How the President might re-energize his agenda

I have some suggestions for how the President could begin to change the way politics is played. I think it’s pretty obvious that the closely divided government, especially in the Senate, (as a result of Senate rules giving great power to a unified minority, which is what we have), have made it very difficult for the President to get action on much of his agenda. I think it’s clear that some pretty radical new strategies are needed to move forward on real health care reform, financial re-regulation, workers’ rights, revenue reform, environmental action, rethinking of national security issues, and other elements of the president’s agenda going forward.

The president needs to abandon traditional constraints and enter into a regular dialog directly with the American people. I suggest reaching out to the major networks and offering them this deal. The president gets ten minutes on Sunday morning, or, better, the news hour time slot on a weekday, to speak to the American people, then he will take questions from the news suits for ten minutes. EVERY WEEK. They can give a Republican spokesman the same time on the same or another day for rebuttal… it won’t matter. No Republican is the draw or has the gravitas that the president is and has.

The president will then use his time, like a fireside chat, to address a particular issue. He should follow these precepts:

1. Speak directly to the people, and ask them for help, using phraseology from the Bible and JudaeoChristian tradition, in much the way that John F. Kennedy sometimes did. Study George Lakoff and reframe everything in positive ways that influence people to want to help the president get things done. (References to “our better angels,” and “the fundamental decency and integrity of the American people,” that kind of thing). 

2. Talk about making changes in economy, environment, health, etc. for the benefit of your children and grandchildren.

3. Talk openly and honestly about the need to break the logjam of the way Congress works. Ask people to communicate directly to their congressman and senators regularly, using a system outlined below. Ask them to ask their congressperson directly, politely, repeatedly, to support the president’s policies, not just generally but the particular action he’s talking about that week.

4. Teach, but don't talk down. The president is masterful at this when he’s got the right framing going.

Next, the administration needs to be much more proactive in providing outlines, with specifics, of exactly what legislation is needed, to the key members of Congress, both House and Senate. Call them in for conferences all the time. Engage them, and never let up. The White House needs to ramp up its activity to a legendary level. We need to be speaking of the incredible energy and activity of the Obama White House for a generation to come. 

As part of the help the president asks of the people, a means of putting pressure on Congress needs to be created. The whitehouse.gov website could be a springboard. Ask people to go to a website where they will be able to link directly, by entering their zip code, to a form that goes directly to each Congressperson and Senator, giving the citizens an opportunity to say in their own words that they want the reform or action the president is talking about to happen, and they want their Congressperson to support it. This could go a long way to blunting the power of lobbies and money, by giving the people direct feedback, and a direct connection to their government at the highest level. And people will do it, because the president, speaking directly to them, has ASKED them to do it.

I have been one of the President’s progressive critics heretofore, but I have decided since the president’s masterful health care speech that we need to rally around our President, and help him, because it’s now or never, and he’s the only chance we have.

Thank you.

Obama Gots Some Rethinkin' to Do

I sent this, with the preface, It pains me to say this, but.... (to whitehouse.gov)

Now there's all kinds of reports that Progressives will be "disappointed" by Obama's Health Care Speech. Lemme put it straight: if the plan he lays out doesn't include a robust public option, we won't be "disappointed," we'll be really, really pissed at having been betrayed on this signature issue. Obama would not have won the presidency without the efforts (and money) of Progressive Democrats, and this promise was one of the big motivators.

With 84 members of the House, including Speaker Pelosi, on record that they will not vote for a bill that doesn't include a robust public option, I sure as hell hope the President rethinks this incredibly foolish strategy before next week, or likely as not there will be no health care bill at all.

There's no way around it: President Obama has messed up this whole issue very, very badly already. If he hopes to get back on track and accomplish something worth having, not to mention anything else during his Presidency, he had better do some serious rethinking and quick.

Part of that rethinking needs to be a realization that 84 House Progressives are more important than the illusion of bipartisanship, and that the only way we're going to pass this thing is by dropping any effort to woo Olympia Snowe or any other Republican and proceed by way of Reconciliation. And, frankly, if Obama and his people can't twist arms to get 50 votes in the Senate, then his leadership is seriously in doubt.

Among the things the President should be thinking about is which of his underperforming and tone-deaf advisors on this issue should be fired immediately. Or which dozen. 'Cause he's been getting some really, really bad advice lately.

