March 23, 2010--LBJ & BHO
One of my closest friends here owns a small business. He employs six, pays them well, and has offered generous benefits. Including health care coverage. But as the recession has bitten into his gross income, he has struggled to maintain their wages and their health insurance. In fact, to do so, he has reduced his own salary. He's that good a guy.
And although he is a staunch Republican and looks forward to what he feels certain will be a GOP resurgence in November and beyond, I was expecting yesterday morning over coffee at the Green Owl that he would at least be feeling good about the provision in the new bill that would offer almost immediately significant tax credits to businesses such as his to offset their cost of providing health coverage.
But no. He was full of spit and vinegar and thinly veiled frustration. Before I could settle in my seat at the counter he raced over and, putting his arm around me, said, "You know I still love you," I have no doubt that he does, "but that abomination of a bill they passed last night is a pile of stinking you-know-what."
"Even the provision that will be good for you? That one that will give you tax credits for what you pay for your employees' health care coverage? That's real money you know. You'll be getting a 35 percent credit--which amounts to cash in you pocket--for every dollar you spend."
"I'll see it when I believe it."
"It's in the bill and will kick in in just a few months."
"We have to find the time to debate the bill because the cost of it is going to ruin us."
"I'll be happy to debate it with you but you have to do one thing first."
"What's that?"
"Read the bill. I'll bet you haven't done that."
"It's written in such dry language."
"I know it's not a page-turner, but before I'll talk further about it with you, you have to read it or a good, non-ideological summary. Like the one you can get from the Kaiser Family Foundation." (To save him the trouble of looking it up, I've linked the KFF website below.)
His sheepish smile suggested that even that would not be something he will do. As they say in my old neighborhood, "Don't confuse me with the fact because my mind's already made up."
Later that day, with a cousin, we wondered together, actually marveled about how, as I put it, "a skinny black guy with Hussein for a middle name" managed to achieve one of the most remarkable social policy achievements in American history. Right up there with Social Security and Medicare. Something that alluded presidents from both parties for more than 100 years--from Teddy Roosevelt, who was the first to propose heath care for all Americans, to his cousin FDR, to Truman, to Lyndon Johnson, to Nixon, of and of course the Clintons. To say that Obama achieved this is because the Democrats control the presidency and both houses of Congress is not an adequate explanation since this was true for at least a time for all of these previous presidents.
LBJ was able to pass more legislation of this kind than anyone since Franklin Roosevelt. He had a number of unique things going for him: he became president when John Kennedy was assassinated and Johnson was able to use his legacy to rally the country behind JFK's "unfinished agenda." That was emotionally powerful. At least as powerful, Johnson just a few years before had been one of most powerful Senate Majority Leaders in history. He knew what kind of deals he needed to make to with Democrats as well as republicans to secure votes; he knew just how to twist his former colleagues' arms to get them to see things his way; and if that failed, he had the goods on everyone--from their secret caches of cash to their after-hours peccadilloes--and was shameless in using all of these attention-getting methods. In these ways he got the votes he needed to pass the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and Medicare, among many others.
From what we thus far know, Obama had none of these at his disposal much less an inclination to use them. It appears that "all" he did was make 85 impassioned speeches about how the time has come to bring health care to everyone; meet endlessly with Republicans in private and public in an attempt to reduce their intransigence (through all the months and many, many votes he got one lone Republican vote, from poor New Orleans Congressman Anh "Joseph" Cao who instantly came to "know" better); and he spent even more time with his own party's Blue Dogs and Yellow Dogs and anti-abortionists such as Bart Stupak and right-to-choose activists and the Black and Hispanic Caucuses and single-payer advocates such as Dennis Kucinich. And in the end, he got the votes of Stupak, Kucinich, and nearly every other Democrat.
I hope my friend reads the bill so we can discuss it intelligently. While waiting for that, I suspect he will learn about the tax credit available to him. I hope he receives it, maybe as a result he will be able to hire more people (and receive tax credits for doing that!) and that he'll then come back into the Owl and let me and everyone else there know that this remarkable Democrat achievement is not a pile of . . .
