US Politics - Obama's Squandered Honeymoon: How botched bailouts hamper healthcare reform - by Robert Johnson
Has the Obama administration’s fumbling on finance led to a loss of faith that’s roadblocking healthcare reform? Roosevelt Institute Braintruster Robert Johnson explains what happens when a choice of government or free markets looks like no-win scenario, and calls on Obama to regain our trust. We live in an era where the effectiveness of government has been denigrated for more than 30 years. The echo chamber of the right, particularly since the election of Ronald Reagan, has sought to intimidate anyone who let the romantic notion into their head that government can help. They even denigrate the New Deal, like it was a bad dream rather than a series of programs that helped many people, and may have saved capitalism from itself. With the romance of government trampled, the void in social theory was filled by the romance of markets. The free market fundamentalists vehemently promoted the notion that markets were not just a means to achieve social goals. To their way of thinking, social goals themselves would have to be designed to curry favor with the “wisdom” of the market.
The Obama Administration’s credibility and ability to inspire has been damaged by their actions in the bailout arena. We are back to the place where we can envision good policies but no one trusts that our government can deliver and execute them. The public option suffers as a result. The Administration acts surprised –they rightly sense they have lost control of the process and are now back to beating up the left for making the public option their Waterloo. Connect the dots, ladies and gentleman of the Administration, You blew finance, so you lost control of health-care.
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