Barack Obama's Greatest Achievement

Presidential historians may well record that it was during the fall and winter of the first year of his second term that Barack Obama achieved his greatest accomplishment: destroying his legacy, paving the way for Republican control of both houses of Congress, almost guaranteeing that a Republican -- and likely an ideologically extreme Republican -- will ascend to the Presidency and, worst of all, making Ted Cruz credible. Indeed, the possibility exists -- however previously unimaginable and horrifying -- that there may be confluence of the rise in Cruz' credibility and the ascendency to the White House all as a result of Barack Obama's grande débâcle.

It was just a few weeks ago -- six to be precise -- that we were in the midst of a government shutdown which had been brought on by the Republican Party's own grand debacle, a seemingly misguided and miscalculated attempt to hold the government and economy hostage to force a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. At the heart of the effort was Ted Cruz who evolved during the shutdown to a laughing stock and tagline to jokes on late night television. Polls showed support of the GOP to be at an all time low. The public and, in fact, most of the world affected by the  instability of the US economy, stood with the President and, when the shutdown ended, applauded his handling of the situation while at the same time continuing to castigate the Republican party for pushing the world economy to the brink of collapse. When the shutdown was over it was Obama who stood tallest. The GOP was on the run and its chances of holding the House let alone securing any seats in the Senate at the upcoming mid-term elections on very shaky ground. Just six weeks ago it was the Democratic party which stood to gain the most from the "Shutdown of 2013", its chances of taking the House and increasing its majority in the Senate surely enhanced by the Republican Party's track to the darkside. 

Now six weeks later, all of that momentum, all of that good will, all of the credibility that fell into the lap of the President and the Democratic Party is gone and with it, I fear, any chance of the party gaining control of the government and ending, once and for all, the gridlock which has paralyzed the government and rendered governing nearly impossible. The details of the mishandling of the rollout of the The Affordable Care Act -- Obamacare -- are too numerous to recount for the purposes of this post. What is worth recounting, however, is the depth of the wound that the President has inflicted on himself as a result of his several mis-steps, a wound, I fear, which may be fatal to his Presidency and his legacy. Joe Nocera, in an Op-Ed piece appearing in today's New York Times "Obama's Bay of Pigs" analogizes Obama's mis-handling of the ACA roll out to Kennedy's handling of the ill-conceived and executed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. The analogy, with due respect, does not hold. The plans to invade Cuba were already on Kennedy's desk when he took over the Oval Office in January 1961 and while he certainly had the authority to abort the mission, Kennedy, without experience or context for managing a military operation of this magnitude, chose instead to put his faith in his military and civilian advisors much to his regret. It was that experience as well as his having been in office for more than two years that allowed him to make the measured judgments which avoided a nuclear holocaust in April 1963. That growth would certainly have continued into a second Kennedy term.  

By contrast, the Affordable Care Act and its implementation are all Obama. Unlike Kennedy, Barack Obama  is already in his second term. The time for the type of mis-steps he has made (and is continuing to make) are long past and would more easily be forgiven had they occurred during his first term. That is not to say that he learned nothing from the political battles fought during the first four plus years of his Presidency. Indeed, his handling of the government shutdown would likely not have been so successful had he not spent so much of his tenure working his way around political land mines planted across the Washington landscape.  The nearly unified cries of the Tea Party and its Republican acolytes that the ACA was a disaster waiting to happen and in need of repeal before it began to affect millions of Americans were adeptly challenged by a President who stood on the moral high ground, imbued with the credibility built over months of having stood his ground against political forces that were increasingly viewed as extremist and out of touch with the majority of the American people. Rather than succumbing to Republican warnings about the disaster which was about to befall the nation, the majority of Americans believed in and stood by a President who assured them that their lives would be improved by the implementation of the ACA, that no one would lose their health insurance coverage and touting, as well, the ease with which it would be possible to shop for and acquire health insurance under the Act.

