Daley machine sends Obama a warning

[Bugs]

Keep the Big Tent big

By William M. Daley

Thursday, December 24, 2009; A15

The announcement by Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith that he is switching to the Republican Party is just the latest warning sign that the Democratic Party -- my lifelong political home -- has a critical decision to make: Either we plot a more moderate, centrist course or risk electoral disaster not just in the upcoming midterms but in many elections to come. ... On the one hand, centrist Democrats are being vilified by left-wing bloggers, pundits and partisan news outlets for not being sufficiently liberal, "true" Democrats. On the other, Republicans are pounding them for their association with a party that seems to be advancing an agenda far to the left of most voters.

The political dangers of this situation could not be clearer.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/23/AR2009122302439_pf.html

This is a statement from the Mayor of Chicago, head of the imposing Daly Machine, calling on moderate Democrats to return to the center ... surely another sign of the dissolution of Obama's support.

All it will take is for the 'jobless recovery' to continue, while prices rise and the arrogance continues.

[Shady]

Great post. This adds further significance to the Griffith defection.

[Michael Hardner]

Public Healthcare is not a hard-left option. The US is the last remaining country in the western world to offer public healthcare, and the time has come to implement it. No matter what else comes of his government, he will get credit from this initiative.

[Shady]

Public Healthcare is not a hard-left option. The US is the last remaining country in the western world to offer public healthcare, and the time has come to implement it. No matter what else comes of his government, he will get credit from this initiative.

How is mandating the purchasing of health-insurance from private insurance companies "public healthcare"? Not only that, but if you refuse to purchase this private service, you're jailed or fined by the government. Not to mention that the US already offers public healthcare in Medicare, Medicaide, Medicade Advantage, and the Children's Health Insuranch Program.

So what exactly are you referring to?

[Michael Hardner]

How is mandating the purchasing of health-insurance from private insurance companies "public healthcare"? Not only that, but if you refuse to purchase this private service, you're jailed or fined by the government. Not to mention that the US already offers public healthcare in Medicare, Medicaide, Medicade Advantage, and the Children's Health Insuranch Program.

So what exactly are you referring to?

I'm referring to the current administration's push for public healthcare, and the implication in the OP that there are hard-left aspects to that.

[Pliny]

Public Healthcare is not a hard-left option. The US is the last remaining country in the western world to offer public healthcare, and the time has come to implement it. No matter what else comes of his government, he will get credit from this initiative.

Public health care is a hard left option. Your claim it isn't poignantly illustrates how far left the centre has moved.

No doubt he will get credit for it. Tommy Douglas, the hard left socialist(although he was originally enamoured with Hitler and could have been considered hard right, he was disabused of Nazism after his visit to Germany and felt more comfortable with the hard left)will always get credit for health care in Canada until it's eventual and inexorable demise. What kind of person would deny another the ability to purchase his own health care?

[Michael Hardner]

Public health care is a hard left option. Your claim it isn't poignantly illustrates how far left the centre has moved.

No doubt he will get credit for it. Tommy Douglas, the hard left socialist(although he was originally enamoured with Hitler and could have been considered hard right, he was disabused of Nazism after his visit to Germany and felt more comfortable with the hard left)will always get credit for health care in Canada until it's eventual and inexorable demise. What kind of person would deny another the ability to purchase his own health care?

If the centre has moved, then it's the centre. I don't try to state that raising the corporate tax rate by 50% is a left-wing tactic by comparing it to policies of 30 years ago, so you shouldn't compare public healthcare to the status it would have had in 1965.

Stop dreaming about Canada's demise, it's unbecoming.

[Riverwind]

so you shouldn't compare public healthcare to the status it would have had in 1965.

The trouble is health care in the US is like it was here in the 60s and bringing in a government backed insurance provider is equivalent to nationalizing a private enterprise without compensation. That processes of nationalization makes health care reform a very left wing proposal in the US despite the fact that in Canada national healthcare is supported across the spectrum. If we did not already have it in Canada I doubt we could set it up today because attitudes towards nationalization of enterprises has changed here too. Edited December 24, 2009 by Riverwind

[Pliny]

If the centre has moved, then it's the centre. I don't try to state that raising the corporate tax rate by 50% is a left-wing tactic by comparing it to policies of 30 years ago, so you shouldn't compare public healthcare to the status it would have had in 1965.

Stop dreaming about Canada's demise, it's unbecoming.

The centre today is more socialist than the centre of 1965.

Who's dreaming of Canada's demise? Does public universal health care define Canada?

[Pliny]

I have had the thought that if health care were the most important thing in Canadian lives the urban centres and rural towns would be marked by their growth around hospitals instead of church spires.

