Another Example of Change

What a day yesterday was in Washington! I hope all of you were able to fully appreciate the mayhem and exhilaration that enveloped the city and the nation on this historic day.

I just moseyed on over to the new WhiteHouse.gov, and the changes from the Bush Admin could not be starker. For example, you can download the official White House blog feed for your RSS reader.

While I'm here, I'll also post the Obama's first proclamation:

NATIONAL DAY OF RENEWAL AND RECONCILIATION, 2009

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BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

As I take the sacred oath of the highest office in the land, I am humbled by the responsibility placed upon my shoulders, renewed by the courage and decency of the American people, and fortified by my faith in an awesome God.

We are in the midst of a season of trial. Our Nation is being tested, and our people know great uncertainty. Yet the story of America is one of renewal in the face of adversity, reconciliation in a time of discord, and we know that there is a purpose for everything under heaven.

On this Inauguration Day, we are reminded that we are heirs to over two centuries of American democracy, and that this legacy is not simply a birthright -- it is a glorious burden. Now it falls to us to come together as a people to carry it forward once more.

So in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, let us remember that: "The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 20, 2009, a National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation, and call upon all of our citizens to serve one another and the common purpose of remaking this Nation for our new century.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twentieth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.

Be Careful What You Wish For...

In my previous post a few weeks ago, I made the case that Republicans seeking to redeem their public image and act in an important minority oversight role should be trying to challenge the nomination of Treasury designate Tim Geithner rather than Attorney General designate Eric Holder. I'm quite happy to see that despite Arlen Specter's hypocritical bluster (probably meant more to help stave off a 2010 primary challenge than out of any higher principles), Holder is virtually guaranteed to be confirmed. Yet I didn't imagine that Geithner might indeed end up being the controversial and embattled high-profile cabinet appointment.

Now I'm still not thrilled with Geithner, and his intimate ties to the failed leadership of Wall Street in the era of excess and subsequent bailouts are troublesome. I would've much rather seen a Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz or even a Jason Furman type in the post. But you really can't credibly argue he's not qualified for the job in a strict resume sense. And I can't say with any great confidence that Geithner isn't the best guy to restore confidence in financial markets, because he certainly knows what he's doing.

So I'm quite ambivalent over the developing controversies that may, but probably will not derail Mr. Geithner's nomination. If we are to trust President Obama (I'm preemptively dropping the "elect" a day in advance), we should want his Treasury pick to be confirmed since he has placed a lot of faith in the man. Unfortunately for me, I'm a skeptical New Yorker - not so quick to trust a favored authority figure. While I honestly couldn't care less about the undocumented immigrant housekeeper (in NYC it's actually hard to find a non-undocumented immigrant housekeeper), I think Geithner's tax troubles are a very serious concern considering the scandal encompass an area directly within Treasury's jurisdiction. If the man in charge of the IRS is seen as a miserly tax cheat who works on behalf of elite Wall Street interests and is staunchly supported by Mr. Obama, it will be that much harder for #44 to make a convincing case that we need to pay more taxes in the name of the common good.

I really hope I'm wrong.

Fixing Health Care: Expanding Coverage or Controlling Costs?

I must admit I'm not an expert of any sort in the health care field. But I saw a very interesting panel discussion on Thursday at a work conference, about the challenges and expected priorities of the early Obama Administration, and one panelist named Chris Jennings talked in depth about what meaningful health care reform would look like. Apparently Mr. Jennings has been at the center of the national health care debate for a couple decades now and was a prime architect of the 1993 Clinton plan, so it can be assumed he is well attuned to the political realities of the situation and the potential pitfalls to avoid. His thoughts piqued my interest, so I figured I would share them here.

Here's the crux of his argument:

Health care reform is crucial to rebuilding the economy; without it America is operating at a major disadvantage in the global economy. The guaranteed free health care other countries provide is money employers in those countries don't have to pay for their workers.

The health care crisis has two major components: the massive amounts of uninsured and underinsured individuals unable to get quality care, and the pervasive skyrocketing costs.

Liberals usually focus exclusively on providing universal care while conservatives focus primarily on driving down costs. But it is nearly impossible to fix one problem without making significant headway on the other.

In other words, if we expand coverage to everyone without some mechanism to rein in the exploding cost of adequate care, American health care will face overwhelming financial strain and the system will implode before too long. Likewise, lowering overall costs through "market reforms" while millions of people remain uninsured will result in a massive reverse adverse selection problem - those that really do need quality coverage will be those least able to get it. This structure is also unsustainable in the medium-long run.

Makes sense intuitively. I've always figured an intrinsic advantage of government-provided health care is a much lower overhead cost. Insurance companies now spend something like 30% of their budgets on administrative and marketing costs, around half of that with bureaucratic mazes designed to keep people from getting care the company doesn't want to pay for and the other half telling you to ask your doctor rather suggestively about the LATEST COOL NEW DRUG!!!. Meanwhile, the overhead of Medicare is something like 3%. Between that and the promising potential of negotiating with Big Pharma for lower drug prices, It seems pretty obvious to me which is more economically efficient. Why would we not want a single-payer system based on that?

So.....does anyone who knows more than myself about health care policy want to react to this?

President Obama's Inheritance

No doubt, it feels good to be a progressive these days. Democrats have more control of the federal government than any time since just after the 1964 landslide elections. That was immediately followed by the enactment of Medicare and other key social safety net programs, so it is no surprise that many left-leaning advocates and engaged citizens are expecting big things from the upcoming Obama Administration.

Call me a downer if you want, but I'm not quite so thrilled about the prospects for immediate major advances. I'm certainly feeling an awful lot better walking by the White House these days, but that said, we are about to witness our nation's first black president attempt to maneuver an agenda through perhaps the most dire state of affairs this nation has seen since at least the Great Depression era. The global climate crisis, daunting economic inequality, the Iraq debacle and the threat of Islamic fundamentalism, unsustainable energy consumption, a health care system in absolute shambles. Oh yeah, and there's that whole financial/economic meltdown thing. And that doesn't even bother with a whole host of other important issues that aren't quite as imminently crucial.

We know one thing: governing with be anything but a cakewalk, even with significant Democratic majorities in congress. The constraints on enacting common-sense progressive legislation extend way beyond the impressive ability of Republicans to obstruct. We are plagued by a wide variety of obstacles of all shapes and sizes: a trillion-dollar structural budget deficit ("structural" means it won't go away on its own when the economy gets better), factionalism within the Democratic caucus, loss of credibility around the world, and a continued public aversion to large tax increases. And it's not like most people are aware of these formidable constraints; after all, didn't you hear about Lindsay Lohan's latest drunken escapade?

Really, I'm not trying to be a downer. I just think it's of the utmost importance that highly educated folks like us are realistic in our expectations for the President-elect's job performance. It will take a heroic effort on Mr. Obama's part to:

1. get the economy back on track and create quality jobs,
   
2. shepherd a meaningful climate change initiative through Congress,
   
3. shepherd meaningful health care reform, hopefully providing universal coverage, through Congress,
   
4. get us out of Iraq and restore our standing in the world,
   
5. squash the danger posed by Islamic terrorists and al-Qaeda,
   
6. and get the budget under control.

I'm not sure any president has ever accomplished this much in one term. From everything I've heard in people's expectations, both implicitly and explicitly, Obama will need to accomplish most or maybe even all of these things to be considered a successful president and be re-elected in 2012.

Good luck, Mr. President-elect. You'll need it.