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.