The shocking truth about the birthplace of Obama’s policies - Ezra Klein

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-shocking-truth-about-the-birthplace-of-obamas-policies/2011/04/15/AF6qINpE_blog.html

America is mired in three wars. The past decade was the hottest on record. Unemployment remains stuck near 9 percent, and there’s a small, albeit real, possibility that the U.S. government will default on its debt. So what’s dominating the news? A reality-television star who can’t persuade anyone that his hair is real is alleging that the president of the United States was born in Kenya.

Perhaps this is just the logical endpoint of two years spent arguing over what Barack Obama is — or isn’t. Muslim. Socialist. Marxist. Anti-colonialist. Racial healer. We’ve obsessed over every answer except the right one: President Obama, if you look closely at his positions, is a moderate Republican from the early 1990s. And the Republican Party he’s facing has abandoned many of its best ideas in its effort to oppose him.

If you put aside the emergency measures required by the financial crisis, three major policy ideas have dominated American politics in recent years: a health-care plan that uses an individual mandate and tax subsidies to achieve near-universal coverage; a cap-and-trade plan that attempts to raise the prices of environmental pollutants to better account for their costs; and bringing tax rates up from their Bush-era lows as part of a bid to reduce the deficit. In each case, the position that Obama and the Democrats have staked out is the very position that moderate Republicans staked out in the early ’90s — and often, well into the 2000s.

Take health-care reform. The individual mandate was developed by a group of conservative economists in the early ’90s. Mark Pauly, an economist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, was one of them. “We were concerned about the specter of single-payer insurance,” he told me recently. The conservative Heritage Foundation soon had an individual-mandate plan of its own, and when President Bill Clinton endorsed an employer mandate in his health-care proposal, both major Republican alternatives centered on an individual mandate. By 1995, more than 20 Senate Republicans — including Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Dick Lugar and a few others still in office — had sponsored one individual mandate bill or another.

More at the link --

[RandomThoughts]

1. They have no mandate over me.

They have no argument to set any laws.

[LWolf]

2. A moderate Republican from the early '90s.

And/or a neoliberal.

I can't argue that point.

[Poll_Blind]

21. +1

PB

[On the Road]

3. An Individual Mandate of Some Kind is Necessary for Universal Coverage

Without it, people can just wait until they get seriously ill to buy insurance.

Under single payer, it's collected by taxation. Under a private plan, with or without a public option, it has to be done by requiring coverage.

Of all the things to complain about in the health insurance plan, the fact that this originated with a conservative is not very high on the list.

[originalpckelly]

15. Yes, but just like mandatory car insurance they are making you buy something private.

That's the problem. You are being forced to buy a private service. It's a horrible idea. For any situation like this there should be a mandated public tax, not a government using its powers to force you to buy something private.

[On the Road]

18. Yes, but Having an Individual Mandate is Necessary

It may be preferable to have a public option as one way of fulfilling that mandate.

The objection that the private mandate was originated by a conversative is a moot point. Not having an individual mandate of any kind is tantamount to approving a nonuniversal system.

[eridani]

25. Yes, but a mandate to put mass murderers between you and your health care providers?

Why not a tax to pay for a government service?

[On the Road]

26. Having a Public Option Does Not Change the Situation

It's still an individual mandate.

Not arguing the merits of different systems, just that the attempt to show Obama as beholden to 1990s conservative ideas is misplaced. An individual mandate is integral to universal coverage.

[eridani]

27. Only because the "public option" was neither public nor an option by the time Congress--

--got done with it. Paying a tax for a service is no way in HELL the same as being forced to deal with amoral thieves and murderers who are free to turn down any claim.

[On the Road]

29. The Original Question Was Whether Obama's Individual Mandate Policy

was inspired by a right-winger.

I am arguing that it is a necessary feature of any universal or near-universal policy, regardless of whether there is a public option. So the question of inspiration is moot.

[eridani]

30. Only a rightwinger could favor forcing people to deal with thieves and murderers--

--in order to have access to health care. Taxation is a mandate by definition, and taxation to fund universal health care is fine by me.

[Autumn]

4. Not going to argue with this.

Very similar policies. He does admire st. ronnie.

[nc4bo]

5. No change, no hope.

Same old shit and quite frankly I'm good and fed up with it.

[FourScore]

6. I always say, he's just right of Reagan! n/t

[Raine]

12. Yes, unfortunately. nt

[hifiguy]

7. It is abundantly clear that TPTB

will never again allow a real Democrat to be elected president in this country,

[COLGATE4]

23. The true Democratic party is to all intents and purposes irrelevant

in today's political processes. The fight is over how far right the elected person is.

[Overseas]

8. K&R!

[mmonk]

9. Yes, I know these things.

It's why he seeks bipartisanship with the Republicans. But the Republicans have been further radicalized and will not give him that. But Democrats in Congress (and particularly in the Senate) that are like him in that are a major reason why real effective change has not come. It's why they don't fight hard enough against the current radical rightwing to stave it off.

[bananas]

10. k&r nt

[leveymg]

11. Obama is the best moderate Republican President since G.H.W. Bush

Just a smidgeon Kinder and Gentler. But, wasn't GHW a single-term President?

[originalpckelly]

14. Read my lips: I will tax the rich.

Ooops, sorry about that.

I accidentally the whole damn thing!

[leveymg]

17. Sinister laughter. . . snickering.

Will have to Photoshop those images.

[originalpckelly]

13. Or as I put it: He's the best Republican the DNC ever nominated.

[DirkGently]

16. Yep. He's a Reagan Democrat. Save everyone some heartache if we all got that.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. He's just another ambitious politician with adjustable "principles" tailored to electability.

“Now, the man on the stand he wants my vote,
He's a-runnin' for office on the ballot note.
He's out there preachin' in front of the steeple,
Tellin' me he loves all kinds-a people.
(He's eatin' bagels
He's eatin' pizza
He's eatin' chitlins
He's eatin' bullshit!)”

Bob Dylan

[xchrom]

20. recommend

[TheKentuckian]

22. This is clear as day. We elected a younger, hipper Bob Dole.

[bvar22]

24. Bill Clinton's title of "Best Republican President EVER"....

...is in jeopardy.
The Old Dog won't like being 2nd Best.



"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans.
I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans."
---Paul Wellstone

[sabrina 1]

28. That's how I would describe him.

If Republicans get smart and run a moderate Republican themselves, rather than the insane fringe candidates that are currently being touted by them, they could win the WH.

The biggest threat from the real right, would be Romney imho. He seems normal and could pass for sane in a general election.

But yes, there is no way Obama can be described as a Liberal Democrat. He also finds it hard to hide his disdain for Democratic presidents like FDR while having no problem praising Reagan.