Change
For yesterday’s Saturday / July 4 presidential address, Barack Obama offered up a pretty tough political message based on his reading of history:
These are some of the challenges that our generation has been called to meet. And yet, there are those who would have us try what has already failed; who would defend the status quo. They argue that our health care system is fine the way it is and that a clean energy economy can wait. They say we are trying to do too much, that we are moving too quickly, and that we all ought to just take a deep breath and scale back our goals.
These naysayers have short memories. They forget that we, as a people, did not get here by standing pat in a time of change. We did not get here by doing what was easy. That is not how a cluster of 13 colonies became the United States of America.
That all seems true to me. But to return to my point of obsession, it’s also true that substantive change in the United States has not typically come by simply working within the framework of the powers that be. The Revolution itself, of course, is a case in point—the whole idea was to vindicate the rights of Americans by going outside the established procedural framework of the British Empire.
The country doesn’t lack the intellectual capacity to understand how the health care system might be better, nor do we lack the material resources to transform our energy sector. But will we actually be able to do those things if Susan Collins and Ben Nelson are given absolute veto power over crucial issues of national policy?
32 Responses to “Change”
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July 5th, 2009 at 8:44 am
“That all seems true to me. But to return to my point of obsession, it’s also true that substantive change in the United States has not typically come by simply working within the framework of the powers that be … But will we actually be able to do those things if Susan Collins and Ben Nelson are given absolute veto power over crucial issues of national policy?”
But, of course, there is no need to go “outside the established procedural framework” of the Constitution to get things done.
The Constitution is quite clear that the Senate can set its own rules, and centuries of parliamentary tradition are quite clear that a majority is all that is necessary to set those rules.
In other words, 50 votes plus 1 can pass legislation in the Senate. The veto power in “the established procedural framework” leaves veto power with Claire McCaskill and Jim Webb, not Susan Collins and Ben Nelson.
There is no need to blame the Constitution when the problem lies with the unwillingness of the WH and the current Senate majority to use “the established procedural framework” to make significant progress on crucial issues of national policy.
We (the Democrats) have won elections and gathered parliamentary vote majorities. If we don’t use the power of those majorities to act for the public good, the problem lies with us, not with “the established procedural framework”.
July 5th, 2009 at 9:21 am
The problem, of course, is not the Constitution (a word that does not appear in Yggi’s post), but the Senate rules. That’s a formal established procedural framework. It’d be a lot easier to disrupt that framework, though, and I wouldn’t mind some sort of strategy to change them, along the lines of the “nuclear option.”
There’s also informal procedures at play, and those just suck. The GOP has violated those traditions every which way they can over the past sixteen years, most prominently when they began to filibuster every significant piece of legislation. Unfortunately, many senators, for whatever reason, seem to think that those informal procedures are worth upholding too; witness the pearl-clutching by conservative Democrats over using budget reconciliation. This really is a problem in the Senate caucus. We’d be a lot better if someone could turn Harry Reid into another Nancy Pelosi.
July 5th, 2009 at 9:25 am
The New Deal happened because the large Democratic majority elected because of the Depression correctly perceived that if they did not respond to the emergency, the voters would throw them the hell out.
Today, the Senate of the U.S. is made up of people like Specter and Lieberman who it appears have correctly perceived that the system is so broken they will NEVER be thrown out of office no matter what as long as they have the money to run lots of TV lies. Is that their fault, or ours?
July 5th, 2009 at 9:30 am
“But will we actually be able to do those things if Susan Collins and Ben Nelson are given absolute veto power over crucial issues of national policy?”
It seems that the Democratic apologists will never run out of bugaboos on which to blame away their (intentional) failures to fulfill their campaign promises. Get with it, Matt: it is not in the electoral interests of the Democrats to buck the powers-that-be on things like green energy or national health care unless the electorate lights a fire under them when they fail to do so. And no fire is forthcoming.
It’s nice of you to cover for them, and the nasty old filibuster (which the Democrats could end tomorrow if they thought the fate of the planet or the health and well-being of uninsured Americans were significant issues) is the best friend of do-nothing, pass-the-buck legislators, but the reason why this stuff doesn’t get passed is quite simple: they don’t want to pass it. The modus operandi of the modern Democratic party is to be seen as having good intentions, but having those intentions subverted by some sinister force beyond their control; if only they could get a little more money, or a few more seats in Congress, then maybe next time…!