As we know, many of those pronouncements have turned out to not be true, at least in the short run. That the ACA, from a conceptual standpoint, has the potential to vastly improve the delivery of health care to millions of Americans is lost in the firestorm which has enveloped the Obama administration and the President himself. Much of what Obama said -- and said repeatedly -- has proven not to be accurate. As it has turned out, the Act does not allow a certain percentage of Americans to keep their existing coverage and actually provides for Draconian measures (i.e. the issuance of cancellation notices) to enforce its goal of ensuring that everyone has a health insurance policy that satisfies government standards. It was that very fact that the GOP warned about in their pre- and intra-shutdown rantings. That considerable blunder, together with the failed implementation of the ACA website has turned what should have been a crowning achievement that would stand as a testament to political will into a crowning disaster that should provide academia with curricula about how not to govern for years to come.

As a result, the Republican Party now seems positioned to supplant the President as the protectors of the people's interests. That Ted Cruz, of all people, may have more credibility that Barack Obama is simply astonishing. Concessions of mistakes and mis-statements by the President can and will do nothing to quell the storm brewing above his Presidency. So much of governing is about trust and credibility and if both are lost so too is the ability to lead. Unlike John Kennedy who, it was expected, would have the benefit of time to hone governing skills that were already producing impressive results by November 1963, Barack Obama does not have the luxury of time. Good will squandered is good will lost and possibly lost forever. I feel a bit adrift and let down. 

The Fix is In

Essential to making the Affordable Care Act affordable is that a significant percentage of those in need of coverage subscribe to the plans offered through the Act's insurance exchanges. By including in large numbers healthy people who will rarely if ever seek medical care beyond a routine check up with people, either because of pre-existing conditions or simply because they become ill and therefore in need of more frequent and costly care the cost will average out in such a way as to allow the exchanges to provide coverage at rates significantly below private coverage. The costs attendant to providing care should also be driven down through a variety of strategies (electronic medical record keeping and ACOs, for example) but at its core it is through this basic strategy that the true affordability of medical insurance coverage becomes possible. 

It is, however, that very simple concept that makes the strategy most vulnerable to failure and it is to that basic concept that Republicans, and in particular, the extremists in the party and their benefactors have directed their strategy. Through a multi-pronged campaign that intentionally lies about the Act...that it will kill jobs, drive up taxes, take life and death decisions away from the individual and hand it to the State, strip hard working Americans of their preferred insurance coverage...the goal has been to so frighten potential enrollees so that they won't enroll. If they are successful, the enrollment numbers will be too low for the Act to realize its potential benefits giving the Tea Party evidence that their predictions were correct and the Act an abject failure that needs to be repealed. That the Act failed  because it was intentionally sabotaged by the very people who will so gleefully take credit for their having been so correct in their predictions will, of course, be lost in the discourse that will ensue. 

To this point the strategy would seem to be working to perfection. With the exception of Kentucky no southern state has created exchanges leaving it to the Federal government to take responsibility for creating and operating the exchanges. Faced with such a well-funded campaign of lies and deceit, the government's chances of success, at least at this point, would seem remote. Compounding the problem for vast populations of people with a genuine need for help is that these same states have refused to expand Medicaid to provide assistance to those who are trapped in a government subsidy nether world because they are at the upper income levels of what constitutes poverty and, by those states' statutes therefore not entitled to Medicaid (again because the States refused to expand Mediciaid to accommodate these people). 

It is a political game to be sure in which literally millions of people, many though not all, poor and minority, are being used as pawns by the extremist wing of the Republican Party to supposedly make a philosophical point. What that point is remains as elusive as does the way out of this mess. In the meantime people in desperate need of help go without. 

The Legal and Moral Authority to Act

By now it should be apparent that a critical part of the thinking of House Republicans standing in the way of re-opening the government and raising the debt ceiling is the expectation that they will provoke the President into taking action under the Fourteenth Amendment that will provide a pretext for bringing impeachment proceedings and rid themselves of the Obama presidency. After all,  from the moment Joe Wilson of South Carolina yelled, "You lie" at the President during one of his early appearances before Congress, the more extreme factions of the party have made clear that they view Obama as a threat and want nothing more than to be rid of him.