Health care reform is necessary but it should abandon the business model.

[Michael Hardner]

If we did not already have it in Canada I doubt we could set it up today because attitudes towards nationalization of enterprises has changed here too.

And we would not have a system that costs a fraction of the US system per capita with full coverage, which would be a shame.

[Michael Hardner]

The centre today is more socialist than the centre of 1965.

Who's dreaming of Canada's demise? Does public universal health care define Canada?

Hmmm....

will always get credit for health care in Canada until it's eventual and inexorable demise.

<sarcasm>Why would I think you were hoping for Canada's demise ?</sarcasm>

[Michael Hardner]

I have had the thought that if health care were the most important thing in Canadian lives the urban centres and rural towns would be marked by their growth around hospitals instead of church spires.

You're right.. health care wasn't as important in the 19th century, when folks thought that they were bound for a better place after death.

[Michael Hardner]

The centre today is more socialist than the centre of 1965.

You statement is simplistic and compares apples to oranges. We have more government involvement in life than at that time, but also a much better business environment, a more conservative outlook generally (it WAS the 1960s) and a higher marginal tax rate for the rich.

Conversely, we had social pressures that made open homosexuality unlivable, and fewer choices for women.

Apples. Oranges.

[Pliny]

Hmmm....

<sarcasm>Why would I think you were hoping for Canada's demise ?</sarcasm>

That's health care's inexorable demise. Not Canada's demise. Hopefully, Canada outlasts universal health care.

[Michael Hardner]

That's health care's inexorable demise. Not Canada's demise. Hopefully, Canada outlasts universal health care.

If healthcare fades away, it will be because we can now afford a gold-plated options... kind of like how a CD player would have cost you $1M in 1975. But that's a long way off...

[Pliny]

You're right.. health care wasn't as important in the 19th century, when folks thought that they were bound for a better place after death.

The point was health care should perhaps be run more along the charitable model than the business model. It would be as successful, if not more, than the churches were in the nineteenth century. Hospitals would replace the churches. Perhaps that is happening but maybe health care workers are not committed enough to run on the charitable model and prefer their paychecks to be guaranteed from the public purse.

[Pliny]

If healthcare fades away, it will be because we can now afford a gold-plated options... kind of like how a CD player would have cost you $1M in 1975. But that's a long way off...

It could never fade away because we are getting healthier.

[Bugs]

You statement is simplistic and compares apples to oranges. We have more government involvement in life than at that time, but also a much better business environment, a more conservative outlook generally (it WAS the 1960s) and a higher marginal tax rate for the rich.

Conversely, we had social pressures that made open homosexuality unlivable, and fewer choices for women.

Apples. Oranges.

I'll take issue with that.

It's dangerous to overlook the huge role government had in the 'managed' economy of the 1950ies. Mortgage rates were essentially set by government, which ran a whole department of government about housing. Hydro power, as a government utility, brought power to Canada far sooner than the market would have. All the monopolies, such as telephones, were regulated in such a way to give the 'ordinary joe' a good deal. Cigarettes and beer was cheap. Taxes -- for the working man -- were low. There were no provincial sales taxes.

In the 1950ies, I worked at Goodyear Rubber Company, in New Toronto, and I made $2.26 an hour, plus a 12¢ shift bonus. I went home, as a single man, with about $83 of my paycheck. Just to give you taste, I was looking at buying a new VW bug, then $1575, which would have been about 4 months wages.

Small semi-detached houses in good shape then cost about $6000 up. You needed 25% down, but after that, you had a 20 year mortgage at 6%. That's why immigrants could come here and start buying their own houses in a couple of years.

It was a better deal for the working person then than now. What good has the welfare state brought them? The NDP and the Liberals have pretended to bring us 'benefits'

but they really bring us social dislocation.

Now, the working man is in an economy that has been transformed into a huge administrative machine. Now that auto is so 'down', that we've quit making steel, we make precious little of any importance. We lumber, we make agricultural products, we extract resources, and we are as much dependent on those commodities as we've ever been.

There's hardly any 'good' industrial production going on anymore.

The 'working man', once the hero of the left, has not only been abandoned, he's been stigmatized by them. He has been transformed into a different cultural product entirely -- the men of the 'greatest generation' have somehow morphed into the detested white male. He's the male chauvinist beast, the smoker, the gun enthusiast, the transfat-eater. People like him, his kids are encouraged to believe, are responsible for War, and all the injustice in the world.

And, of course, what delegitimizes him entirely is that he can no longer earn enough to support his family.

Can you compare these apples and oranges?

Comments?