Obama's (conservative) liberal agenda

[niceypoo]

By Adam Serwer

As we reach the end of a successful lame-duck session of Congress and the second year of the Obama presidency, Perry Bacon writes, "This blitz of bill signings completes a dramatic first two years for the nation's first black president that included the enactment of arguably the most major liberal policies since the Johnson administration but also the Democrats' biggest loss of House seats in 72 years."

It's interesting to think of the Obama administration's agenda as the most liberal in generations, if only because of how much it reflects liberals internalizing conservative critiques of liberalism or outright embracing conservative goals.

...

The Obama administration's agenda, by and large, reflected a liberalism chastened by past failures and willing to endorse more market-based solutions to problems. Rather than simply dismissing conservative criticism, liberals internalized it -- and modified, narrowed and adjusted their goals accordingly. Where conservatives said liberals were too ambitious, liberals sought more focused solutions. Where conservatives said the market would work better than government, liberals tried to find a market-based path to the same goal. When conservatives pointed out that judicial decrees, even in matters of civil rights, are no substitute for the legitimacy conferred by legislative action, liberals took it to heart.

...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/12/obamas_conservative_liberal_ag.html

[T Wolf]

1. Liberals have been so marginalized over the past 30 years that most would not even recognize

themselves in the mirror.

I wonder what the young mind that was in charge when each of the present-day libs began their political existence/awareness would say to the adult now accepting these "market-based paths" or "conservative critiques of liberalism" or "outright ... conservative goals" or "more focused solutions" that have condemned real progress to the never-really-gonna-try to-do list.

[niceypoo]

6. The problem as I see it is...

Mixing realistic solutions with GOP nonsense negates any good that comes from the solution. Extending the Bush tax cuts is a prime example. It helps some unemployed people for 13 months, but it adds two years to the recovery. It also emboldens the right who will just demand MORE tax cuts in 13 months, which will delay any recovery even longer. It seems our priorities are more political than actual.

The upside to these lame duck victories is that the GOP has shown they fold at the slightest hint of opposition (or having to work a few extra days).

[Cali_Democrat]

2. The thing that kills me the most is how Obama is validating the Bush years

It doesn't matter if Obama said that he's opposed to most of Bush's policies, his actions show that he has embraced many of the Bush policies that were so detrimental to this nation:

- Indefinite detention of terror suspects
- Continuation of war in Iraq and expansion of the war in Afghanistan
- Tax cuts for the wealthy
- Expansion of the deficit


The fact that Bush's policies are being validated pisses me the fuck off.

[sabbat hunter]

5. war in Afghanistan

The war in Afghanistan should have been expanded years ago to get rid of the Taliban, Al Quaida and Bin Ladin. But as we all know shrub took his eyes off of it.

[Cali_Democrat]

8. The war in Afghanistan is a pointless war with no end in sight

Expansion? Please.

It's high time we get the hell out of there. We're doing nothing but creating more terrorists by attacking and bombing Afghanistan. Bin Laden is long gone and Al Qaeda can use Afghanistan and Iraq as recruiting tools against the USA.

We are not achieving our objectives in Afghanistan, unless you define success as quagmire.

An endless war with no end in sight that wastes billions of dollars and thousands of lives is not something I can support.

Sorry.

[patrice]

3. SO, the question is: How do we get into a position to at least begin to make comparable

evaluations of conservatives - without violating a rock-bottom Liberal principle, do no harm to those who have already been harmed by the thing that we are fighting?

We need to get into a substantial political role that legitimizes our critique of the Right. We need to do that without selling out our core principles. And if we cause harm to those whom the system has already crippled, that harm will be used to de-legitimize us politically.

[ProSense]

4. Interesting

"It's interesting to think of the Obama administration's agenda as the most liberal in generations, if only because of how much it reflects liberals internalizing conservative critiques of liberalism or outright embracing conservative goals."

The fact is that claiming that the country has move right doesn't negate that the President's agenda is liberal.

The health care comparison is quite bogus.

Every health care bill since Nixon's has included many of the same elements. The President's plan does include elements similar to the MA plan, which was in large part written by a Democratic legislature:

In fall 2005 the House and Senate each passed health care insurance reform bills.

The legislature made a number of changes to Governor Romney's original proposal, including expanding MassHealth (Medicaid and SCHIP) coverage to low-income children and restoring funding for public health programs. The most controversial change was the addition of a provision which requires firms with 11 or more workers that do not provide "fair and reasonable" health coverage to their workers to pay an annual penalty. This contribution, initially $295 annually per worker, is intended to equalize the free care pool charges imposed on employers who do and do not cover their workers.

On April 12, 2006 Governor Mitt Romney signed the health legislation.<14> He vetoed 8 sections of the health care legislation, including the controversial employer assessment.<15> Romney also vetoed provisions providing dental benefits to poor residents on the Medicaid program, and providing health coverage to senior and disabled legal immigrants not eligible for federal Medicaid.<16><17> The legislature promptly overrode six of the eight gubernatorial section vetoes, on May 4, 2006, and by mid-June 2006 had overridden the remaining two.<18>

Clinton's health care plan certainly contained elements of Nixon's plan and the 1993 Republican plan

The real reason insurers want the GOP leading Congress again is not to repeal “Obamacare,” but to try to gut some of the provisions of the law that protect consumers from the abuses of the industry, such as refusing to cover kids with preexisting conditions, canceling policyholders’ coverage when they get sick, and setting annual and lifetime limits on how much they’ll pay for medical care. Insurers also hate the provision that requires them to spend at least 80 percent of premium revenues on medical care, as well as the one that calls for eliminating the billions of dollars that the government has been overpaying them for years to participate in private Medicare plans. (Be on the lookout for a death panel–like fearmongering campaign to scare people into thinking, erroneously, that Granny and Pawpaw will lose their government health care if Congress doesn’t restore those “cuts” to Medicare.)

link

At the same time, there are a lot of things in the current law that are unique to it: Sander's amendments (single payer), catastrophic care (which was picked up from Kerry's plan), the new OPM exchange and more.

Yeah, Republicans and Democrats aren't the same as they were decades ago, going back to FDR, but that is no reason to try to write off the President's agenda as conservative. It's not conservative today.

Also, if the measurement is going to be that the country or legislative branch has moved right, why weren't these things accomplished in the past under bigger Democratic majorities?

[great white snark]

7. Maybe the fringe has moved further left.

Thus skewing the definition of a liberal policy.

[niceypoo]

9. So, the definition of liberal policy moved left?

Please tell us what the 'definition' was before? A mix of liberalism and GOP talking points?

lol