Obama, the Big Lie, and Democrats Divided

The Big Lie, say it enough and some people believe it, or at the very least pretend to believe as a way to carry out the policies they advocate. This Saturday the President has told such a lie that it boggles the mind to think he did it with a strait face. It has been known all along that the presidents plans would add to the deficit and that his cost saving argument was nonsense. This week when the CBO blasted his argument out of the water and as the specter of massive tax increases mounted, Obama has actually again argued his plans will not add to the deficit:

“I want to be very clear,” Mr. Obama said in his weekly address to the nation. “I will not sign on to any health plan that adds to our deficits over the next decade. And by helping improve quality and efficiency, the reforms we make will help bring our deficits under control in the long term.”

Health care legislation is Mr. Obama’s highest domestic priority, and he has said that controlling costs is an essential component of reform.

But his effort hit a big stumbling block this week when the director of the Congressional Budget Office said the bills working their way through the House of Representatives would not bring health costs down over the next decade. Mr. Obama’s radio address seemed an attempt to address his critics head on.

“The same folks who controlled the White House and Congress for the past eight years as we ran up record deficits will argue — believe it or not — that health reform will lead to record deficits,” Mr. Obama said. “That’s simply not true.”

As usual Obama's "Era of New Responsibility" begins with blaming other people, of course he was in the Democratic controlled congress from 2006 to his inauguration, but for some reason that fact often disappears when he is trying to blame Republicans. I guess the CBO was running the country the past 8 years. The Democrats, who have been divided on health care, in no small part to Obama's hands off policy in regards to legislation have two basic proposals floating around as shown here:



The Baucus plan tends to be bi-partisan in nature and costs less money. Rangel and the House have created a partisan bill that would raise taxes to unsustainable levels. Additionally in the Senate Chris Dodd has passed a bill similar to the house version. In a way Obama may have allowed himself to be out maneuvered by this. By having competing bills, including the Baucus one which the GOP could latch onto, he has created a situation where centrist Democrats have the ability to ally with the Republicans and pass legislation more to their liking. As it is many Democrats are getting very nervous:

He (Obama) acknowledged a treacherous path ahead, saying, “The last few miles of any race are the hardest to run,” but insisted, “Now is not the time to slow down.” And he vowed: “We are going to get this done. We will reform health care. It will happen this year. I’m absolutely convinced of that.”

On Capitol Hill, the picture is more complex. Representative Jared Polis, a freshman Democrat from Colorado who voted against the bill approved Friday in the Education and Labor Committee, said he worried that the new taxes “could cost jobs in a recession.”

To help finance coverage of the uninsured, the House bill would impose a surtax on high-income people and a payroll tax — as much as 8 percent of wages — on employers who do not provide health insurance to workers.

Mr. Polis said these taxes, combined with the scheduled increase in tax rates resulting from the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts, would have a perverse effect. “Some successful family-owned businesses would be taxed at higher rates than multinational corporations,” he said.

In a letter to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, Mr. Polis and 20 other freshman Democrats said they were “extremely concerned that the proposed method of paying for health care reform will negatively impact small businesses, the backbone of the American economy.”

And in the latest sign of lawmakers’ chafing at Mr. Obama’s ambitious timetable, a bipartisan group of six senators, including two members of the Finance Committee, sent a letter to Senate leaders pleading with them to allow more time.

“While we are committed to providing relief for American families as quickly as possible,” they wrote, “we believe taking additional time to achieve a bipartisan result is critical for legislation that affects 17 percent of our economy and every individual in the United States.”

You read that right, and 8% tax on small business in addition the "surtax" on the owner as well as the increase in income taxes as the Bush Tax cuts lapse. That is Rangel and Pelosi's idea of progressive politics. Is it any wonder that certain large corporations are ambivalent if not supportive of the mandate? They could handle the cost and effort with greater ease as smaller competitors drown in taxes, fees, and regulations. It would be the greatest of ironies that the anti-Wal Mart Democrats would pass legislation that would crush small business competition. Crazier things have happened. As things stand the six senators who called for a delay are Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Democrats Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Joseph Lieberman as well as Ben Nelson. There is also a report that a group of 50 liberal members of the House will refuse to vote for any legislation not to their liking, as in it lacks a public plan. Its possible that a stalemate could develop where Obama is caught in the middle between one plan that has bi-partisan support and another plan the left and the house leadership find to their liking. The way things are going this isn't just a possibility, its quickly becoming the defining political event of this fall.