But, it's only been ten months, you say. Yes, I too have been saying that to myself, trying not to face certain facts and conclusions about the Obama administration. Ten months is a really really short time to come to any definitive conclusions about the direction or effectiveness of a president, too short to judge his performance in office ... just too short. Well, no it isn't, for my conclusion is if you look at the last eight years, the reign of Bush II, that has not really gone away, not enough. You want to see what's ahead? Just look back a bit and your will see an approximate paradigm of what to expect over the next few years. See below.
The big banks, big pharma, big insurance, the midEast wars -- credit cards, health reform, general insurance reform; consider the status of all that. Plus, does the man in the street have an extra dollar in his pocket because of the Obama administration, or even any prospect of it? Will there be more progressive human-scale programs to support recovery -- all those trains and bridges we've been hearing about, and all the American jobs to be brought home from China and India that were promised during the 2008 by the Obama campaign. All that my friends, is what is staring us in the face and it's time to own up to what we must make ourselves see. It's not easy. But the bad news is there; as of the Afghan decision, the bad news is out.
I am a progressive Democrat but I am not a damfool, and I don't want to give away the store to anyone, rich or poor; I want people to work for what they get, but most of all I want all Americans to have a good chance for healthy thriving families, to have jobs and to work safely and effectively. I feel certain Mr. Obama wants the same thing. But, quickly we differ -- for I would force banks to lower credit card rates - he has no such intention, and Sen. Dodd merely talks about. I would break up the giant Wall Street banks and do so as quickly as possible; Obama has no such plans. I would have long since made credit swaps illegal and set in place an enforcement plan to make it happen. I would quickly do that, and replace a reluctant Bernanke and Geithner with better qualified, better thinking talent in key financial positions. Is the Obama White House making any such plans? No indeed. Already we should have seen corrective Congressional action, with Administration leadership, rescinding the legislation that set up banks in the insurance and brokerage businesses, revoking that -- removing that very weak spot in our financial armor. There is no word from Obama of any such plans.
It is not that they don't know of those needs. Ms. Warren makes it clear every week that the criminals of Wall Street have to be contained and curtailed and her ideas are quite clear and right. Nothing results. The administration sees all this and remains 'cool.' Our Cool Cat is not upset.
Or, at least he gives no sign of it. Look at the toothless Compensation Czar, immobile as Mr. Blankfein cock-a-doodle do's about his earnings and his firm's biggest-bonuses-ever payout plans -- and yes, some of Goldman Sachs' earnings may not have been properly arrived at, and he hopes that maybe that just might happen to change some day. Is anyone in Washington compelling Blankfein to change his computer programs so they don't skim the buyer on every share purchased or sold? How about a fractional cent tax on every share bought or sold, a plan that would bring hundreds of billions of new money into the government, from people who can afford to pay it? Is that being considered. The Obama financial cadre has no such thoughts.
This room does not need me to continue this list or any more rant. You well know what I am talking about and the abuses at hand, old and new.
But believe this: Now is the time to face up to it, to name it for what it is, to call down the Obama government and tell the truth on 'em, and Mr. Truman might have said.
I could get real personal about Obama; about how Hillary's negative comments about him in the campaign were prescient, about how we just may have been sold a bill of goods by an oily salesman, but stop! I wont go there, not now. Let's stick with the impersonal facts and try to think through as a discussion group what our priorities really are -- and communicate our wishes to our government. Here are mine:
BANK DISCIPLINE - as above, plus other needed controls. WAR DISCIPLINE - de-fang the 'Cabal of West Point Generals,' whose business is war, likewise the Military Industrial combine, and get the hel out of the war business. Get out of the fruitless Afghan situation, starting right now. Obama made the wrong decision; call him on it - really hard. HEALTH BENEFITS - One payer; no profit motive by any participant -- give America Socialized Medicine. It's going to happen sooner or later; make happen now. Think this way: we can have health care or war, not both. We can have restrained banks and recover, or we can have undisciplined banks and no recovery, not both.
A few months ago on here Granny Doc and other pious pundits said, don't come here with just opinion blathers; we want new information and original ideas -- something new. OK! So be it, Granny (never mind your own posting earlier today). Here is my new point: we are at a moment when we need to recognize some unpleasant facts about our Obama administration.
It is time to recognize this: we have a failed president, 'failing' is perhaps best because it is not yet over. But right now, too many progressive hopes and plans have collapsed into a heap of disappointment and failure. I had hoped, in fact expected, the right decision of Afghanistan would be the moment when Mr. Obama redeemed himself and did the right thing. He did not. We have a failed president making a whole series of bad decisions and we had better own up to that realization.
What does this mean to you and me? I'll tell you: it means an alternative presidential candidate in the 2012 primary, and hopefully a more effective, more honest and more sophisticated presidential candidate to offer America three years from now. A real liberal, a progressive we can trust, and a corrupt-Congress and Lobbyist buster of the Teddy Roosevelt stripe. I don't care which party, or even if it must be a third party, but already in just ten months it is clear Mr. Obama is not going to cut it, and we must have other plans. Pretty shocking stuff, yes. But start thinking.
Go ahead, Mr. Obama - travel and party, and looking like the cat who ate up a whole lot of canaries and made himself very satisfied, pick up your Nobel Prize -- just leave the work to Congress, knowing full well as you surely do, that their compromised legislation will be written in K Street and Change Will Not Come to Washington.