After that, he can think about cleaning house in some other areas, too, because people who think like Obama talked when he was still a Senator have had serious concerns that this Administration has gone off track on a variety of issues:

1. Real Financial Re-regulation
2. Real Adherence to the Constitution in Detainee issues and 1st Amendment Issues
   
3. Climate Change Agenda
4. Tax Reform to end Tax Advantages for the Very Rich
5. End Don't Ask Don't Tell already
6. Recognize that Afghanistan is a disaster and needs to be completely reevaluated, with a plan for withdrawal

Has the President Failed Us on Health Care?... looks bad

If reports are true that President Obama will not demand the "public option" in a renewed push for a health care bill, the covenant will be broken, as far as I'm concerned: this president will have betrayed the people who elected him and rather definitively failed to establish himself as a major leader for progressive change. "Change we can believe in" will have become a hollow and false promise. Real universal health care was a keystone of his campaign agenda, and if the President fails to fight like hell to achieve it, and if he fails to insist and lead on the most important aspect of this reform agenda, I think it unlikely it will be achieved. Sure, some bill will pass, but genuine comprehensive reform will be doomed.

If the president were to use his bully pulpit to fight like hell for comprehensive reform, and the Congress failed him, I would see things differently, but as this debate has developed, I believe the inescapable conclusion is that it unless these reports turn out not to be true, it will be primarily he who has failed. He has not yet clearly articulated the minimum requirement, which he should understand requires the public option, and he has thusfar never really fought for this reform. The blame for its prospective failure must reside with him, in large measure, if it comes to pass, as seems likely now.

I am sharing these dismal thoughts with the White House in the hope that the President will reconsider. Health Care reform without the Public Option will not achieve cost savings, and will not achieve real universal coverage. It will fail. Its failure will be the President's failure, and will be irreparable. Please, Mr. President, reconsider any decision not to fight like your whole presidency depended on it for real health care reform -- BECAUSE IT DOES. We are counting on you, and we see defeat looming because of your inaction so far.

Another Health Care Letter to Obama

Look, folks. Let's get it straight. Bipartisanship is not working. The Republicans have one agenda and one agenda only: to kill health care reform. They are succeeding. The President is being far too conciliatory. Anthony Weiner on Chris Matthews' show had it right yesterday. The President needs to clearly articulate exactly what the health reform plan should be, and DEMAND that Congress enact it, using the Reconciliation process if necessary. And that plan ABSOLUTELY MUST include a public option program, with real teeth and ability to negotiate costs. ALSO, the plan needs to have more ability to introduce regulation later on to move towards eliminating for-profit medical care, which gives us high costs, poor outcomes, and completely wrong-way-around incentives.

The president needs to use his very considerable ability to communicate to articulate a clear agenda, articulate exactly what it needs to contain, and why we need it, and sell, sell, sell. The hell with the Republicans. They will only obstruct.

My Letter to President Obama on Health Care today

Dear President Obama,

I am writing to strongly urge you to become much more proactive in the program to achieve serious and meaningful health care reform. This was a keystone of your campaign to become president, and will, if successful, become a major element of your legacy. But there are well-organized and surprisingly effective forces on the right arrayed against this effort, and I fear that they are having much more effect than their relatively small numbers — in terms of public support — would indicate. I refer, of course, to the right-wing interest group funded “Astroturf shoutdowns” which are drawing far more media attention than is justified. I also have serious concerns that your legislative program is not effective enough in making clear to members of Congress that the bill must include a meaningful public program.

Part of the problem is framing the issue and communicating with the public. I understand you have read and been influenced to some extent by George Lakoff, who has discussed the importance of not accepting the right-wing framing. We must avoid terms like “public option” and “single payer” and use words like “fair health care for all” and “meaningful competition.” I urge you to use the bully pulpit, as often as necessary, with your very considerable communication skills at their fullest, to explain to the American people exactly what is at stake. Ask for their support. Ask them to demand support for your bill. And communicate to Congressional leaders exactly what the bill must contain.

Rahm Emmanuel is way off base condemning progressives for resisting attempts by so-called “Blue Dogs” to sell out to the Republicans. We need to make it clear that this is a critical issue, and we will pass this bill without Republican support if necessary— which it will be. Reconciliation should remain an option. But first, you need to stand firm. You need to be willing to say to the American people that the time is now, this opportunity cannot be allowed to slip away, and you will not sign a bill that does not contain meaningful reform, including a robust and effective public plan to ensure affordable health care for all.

Please, Mr. President. This is a crucial issue. It’s the reason many of us contributed more of our hard-earned money and time than we could comfortably afford to elect you. You simply cannot let us down on this.

Public Option and the tendency of the White House to back down

I wrote to the White House today to tell them that they need to make clear to Congress that No Public Option is not an Option. Rather, Public Option is the bare minimum in the way of real health care reform that will be acceptable.

Public Option is already a compromise: Single Payer should have been the administration's opening position.

The majority of Americans support Single Payer, and THREE QUARTERS support Public Option. With this kind of clear statement of public will, it is unconscionable and unacceptable to even consider compromising this away.

