The word is that Obama will be putting Medicare and Medicaid on the table for “reform”.
Anyone care to take a bet against the following scenario:
Obama will lead with a proposal that the Republicans could never have passed during the headiest days of the Bush Administration. His position will become the leftmost position of the debate. The Republicans will counter with a proposal to the right of what anyone would have suggested as remotely possible in those heady days. The mid-point will become the ever rightward drifting centrist position, toward which Obama will eagerly allow himself to be drawn. The eventual agreement will be somewhat to the right of the new moderate. Obama will hail the outcome as a victory for the American people and yet another example of bi-partisan cooperation. The deluded American people, misled as always by a media composed of elites that need neither Medicaid or Medicare, will initially give Obama “credit” for the compromise, but it will do him no long term good, and it will further depress voter turnout for the hapless Congressional Democrats that will bear the brunt of a policy decision with which most of them disagree.
As a bonus, and this is the only thing we can’t be sure of, the Republicans will run against Democrats for destroying Medicare.
I refer the reader to this post. II take no pleasure in saying that it looks like Obama is breathing down Bush’s neck in the ratings game.
UPDATE: Paul Krugman makes a similar point (” If this becomes the left pole, and the center is halfway between this and Ryan, then no — better to pursue the zero option of just doing nothing and letting the Bush tax cuts as a whole expire.”), but he thinks Obama’s opening bid is reasonably good, provided he doesn’t drift rightward. It would be so refreshing if Obama would stand firm. Perhaps the looming election will have an effect on his behavior, but I’m betting against it.
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