Common Sense

Let's start with people who have been carrying guns to presidential rallies and other town hall meetings. The second amendment, after all, gives me the right to keep and bear arms. Some state laws permit me to carry my weapons openly. Are you going to dare deny me my constitutional right to swagger up and down the street with an assault weapon thrown over my shoulder?

We have an absolute right to freedom of speech as well. For those who only know of the existence of the second amendment, we are speaking of the first amendment. However, it is understood that you cannot yell 'fire' in a crowded theater, unless of course there actually is a fire. No one questions the degree of anger and hostility that currently surrounds the issue of health care and the town hall meeting venue. There can be no good reason for brandishing a firearm in such a setting. Any one who fails to see this as a problem is clearly lacking in what was once known as common sense. I know, 'Guns don't kill people, people do'. Let me just say that if people continue to bring guns into such incendiary situations, people will.

Another issue arises from a recent Supreme Court look at a death penalty case. According to Time magazine Justice Paul Stevens noted that the risk of putting an innocent man to death was sufficient reason to reexamine the case. The court in fact ordered a Georgia court to look at new evidence in the case. However, Justice Scalia dissented, saying that the Constitution does not forbid the execution of a convicted man even if there is evidence that he may be innocent. So Justice Scalia has no problem with putting an innocent man to death as long as it is consistent with his understanding of the constitution. That is not my idea of common sense.

Finally, I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who once said that 'Government governs best that governs least'. It is a good statement and one that I would certainly not argue with. The real question is what does it mean, and how is it to be interpreted in specific cases? For me the common sense application involves the question of whether government intervention makes things better or worse. Also, is the situation drastic enough that intervention may be required? The recent economic crisis is a good example. Even the very conservative Bush administration saw the economy in freefall and chose to intervene rather than allow the economy to collapse. Many Republicans in the Congress remained committed to their principles and as a result the government bailout nearly failed. Senator McCain kept vacillating as to whether to get on board due to intense pressure from conservative purists. Many said and continue to say 'let them fail' when referring to large banks, financial companies, auto companies etc. However, this is essentially 'laissez faire' taken to the extreme, because such failures would result in dramatic hardships for ordinary people all across the country.

Now we hear the cry in relation to Health Care. Any involvement of government is socialism or worse. These are all examples where sticking to principles becomes the enemy of progress and getting things done. The 'left' can be just as guilty of blindly adhering to what they consider a principled stand. Some on the left in congress today seem willing to kill any health care bill if it is not 'liberal' enough. As we contemplate the death of Mr. Liberalism himself in Senator Edward Kennedy, we should be reminded how he regretted not working with President Nixon years ago to get a pretty good health care bill. He learned the importance of making a deal, and taking a half-loaf if he couldn't get the whole loaf.

I know there are those who may wish to roll back the clock and dismantle Medicare, Social Security, and end government involvement in such areas as education and social welfare. Perhaps some may even yearn for a return to state's rights as understood in the Articles of Confederation we operated under at our nation's founding. This framework proved totally inadequate to the task of governing, even given the small nation we were at the time. The fact is, 'in order to form a more perfect union' we must do what is necessary to make that happen rather than becoming paralyzed due to a rigid adherence to principle. Now is a good time to be more practical, to work together to get things done, and to return to a once revered American virtue - common sense.

Making Sense of Health Care Reform

On July 7, I published a blog entry in this space that recommended we look to Max Baucus' Senate Finance Committee as the place where a successful compromise health care reform bill might emerge. I further said that the idea of a cooperative might be substituted for an outright public option in the bill. It looks like we may well be moving in that direction at this point. What, however, has been going on in the interim? How has the August recess impacted this debate?

As predicted, the forces arrayed against health care reform have raised their collective heads with a vengeance. This summer the major debate has been whether or not the ruckus at town hall debates has been genuine or orchestrated. Of course, the answer is it has been both. Organizations tied to interested corporations have opposed health care reform and urged individuals so inclined to protest at town hall meetings. Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show has clearly delineated many of the players in this effort. Individuals who are strongly opposed to every possible kind of government involvement have accepted the challenge to appear at these town hall meetings and create as much mischief as possible. It should be emphasized that this group of individuals while sincere constitute a very small proportion of the population. The real success for these opponents of health care, however, have been their ability to put doubts in the minds of more main stream Americans who just aren't sure any longer about the current health care proposals. Some have been influenced by the many myths that have sprung up. Even if they don't believe that 'death panels' will pull the plug on grandma, they wonder if maybe there are some provisions that might not be so good.