I am very concerned that the Obama White House is developing a pattern of making all the concessions, beyond what the final bill even would have been, in advance, and then compromising further when the special interests get their mitts in. The same thing is happening on Wall Street Reforms.

Time for some good old fashioned righteous anger from the public. Write your Congressperson. Write your Senators. Write the White House. Demand Public Option, for real, no watering down. Demand real financial reforms. Demand real Transparency and an end to the surveillance state. Make your voice be heard.

The Natives are Restless

I still count myself a loyal Obama supporter, but the NATIVES ARE RESTLESS. Here's my latest missive to the White House:

I was very disappointed when the President failed to stand up to the banks on cramdown by bankruptcy judges on first home mortgages. Sen. Durbin was right, "the banks own the place."

Now, the socalled financial reform package is here, and it's clearly insufficient. There should have been more consolidation, more control of derivatives, more clear negative consequences for overleveraging.

But, in any case, the President must make absolutely clear to the Congress that this is absolutely the minimum that will be acceptable. The compromises have already been made. No more concessions to Wall Street: pass this and expect more reform later on, not less.

The President's numbers on handling the economy are slipping, and it's because he's been TOO accommodating. Messrs. Summers and Geithner clearly have the wrong mindset. We need a serious new Pecora style commission, a reinstatement of Glass Steagall and widening of its scope to include hedge funds and investment banks, and an overall scheme that really will prevent the kind of deemphasis on a production economy and overemphasis on speculation by the financial sector that very nearly caused the collapse of the entire World economy in the last year.

Mr. Obama must be MORE BOLD, more reform-minded, and more determined to use and even grow his political capital to live up to his promise of real change, because the way things are going, the perception is already dawning that there is to be little in the way of change at all, and that in fact Obama is just more of the same kowtowing to the money elite.

Don't Mess with Social Security, Mr. President, or you will lose support in your own party

I'm writing because I'm extremely concerned about remarks made by Secretary Geithner yesterday to the effect that the president is completely clear that "social security is not untouchable politically." Now, this remark is ambiguous, of course, but it is sending the wrong message. If President Obama wants to keep his core Democratic supporters, of whom I am one, as supporters and not merely nose holding lesser of two evils voters, he must reassure us that he holds to core Democratic principles.

One of the reasons George W. Bush lost support among "Reagan Democrats" and ultimately these same people provided the margin to elect Mr. Obama was his tremendously ill-advised and mean spirited attempt to destroy social security. Democratic voters regard a fair minimal retirement income as an irrevocable promise made to us by our government, which cannot be undone. Of course, there will need to be adjustments to funding and I think most voters would accept reductions in very high income peoples' benefits, but the core benefit of social security should indeed be considered untouchable.

President Obama instead should support lifting or raising much higher the cap on payroll taxes, or even making such taxes progressive for incomes above $100,000. Social security has never been an insurance program, and FICA is a tax, not a premium.

So many modest and middle income people have seen their private retirement funding reduced or even destroyed, if the President thinks voters will swallow any reductions in social security benefits for middle and lower income people, he's very mistaken.

With the Republican party increasingly marginalized, the President needs to consolidate and reinforce his traditional Democratic values, because otherwise, his supporters like me, who voted to restore Democratic values to government, will be drawn away to Third Parties and the electorate will be factionalized. I say this out of sadness and disappointment. The President has failed in a number of areas to clearly hew to a Democratic-principled policy. Unless he clearly states that he doesn't intend to allow Social Security to be savaged by the Republicans and their Fellow Travelers in our party, my Obama sticker is coming off the car and I will start to think of myself as part of the Grumbling Opposition within the Democratic Party.

Public Option essential in health care

Robert Reich is right that the public option, i.e., the right of every citizen to opt for publicly administered health care, is essential if affordable health care for all is to be achieved. Only if there is a public system, providing low-administration costs and fair and predictable standards, with reduced costs, will the private health care option be forced to be truly competitive.

AIG symbolic of the need for much more forceful leadership from the President

I think Mr. Axelrod and Mr. Emmanuel need to realize that they're dead wrong if they think the AIG fiasco isn't important to people. Read Josh Marshall today in talkingpointsmemo.com. People want to know that President Obama is in charge, and that he's not going to let Wall Street execs make the decisions when it comes to companies that have been bailed out by the taxpayers. Whatever this takes, in the form of emergency legislation, regulation, or just sheer force of will, is imperative.

AIG is symptomatic of a bigger picture. Americans are willing to be patient, but they are not willing to see people whose quasi-criminal conduct caused this mess be kept around, paid off, or, worse, allowed to continue running the place. The hell with the retention contracts. AIG-FP should be shut down, asap, and all of its execs fired. The same with the hedge fund like operations of all the banks and investment banks involved. We own them, in large part, and it's time President Obama started forcing the decisions.

