Why Krugman Is Wrong
Obama's idea is a better one: Get every special interest out in the open on television, where the new president can cross-examine them and expose their phony rationalizations for charging $100 a pill or denying coverage to sick people (and Edwards, the former trial attorney, would be especially good at this). Then, having triumphed over the drug and insurance companies in the court of public opinion, the legislative victories will follow. It is, indeed, a fantasy to think these interests will roll over entirely, but they will get a much worse deal.
The Edwards alternative-to simply overrun them-is unrealistic. Even a 1932-style mandate at the ballot box (highly unlikely) wouldn't make them capitulate. Look what happened when New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, elected in 2006 with a huge mandate, tried to "steamroll" a bunch of hacks in Albany. He got his head handed to him.
To call Obama "anti-change," as Paul Krugman does, is anti-common sense. Leadership requires a mixture of confrontation and compromise, with room for the losers to save face. "They have to feel the heat to see the light," LBJ liked to say. That heat is best applied up close. In public. Across the big table.
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Member Comments
Posted By: Yobachi @ 01/20/2008 10:11:18 PM
Comment: You say that no populist have won the presidency in the last century, which actually proves the point. No populist win, and everthing stays the same. No populist have won, and in the last 80 years, the rich have gotten richer as the poor have gotten poorer. No populist win, and the working class keeps taking a beating. No populist win, and labour unions diminish, real wages diminish, and CEO salaries sky rocket.
Now doesn't that tell you something? Doesn't that tell you that the "big table" politics as usual that you favor clearly don't work?
Even the programs that you trumpet that you claim were as a result of this big table approach, what did they really accomplish? The trajectory of power and wealth has continuted in one direction, into the hands of the few. Why, because super rich corperate interest were always protected at your touted big table.
Posted By: Yobachi @ 01/20/2008 10:10:49 PM
Comment: You say that no populist have won the presidency in the last century, which actually proves the point. No populist win, and everthing stays the same. No populist have won, and in the last 80 years, the rich have gotten richer as the poor have gotten poorer. No populist win, and the working class keeps taking a beating. No populist win, and labour unions diminish, real wages diminish, and CEO salaries sky rocket.
Now doesn't that tell you something? Doesn't that tell you that the "big table" politics as usual that you favor clearly don't work?
Even the programs that you trumpet that you claim were as a result of this big table approach, what did they really accomplish? The trajectory of power and wealth has continuted in one direction, into the hands of the few. Why, because super rich corperate interest were always protected at your touted big table.
Posted By: mary13L @ 01/18/2008 11:07:46 PM
Comment: "Ideally, health insurance companies should be eliminated altogether. ... The only option is to curb their power and expand coverage through more regulation. ... The answer to price-gouging is to force these companies to negotiate drug prices with the government ..."
Elimination is less confrontational? Curbing their power, forcing expanded coverage, and forcing drug companies to negotiate drug prices would be less confrontational than not including them in discussions on health CARE reform?