Now comes the latest self-made crisis which they believe may finally push Obama to either act or not act and in doing so or failing to do so, again provide the pretext they have thirsted for to charge him with a "high crime" or misdemeanor. I preface what follows by acknowledging that this strategy is driven by some of the stupidest, most-ill-informed creatures ever to troll the halls of Congress. Add to it an extraordinary level of malevolence and a touch of violent rhetoric and you have just the right mix to further bring the country to a standstill while they pursue charges that, in virtually every courthouse and in the court of public opinion should not and would not see the light of day. 

So let's talk about the action they are praying for. The Fourteenth Amendment, section 4 reads in part: "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned". The intent of the language is eloquently explained in Sean Wilentz' op ed piece which appeared in the New York Times on October 8th and is a must read for anyone interested in the history of the provision. What is clear is that the question of whether the language permits the President to act unilaterally to protect the constitution in circumstances which place the nation's sovereignty at risk remains open to debate. However, what Wilentz (and Bill Clinton, by the way)  argues and what I and many others agree with is that it is essential and fundamental to our very existence that the Constitution be protected at all political cost. The nation and now the world must be confident that we can and will stand behind our debt lest the government, as with any common borrower, lose its credit and with it it's ability to function.  In my view a failure to act, whether by the Congress or the executive, would place the Constitution and the government at risk and by that standard alone requires that someone...anyone...with the constitutional authority to act to act. If, as it appears, House Republicans are unwilling to act the President must and should.  If there be a firestorm of Protestant movement toward impeachment bring it on. 

It would, of course, be for the House to commence impeachment proceedings and it will certainly be frustrating and heartbreaking to be subjected to the incredibly stupid and ill-informed hyperbolic rambling a of the Tea Part acolytes conjuring up the "high crimes and misdemeanors" with which to charge the President. Saving the country from default? Now that is certainly a criminal act. Putting his name to legislation that was passed by both house of Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court that provides insurance for millions of Americans? Unquestionably a misdemeanor if not an outright felony according to those who have spent their political lives seeking ways to deprive the poor of even the basic necessities of life because those necessities had to be provided or subsidized by the government. 

And let's assume that the Bachmanns, Gohmerts and Kings of that world succeed in convincing their "friends" to go along with such a fiasco (and their track record, predicated on threats of reprisals is actually likely to succeed to gathering enough votes for the passage of an article or two of impeachment). What then? The trial is then conducted before the Senate, not the House, where a Democratic majority would end the charade before it began. 

The time to act is now. I am sick at heart of where we have come and frankly frightened of where we are headed. The legal and certainly the moral authority to act has never been more apparent and required. Our future as a nation may very weld depend upon it. 

What Do They Really Want?

“One faction of one party, in one house of Congress, in one branch of government doesn’t get to shut down the entire government just to refight the results of an election”.

A brilliantly concise summary of the problem confronting the country. What it seems to so eloquently suggest is that the forces driving this "one faction" are limited to an extreme fringe wing of the Republican party that can, with patience, be broken. The growing body of evidence suggests otherwise. As reported on the front page of the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/us/a-federal-budget-crisis-months-in-the-planning.html?hp the strategy that led to the shutdown was born not by the lunatics who now stand in the well of Congress spewing into the Congressional Record nonsense about the dangers of the ACA but by their benefactors who have been planning the execution of this strategy for months. Most, though not all of the financing for the strategy has been provided by Koch Brothers whose resources are as limitless as their hatred for the President and the policies enacted on his watch. Precisely how far they and their cohorts are willing to go remains to be seen. The true test will come on October 17th when the debt ceiling requires adjustment. The ramifications of our failing to act, we are told, will be catastrophic to both the domestic and global economy and would, one would expect, cause the Koch brothers irreparable harm. I emphasize, "one would expect" because, to this point, the strategy appears nonplussed by the prospect of an economic calamity and the resulting impact on those like David and Charles Koch who, one would think, would be so damaged by the anticipated effect on the economy. Have the Koch boys "shorted" their interests so that they would actually benefit from a collapse of global markets? We  certainly seem to bystanders to a game of chicken playing out on a global stage that now has the feel of a runaway train running uncontrolled downhill with little chance to avoid the inevitable crash to come. One wonders if it is that crash which is precisely what the strategy contemplates.

