Americans who have been denied insurance due to pre-existing conditions has also turned out top be a farce and is covering a fraction of people who would have been eligible. The issue? Cost. It is too damn expensive. Turns out that’s a good thing since the whole program is fatally underfunded anyway if more had been able to use it. Gee, do you think they knew that few would actually qualify AND be able to pay and there was no great need for funding. But, hooray everyone, we have the “potential” for lower premiums. ?????? Wasn’t lowering costs the whole point of reform in the first place? Anyone remember debates where people discussed their different plans to “potentially lower costs” ? Me neither.
President Obama, since you are claiming all the credit for this horror of healthcare “reform”, are you also willing to claim the blame for its shortcomings? Are you willing to admit that you basically pretended to feel one way in public and then did everything you could behind the scenes to disembowel your own supposed preferences? You did the same thing with drug re-importation. Are you also not getting enough credit for that?
And you know what, I agree with the sentence you uttered before you spoke the one I have highlighted.
“This is the public option debate all over again.”
You’re right. Tax compromise IS the “public option debate all over again. And all the same dynamics are in effect. You pretend to be for one thing while you work feverishly behind the scenes to obtain something completely different, and label it a successful “compromise”
38 Comments
Nice catch.
I was going to disagree, but It seems that the republicans were right all along. So it’s better just to compromise, and declare it a victory. Because after all this country was founded by people who were prepared to compromise their Liberty with the biggest Empire on the planet and trade away their freedom of speech, and their right to be secure in their persons and effects.
Why is it only the Dems denounce their activist wings. Do they really like denouncing us? You never hear the repubs denouncing the T-partiers.
You are so right! Notice he did not once mention that he stepped out front of HIS Dem Congress on that issue or the tax issue. He did not say that HE bargained behind closed doors before the final went to the floor for a vote.
He has stepped all over congress and railroaded them all the way.
Good piece, Jane. I’d add that Obama overlooks that the anger over the PO sell-out doesn’t stem entirely from feelings among progressives about how Obama sold out such a wonderful alternative.
Actually, the PO itself was a pre-compromise progressives accepted based on Obama’s propaganda efforts even before he talk office. Before the PO campaign rolled into high gear, progressives were for Medicare for All, more than 90 in the House has co-sponsored HR 676. Obama’s team persuaded them to back off that demand and go after the PO instead. Then he proceeded to cut back on and finally sell out the PO in stages to arrive at his insurance company bailout bill.
The real analogy to the PO is this. First he gets progressives to accept this two year extension of tax cuts for the wealthy (that’s the PO stage). And second, in two years he sells out the idea of ending the tax cuts for the wealthy entirely (that’s the full bailout stage).
a while back i had an Obama speech on in the other room while i worked at the computer, and what kept penetrating my brain as i sat there half-listening was the word “I” “I” “I”. Never “We”, always “I”.
it was one of the first in an increasing number of “oh crap” moments on my road to complete disillusionment with our sitting Prez.
I think he is particularly prickly over the public option because it is THE concrete example of his personal duplicity. I can’t even believe he would choose to say those 2 words out loud. To me they are akin to the words “nest egg” in Albert Brooks “Lost in America”. He’s lost the right to even discuss the concept.
And you’re right. The public option was the pre-compromise compromise to scuttle HR676. Which could be reconstituted anytime if anyone in Congress and the Senate ever decided they actually gave a shit.
I can’t even believe he would choose to say those 2 words out loud
Half of his advisers have a coronary every time he circles back to it, and the other half have smug grins.
And yeah.
Definitely a “clap louder” moment. And, it’s not clear that the President can differentiate between “compromise” and “compromised.”
I do wonder if Obama has realized yet the big compromise the nation was founded on was the “3/5th compromise.”
Carl Schmitt, adviser to Hitler and mentor of Leo Strauss, told his followers that there are only two classes of people – those who agree with you and the enemy. And you don’t compromise with the enemy, you obliterate him.
I’d love to see what BWD is posting on her blog tonight!
Enabler.
This was another crisis prevented by Obama. Republican governors were about to cut ties with Washington if no compromise on taxes was found. Do you all realize what that means…
Well put. He’s made everyone else eat his shit sandwiches for 2 years, I’m not shedding any tears over the fact that this time he gets to eat it.
No, I don’t! Please explain!
This by obama is very misleading:
“So I pass a signature piece of legislation where we finally get health care for all Americans …”
He’s forcing us, using the IRS as an enforcement arm for private insurance companies, to buy health insurance from those private insurance companies … with apparently little cost controls … and he calls that “getting” health care for all americans.
He may be the most self-absorbed, narcissistic, vacuous person we’ve ever had in the oval office and that says a lot.
Z
New “secession” talking point.
His place in history is secure. He will be associated 100 years from now with Washington and Lincoln. No one will remember what a Republican tool he was, just that he was the first black president.
Baloney.
When I heard him say this I wondered the following?
1. All those insured? Certainly not today or tomorrow but in 2014.
2. Premiums are rising 20-40 percent each years so in 5 years rates will be 100-200 percent higher than today.
3. What options will we have to purchase insurance. As most states only have one provider who does this benefit?
4. I think the President is an elitist as he thinks he’s giving us so much when all he’s giving us is his Bullshit.
We are just the Little People and the President means to put us in our place.
What a waste of our lives and spirits.
Long Live King Obama. Right
Repost from another topic
We should be grateful that this son of a bitch didn’t compromise further.
Who knows what would have happened.
Maybe he would have reinstated slavery to get that sweet middle class tax cut. Wait we have wage and debt slavery which is close enough….
