What Should Obama Do? (WSOD?)

Obama could make change if he ended his meaningless/unproductive allegiances and did what was right. For whatever reason he is acting like he has a shot at re-election, and looking to "compromise" instead of doing what's right.

...health care is presently going down in flames as a result of the recent court decision about the feds overstepping their authority

that's a bit of an over-statement.

Health Care was a debacle for a lot of reasons, I don't think one comically inept federal judge is going to hasten this.

Obama's presidency could be saved two ways:

1. Tack left and actually support his base (I'm not holding my breath) and stand up for what American Democrats (not the ELECTED Democrats) believe in.

2. Republicans put up an awful candidate. If Palin runs, Obama wins in a landslide.

Even the oh-so-not-ideological Roberts court will have trouble upholding this decision.

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2010/12/virginia-courts-bizarre-health-law.html

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2010/12/cant-think-of-another-one.html

best quote:

“The scholarly argument against the mandate pretty much runs this way: (1) There must be some limit on federal power; (2) I can’t think of another one; and therefore, (3) the limit must preclude the individual mandate.”

other good ones:

The Constitution gives Congress the power to “regulate Commerce . . . among the several states,” to “collect Taxes,” and to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper” to carry out its responsibilities. The commerce power has been understood for years to permit regulation of the national economy, which, the Supreme Court held in 1944, includes insurance. The mandate is also valid under the taxing power, which is not limited to objects of interstate commerce. The Court held in 1950 that a tax does not become unconstitutional “because it touches on activities which Congress might not otherwise regulate.” In carrying out its powers, Congress is given a broad choice of means by the necessary and proper clause; that was settled way back in 1819. This is why the two other federal district courts that previously considered challenges to the law had no problem throwing the cases out.

Judge Hudson devised novel theories to get around all this well-settled law. First he held that the decision to go uninsured, and to rely on emergency rooms to provide care, is not economic activity and so is beyond the commerce power, even though it has obvious economic consequences. “If a person’s decision not to purchase health insurance at a particular time does not constitute the type of economic activity subject to regulation under the Commerce Clause, then logically, an attempt to enforce such provision under the Necessary and

Obama's presidency could be saved two ways:

1. Tack left and actually support his base (I'm not holding my breath) and stand up for what American Democrats (not the ELECTED Democrats) believe in.

2. Republicans put up an awful candidate. If Palin runs, Obama wins in a landslide.

I don't think now is the time to look left. Or right. If dude wants to save his presidency he needs to solve the big problems that are affecting everybody, and look forward.

If Palin runs, I think she has a frighteningly good chance of actually getting elected as a result of the increase in polarization of the left & right over the last decade, and her 'ger er done' attitude contrasting Obama's wishy washy can't do paralysis. The only thing that frightens me about Palin is that that attitude is combined with what appears to be a knowledge of the machinations of the world only deep enough to make talking points in rally speeches. We need someone smarter & less political, and I would vote for said candidate from either party

And do you think those in support of health care will be as successful as getting those opinions out as those opposed to it?

Seems nebulous. What do you mean?

Obama already lost the PR war. When Americans are polled about individual options they support almost every single one.

When people say "GOVERNMENT HEALTHCARE" people all the sudden decide they dislike it.

This ruling should get challenged to the supreme court and like people smarter than me are arguing, the logic against it is almost comical.

If Palin runs, I think she has a frighteningly good chance of actually getting elected as a result of the increase in polarization of the left & right over the last decade, and her 'ger er done' attitude contrasting Obama's wishy washy can't do paralysis.

Current poll numbers do not bear this out.

Palin doesn't have broad Republican support, even in a general election vs Obama or a Dem.

....don't under estimate moderates ability to hold their nose.

the evidence of the existence of a significant bloc of voters who switch parties each election is mixed at best. to me it's always seemed a strawman obsession of the traditional media, rather than something that's proven in each election.

it's more about motivating your base than it is courting these mythical independents. Some ridiculously high percentage of people who self identify as independents vote for the same party like 75% of the time or something.

....don't under estimate democrats' ability to simply stay home.

Like I said, current polls don't agree.

And it works both ways. Never underestimate democrats wanting to vote in "anyone-but-palin"

The fact that Democrats couldn't catch the Repubs with their pants down - holding Congress hostage in return for the bush tax cuts specifically for millionaires - is unbelievable.