July 5th, 2009 at 9:58 am
They say we are trying to do too much, that we are moving too quickly
Who says that? The president reads the Washington Post too much.
Instead of grand speeches, Obama should start working hard to keep the promises of the campaign, and the Democratic platform. They include among other things:
- universal and affordable health care
- getting out of Iraq
- a return to higher taxes on the rich
- equal rights for gays
He has done nothing so far, so he better start to deliver. Also, in the words of Stewart: “Shut up and fix the economy!”. Handouts to Wall Street and a relatively small stimulus including too much tax cuts won’t cut it.
And instead of grandiose references to the founders, the “constitutional scholar” better read the Constitution. Another promise was restoring the rule of law. People who have ordered or performed torture should all be indicted.
July 5th, 2009 at 10:08 am
The average American should be highly pissed at his government.
Since the 1970s the status of the average American has been steadily downgraded. Wages have been stagnant while the wealth of middle America has been transferred to the accounts of plutocrats.
The media has been converted to a mouthpiece for money. The media regularly lies to us, the most important way in what they don’t report. Think tanks get major media time to spout lies in support of conservative positions, while the media will not present established evidence. From foreign policy to domestic ripoffs, the media just neglects the truth.
Both republicans and democrats play the game. And a large share of the democrats are as corrupt as the republicans. The democrats have relied on wall street money since Bill Clinton and they have paid back big time.
If we want an honest government, we need to defeat the democrats who tow the big money line. And to date, Obama appears to be one of those.
July 5th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Re Matthew’s comment “the whole idea was to vindicate the rights of Americans by going outside the established procedural framework of the British Empire …But will we actually be able to do those things if Susan Collins and Ben Nelson are given absolute veto power over crucial issues of national policy?”
———–
Er..so should we pick up rifles and go after Susan Collins and Ben Nelson?
July 5th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Change must come from this Congress and this White House. . . Consider the power they have – including to use a 51 vote majority in the Senate. . . Consider the dire circumstances they are governing in the midst of. . . Consider they are Democrats and – theoretically – not under the control of the powerful elites. . . The attacks of 9/11/01 were the “opportunity” for the Right Wing to implement many of its long held goals. . . The health care and financial woes we now face are – in spades – the “opportunity” the Left will likely never see again to implement its goals. . .
If it does not happen this time – and be done right – then truly the only choice going forward is violence. It would include widespread participation and not just urban minorities. The police and military rank and file would not support continuing control by “Government Sachs” and its partners. . . Let’s hope Harry Reid and Barack Obama understand what is at stake this time.
July 5th, 2009 at 10:35 am
I see the problem as not one of purely parliamentary consequence, but rather as one based on a pair of what are, in effect, pre-parliamentary realities:
1. The emergent universality of the Greed + Money —> Power equation, and
2. The abysmal collapse of intellectual diversity in the American electorate as a whole.
We have become a nation of shallow pettiness, a nation based on greed, not on elevating principle as detailed in the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. We are truly a nation in decline, one that is willing to spend trillions on the tools of military imperialism, but unwilling to spend much more than nothing at all on elevation of mind, on intrinsic national (read: We the people’s physical and intellectual) well-being, on the spirit of exploration, of progressive creativity that benefits all as opposed to solely the brokers of greed and power.
The fact that the bulk of our elected officialdom represents not The People but, instead, the money/power equation, defines the parliamentary consequence far better than does ritual complaint of filibuster, of super-majority, of the failure or lack of interest in “bipartisanship,” itself become, today, little more than a hollow buzzword.
America has, sadly, become the approximate equivalent of what those we casually (and proudly) refer to as our ‘Founders’ sought to overthrow. We have lost the game; the Black Hole has won. Again.
July 5th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Er..so should we pick up rifles and go after Susan Collins and Ben Nelson?
Well, those well-regulated militias our constitution guarantees us have been somewhat lacking in things to do as of late.
July 5th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Why o why,
What planet are you on? The president has been working on getting health care reform.
July 5th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Why o why,
I might also add that Obama always used 16 month timeline to get out of Iraq. I don’t think we’re in the 16th month of his presidency.
July 5th, 2009 at 11:21 am
So what are you advocating, Matt? Are you calling for Obama to go Chavez on us “for our own good”?
July 5th, 2009 at 11:26 am
The president has been working on getting health care reform.
And so have Ben Nelson and the Club for Growth. Emphasis was on ‘deliver’ and ‘universal and affordable’.
