In Defense of Obama

In response to my colleague's disapproval of Obama's handling of Health Care below, I would like to offer a counter argument. I think Obama, despite one glaring fault, has handled Health Care extremely well. Future presidents should learn from his approach. The problems that have hampered the bill-making process which Ragoth cites are not marks on Obama's record, but rather the results of the broader American political culture and structural facts about how our legislative institutions operate.

Obama's single greatest achievement in the Health Care debate is letting the legislature do its job on its terms. The Health Care bill is the single largest legislative undertaking since Medicare with so many constituencies, laws, regulations, and potential strategies that it is simply impossible for a single person to be completely satisfied with the bill. The political capital being spent, burned, and built is incomprehensible. Had Obama come out with his own piece of legislation, it would have crashed as miserably and dishearteningly as the Clinton bill. Not only do we have the Clinton example to look to as a comparative, but also the string of failed Bush legislative projects like immigration and social security reform. The Bush administration's series of legislative failures is a great example of what happens when the executive takes too much initiative in the legislative process.

So, rather than write the bill himself (excuse my artistic reification), he outlined specific, largely inflexible, and sound goals for the bill. The shortcomings of how the bills have come out were not his choices. They are the results of the legislative process driven by the relationship between the party machines, polity, and interest groups. Republicans will not vote for the bill period, despite the fact that much of their bill (most prominenty, the exchanges) will end up in the final bill. There are too many new Democrats in vulnerable districts and moderate Democrats to take full advantage of the Democratic supermajority. So, a big public option or single-payer system is simply politically infeasable. We will have to wait for health care to implode before the American political conscious is ready for such a radical market restructuring.

What Obama has done wrong is not spend his own political capital to better shape the legislative process. To be sure, he has pushed his weight around in the many private meetings he's held throughout this process. That may be why the bill will be deficit neutral, cost-cutting, and ultimately politically feasible. However, he has not publicly pushed specifics in the initiative to the point of having any piece of the bill put in his name (though Glen Beck would have you believe otherwise). For example, he could very well have personally owned the public option, stumped for it in a national campaign, and gave up other items (such as the abortion payment rules) to persuade the remaining moderate Democrats and secure the filibuster-proof majority. In this view, Obama is guilty by omission. However, this is hardly the ownership that detractors and critics attribute to the President (still love saying that).

To extend this out to the rest of Obama's presidency and wrap up my defense, I believe this is a great sign of exactly the kind of success Obama will have throughout the rest of his terms. While Republicans will never vote "yes" on any liberal issue (i.e. immigrant citizenship, carbon emissions regulation, recession spending), their party infrastructure, ideological puritanism, and general detachment from the majority of Americans will insulate Obama's legislative goals from strong Republican interference. Yes, some Democrats will probably lose their seats in the next elections, but Republicans will not be able to legitimately claim a mandate within the next four years. Think the "Anyone but Bush" sloganeering.

This will enable Obama to continue to work his guiding, but hands-off approach to the upcoming, major initiatives that he put forward in his campaign. Unless Obama changes tactics; environmental, government spending, immigration, and other monumental legislative undertakings will follow the same trajectory. No one will be fully satisfied, but we will witness major advances in government policy. If Obama learns from Health Care and Democrats maintain their majority or miraculously expand their electoral success, we could see the most effective and long-lasting solutions to modern social problems in our life times. They won't be silver bullets as Health Care has well-demonstrated, but they will be leaps talked about in terms of "light years." Obama's greatest contribution then will be the exemplary leadership that guides without doing everything himself.