The Great Compromise of 2009?
August 16, 2009 by Cato
Filed under Delaware, Healthcare, National, National Politics
Delaware Libertarian has an interesting post about one possible future for any ObamaCare legislation. Former Clinton Labor Secretary Basically, Delaware Libertarian proposes a repeat of Sen. Stephen Douglas’s (another Illinoisan) “Great Compromise of 1850). As Delaware Libertarian points out, we were in a civil war ten years later, partly because of this “Great Compromise”.Robert Reich proposes to break up ObamaCare legislation into small pieces to provide various members of Congress the political cover they need to vote for it.
Former Clinton Labor Secretary Bob Reich argues that the Obama administration needs to be more open AND more specific about their plan.
In theory, this could HAVE BEEN a political master stroke. However that is the problem with left wingers in general; they’re great at theory. The public simply wouldn’t fall for this now that the ObamaCare cat is out of the bag. Even if they had attempted to try this in the beginning, I doubt it would have succeeded.
Basically, the Obama left is stuck with arguing that “There isn’t a bill”. This is what we’ve heard from Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD), Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), and other politicians around the country recently. Unfortunately for them, it won’t work.
Democrats simply can’t have their cake and eat it too. While trumpeting their approach to provide universal coverage, they can’t go back now and claim that they shouldn’t be held liable for something that doesn’t exist. Sure, we all know that the original plan was to sneak some final reconciliation bill through in the dead of night, but it won’t work. This issues is too important for too many voters.
Democrats can scream that voters are being misinformed, but that’s not holding much water either. While the left is paying people to organize and sending union and ACORN thugs out to intimidate ObamaCare critics, average citizens are taking time out of their busy lives to actually read the bills that have been introduced and show up at town halls to let their elected representatives know how they feel.
Only time will tell whether or not ObamaCare passes the Congress. The will of people is pretty clear though.
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A minor correction: it was me (DE Libertarian) that proposed the idea that President Obama should have used the 1850 strategy, not Robert Reich. Reich commented on the absence of a real plan and then suggested that the administration should at least lay out squarely what it would and would not negotiate over.
I apologize Steve. That was a little more than minor. Thanks for being so gracious. I’m correcting now. Lack of sleep seems to be catching up. I usually don’t make errors that big.