President Obama must choose to be like Carter or Clinton

By Ian Bezek
Updated: 02/08/10 8:57pm
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On Friday, the Associated Press reported a surprising story, saying, “No, maybe he can’t. President Barack Obama, who insisted he would succeed where other presidents had failed to fix the nation’s health care system, now concedes the effort may die in Congress.”

While it was obvious that support for health care reform had been sliding for months, most people still thought that a bill of some sort would still be hammered out. Now it appears that the surprising election of Sen. Brown (R-Mass.) has closed the door on health care reform.

Obama is still urging Congress to bring the legislation to a vote, but his concession will give more moderate Democrats an excuse to vote against the legislation –– which isn’t popular in their home districts –– and end health care reform.

Last spring, Obama said that he was “quite comfortable” with being a one-term president if he was able to pass his major initiatives. Now with health care reform and sweeping environmental changes stalled and the economy still suffering, the Obama administration must change tactics, or Obama will assuredly become a one-term president but without the accomplishment of passing his most desired proposals.

The Obama administration is now at a crossroads; it can follow in the path of either President Clinton or President Carter.

Obama shares similarities with both of the last two Democratic presidents; all three have gotten off to rough starts, as they quickly lost the support of many of their constituents. However, Carter would never recover from his initial swoon, his failed economic policies, unpopular foreign policy and his frequent feuding with the legislators of his own party doomed him.

President Clinton also got off to an unpopular start.

With complete control of Congress and the Senate, just as Obama has had, Clinton went hard to the left, attempting to pass a variety of unpopular liberal policies. Most notably, Clinton’s HilaryCare health care proposal was a dud –– Americans were no more eager for socialized medicine 15 years ago than they are today.

Clinton became so unpopular so quickly that it led to devastating losses in the midterm elections of 1994, in which the “Republican Revolution” swept into Washington D.C., winning 54 Congress seats and eight Senate seats, both absurdly high totals.

But Clinton was able to right his ship. How’d he do it? He went to the center, passing sensible moderate legislation that was genuinely bipartisan and appealed to a wide range of voters.
His welfare reform that demanded that people receiving assistance at least, gasp, try to find work was a popular piece of legislation that found support on both sides of the aisle.

His balanced budgets were a rare feature of recent American politics that won him accolades from many. And his sober-minded foreign policy (excluding Kosovo) won the respect of both Americans and the world as a whole.

His governance was so good, in fact that he was able to recover not only from the “Republican Revolution” but also the numerous scandals, both fiscal and sexual.

Obviously, if Obama wants to have at least a decent presidency, he needs to follow in Clinton’s footsteps, not Carter’s, and run toward the center. His election in 2008 was a rejection of President Bush’s failed policies, not a mandate for socialism.

Obama’s plummeting approval rating and Democrats’ inability to hold Senate seats in liberal bastions such as Massachusetts show that Americans are over their rage at Republicans and have returned to being worried about the growth of our bloated, feeble and bankrupt federal government.

People don’t want to talk about the budget deficit; they want it actually balanced, as Clinton did. They don’t want the President to feel our economic pain, as Carter did, they want him to actually make meaningful reforms to the financial system rather than staying in bed with Wall Street as Obama has done.

Obama should realize one thing, if he keeps pushing his liberal agenda to an unreceptive public, he will follow in the steps of Carter. And Carter won all of six states in his pitiful re-election campaign; in fact Carter’s presidency was so bad it set the stage for a decade of unchecked Republican rule.

That’d be a heck of a legacy to leave, President Obama.

Editorials Editor Ian Bezek is a senior economics major. His column appears Mondays in the Collegian. Letters and feedback can be sent to letters@collegian.com

Published February 7, 2010 in Opinion

8 comments

Registered Independent

February 8, 2010 at 10:33 AM
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Obama is destined to follow in Carter’s footsteps primarily because just like Carter, he is incompetent to deal with the economy. Among other things.

