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PoliGAF 2014 |OT| Kay Hagan and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad News
- Thread starter bananas
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Obama's Kanto.
Aaron Strife
Banned
Set himself up to be the next president of the United States
RustyNails
Member
I'm hopeful we can cut a deal with Iran. Israel Palestine conflict is here to stay though. In order to have a peace deal, you need people who actually want it. Bibi is not that person. He does not want a peace deal. His mere presence will poison whatever wells negotiators have.
Kerry and Obama got lucky with Rouhani. He is not as kooky or fire and brimstone as ahmedinajacket.
I'm going to go against the grain here, primarily because a lot of people are getting the economics wrong.
If you weren't passing some sort of fiscal stimulus in 2008-2009, you weren't addressing the economy or unemployment. Frankly, if you aren't passing some sort of fiscal stimulus now, you aren't addressing the economy or unemployment. During times of high unemployment when interest rates are zero, so monetary policy is ineffective, the government needs to enact stimulus measures to maintain full employment.
There really isn't any other way to address high unemployment and declining or too slow economic growth over a short enough time frame for the voters to notice. Over the long run things can be done to address individual indebtedness, which is the primary culprit behind the currently sluggish economy and high unemployment rate, such as policies aimed at lowering mortgage burdens or student loan debts, but those are all long term fixes.
The 2009 stimulus was too small even on its own terms, and it was clear at the time that a second, and probably third and fourth, was going to be needed. Obama's mistake was to let politics and not economics dictate the size of the stimulus. In the end, playing politics bought him no favor with voters because all they were really concerned about was the direction of the economy, When they saw him turning to health care instead of doing more to address the immediate problem of unemployment, as well adopting a conciliatory tone with Wall Street, is when they turned against him in the mid-terms.
Not focusing his political capital on measures directly related to addressing unemployment and jump starting the economy was definitely the biggest mistake of Obama's presidency. It is a mistake the will have consequences probably for decades to come. Even now, in the Philly.com article, voters rate unemployment as their number one concern. Democrats would be wise to listen to these voters if they want to win elections.
If you weren't passing some sort of fiscal stimulus in 2008-2009, you weren't addressing the economy or unemployment. Frankly, if you aren't passing some sort of fiscal stimulus now, you aren't addressing the economy or unemployment. During times of high unemployment when interest rates are zero, so monetary policy is ineffective, the government needs to enact stimulus measures to maintain full employment.
There really isn't any other way to address high unemployment and declining or too slow economic growth over a short enough time frame for the voters to notice. Over the long run things can be done to address individual indebtedness, which is the primary culprit behind the currently sluggish economy and high unemployment rate, such as policies aimed at lowering mortgage burdens or student loan debts, but those are all long term fixes.
The 2009 stimulus was too small even on its own terms, and it was clear at the time that a second, and probably third and fourth, was going to be needed. Obama's mistake was to let politics and not economics dictate the size of the stimulus. In the end, playing politics bought him no favor with voters because all they were really concerned about was the direction of the economy, When they saw him turning to health care instead of doing more to address the immediate problem of unemployment, as well adopting a conciliatory tone with Wall Street, is when they turned against him in the mid-terms.
Not focusing his political capital on measures directly related to addressing unemployment and jump starting the economy was definitely the biggest mistake of Obama's presidency. It is a mistake the will have consequences probably for decades to come. Even now, in the Philly.com article, voters rate unemployment as their number one concern. Democrats would be wise to listen to these voters if they want to win elections.
Seriously though, we need to start passing ranked voting at the local level. Get it going so people are familiar with it, let third parties start to be able to be relevant in local and state government, and only then will it be feasible to do it on a national election scale.
I think Obama's biggest mistake was continuing to be/appear bipartisan for far too long instead of just jamming through as much as he could when Democrats controlled all 3 branches of government given how early Republicans demonstrated they were just going to be obstructionist.
Democrats probably still would have lost the House in 2010 but at least ACA wouldn't be as gimped amongst other things that could have been achieved, and not like anything would have changed after that any way except the base position would have been better.
PhoenixDark
Banned
He has thrown a lot of balls into the air. How many he catches is yet to be seen, but I still think he's been good.
speculawyer
Member
He bumbled his way into Syria getting rid of their chemical weapons without firing a single missile. I don't care how he did it, it worked. I presume he is also somewhat involved in the Iran discussions. He's pushing for peace in Israel/Palenstine which always seems hopeless but it is better to try than to not try.
