Krugman and comments

Some thoughts from Paul Krugman. (please follow link to original)


Social Insurance History

Hmm. Paul Rosenberg catches the president rewriting history — and, revealingly, doing so in a way that makes the case for timid, incremental action, while waving away the actual history of bold strokes.

Specifically, Obama said this:

This is why FDR, when he started Social Security, it only affected widows and orphans. You did not qualify. And yet now it is something that really helps a lot of people. When Medicare was started, it was a small program. It grew.

Under the criteria that you just set out, each of those were betrayals of some abstract ideal.

This is all wrong: both programs were huge from the start. From the beginning, Social Security applied to all private-sector workers, except those in agriculture, domestic service, or casual employment — and yes, those exceptions happened to exclude the majority of African-Americans. Still, it was by no means a small program that grew big. Medicare covered everyone 65 and older right from the beginning, although initially it only provided hospital insurance.

It is, as Rosenberg says, odd that Obama doesn’t know this history.
--------------------------------------------------------

There seem to have been many times when Obama does not know history. There have been times when I've scratched my head, wondering where he got his "facts" from. I wonder what sort of "Constitutional Scholar" he was?

It's all very strange. What isn't strange anymore is why he now attacks his liberal base instead of the Republicans who obstruct EVERYTHING. He told us he'd put an end to partisan rancor. I think that means he will give in to those who show the most discipline, are the most militant. That is the party of the rich -- the Republicans. He has done, and is doing that. he's done it all along -- prisons still open, civil rights not yet restored, wars going stronger than ever, financial fraud and Wall Street crime and criminals not even slapped on the wrist, watered down health care - that seems to make only the insurance companies healthier. A whole series of policies and actions that are to the right of where the REPUBLICANS were not that long ago. The liberal base elected him. He doesn't need them any more.

Mr. Obama does not seem to give a damn about principle. Nor does he seem to care what happens to "average people".

It's clear our corporate leaders want us to be reduced to serfdom. Obama seems to see his place as a functionary. Congress has been bought and paid for.

I guess we are getting "change we can believe in" -- it's just not exactly the "change" we expected. For many it's disbelief. For others it's, "I told you so!".