Many in the left are being sanctimonious and overly pure. President Obama’s statement on the exact restrictions of social security as passed by FDR was factually inaccurate but most understand the premise of his argument. Going for purity has consistently failed. Incremental additions as occurred in many of our government programs are what have taken the day. That many Progressives continue to act as if they do not understand how the Senate work is a disservice to the cause and could have the side effect of demoralizing those not up to speed with the process.
The President is absolutely correct. It is no accident that his method got a blueprint for much of what us as Progressives want when other Presidents with more purist demands lost it all. The President is correct that the accomplishment of this administration thus far is unparalleled sans Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was only successful because he was willing to go only as far as he thought he could get to avoid getting nothing. I will confess that I was upset with the President on not fighting for single payer healthcare or a public option. I was upset at the deal with drug companies.
While many look at it as he caved to all these different entities, in retrospect I think everyone else will ultimately get played and Progressives will win if they behave like adults. When the President says he has the eye on that North Star or that goal, I believe him with a caveat; Progressives must keep the pressure on him to keep moving in a Progressive direction as without that pressure the perks of power can make the best person forget their ultimate goal.
My Book: As I See It: Class Warfare The Only Resort To Right Wing Doom
Book’s Webpage: http://books.egbertowillies.com – Twitter: http://twitter.com/egbertowillies
While Whacking Critics, Obama Gets Facts Wrong
WASHINGTON — While arguing at Tuesday’s press conference that his progressive critics are being sanctimonious and overly pure, President Obama flatly misstated the history of the Social Security program and disregarded the central intent of the public health insurance option.
Both concerns were raised Wednesday by economics blogger and former Clinton Treasury official Brad DeLong.
At the press conference (see the transcript), Obama defended his controversial decision to give in to Republican demands for a massive tax cut for the rich on the grounds that "in order to get stuff done, we’re going to compromise."
His prime example: "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."
As it happens, Obama said the same thing in October, in an interview with Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart: "When Social Security was passed, it applied to widows and orphans and it was a very restricted program, and over time that structure that was built ended up developing into the most important social safety net that we have in our country." That did not go unnoticed in the blogosphere, either.
Obama’s overall point — that Social Security wasn’t born fully grown — was exactly right. But his facts were exactly wrong. The Social Security Act, as first signed into law by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1935, paid retirement benefits to the primary worker — and not to their widows and orphans. It wasn’t until a 1939 change that the law added benefits for survivors and for the retiree’s spouse and children.
It’s possible that Obama was confusing FDR’s law with what some consider a precursor of sorts, the Civil War Pension program. That program, which dates back to 1862, provided benefits linked to disabilities incurred in the war and pensions for widows and orphans.
The White House press office chose not to address the issue.
Less objectively false, and yet more offensive to progressives, was Obama’s dismissive remark about the hard-fought battle to establish a government-run insurance program as an option in case the private market failed to provide consumers with adequate and reasonably priced policies. Here’s what Obama said about that:
[T]his notion that somehow we are willing to compromise too much reminds me of the debate that we had during health care. This is the public option debate all over again. So I pass a signature piece of legislation where we finally get health care for all Americans, something that Democrats had been fighting for for a hundred years, but because there was a provision in there that they didn’t get that would have affected maybe a couple of million people, even though we got health insurance for 30 million people and the potential for lower premiums for 100 million people, that somehow that was a sign of weakness and compromise.
To support Obama’s statement, an administration official pointed the Huffington Post toward a November 2009 Congressional Budget Office memo‘s conclusion that "Roughly one out of eight people purchasing coverage through the exchanges would enroll in the public plan, CBO estimates, meaning that total enrollment in that plan would be 3 million to 4 million."