Obama is a socialist ideologue who just can’t seem to get it through his head that he cannot raise taxes on any sector at all, without worsening the economy and perpetuating the country’s high unemployment rate. He wants very badly to punish people who have done fairly well by giving a chunk of their earnings to people who have not. He mistakenly sees this as justice.

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Redistribution of earned income is a central tenet of Barak Obama’s belief system. This is the main “change” he intended to bring about, and he just cannot let it go. He has been dying to implement this since he was indoctrinated with socialist ideology way back at Columbia University.

After a little time in the real world paying their own bills and taxes, the vast majority of educated people outgrow Karl Marx’s absurd economic formula “From each according to his ability; to each according to his need.”

But not Barak Obama. He clings to it with a religious fervor. Which is why during his state of the union address he stated his mistaken belief that the public is overwhelmingly rejecting his socialized medicine plan only because he “hadn’t explained it clearly enough.”

Oh, he’s explained it clearly enough all right. He’s explained cap and tax clearly enough, too. We understand him loud and clear. And we reject what he is saying.

But having been falsely told that he was brilliant every day of his life since he was first admitted into college courtesy of affirmative action; Barak Obama just can’t believe that the public is overwhelmingly rejecting his “brilliant” theories and plans. He doesn’t understand that everything he is saying is just a rehash of the same socialist propaganda that we ourselves already heard and read about in college.

Nothing new there. Same old recycled socialist clap trap.

Bill Clinton was a lot smarter than Barak Obama. That’s why he governed as a pragmatic, moderate liberal, not as a socialist. Bill Clinton also had the very astute Dick Morris as his chief political adviser.

While Barak Obama only has Tweedledee and Tweedledum (David Axlerod and Rahm Emanuel) who come up with such impenetrably stupid political strategies as creating a white house Enemies List and spamming critics with “reeducation” propaganda. And openly exhibiting hostility toward the First Amendment, in order to “control” criticism. Way to endear this white house to the thinking public, guys.

There is also the problem of Obama’s dimwitted Attorney General Eric Holder, who insists upon trying the main enemy terrorist in U.S. custody exactly as if he had done noting but pass some bad checks. Unbeknown to Eric Holder, we actually are actively at war with these terrorists, our soldiers are being killed every day. So Holder’s obtuse trial plan is going over like a lead balloon.

Obama is going to go down to defeat even if he does try to “repackage” his misguided agenda with a new sales pitch.

Because the public already has an accurate read on where Barak Obama is coming from on the political spectrum. And he sure isn’t coming from the same place as Bill Clinton. Nor anywhere near it.


bush III

February 8, 2010 at 12:30 PM
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Or he could follow GWB. Increase government spending on health care by $100 billion/year and finance it with new debt. Then maybe Republicans would vote for it, just like they did in 2003.


Or...

February 8, 2010 at 1:48 PM
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Or, Obama could just be himself and continue pushing his own health care bill, which some now estimate costing taxpayers over $6 Trillion …. that’s TRILLION … $6,000,000,000,000 !!!!! Uhh.. no respectable Republican will vote for this just as many Democrats are now backing away from Obama’s ridiculously incompetent plan.

And, “His election in 2008 was a rejection of President Bush’s failed policies, not a mandate for socialism.” No… he was elected because he is black. He is clearly socialist minded which shows voters were far more interested in his skin color than the effect his radical views would have on our freedoms. He has proven in a year that he is the left fringe of his party and that his lack of any experience other than two short years in the senate is a recipe for disaster.

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How great it would have been had we elected a first black president who was actually QUALIFIED for the job. I hope that day comes soon, and erases the memory of Obama’s disgraceful socialist attacks on this great democracy.


Registered Independent

February 8, 2010 at 2:03 PM
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Response to bush III,

I believe you are erroneously referring to Bush’s extension of prescription drug coverage to Medicare recipients, as being somehow comparable to Obama’s proposals.

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And here is the important distinction you are overlooking between Bush’s Medicare prescription drug coverage, and Barak Obama’s socialized medicine plan. The all-important difference regarding who pays for it.

Medicare coverage for the elderly is not “free”.

