Quote Originally Posted by Sir Terrence the Terrible
Being as pissed at him as I am, I still cannot sidestep the facts. In the beginning of his Presidency, he did reach out to Republicans. The rebuffed him. With healthcare the Republicans didn't want a single law passed the would truly harm the profits of the health care industry. The President made a major mistake by letting the house and senate craft his major campaign promise. They made a mess of it, and the Republicans lied through their teeth about the legislation before even reading about it.

The Republicans did get their way on the stimulus package. Too much money went on tax cuts, not enough on infrastructure, and that blunted the effectiveness of the entire package.

Did he have a choice? He sure in the hell did. If he stood his ground on the tax cut for the rich, he could have blamed the republicans for all of the consequences of holding out for tax cuts for the rich. You cannot talk about financial responsibility while rewarding the top 2% a tax cut the country has to borrow $700 billion to pay for. That does not make any sense, and that is not what 74% of American wants to see. That 74% includes both Republicans and Democrats. National debt, does this legislation care about national debt? Hell no, it seeks to bust it further, with the help of the republican party that got is into debt in the first place. And let me be balanced here. The Democrats have shown they are completely incapable of governing a country. The whole health care debacle was painful, and totally untidy to watch. Those idiots could not even come together and rally behind a single message. Blue Dogs ruining this, progressive demanding that, insurance industry bought and paid for completely thumbing their nose at the Democratic base. All of this is freakin insanity, and why China neither respects us, not believes that we will stand up to them." America the declining power" used to be something they said quietly, and between themselves. Now they openly say it, rebuff us, and ignore whatever we have to say.

This country is in decline, no doubt about it. I do not think Americans are ready for the new reality.
I think you are quite right about the way the health care legislation was developed. Obama and the Democrats should have had a good package in which single payer was a large component, without excluding totally additional insurance coverage. It's best to come up with a good proposal and then discuss it. It would have put Republicans and other conservatives on the defensive to argue why they didn't want various types of coverage and they would have to argue why they wanted a more expensive, less effective system.

The best analysis of Obama I have seen was recently given by Michael Hudson. Basically, Obama is a compromiser, devoted to getting people to agree on things. Alas, the Republicans and a number of others have had no intention of engaging in productive discussion. Obama discovered this early on but doesn't seem to have seen that he must set priorities and not compromise much on the main ones.

http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson12082010.html

The rich don't need to be richer, especially as the wealth is being transferred to them from those with the less. If the population doesn't have money to buy things, there is no demand and so there is no point in producing them. Supply side doesn't work. If a business has some extra money, it doesn't make sense to increase production when there is no demand.

Social Security has vital economic benefits in that it keeps some money going through the economy. Most of the people who get it spend it, they can't afford to invest it in foreign projects or put it Swiss bank accounts. And the Social Security fund seems to be in pretty good shape for at least the next quarter of a century and needs only minor adjustments. But the rich elites want to get their hands on that money, too!

But giving the rich a little more money isn't going to help the economy, and it just lets the national debt increase without getting any return on it.