Or maybe he’d only make blacks 3/5ths of a person to get a month of unemployment insurance.
Nah there are rich black people….I know make all poor people 3/5ths of a decision, we know the supreme court that passed citizens united would LOVE that.
My ideal compromise? The rich get their tax cut but lose police protection, in exchange Obama (only Obama) becomes 3/5ths of a person.
Obama if you want to make the rich richer that badly, then put your own ass and livelihood on the line you freaking punk bitch.
(please merge with previous post)
What else can he give …. I mean “negotiate” HAHAHAH /cough away….
Maybe give ceos the right of prima nocti!
Please don’t put us in the position of having to agree with one of hitlers advisers.
All rubicons have now been crossed. Good bye America.
What does Obama tell us but that the system is fixed, rigged in favor of super rich. Assume Obama is right and this is the best deal he could make, and that his concern was a tax increase on the middle class and and extension of unemployment for some. Then this is the cost, the “ransom” that must be paid, not to the Republicans (not to the terrorists) but to their paymasters, the Masters of the Universe. This is Masters’game, and that’s why they’re Masters. What makes anyone think they will lose their own game. Ever. Time to tell Obama and the Dems “adios” and get on with figuring a new game to play before it’s too late.
The public was clearly optional.
Wasn’t Leo Strauss also at the University of Chicago..our Prez’ alma mater?
That’s pretty harsh.
How about “Cave” Man ?
Gee, politician has an ego.
Big whoop.
Remember, folks, not to vote in 2012. make sure you get a President Romney, President Gingrich, or President Jed Bush.
Bitchin is fine. Just don’t forget that each and every alleged shortcoming in the HCR Act was blamed on Obama.
Seems nobody on the Left and none of the paid-blogger-GOPer saboteurs understands compromise.
*** Perfection Or Suicide !! ***
Helluva motto.
One of Obama’s big backers owned the company my Dad contracted with a few yrs. ago. This man was just as self-absorbed as Obama and yes he was a black man, but I don’t think that’s really all that important. What’s so eerie is how much like this guy Obama is. Both are creatures of the Corp. mentality and both see the whole world as revolving around themselves. We had better realize that this self absorbed horse ass is what many of us ( myself included) put our hope and dreams into two yrs. ago and that he couldn’t really care less what happens to most of us no matter what he says. It was funny watching him call the Gopers hostage takers, when I realized he sees himself as some kind of middleman for whom? It seems like to me he actually works for the extortionist here doesn’t he? The GOP has a gun to “OUR” heads and Sheriff Obama looks at us and the extortionist and says son you’d better give him what he wants cause other wise he’ll pull the trigger. Oh really, but of course Sheriff Obama is going to be ok right? So whose side is he on? Does he tell the extortionist to put down the gun and then we’ll talk no way he just hands over the loot and then turns on us and says get the $$ together to pay him or else losers. Obama is in bed with the extortionists isn’t he? Isn’t it obvious by now? This is Corporatism pure and simple the so called Public/Private Partnership at it’s best. I prefer to call it by it’s older name folks CORRUPTION.
That seems to be one of the few things that Obama cares about. That and the big fat payola he gets from his hard-right corporate sponsors, for whom Obama works very hard and delivers the results that they want.
Not sure that Obama really gives a sh*t about anyone other than himself, and I, for one, believe that a better deal could’ve been made even with the MOTU.
That said, I don’t entirely disagree with your main premise. This IS a new day & a new game, esp since the SCOTUS citizens united decision. The “small people” need to learn the new rules of the new game bc the old rules are broken.
Seriously? I’m supposed to vote for Obama, why, exactly?
What would be the difference between what Obama’s doing and what JEB would do? Please explain.
Very good analogy. I very much agree. Obama isn’t even *trying,* and I refuse to accept that there is simply no other option or compromise even with the corporations. Obama is bought off and doesn’t give one sh*t about anyone but himself and his “place” in history. BAH.
It is a newer game, though, and citizens had better catch on. We need to catch up and determine how best to combat this.
Our Narcissisist-in-Chief has spoken.
Ptooey.
In his mind, he is still a legislator, a wealthy Senator from Illinois. Legislators pass bills, but presidents sign them into laws…or enough legislators can override presidental vetos…civics 101. In his mind, he is still a legislator, a wealthy Senator from Illinois.
Funny how things look so different once you have some missing puzzle pieces. Like the White House killing off the Public Option in early “negotiations” with the industry but keeping that little fact to themselves even while the President still pretended to publicly support it.
For instance, it was confusing to many to see how the Blue Dog Blanche Lincoln who boasted publicly of killing the public option, was REWARDED by Pres Obama who campaigned fiercely on her behalf. Of course, we know in retrospect that someone had to kill off in public what the president had previously strangled in private. Now it also makes sense why Schumer was contorting himself into a pretzel to deliver a public option that was not a public option – the so-called “level playing field” public option which removed the whole reason for the option’s existence in the first place – lower prices! He also must have been shown the rotting PO corpse. The death of the public option was essentially a Democratic production of Murder on the Orient Express with one essential difference. In Murder on the Orient Express all the miscreants act in concert so that no one person can be labeled the culprit and it would be impossible to determine which participant delivered the fatal blow. In the Murder of the Public Option, the fatal blow had been personally delivered by the President/White House before any other passengers entered the compartment. Nice of them to collude in the cover-up, though.
You know I have to admit that it has crossed my mind that Jeb wouldn’t be all bad given the wretched choices we’re going to be offered in 2012. He wouldn’t have to prove how right wing he is and his party wouldn’t go into crazy mode to defeat him. Heck, he might even end his brother’s wars.