People who receive Medicare coverage when they are elderly have already been paying for it all of their lives through payroll deductions in their paychecks for 30 or 40 years. These payroll deductions are on a sliding scale. Those of us who earn more, pay more in. Those of us who earn less, pay less in. Nonetheless, we all pay into medicare for a very long time, before we reach age 65 and get anything out of it. Anyone who was not employed and hasn’t paid into Medicare, cannot get it for free. Presently these people who did not have the money previously deducted from their paychecks; have to pay $461 per month to receive Medicare coverage.

Therefore in order to receive Medicare benefits when one is elderly, one has to contribute to the system. Either by payroll deductions all one’s life, or by sizable monthly payments later in life.

In contrast, the socialized medicine plan Barak Obama is proposing has nothing to do with what one pays into the system. Nor whether one is too elderly to work. The entire point of Obamacare is to erase the distinction between those who work and pay their share into the system, and those who do not.

Under Obamacare, a 30 year old, able-bodied, three time loser ex- felon who has never paid a dime of income taxes nor medicare payroll deductions in his life, will receive absolutely free medical care under Barak Obama’s socialized medicine plan. When he is 30, not when he is over 65. Not just emergency medical care (which he receives free already) but for chiropractors, tranquilizers, Viagra, and the works.

And you and I and the rest of the responsible people will be paying for this able-bodied miscreant. We will be paying for all of our own coverage exactly as we are now, and we will also be paying for full coverage for the menace to society, as well. Multiply these costs we are picking up for him by 15 million or so people, and you have the picture.


alum

February 8, 2010 at 6:40 PM
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It seems that a lot of people got caught up in the idea of being a part of something historic (first HALF black president). It’s a shame. I am all in favor of having a black president, I just wish it was somebody like Thomas Sowell


bush III

February 8, 2010 at 9:15 PM
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“Pay in to”…“contribute to the system”….sounds an awful lot like “tax.” I guess this nomenclature is how we justify the socialist, big-government initiatives of politicians we support.
“Those of us who earn more, pay more in. Those of us who earn less, pay less in.” And yet the recipients receive the same units of care, distributed by the federal government. There is a word for that- socialism. Isn’t this the exact reason I’m told to oppose Obamacare? Because someone might get something they paid next to nothing for?
Bush’s medicare prescription drug act was financed by debt. No one “paid into” it to receive its benefits. It was shouldered on the taxpayers of future generations. And this was brought to us by the party of fiscal responsibility. Laughable. Anyone who opposes Obamacare on the grounds that it is socialist and did not also oppose the prescription drug benefit is a glaring hypocrite.


Registered Independent

February 9, 2010 at 10:31 AM
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Response to Bush III,

Interesting attempt on your part to change the discussion at hand from why Barak Obama has a popular uprising on his hands from which he is unlikely to recover; and switch it to your preferred subject of the relative socialistic tendencies of the 2 main political parties.

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As the majority of the public has indicated by their outrage, the glaring difference between the parties vis a vis socialism “is a difference in degree so great, that it amounts to a difference in kind.” Thus the popular rebellion.

So for a lone few to claim that unlike the majority, they themselves are unable to distinguish the difference between the two positions; is tantamount to proclaiming oneself to be thick as a plank.


MoralMonay

February 9, 2010 at 11:51 AM
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Or..he could be like Reagan! Now hear me out before you think I’m crazy…Obama is taking over during a deep recession just like Reagan. Both were very charismatic. And just like Reagan he may also be poised to reap the benefits of a full economic recovery happening right before re-election time (that is, as long as investors don’t panic too much and opposing politicians don’t “throw the game”). His approval ratings over the first year are just like Reagan’s and he represents a swing to the opposite political spectrum after years of dominance of the opposing party in the white house. And just like Reagan he’s building up our national debt at a record pace! After re-election he can fully pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, setting the stage for a “victory” over terrorism, leaving a huge debt for following presidents to clean up and all-the-while reaping the current benefits of additional government expenditures and the development of new technologies. I think we might have a black Reagan on our hands, folks. I dunno…call me crazy.

 

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