PhoenixDark
Banned
Israel won't let that happen out of spite over the Iran negotiations, bet on it.
Guys, we are in full on real-life-is-now-satire territory now. I give you a campaign ad from Texas. There is so much great stuff in there, it's amazing.
McConnell 'Looks And Fights Like A Turtle,' Says Texas GOP Primary Ad
Here's the ad
McConnell 'Looks And Fights Like A Turtle,' Says Texas GOP Primary Ad
Here's the ad
Yeah I agree with this. The economy was devastated and he was having a fight over health care. Now we have health care but no proof (to the average voter) that stimulus works. I don't think you're understating the decades of hurt part either. We had a chance to show definitively that strong government helps but instead got this bare bones effort that's going to make people suffer for years to come with or without healthcare.
Why would he shoot the Bush's Baked Beans dog? Also, I love how it ends with "The more you know" thing. It's a cornucopia of references, it's amazing.
speculawyer
Member
It is like a checklist of rural politicking:
-Out in the country . . . check
-Wearing demin? . . . check
-Pick-up truck . . . check
-Gun . . . check
-Bashing Washington insiders . . . check
WayneMorse
Banned
Very disappointed in his gun safety in that video.
I agree.
I get it that he had a once in a generation chance to get a universal healthcare, but I fully reject the notion that he can only do one or the other.
And it's not like the GOP was holding back, they cranked the opposition and rhetoric to 11 as it is, might as well get the economy going.
p.s.
It would've been an easier thing to accept if we actually ended up with a good healthcare bill. The ACA is still in improvement, but man, I think it's literally the worse possible way to get universal healthcare.
There's a million what ifs. The most important end result is that Obama got re-elected. Had he done a public option or a single payer program maybe he wouldn't have been elected. Maybe the Supreme Court would have ruled it unconstitutional after the obvious right wing challenge and then he may have lost in 2012 if the idea that he's "usurping the constitution" became a mainstream talking point.
At the end of the day, in retrospect, and assuming he would have won either way, he shouldn't have been conciliatory with a bunch of racist hateful bigots...err the tea party. He should have pushed for a public option and he should have done a much bigger stimulus, including a second and third round. He should have raised taxes on upper income earning people right away instead of extending the cuts and invested heavily in education and infrastructure right away.
But these are progressive goals which are end up as doing more harm then good if he loses, these things get reversed, and Republicans get credit for fixing the economy he helped stabilize.
I have all the faith in the world that by the time he leaves, barring any cheating scandal or impeachment, we'll have unemployment below 6%, with close to a balanced budget, effective health care, and approval ratings in the mid to high 50%'s
At the end of the day, in retrospect, and assuming he would have won either way, he shouldn't have been conciliatory with a bunch of racist hateful bigots...err the tea party. He should have pushed for a public option and he should have done a much bigger stimulus, including a second and third round. He should have raised taxes on upper income earning people right away instead of extending the cuts and invested heavily in education and infrastructure right away.
But these are progressive goals which are end up as doing more harm then good if he loses, these things get reversed, and Republicans get credit for fixing the economy he helped stabilize.
I have all the faith in the world that by the time he leaves, barring any cheating scandal or impeachment, we'll have unemployment below 6%, with close to a balanced budget, effective health care, and approval ratings in the mid to high 50%'s
The public option was popular with the public, and there is no real way to attack it or a single payer without killing medicare, which even the craziest wingnut would dare to try.
I honestly believe that saying "medicare for all" and dropping the mic would not only have been very popular, but the simple nature of the program would've have prevented all the obfuscation and misinformation we've seen with the ACA.
The only problem with going that route is that the health insurance industry would've gone super super hard against it and would've probably bought enough democratic senators, maybe it could've been counteracted with public pressure, maybe not (but I think it would've been much easier to mobilize progressives around a single payer program) but I don't think it would've hurt is electoral chances.
It's far from obvious that Obama's health care reform strategy was anywhere near the constitutionally or politically safest one.
"Medicare for all" is constitutionally unassailable. What we actually got was much shakier just by virtue of involving semi-novel mechanisms. One could at least argue that Obamacare was unconstitutional without arguing that beloved programs which have been around for a long time were also unconstitutional. A public option tacked on to everything else we got could easily have been made severable.
