The President’s Big Mistake

The semaphore of favoring special interests over the lives of most Americans has been President Obama’s weak link among those who supported his presidential campaign but feel he has failed them ever since. The signs are everywhere. We have a massive deficit, but the only clear winners are the big Wall Street financial institutions, to whom we have provided zero interest loans and emergency capital on their balance sheets. The healthcare plan stinks from special interest accommodations. The big pharmaceutical companies promised huge price reductions for the new health reform legislation and promptly raised prices so that they could reduce them back to where they were.

Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson traded his vote in favor of the Senate version of the healthcare plan provided that his state were exempted from its share of Medicaid contributions for a decade, placing that burden on US taxpayers. He promptly became the poster-child for everything wrong with the Democratic leadership, and with the help of such destructive antics, helped place a Republican Senator in Massachusetts ; Nebraska doesn’t even benefit from his failed and profoundly selfish act now that the Senate version of the bill is dead! The loopholes in all versions of the proposed healthcare legislation clearly favor the insurance giants, just as they could have generated 30 million new customers, with very few incentives to contain costs.

The January 21^st Washington Post: “The number of newly-laid off workers seeking jobless benefits unexpectedly rose last week, as the job market recovers at a slow and uneven pace. The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for unemployment insurance rose by 36,000 to a seasonally adjusted 482,000. Wall Street economists had expected a small drop.” Unemployment isn’t budging, and the alternative measurement of folks looking for full-time work but only getting occasional or part-time jobs or those who have simply given up looking increases the jobless number by almost 70%. With six people looking for every job available, the forecast looks bleak.

Foreclosures are still rolling through the market, and housing prices have taken another plunge in the last few months, consumers are not spending, and there is virtually no lending for smaller and mid-sized businesses, contrary to what the President promised would happen when he took care of the big boys… financial institutions that used the money to support their own internal trading accounts instead. Defense contractors are licking their lips, but our war in Afghanistan is only supporting a hopelessly corrupt and ineffective regime; lost American lives and an even bigger budget deficit are our only reward.

The underlying message appears to be clear: if you can’t support the little guy – the average American in need – as a Democrat, but are incurring a massive deficit anyway, we might as well support a Republican, who may not help us that much, but at least they won’t keeping raising the deficit for programs that haven’t reached most of us. Americans have forgotten the profligate ways of the Bush administration, have seen the horse-trading and internal bickering that has made the Democrats look weak and corrupt, and simply are getting tired of a system that selectively benefits a few (usually those at who have the money to get politicians elected) but inflicts the burden of those benefits on everyone.

The Washington Post summarizes President Obama’s realization of this massive failure: “Obama said the relentless pursuit of his domestic policies -- and a failure to adequately explain their virtues -- had left Americans with a ‘feeling of remoteness and detachment’ from the flurry of government actions in Washington …. ‘We were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values,’ he told ABC's George Stephanopoulos.”

The independents that tilted the scales to elect Obama in the first place seem to have moved into the other camp. Ignoring the heartland – the middle class – can be fatal. The results of an AT&T/Yahoo poll taken on the 21^st seem to say it all:

Q. The president's progress with the battered economy has been both praised and criticized. How well are his efforts measuring up with you?

Extremely well. We are undoubtedly moving in the right direction.	37%
Fairly well. There's still a long way to go.	1%
Not well at all. His plans are hurting more than helping.	62%
Not sure/No opinion.	0%

Horse-trading for stupid and selfish concessions (pork of the most unacceptable kind) and supporting a few at the expense of many cost the Democrats Massachusetts … that and the kind of hubris that takes winning the election for granted. Mid-term elections are rapidly approaching, and politicians from both sides of the aisle should take a really good look at a sure way to lose an election: giving special interests the winning hand at the expense of the rest of us… and even if those special interests are busy funding election bids before anyone else contributes… sooner or later, a politician will pay for that money with a crushing loss of power and a very short tenure as an elected representative. You’ve heard the wake-up call – and Republicans should read the message as equally applicable to them – but is it too late to make a difference? All this as the United States Supreme Court has just ruled that it is unconstitutional for Congress to enact legislation to forbid corporations and labor unions to fund ads for and against candidates.

I’m Peter Dekom, and why do I get this feeling that our politicians don’t even know how to change?