Where do we go from here? Are we to be outraged at the tactics of the opposition and draw lines in the sand as to what we expect in health care reform? A number of liberals are taking exactly that tack. Sixty democratic congressmen have written to the president that they will not support a bill without a public option. Is this a noble stand on principle or a potential end to health care reform for years to come? Liberals insist that it is the failure of the Obama administration to stand firm that has brought us to this point. Some, including those in the news media, fault the president for not submitting his own bill to congress, yet the truth is that congress never approves anything until they put their own stamp on the legislation.

The major problem now is the lack of agreement among Democrats on this issue. Democrats representing conservative districts and those representing more progressive districts view the issue differently. The differences are real and need to be respected on all sides. A fight among Democrats can only result in Health Care Reform crashing down around them. Are Democrats prepared to allow that to happen in order to be faithful to some principle?

The missing element in all of this is the unprecedented level of agreement that already exists among most parties. The compromise bill that can fairly easily be crafted if only there is a decision to do so, is several giant steps better than what we have now. The focus on preventive medicine, the establishment of exchanges, the changes in insurance regulations to enhance consumer protections, if not the ultimate is at least the beginning of a major overhaul in the way health care operates in this country.

It is also true that such a compromise is preferable at this time to a one-sided bill. While I may favor a single payer system it would not be right for our country. In fact the protests at town hall meetings has been a good thing for the health care debate. It should remind all of us that we are not a monolithic country, and that even minorities need to be heard. It reminds us that fashioning a compromise is more American than the alternative. No, we can not please everybody, nor is that the goal. However, we need to craft a bill that reflects the genuine sentiments of all corners of the country. The bill will not be perfect, and it certainly can be improved upon in future years as consensus for changes surface, but it meets the needs of our country at this time and it is the way to go.

If there ever was a time for people to stop yelling at each other and pursuing the art of the possible, now is that time. We do not want a repeat of the 1990's. We want a bold but thoughtful step forward. That is very doable. Let's get it done.

The 'Beer Summit'

Now that the dust has settled on that all important 'beer summit' perhaps I can venture a few comments about race and what I see as its relationship to the incident at Cambridge. Professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. of Harvard was arrested by police officer James Crowley of the Cambridge Police Force in a now celebrated incident at the professor's home. Clearly, the incident was blown out of proportion and generated way too much news coverage. Over time this incident will be forgotten and have little or no impact on race in the United States either positively or negatively. Yet I believe it highlighted a number of racial realities that are usually papered over. Does the President regret having stepped into this issue? My hunch is that he regrets it not at all, even if it may have lost him some support among one or two percent of white voters.

Let me start off by saying I am a white male. I share what I believe to be typical white male reactions to such an incident. I believe the President should not have stepped into this case, especially without knowing all the facts. I believe it was a mistake to use the word stupidly, if only because it could be and was misconstrued as saying that the Cambridge police were stupid. He was actually saying that it was not a very bright course of action to arrest a black man in his own home. To take it one step further lest there be any doubt about my white male credentials, I might also say that I was shocked and troubled over the jury verdict in the O. J. Simpson case.

President Barack Obama is a black male. I believe the incident represents the reality that black and white American males see potentially racial issues in very different ways. I can never fully understand a black man's perspective on such an issue even though I have spent more that 30 years working in the black community. But I believe the President responded at his news conference as an authentic black male. He has experienced racial profiling in his own life and had no question that this was an example of such racial profiling again. It made him angry, and he expressed his anger and frustration.

I can only come up with one meaningful example of racial discrimination that I experienced in my own life, and I can tell you it left an indelible impression. I was on a family trip to a southern state that will remain unnamed. My oriental children and their oriental cousin were denied the use of some of the recreational facilities at the place where we were staying. I was outraged, yelled a lot and received some rather pointed threats from workers there. This has not been a common occurrence in my life, but it is a daily occurrence in the life of African American males. It does not predispose one to be trusting and generous in one's assumptions about others.

It is possible that my assessment of the situation with my family as racial was incorrect. It is also possible that Professor Gates was wrong in characterizing the situation with Officer Crowley as racial. Yet, I have no doubt that what my chidren experienced was racially motivated. African American males in this country experience such indignities on a regular basis. Is it surprising that their collective first reaction to such an event is to assume the worst? Clearly white and black America view similar situations from entirely different perspectives, but there are important reasons why this is so. It is in understanding these realities and differences on both sides, that we might begin a real dialogue on race in this country. The President as president had to dial back the rhetoric and that is a good thing, because he is the leader of the free world. But at that moment we did get to see a genuine reaction to an ongoing situation that is a reality for black men all over this country.