It seems pretty likely that health care reform would have been much less politically damaging if the fighting over it hadn't gone on for so long, which it did in part because Obama kept taking Republicans seriously when they made noises about compromise. For all the talk about how health care reform was rammed down the nation's throat, if it had actually been pushed through Congress very quickly there just wouldn't have been much time for the public to turn against it. If various pieces of it had gone into effect sooner there would have been many more people with an interest in voting to keep it around.
The Public Option was the original plan the WH tried. They only changed to the individual mandate because of the crazy levels of widespread panic and misinformation funded by the health insurance industry. The right wing, aided and funded by this private industry, talking about the "millions of jobs lost" in the insurance industry would have been more powerful. Lots of people in the industry would be scared of job losses and the CHANCE that a conservative supreme court would have found it unconstitutional 4 months before the election would have ended his chances to win re-election I think
I don't think there's any possible way that a Public Option or Single Payer would have made his re-election easier, and if he lost re-election the plan would have been scrapped anyway once Romney came in. It's the brutal truth of politics,
If you think the health care industry and the right wing would support "Hillary's" health care plan over their own I don't really know how to respond to that. The public option was tried, and it was rejected because the misinformation campaign, funding against, and overall wrath would have been much larger than with the individual mandate.
Both would have been challenged, both would have gone to the Supreme Court, and it follows logically that the more liberal plan would have had a greater chance of being struck down in a conservative supreme court.
Lots of pieces of Obamacare were implemented before 2014, it didn't change much in terms of public perception and support of the law. If you're suggesting that the Public Option would have been implemented sooner than the Individual Mandate, I don't see how that would work. There's no way that he would have implemented the entire law, had it working well for several years, and survived legal challenges all in 2 years. From 2010 when it was passed until 2012 when he was up for re-election. That's not feasible with something this big.
And he could have passed anything he wanted, if he lost in 2012 because the Supreme Court ruled his signature law unconstitutional, or because the Health Care Industry using the SuperPac's would have flooded Romney's campaign with donations, or because of a million other things which would logically arise from a more liberal health care plan, he would have probably lost in 2012. Not to mention, if he passed the Public Option, Romney could have successfully ran on Romneycare as a successful and plausible alternative that Republicans would have naturally coalesced around.
RustyNails
Member
Was watching the Presidents special on History channel. Quick thoughts. I know the 1% vs the 99% is a big thing right now. The stagnation of wages, corporations and rich people getting rich and poor people staying where they are. But...it looks like that's how America was in it's entire history. During the reconstruction, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller and JP Morgan's worth was anywhere between 200 to 300 billion USD in today's money. They created trusts worth in hundreds of billions of US dollars. The railroad meant life or death for US towns. No competition for the small guys at all. Richest guy right now is Bill Gates with $60b net worth. The divide between rich and poor during the gilded age (railroad mania) was so huge, and so massive, that the divide we see right now pales in comparison. A series of ineffective Presidents from Grant to Harrison made sure that the big business was running the show, courtesy of the bought and paid Congress. Theodore Roosevelt has to be my favorite President in US history. He did not put en end to the injustice per se, but he did put a big fucking dent to it. 1000+ executive orders (preserving Grand Canyon from commercialism, preserving forests and other national parks we cherish today), lawsuits against trust fund corporators, anti-competitive acts and railroad regulations, constitutional amendment to establish the income tax, establishment of federal reserve, the list goes on and on. The man was an unstoppable force.
I really doubt campaigning on "won't someone please think of the poor health insurance companies" would've worked.
They would've fight with misinformation and scare tactics, just like Harry and Louise and the death panels bullshit, which is why i think the best tactic is to make a simple plan that the public can understand.
And as luck would have it, the simplest plan to understand is also the best - medicare for all.
Yea, that wouldn't have worked. It wouldn't be about the poor health insurance companies, it would be about millions of jobs being lost. It would be about lack of choice. It would be about "if you like your plan, too fucking bad, government plan bitches!!" It would be about socialism, and big government, and nationalizing health care, It would be about an obvious Supreme Court challenge which would be a big deal and an even bigger landslide loss in the 2010 primaries from scared Republicans.
It would be about Romney having a viable alternative with a proven track record and a program that Republicans would coalesce around instead of just being the party with no good ideas.
As I've said, Single Payer is probably the best option. Although I'm a public option guy myself in terms of policy. But it wouldn't be better politics.
And I'm one of those folks that thinks that every Republican President, especially in the more polarized America, is a complete and total clusterfuck. I mean, Reagan was the "best" Repub President of the last half century, we need to do everything we can to make sure they don't win for a long long time.