What Obama deems really important on health care reform is leaving the public plan negotiable, and also protectiong serious people like Nelson or Landrieu from the attacks of angry leftists:
Mind you, the president and his entourage don’t hesitate to attack Democrats on the left who really want to change things, and for example run against Specter or Gillibrand, or vote against bills too moderate.
And what about Iraq, or civil rights for gays, or taxes on the rich? Obama so far hasn’t done anything on those fronts, not even really talked about them and a need for change. He is every bit the ‘moderate’ I thought, no wonder he quotes Reagan so much.
I would have loved Obama to say two years ago: “If elected I will leave all troops in Iraq for one year and see what happens. Also, I will effectively pardon Bush, Cheney and their goons for all their crimes including torture. That is the change we need!”. I wonder if his fans wouldn’t have taken a second look then.
July 5th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Maybe on your planet. On the planet I inhabit, he’s been lambasting anybody who tries to pressure “moderate” Democrats into actually giving us real health care reform that isn’t just a bonanza for the insurance companies.
July 5th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Obama used the 4th of July to push his political agenda. The Declaration of Independence arose from a “long train of abuses and usurpations.” The very thing continues under America’s Unitary Executive. Bush pushed the envelope, Obama hasn’t restricted Executive power. He wants people to trust the Good King.
There are many analogies that could be made. President Obama chose a self serving one, ignoring his role in rights abuses and usurpations.
Jefferson said:
“The oppressed should rebel, and they will continue to rebel and raise disturbance until their civil rights are fully restored to them and all partial distinctions, exclusions and incapacitations are removed.” –Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:548
“As revolutionary instruments (when nothing but revolution will cure the evils of the State) [secret societies] are necessary and indispensable, and the right to use them is inalienable by the people.” –Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1803. FE 8:256
July 5th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
FDR and LBJ simply enjoyed bigger working coalitions in the Senate than Obama. Of course it is yet to be seen what will happen now that the Democrats are officially at 60, but the bottomline is that it certainly would help Obama and his congressional allies move things along bigger and faster if, say, 5-10 Republican Senators in blue/purple states got replaced with Democrats.
July 5th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
17 –
I don’t think there are 5-10 Republican senators in blue/purple states anymore.
July 5th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Bush vs element of change Obama.
Increased military spending. Same
Torture. Same
Spying. Same
Transparency. Same
DADT. Same
Gay marriage. Same
Wall Street bailout. Same
True Wall Street reform. Same
Trying Wall Street criminals. Same
National Banking System. Same
Green Bank. Same
Tax cuts for the wealthy. Same
Campaign finance reform. Same
Drug policy reform. Same
Guns. Worse
Balancing the budget. Same
Taxing to balance the budget. Same
Iraq. Free pass
Afghanistan. Free pass
Relations with other nations. Much better
Appealing to your base. Much worse
Stimulus with massive tax cuts. Worse
Crap and Trade. Barely better
Investment in green tech. Slightly better
Investment in infrastructure. Slightly better
Health care reform. With single-payer off the table, SAME
July 5th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
This medium is perfect for pursuing ‘points of obsession’; indeed, isn’t it central to the art.
July 5th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
FDR and LBJ simply enjoyed bigger working coalitions in the Senate than Obama.
They also operated under a very different system of campaigning, whereby candidates had to truck the party line to a far greater extent if they wanted to win. Hell, look at our President: was his campaign totally won on the back of an already existing campaign infrastructure that belonged to the Democratic party itself? No–it was won largely through the creation of its own tools for winning votes.
The movement towards a candidate-centric political system, which began over thirty years ago, is a large part of the problem people are seeing with the Senate. The President has some resources to bring to bear on the Ben Nelsons of the world, but not as many as he used to. Indeed, barring a foray into illegality (think Tom Delay’s campaign finance charges or the attempted bribery of Bob Ney) or a foray into being electorally inconsequential in a great swath of the nation (i.e. the current Republicans, who can maintain discipline because they are much more tightly ideological and less of a national party or a national coalition), party discipline is a difficult thing to maintain.
A phrase like “We (the Democrats)” ignores this fact – that the Democrats are barely a we on many issues, but rather a collection of individuals whose power is to a certain degree independent of the party itself. You can try and regain control over these individuals (perhaps by the DeLay method of controlling the money or the Grover Norquist method of electorally pressuring a candidate in the primaries), but both of those approaches have their downsides (jail, becoming a narrow party that doesn’t have 50 seats, let alone 60).