White House Comments

Note: former whitehouse comment e-mail address, comments@whitehouse.gov has been taken out of commission. You have to use the form, www.whitehouse.gov/contact , but they have increased the size of the comment field to 5000 characters, so you can get in several pages of text if you need to. Everyone should take the time to communicate with the government regularly!

Banks and Economic Reform

"Nationalization" is a loaded word, as we all understand, but Nouriel Roubini, Paul Krugman, and Joseph Stiglitz are clearly correct that some form of RECEIVERSHIP for the biggest insolvent banks is going to be necessary, and delaying it will only make matters worse. I urge President Obama to hold a major conference within the administration, inviting the best progressive economists from OUTSIDE the Wall Street club that has infected the thinking of Geithner, Summers, Ruben, etc. and work out what it will really take to restore a banking system that works for the people.

In general, I believe that the president must realize that the current crisis will take BOLD, PROGRESSIVE reform, which gets our country back onto a production footing, reforms the financial system so that it is smaller and no longer a parasite on the production economy, and puts forward an agenda of multiple rounds of stimulus and job creation, since it is quite clear already that the Stimulus is a good start, but not enough. Future stimulation of the economy should not involve tax cuts at all; we can't afford them.

The Republicans, unfortunately, have made it clear that their game plan is obstructionism. The President must develop and articulate a major progressive reform agenda, and must take it directly to the people, constantly, and relentlessly, so as to make the people MAKE their lawmakers pass this agenda. Bipartisanship will not work.
[sent to new comment form (5000 char. limit]: whitehouse.gov/contact

Don't "fix" social security

Dear President Obama,

I read with alarm where some in your administration are apparently transfixed by the mythology that Social Security is 'broken' and needs 'fixing.' Social security is not broken, and in fact is solvent with only minor need for adjustments in the future. Medicare, largely due to a generally broken health care system, is of course a different story. Please understand. The people who elected you did so in large part as a rejection of Bush economic policies as well as other failed and terrible policies: decidedly including his terrible, stupid plan to destroy Social Security. Social Security is a touchstone of stability and minimal financial security for ordinary Americans, and we will not tolerate any attempts to "jigger" it or reduce it.

Thank you.

David Studhalter

Recovery Bonds

I want to promote the idea of Recovery Bonds, which would be denominated in $50 to $5000 amounts, to encourage ordinary folks to invest, and which would pay roughly CD interest rates but would have to be held for at least 7 years or some period calculated to be optimal. These would be used to lend money directly to consumers and businesses, with emphasis on preventing foreclosures (with assistance from Housing Officials to negotiate refinance) and investing in green energy, U.S. jobs, bringing jobs back from overseas operations, etc. Pitched like WWII war bonds, as our patriotic duty. When the need for them disappeared, they could be phased out, just as War Bonds were.

Krauthammer carpipng, what the President might say

•The always negative Krauthammer in the Corner on the Stimulus bill:

•"Look, this is one of the worst bills in galactic history. [...] FDR left behind the Hoover dam and Eisenhower left behind the interstate highway system. We will leave behind, after spending $1 trillion, a dog run in East Potomac Park."

•President Obama should of course not dignify this distortion with a direct response, but something like the following would be helpful:

•Some in the Republican party have said that our stimulus plan is too dilute, with no investment in major infrastructure projects comparable to the Interstate Highway System begun under Dwight Eisenhower. To these critics, I would remind them that the purpose of the Stimulus Bill is to put money and energy into immediate recovery. Our longer term goals very much do include major infrastructure investment, to rebuild our economy, and to ensure the proper role of government as a partner for the private sector in making the investments in transportation, education, energy, health and environmental infrastructure we so need, and we very much welcome Republican support for this effort.

Kuttner Right: time to marshal public opinion

Robert Kuttner, writing in the Huffington Post, is right. Bipartisanship is all well and good, but what matters is moving an agenda that puts right the various misdirections of past governments, and affirmatively builds on these steps to repair our economy, redirect our foreign policy, address our environmental problems, and revitalize the social contract which has become so tattered under right-wing rule.

To accomplish this, President Obama needs to talk and listen to the Republicans, of course, but when they remain fixated on failed and futile policies, he needs to go directly to the American people. More explanatory, teaching speeches. Fireside chats. On all media, and in a major way. Outright advocacy, and urging people to make Congress do this, by demanding it of their own Senators and Representatives.

Congratulations, Mr. President

Congratulations, Mr. President. The whole country, indeed almost the whole world, is with you. We want you to succeed, we want to help you succeed, and we intend to help you succeed.

May our country be restored to its rightful place, and may its founding principles flourish anew and forever.