And although he is a staunch Republican and looks forward to what he feels certain will be a GOP resurgence in November and beyond, I was expecting yesterday morning over coffee at the Green Owl that he would at least be feeling good about the provision in the new bill that would offer almost immediately significant tax credits to businesses such as his to offset their cost of providing health coverage.
But no. He was full of spit and vinegar and thinly veiled frustration. Before I could settle in my seat at the counter he raced over and, putting his arm around me, said, "You know I still love you," I have no doubt that he does, "but that abomination of a bill they passed last night is a pile of stinking you-know-what."
"Even the provision that will be good for you? That one that will give you tax credits for what you pay for your employees' health care coverage? That's real money you know. You'll be getting a 35 percent credit--which amounts to cash in you pocket--for every dollar you spend."
"I'll see it when I believe it."
"It's in the bill and will kick in in just a few months."
"We have to find the time to debate the bill because the cost of it is going to ruin us."
"I'll be happy to debate it with you but you have to do one thing first."
"What's that?"
"Read the bill. I'll bet you haven't done that."
"It's written in such dry language."
"I know it's not a page-turner, but before I'll talk further about it with you, you have to read it or a good, non-ideological summary. Like the one you can get from the Kaiser Family Foundation." (To save him the trouble of looking it up, I've linked the KFF website below.)
His sheepish smile suggested that even that would not be something he will do. As they say in my old neighborhood, "Don't confuse me with the fact because my mind's already made up."
Later that day, with a cousin, we wondered together, actually marveled about how, as I put it, "a skinny black guy with Hussein for a middle name" managed to achieve one of the most remarkable social policy achievements in American history. Right up there with Social Security and Medicare. Something that alluded presidents from both parties for more than 100 years--from Teddy Roosevelt, who was the first to propose heath care for all Americans, to his cousin FDR, to Truman, to Lyndon Johnson, to Nixon, of and of course the Clintons. To say that Obama achieved this is because the Democrats control the presidency and both houses of Congress is not an adequate explanation since this was true for at least a time for all of these previous presidents.
LBJ was able to pass more legislation of this kind than anyone since Franklin Roosevelt. He had a number of unique things going for him: he became president when John Kennedy was assassinated and Johnson was able to use his legacy to rally the country behind JFK's "unfinished agenda." That was emotionally powerful. At least as powerful, Johnson just a few years before had been one of most powerful Senate Majority Leaders in history. He knew what kind of deals he needed to make to with Democrats as well as republicans to secure votes; he knew just how to twist his former colleagues' arms to get them to see things his way; and if that failed, he had the goods on everyone--from their secret caches of cash to their after-hours peccadilloes--and was shameless in using all of these attention-getting methods. In these ways he got the votes he needed to pass the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and Medicare, among many others.
From what we thus far know, Obama had none of these at his disposal much less an inclination to use them. It appears that "all" he did was make 85 impassioned speeches about how the time has come to bring health care to everyone; meet endlessly with Republicans in private and public in an attempt to reduce their intransigence (through all the months and many, many votes he got one lone Republican vote, from poor New Orleans Congressman Anh "Joseph" Cao who instantly came to "know" better); and he spent even more time with his own party's Blue Dogs and Yellow Dogs and anti-abortionists such as Bart Stupak and right-to-choose activists and the Black and Hispanic Caucuses and single-payer advocates such as Dennis Kucinich. And in the end, he got the votes of Stupak, Kucinich, and nearly every other Democrat.
I hope my friend reads the bill so we can discuss it intelligently. While waiting for that, I suspect he will learn about the tax credit available to him. I hope he receives it, maybe as a result he will be able to hire more people (and receive tax credits for doing that!) and that he'll then come back into the Owl and let me and everyone else there know that this remarkable Democrat achievement is not a pile of . . .
posted by Steven Zwerling at
6:19 AM
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