This version is actually pretty cool. It makes one move every couple seconds based on a vote tally. This filters out a lot of the chaos in the original. It's a neat little experiment in the will of the masses. They've gotten pretty far despite having a ~20 second lag.
RustyNails
Member
Maybe I should qualify my statement that America always had the chasm divide. But I thought the gilded age was between the reconstruction (post civil war) until early 1900s.
I would gladly trade a single payer system for a Romney presidency, but again, medicare for all is such a superior program that I think the people would've loved it, assuming the dems were able to actually get it going in time.
And why would you prefer a public option to a medicare for all?
NYCmetsfan
Banned
Your chart begins after TR and doesn't document the gilded age.
Its also really interesting how well the New Deal and Great Society worked. Both saw noticeable dips after. Of course Reagan reverses it. I really hope he is eventually judged based on his presidency, not what people think was his presidency. I don't think this will happen for another 30-40 years though.
But you wouldn't have it. He'd repeal it and replace it with nothing or at best Romneycare, that's what I'm getting it.
I like choices. I would like the ability to go to a private plan if I wanted one, and a public plan if I didn't. But if the evidence told me that a single payer would deliver far greater outcomes for the same or lower costs than public option, I'd switch stances in a heartbeat. As long as everyone has access, good outcomes, controlled costs, and people have choice...I think that's a win-win.
PhoenixDark
Banned
NYCmetsfan
Banned
I still don't understand how someone can't afford 8-9% of their income to pay for the silver plan. You'd have to know his budget.
Looking at his posting history he really needs the care though.
smokeandmirrors
Banned
I wonder if it's the case of not having any meaningful data from that era? (Obviously Rockefeller was fucking loaded as were the other tycoons of the time, we do know that)
NYCmetsfan
Banned
It starts in 1913, the enactment of the income tax
WayneMorse
Banned
I have to return to this point because a huge failure of Obama is the fact that he buys in heavily to Republican rhetoric, like austerity and entitlement cuts. Obama since 2010 has been going on about how we need to cut entitlements and need to cut spending like it's an objective fact that cannot be disputed. Then there are things like TPP which have nothing to do with Republicans that will arguably make America a much much worse place. That is a huge failure in his Presidency, he vindicates the opposition and demoralizes his supporters.
The American people don't know shit about economics and didn't pay attention enough in their high school economics class to know who Keynes is, I would've liked to see him in his inaugural address in 2009 actually explain to people what Keynesian economics is and why government can actually be a force for good.
Reagan had few actually conservative legislative victories in Congress other than tax cuts, but he went on and on about how government is the problem and can't do anything right, and it changed people's mindsets, and the opposition changed as well.
I think Obama's biggest success, despite his failings, is in the fact that he's shifted the conversation on so many different subjects to more fact-based progressive world-views.
All but a few now support a pathway to citizenship in any Immigration Reform. All but a few support equal pay for women, and background checks on guns, and marriage rights for gays, and health care reform with pre-existing conditions covered. All but a few support higher taxes on rich people and peaceful foreign policy over invading other countries. All but a few support dealing with income inequality and raising the minimum wage etc.
The democratic position on nearly every single hot button issue is the popular position in today's polling and the Republican members of Congress have the lowest approval ratings pretty much ever. Their only relevancy lies in their gerrymandering gimmick.
I think on a whole host of issues, even though Obama hasn't been able to get legislation through congress, he's helped (and in some cases guided) the public shift towards a more Progressive America. .
To be fair, this is every Democrats failing. Democrats are horrible at championing the cause of "big government". FDR and LBJ are probably the only ones who've ever done a good job and because of the death of JFK and Great Depression, the American people put a lot of faith and trust in them. What irks me is why we every mention Econ 101 or HS Econ when discussing our national economy. There's a reason Econ classes keep going after the Intro one. There's a reason there are Masters programs and Doctorate programs in Econ, cuz there's a lot more shit than "supply and demand". Running our country's economic policies on Econ 101 is like trying to build a rocket ship using only basic arithmetic. If HS econ is all you know, kindly shut the fuck up and sit in the back while the experts discuss solutions.
All but a few now support a pathway to citizenship in any Immigration Reform. All but a few support equal pay for women, and background checks on guns, and marriage rights for gays, and health care reform with pre-existing conditions covered. All but a few support higher taxes on rich people and peaceful foreign policy over invading other countries. All but a few support dealing with income inequality and raising the minimum wage etc.