America, ladies and gentlemen.

Minus Monica and her dress, Obama may be remembered like Clinton:

Yet another present who tried and failed to reform health care.

20 states are against it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101217/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_overhaul_lawsuit

I am hereby writing off anyone who assigns the blame of the country's current situation to one man or party as mentally deficient + voluntarily uninformed

I am hereby writing off anyone who assigns the blame of the country's current situation to one man or party as mentally deficient + voluntarily uninformed

Similarly I hereby write off anyone who assigns equal blame to Democrats and Republicans for the country's current situation as simple-minded + ignorant of reality.

ah, the new year begins

The community reinvestment act was in no way responsible for the largest housing bubble on record. No, for that we can blame the confluence of low interest rates (the fed kept rates too low for too long), excess savings (primarily from Asia) seeking attractive returns in the low yield environment , a poor incentive system by a sales driven Wall Street, and poor oversight by a regulatory system with too few resources. The housing bubble started as a sub-prime bubble, and that market was lit up in the private sector (Fannie and Freddie entered the game much later, when their market share was eroding). It is highly implausible the community reinvestment act, passed in 1977, fueled such a fire. Certainly the 2007 modifications to that act were implemented a minimum of 2 years after the bubble began to seriously inflate.

And while the blame can be spread around, the private sector was willfully negligent in its behavior. They set up the origination machinery, with sick incentives to promote sales right now. In other words, the banks (Merrill, Lehman, Bear Stearns, Deutsche Bank, etc) set up a cottage industry with which it could transact at “arms length.” This limited (theoretically) the banks oversight of this industry, giving them cover for their culpability.

Every mortgage backed bond sold yielded millions in fees. So there was a huge, huge incentive to pump out more. And pressure on the mortgage brokers to bring new mortgages to this market. Again, this was the private sector, not Fannie or Freddie.

Of course, there is much government culpability. I can point to the Greenspan Fed, which ignored its duty to regulate the banks fraudulent loan machine (and it was just that, fraudulent), the Clinton Admin, which lobbied against the oversight of derivatives (specifically credit default swaps), and the Bush Admin, which basically ignored all fiscal and regulatory sanity. Of these, the Bush Admin was by far the most egregious. Putting the wrong people in charge (for example, Chris Cox at the SEC), lowering taxes too much, increasing spending too much (drug care coverage for Medicare), putting blind faith in markets without adequately assessing how incentives might work against constituents (example, the supposed self-regulatory interests of food and pharma companies—this hypothesis flies in the face of all economic common sense). He didn’t get it all wrong. He was ahead of the curve on our need to modify social security entitlements, but he failed in his endeavor to make meaningful (or, for that matter, any) change. These are facts that can be substantiated by credible media like the WSJ, NY Times, Crains, The Interest Rate Observer, The Economist, NPR, Bloomberg, and other content providers.

I’d also like to put to rest the notion that spending more than our receipts necessarily leads to insolvency or crisis (and low interest rates do not cause inflation, which someone seemed to allude to in an earlier post, but that is another matter). The government has run deficits almost continuously for almost 50 years. If you look at positive inflection points in terms of acceleration of government deficits, they occur under republican administrations. Reagan and Bush II stand out here. The inflection (or second derivative if you prefer) turns negative during the “liberal” Clinton Admin. Hmmm. And yet we had, especially in the second half of the 90s, amazing investment in this country coming from abroad. Think of BMW factories in South Carolina, foreign steel in Alabama, etc. I can also think of a really good example of prolonged deficit spending in the private sector. It’s one that ended in amazing growth. Think Amazon, which many financial analyst (including myself) thought would certainly die in the early part of the 2000s because of a high cash burn rate, plus a new investment in physical infrastructure. The deficits ran, and ran, and ran, and yet they got new money. Last I checked, it turned out okay. It’s where the money goes that counts. Government spending isn’t necessarily bad. Especially when it goes to goods best provided by the public (or government) sector. Think military (the internet came from this spending), transit infrastructure, public health, etc. Along with the right investment in the right assets, we also need the right balance of government and private sector. Always shrinking the government for the sake of a larger private sector is not the answer. Taken to its logical conclusion, we might have privatized courts which issue justice in their own interest. Think of the private prisons in Pennsylvania which ended up unjustly imprisoning juveniles to fill its cells (they paid off a judge). Balance, balance, balance.