Will we ever be able to have a meeting of the minds on such an issue? Can we ever understand and accept each other on this issue? I believe Sergeant Crowley believed he was right and Professor Gates believed he was right. Did the 'beer summit' change any of that? I don't know. But all of us could benefit from a greater effort to understand what another person's experience might be. A person's experience makes a difference. Again, I believe that for one brief moment President Barack Obama showed us just a bit of what it means to be an African American male in the United States of America.

Why Can't Government Get Anything Done?

The choice between doing something and doing nothing is too often answered by doing nothing. Except for the rush to war which Democrats participated in much too willingly, the eight years of the Bush administration essentially had the Democrats focusing on stopping everything the Bush administration wanted to do. Now it is the Republican party's turn to be the party of 'no'. I think the best example of the desire to do nothing can be seen in the Judiciary Committee's treatment of the nomination of Judge Sotomayor to be on the Supreme Court. Once the hearings were completed the decision was made to have a vote the following Tuesday. The vote was delayed for one week. Why? Because it could be. Procedurally, Republicans had the right to delay the vote for one week - so they did. Why would anyone want to do something today, when they could do it next week? So goes Washington.

Another problem is that it is so much easier to kill legislation than to pass it. As soon as any bill is laid upon the table it is open to criticism. It is easy to take pot shots at any new plan that is delineated. This is why health care reform as an idea is always more popular than any particular bill. It is also why Republicans don't want to put out a detailed bill of their own which would give Democrats something to attack. Using words like Socialism, government takeover, loss of your current coverage are terrific talking points that everyone can get behind. It doesn't matter if they represent truth, they get people worked up and often succeed in killing whatever legislation comes along.

Lobbyists are also hard at work to maintain the status quo and ensure their own continuing success. Returning to the subject of the vote for Supreme Court Justice, the NRA publicly announced they would go after any Senator who voted in favor of Judge Sotomayor. No subtlety there. For the NRA to be that powerful suggests we are living in dangerous times. But that is a topic for another day. Insurance companies are also working over time to kill any kind of a public option. They are afraid that a government run option could put them out of business. So there is a lot going on, but does anyone in this process have the goal of trying to craft a plan that will actually benefit consumers??

Democrats can't get their act together either. Blue Dog Democrats who represent conservative districts have to tread lightly to have a chance of being reelected in 2010. They must be seen as holding the line on spending. Liberals want to forge ahead without bipartisan support to craft a bill more to their liking. Lisa Miller in a recent Newsweek article talks about the religious left which feels the administration is not doing enough for the poor. While such a perspective is understandable, such groups seem to have little recognition of how strong the resistance is to doing even those things that are planned such as an overhaul of the health care system. The religious left may have an important prophetic role to play, but in the sausage making that is legislation they may or may not be helpful.

In the midst of this struggle, we find a minority Republican party that is tightly unified. Either they don't care about reviving their political fortunes or they believe their revival is tied to how much of the new administration's agenda they can kill. In the process truth seems to be a major casualty. The latest talking point states that the new health care plan will result in the death of seniors. Obama health care workers will be forcing people into hospices and everyone will have to have a yearly conversation about how they want to die. Apparently the sooner, the better. Actually, what is being referred to is a provision to alert patients to the option of having a Living Will, which most people would agree is a good thig. Can people putting forward these kinds of outlandish notions really be taken seriously? They fall into the category of the notion that President Obama was not born in the USA and therefore his presidency is illegitimate.

Congress is about to leave for its August recess. Health care status includes a bill just passed out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that seems to represent a pretty good compromise. It also includes no bill out of the Senate Finance committee which doesn't seem to be making meaningful progress. We will see a barrage of adds on both sides of the issue for the next month. Members of congress will be hard at work in their districts trying to develop momentum either for or against reform. How is the consumer going to be able to make sense of all of this? Change is not easy. Doing nothing always seems to be a safe fall back position.

However, I would submit that we have lived through eight years of an administration that has brought us to the brink of financial collapse. Those same Republicans have suddenly got religion and don't want to spend any more money. They have labeled the economic stimulus plan a failure and not a single house Republican voted for the bill. Yet while the first quarter GDP was down 6.4 %, the second quarter data just released is down only one percent. That is a pretty remarkable turnaround. More and more people are beginning to see an incipient recovery. The stock market has certainly taken notice. Unemployment is and will certainly continue to lag, but perhaps that's all the more reason to take action on health care, energy , and stimulus programs that can over time produce the jobs we need for the 21st century. Maybe it's time to take a bit of a risk. We voted for change, maybe its time to give change a chance. Otherwise we can be certain that nothing will change.