What exactly can Reid do to a Senator who is freelancing? He can’t screw with his money like LBJ could, that’s for sure. Hell, the party leadership is now based, at least partially, on which members raises the most money for the other members of the party — screwing with someone’s money would be screwing with yours. I suppose you can run a candidate against the freelancer, but that’s a tricky affair: you risk losing the loyalty of that person if he wins and there is a good chance he does win due to an incumbency bias. Ultimately, a third tactic is necessary: likely something more grass-roots based than simply wishing for a strong-man President to whip everything into shape.
July 5th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
“- universal and affordable health care
- getting out of Iraq
- a return to higher taxes on the rich
- equal rights for gays”
One of these things is not like the others.
July 5th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
#19:
“Relations with other nations. Much better”
I don’t think so. We’ve gone out of our way to insult the UK. We’ve started a trade war with Mexico, and come close to starting one with Canada. Sarkozy was snubbed when Obama was in France, and relations with Merkel (Germany) are not good.
Iran has ignored our “olive branch”, and we’ve thrown the protesters there under a bus (to be fair, I doubt that anything we might have said would have changed anything, but it would be nice to be on the right side verbally, at least).
In Honduras, we’ve sided with the Chavez wannabe – just like Castro and Chavez have.
How exactly have intl relations gotten better?
July 5th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
The clear problem is obama’s – and the dems – refusal to use what power he does have to achieve some of the things he promised. A cynic would say that he simply promised whatever he needed to promise in order to win the nomination. As noted by a commenter earlier, if Obama had campaigned on the kind of statements, policies and non-actions he’s made so far, no way he wins the nomination.
If he says,
“We’re promise that we’re going to continue and maintain a large portion of Bush’s domestic and foreign policy…”
Instead of campaigning on
“Change…”
he doesn’t get the nod from dems. Plain and simple.
Those who reflexively defend Obama’s string of broken promises and his refusal to move forward in certain ways need to keep that fact in mind.
Obama appears to be doing what is good for politician Obama, but not what is necessarily good for and consistent with the expectations of those who gave him the ability to carry the Democratic Party banner in last year’s election.
July 5th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Re: Trying Wall Street criminals. Same
Um, didn’t we just put Bernie Madoff away for a long, long time? You seem to forget that trying a criminal requires substantive and convictable evidence of wrong doing. You don’t just haul someone before a court on serious charges because you don’t like them and suspect that maybe, somehow they might have done something wrong. The name for that sort of court is a kangaroo court and the US can happily do without that. If there’s solid evidence of malfeasance against anyone on Wall Street I’ll be happy to see the same book thrown at them that just smacked Madoff, but otherwise I reject Jacobinical “show trials”.
July 5th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
I don’t think there are 5-10 Republican senators in blue/purple states anymore.
Bond (MO), Burr (NC), Collins and Snowe (ME), Ensign (NV), Grassley (IA), Gregg (NH), Martinez (FL), Lugar (IN), and Voinovich (OH) make ten. I’d also include Kyl and McCain (AZ) and Thune (SD), and you could even stretch to include DeMint and Graham (SC) and Chambliss and Isakson (GA).
July 5th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Health care reform. With single-payer off the table, SAME
I think that really sums up Max’s list in a nutshell. If Obama delivers health care reform with a competitive public option, he obviously isn’t the “same” as Bush. Heck, even just expanding coverage dramatically through things like Medicaid expansion, community ratings, a national exchange, and subsidies would make him very much not the “same” as Bush. So clearly “same” has lost all meaning in Max’s usage.
July 5th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
I love people who are so anti-torture – really, much more anti-torture than you, you hypocrite – that they describe the positions “we’re going to torture people” and “we’re not going to torture people” as “same.”
July 5th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Barack Obama is working to prevent the Bush tax cuts from sunsetting? He’s trying to make them permanent?
Are you sure? Because I don’t think that’s true, either.
July 5th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Chesterton and Lewis bow to Yglesias
July 6th, 2009 at 10:41 am
The key is who pays for expanded health care coverage. If the wealthy and corporations skate on their responsibilities, then it’s Bush league sameness.
July 6th, 2009 at 11:54 am
The key is who pays for expanded health care coverage. If the wealthy and corporations skate on their responsibilities, then it’s Bush league sameness.
Which in turn is why delivering on Medicaid expansion, community ratings, and subsidies would all put Obama solidly out of “Bush league sameness”.