The democratic position on nearly every single hot button issue is the popular position in today's polling and the Republican members of Congress have the lowest approval ratings pretty much ever. Their only relevancy lies in their gerrymandering gimmick.
I think on a whole host of issues, even though Obama hasn't been able to get legislation through congress, he's helped (and in some cases guided) the public shift towards a more Progressive America. .
To be fair, this is every Democrats failing. Democrats are horrible at championing the cause of "big government". FDR and LBJ are probably the only ones who've ever done a good job and because of the death of JFK and Great Depression, the American people put a lot of faith and trust in them. What irks me is why we every mention Econ 101 or HS Econ when discussing our national economy. There's a reason Econ classes keep going after the Intro one. There's a reason there are Masters programs and Doctorate programs in Econ, cuz there's a lot more shit than "supply and demand". Running our country's economic policies on Econ 101 is like trying to build a rocket ship using only basic arithmetic. If HS econ is all you know, kindly shut the fuck up and sit in the back while the experts discuss solutions.
smokeandmirrors
Banned
I was alluding to your comment about it not documenting the Gilded Age and the possibility that there wasn't (enough?) data for that period of time.
RustyNails
Member
If we did had the data, Just Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt and JP Morgan would skew it so much.
I don't think you can ever take away people insurance, the GOP knows that, which is why they fought so fucking hard to stop the ACA before it was implemented, if (and when) a single payer is in place, no one is ever taking it away.
You can still get supplemental private insurance under a single payer system.
I never understood why a choice in the insurance program that provide you basic care is all that important, the only thing you should care about is price, and a non-profit big program is the most efficient.
Yeah, I wasn't able to find anything that went further back. But still, unless TR made as big of a difference as FDR, it seems unlikely that the Gilded Age was hugely more unequal than what we've got now.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
I think the guilded age really was that much more skewed. I don't think it was only TR but the entire period right at the turn of the century. there were a lot of recessions right around that time those in 1873 and 1893 being the worse
I think the worst would have been someone in the 1870s or 1880s
The average income for a family in 1890 was $380. I can't find an inflation calculator for pre1913 but in 1913 dollars that was like $9,000. Well below poverty.
Armoured Priest
Member
There are estimates that (when adjusted for inflation) place Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan's combined worth at their height at around $1 trillion in today's dollars...or richer then the 40 richest people in the world today.
LBJ signed Medicare into law in the summer of 1965. Nixon didn't get sworn in until January of of 1969. That's 3.5 years to do Government based insurance for one subset of the American population without the other side having a viable alternative.
I think suggesting that you could pass Single Payer for all Americans in 2010 and have it fully implemented with benefits to shift public opinion while withstanding a challenge from the courts and a viable alternative in Romney Care in about 2.5 years would be difficult if not impossible.
Even if Single Payer was passed, there's no way it would be implemented right away, if it had the same 2014 deadline, I think he would have lost the election, got Romney Care instituted, and Republicans would take credit for the health care and the resurgent economy.
ACA was a shrewd political move. Take the Republican plan knowing they won't come up with a viable option, or do any meaningful work at the state level until the election. With good foreign policy numbers at the time, the Stimulus already in place, and the country tired of trickle down, he took away any popular ideas the right would have come 2012.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
Who made up the BS 'law' (that doesn't exists) that corporations by law have to maximize shareholder value above all other things? the only thing I can see is Doge vs Ford and The Business Judgement Rule which only really says they half to look out for the best interest of the business (AKA not kill it off) not continually lay off people to give more to the shareholders. Which can actually be counter productive to the corporation's interest rather than their own pocketbook and already rich people who are buying the stocks.
Its the entire reason wall st is so idiotic today.
Its the entire reason wall st is so idiotic today.
RustyNails
Member
This is just so incredible.
Many layoffs, much shareholder value
(sorry I'm terrible at doge stuff)
WayneMorse
Banned
If I recall correctly Jacob Javits, a Republican, was the first person to propose a single payer bill in Congress after Medicare.
There is no law that demand that they do it, and by the way, this is a pretty recent idea that only start gaining prominence in the 80s, and is generally attributed to Jack Welch.
Wall Street was always idiotic, from the moment it was born it tried to find way to make money out of nothing.
The problem is that with the repeal of Glass Steagall we gave that assholes too much money and too much power.
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