The End of the American Experiment is Nigh

It is fundamental to every democracy that its participants express their views of how we should be governed by casting a single vote, counting those votes and deciding upon the form of government based upon how the majority of voters have cast their votes. If any democracy is to survive it is paramount that that very basic principle be applied and honored. If it is not so honored and so applied, notions of a democractic government can no longer apply. In its place is anarchy and those in control anarchists. Such has become the government of the United States. While I expect that we will eventually find our way through this current debacle, the paradigm has so shifted as a result of the conduct of the Republican party that I fear we will never return to the pure form of governance that was so essential to the American experience. It is no longer beyond the realm of possibility that the outcome of elections will no longer be honored by the loser and if that becomes the norm surely all is lost. To be clear, whether it is the ACA or the President that the Republican party refuses to accept, both were the product of a democractic process by which the majority of the voting populace expressed their opinions about how they wished to be governed. The ACA, in its current form, in fact, reflects the will of the people as expressed through the actions of all three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial, the last coming by way of the a Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of the law. To be clear, again, it is the law of the land. The time to debate ended years ago. A Presidential election, in large part, was fought over the question of whether or not the people wanted the ACA to be the law of the land and, by an overwhelming majority made clear their preference that those among us who are without health insurance should have the opportunity for a healthier and safer life. It is no longer open to debate and it is the fact that the Republican party refuses to accept that outcome that poses the greatest threat to our democracy for if they are incapable of accepting the will of the people, as expressed through the vote of elected officials and through the vote of the supreme court of the land, then there is no reason to expect that the party of Lincoln will ever be counted upon again to accept the results of any vote with which they do not agree. If that be the case then we have truly stepped through the looking glass with no way home and to an uncertain future that may very well alter for the worse the very principles upon which we so long ago chose to govern.

Obamacare 1

I have paid close attention to the vitriol spewing forth from the likes of Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and the Louis Gohmerts of the House railing against the ACA and not once have I heard even a remote suggestion of how the law should be changed or what they propose should replace it. Millions of people go without health insurance or have access to meaningful healthcare. Seventeen percent of our GDP goes to healthcare to the ruin of our economy and beyond railing against the law not one offers a suggestion of what they propose in its stead. Part of their problem may be that the ACA, in its current form, is modeled after the last and only suggestion the GOP made throughout this debate. Rather than the universal healthcare plan endorsed by most Democrats and a significant number of prominent economists we have capitulation by House Democrats and the President to the plan proposed by the Republican leadership...the very plan they now condemn. Perhaps they are unable to offer an alternative idea because what we now have IS their best and only idea?!

In Search of Home

It is admittedly overly dramatic to say that as with the story of the Jews cast out by Pharoah and left to wander the desert, I, too, feel as though I have been wandering a spiritual desert in search of a comfortable place, existentially speaking, for my Jewish religious identity. Too often I have found myself standing amidst strangers chanting prayers which have no connection to my life and leaving each such attendance completely unfulfilled and caught between still wanting to find something with some relevance to my life and my ethical being and gradually coming to the conclusion that I would never find such a connection. This year we chose...finally...not to succumb to the numbing traditions of years past by attending yet another meaningless service conducted by a rabbi who does not speak to anything relevant to my life. Instead, we joined tens of thousands of Jews around the country and the world, attending both Rosh Hashanna and Yom Kippur services streamed online from Temple Beth Adam in Loveland, Ohio through ourjewishcommunity.org. For the first time in my life I have found a view of Judaism that finally and for once speaks to my view of religion and history, of an ethical foundation and of a relation to the world around me that in my nearly sixty years I've never once experienced. Thank you for bringing me home.