(Video) Obama’s Cadillac Plan Reversal |
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| By: stranahan Thursday January 7, 2010 2:57 am | |
I’m just completely fed up with Barack Obama’s health care bill being based on lie piled on top of lie. His own words condemn his plan.
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26 Comments
This reversal is perhaps the most perplexing. The cadillac tax is crazy conservative policy. There’s no reason to support it if you are for better health care. And yet…
Good job Lee – totally makes the point
Maybe if we’re lucky, Obama will tax our individual mandate payments and subsidies as well.
This is not what I voted for.
Obama has delivered “change,” he has changed every one of the positions he espoused as a candidate.
sad but true. As someone else named him, Obummer.
Those who, during the campaign, were enamored of Mr. You Can Keep What You Have if You Like It, now find that they haven’t even managed to keep the Obama they liked.
Hi, Ralph. It was lonely for me and others like me during the election campaign and through the inauguration. To maintain a few of my best friends and clients, I had to shut up and only bash Obama on my radio show since my friends could then just turn me off, literally. It gives me no joy or satisfaction that I pegged Obama as a conservative and corporatist. But at least most of my friends are speaking to me again.
All you had to do was read blackagendareport.com or Adolph Reed, Jr. or John Pilger or Paul Street to know that Obama was a Trojan horse selected by Robert Rubin and Co. But even I didn’t think it would happen this fast and be this in-your-face by spitting in the eyes of labor with this full on assault on working middle class people. And they don’t even need a Pinochet, just a child crotch bomber to keep us all in line.
Happy New Year, Diane! I’m not entirely as cynical about Obama as all that; the Obama of 2003, who spoke forcefully and directly against invading Iraq and in favor of single-payer health financing, was not a complete chimera.
But from the time the kingmakers started commoditizing his charisma via the 2004 keynote address (when he was still only a state senator), and the 2007-2008 rollout of the transformed product, no one should have harbored illusions about what they were getting. (Although, IMHO, of the two remotely viable alternatives, Clinton was worse and Edwards only slightly better, before becoming far, far worse.)
Still despite the inevitability of Obama’s betrayals, I remain gobsmacked by their initial rapidity and ongoing breadth.
The 2003 statement about single payer by Obama was made, I thought, to the AFL-CIO convention. A candidate would be nuts not to mention that there. Interesting that during the debate with Hilary on Feb 25, 2008, she had said that he made one speech that condemned the rush to war, and she commended him for it. But the speech hadn’t demanded any action or vote on his part. And once he had to vote, he voted with her to fund the war. He replied that he was “in the midst of U.S. Senate campaign. It was a high stakes campaign” when he made that speech. By that he meant that it was a very big deal to be anti-war in a statewide national race. But he wasn’t running for the U.S. Senate. He was running for his very small very liberal district in Chicago for the state senate.
Yeah, I’m fairly sure that if Obama had actually made it to the US Senate in time for the 2002 AUMF vote, he’d have joined in with his mentor, Joe Lieberman, plus Hillary and the rest of the bloodlust brigade, rather than with Paul Wellstone and the reality-based minority. He lucked out in that regard. The only Dem candidate in 2008 who had been in a position to vote for war in Iraq and didn’t was Dennis the K.
Not sure about the venue for the single-payer video. Actually, I don’t think an AFL-CIO convention would have been the best setting for such a message because of the complications surrounding union-negotiated employer benefits.
I can hear the pain and disappointment in your voice, and I’m so sorry. I realize this is a progressive site (I’m a conservative), but I really feel for you. He’s not good for this country, but I can understand how you would have been swept up by him. Millions were.
If he actually believes that a tax on health benefits would work to control cost he should show us the data and confess he is changing is mind and then design the law to be the most effective and yet fair to those who “did the right thing” by taking a job with smaller salary to have a good benefit package, you can’t change the rules at the end of the game. But Obama would rather put forth this “Cadillac Tax” lie (if it doesn’t hit the middle class it won’t raise any revenue) just to save face for opposing the McCain employee health care tax credit. It is very very frustrating.
I apologize for being off-post, but I was just reading your posts on “Cadilac flip-flop” and I wanted to greet you befor the new year got too long in the tooth. I’m always afraid that by the time I post on the left coast that maybe it wont be read. (That’s as succinct a reason as I’m capable of :):)
A guid new year tae ye and muny may ye see, oh “Macralphbon o’ Macralphbon” frae Brigadoon.
I never got a chance to tell you of how much I enjoyed your ‘kilt story’. You know, my MacKenzie cousins, when they grew out of their kilts, I got one, anyway. That’s when I found out that they had matching shorts, or trews as they are called.
Oh, that post is in to ralphbon. ‘scuze me.
Great to hear from you, scottishlass, and Happy New Year! Just picked up a bottle of bargain-priced single malt (if I land a job, I’ll go back to the good stuff) and shall hoist a dram in your honor.
Great contribution Lee.
Excellent video, Lee. I remember having that speech live-streaming on my computer in real time. The things that Obama promised, and the way he delivered those promises were heady things. He was going to address not just health care, but he was going to reverse the damage that Bush and the Republican Party did to our country. The anguish as we discover that actually intends to continue those policies and even worsen the damage is nearly overwhelming.
Note to fuzislippers @9: It’s nice to see a bit of empathy from a conservative. The total lack of empathy from the previous administration started our country down a path that still threatens world peace and the world economy. You do realize, don’t you, that you and I see Obama as “not good for this country” in ways that are probably totally opposite? He is completely a tool of the corporations, and that is mainstream Republican platform territory. I fear that you only think him bad due to intentionally inaccurate FoxNews descriptions of him as a socialist.
Yes, I realize that we see him as dangerous in completely different directions. I think, too, that you might consider, even for a moment, that my being a conservative does not mean that my ideology is constructed by Fox News. Fox has been around for . . . what? ten years? I’ve been around a good deal longer. :)
What does it say for us that some of us expected this to happen just not as rapidly? I expected Orahma to do what he said he would do during the campaign. It is to much to ask that a candidate doesn’t lie his ass off to become POTUS?
The expectations for change and a new attitude in Washington, overwhelmed not just the US but the world. EVERYONE saw this guy as a breathe of fresh air. Unfortunately, he’s turning out to be a younger version of the same Washington corruption that has existed for decades. Hope he likes his one term.
FDR
Glad to see you posting this Lee.
obama. meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
I pride myself in having what I used to consider an almost foolproof “bullshit” detector. I guess that’s because I’m lucky to deal mainly with people of at least a little integrity who become noticably uncomfortable when saying something they know isn’t true, or promising to do something they know they won’t do. With Obama, I assumed the same initial character trait: nobody could say, with passion, that they’d try to do all these wonderful things to change the contours of the U.S. political and economic systems without intending to make even the slightest effort to follow through. Or even worse, intending to do the direct opposite of what was promised.
But Obama’s about-face on just about everything of substance he promised during his campaign (except, ironically, Afghanistan) can’t be an accident, or a momentary lapse into cowardly conflict avoidance. The guy just flat-out lied, with a straight face, with premeditation and malice, to everybody who supported him. So I’m about as angry as a guy who just found out his wife has been deceiving him. I’ve become even more intolerant of Obama’s apologists than W. supporters, because while W. sold his soul, the “For Sale” sign was there for everyone to see from the start, and in terms of adherence to his stated “principles,” at least he got a good price.
If I recall correctly, in Dante’s “Inferno,” the lowest level of Hell is reserved for those who betrayed their principles and their benefactors. I hope I regret saying this tomorrow morning, but enjoy The Fire BHO, after your one term in office is over.
My thoughts exactly. If I wanted a crook for president I’d rather have one who’s going to tell me up front how much he wants to steal. This guy intends to pay for this insurance company subsidy plan by taxing the union workers and cutting medicaire. And, oh, by the way, your grandkids can pay for the bank bailout he gave his friends. I voted for him too, but I won’t again. I’ve never voted for a Republican before so I’m not sure what my game plan will be in 2012, but it won’t include Obama.
I pride myself in having what I used to consider an almost foolproof “bullshit” detector. I guess that’s because I’m lucky to deal mainly with people of at least a little integrity who become noticably uncomfortable when saying something they know isn’t true, or promising to do something they know they won’t do. With Obama, I assumed the same initial character trait: nobody could say, with passion, that they’d try to do all these wonderful things to change the contours of the U.S. political and economic systems without intending to make even the slightest effort to follow through. Or even worse, intending to do the direct opposite of what was promised.
But Obama’s about-face on just about everything of substance he promised during his campaign (except, ironically, Afghanistan) can’t be an accident, or a momentary lapse into cowardly conflict avoidance. The guy just flat-out lied, with a straight face, with premeditation and malice, to everybody who supported him. So I’m about as angry as a guy who just found out his wife has been deceiving him. I’ve become even more intolerant of Obama’s apologists than W. supporters, because while W. sold his soul, the “For Sale” sign was there for everyone to see from the start, and in terms of adherence to his stated “principles,” at least he got a good price.
If I recall correctly, in Dante’s “Inferno,” the lowest level of Hell is reserved for those who betrayed their principles and their benefactors. If I didn’t get the point before, I think I get it now.