Responding to my post on the Obama health care proposal, Obama supporter RF wrote this:
I think we definitely need to know what ideas the candidates have on the major issues, have an idea where each candidate would like to take us. But political reality is that the president will need to work with Congress on all legislation. No president will ever get exactly what s/he wants in any piece of legislation. It’s like obsessing about grammar and style in a rough first draft or an outline of an article, knowing that it will be completely rewritten.
Obviously any president will need to work with Congress. But it is very important to know what the president's starting point for negotiations will be.
I am a lousy negotiator, because I try to figure out what a fair compromise is, and that's my first offer. I have made that mistake several times in my life.
Look at Bush's record of legislative success. He puts in every bad idea on the Republican wish list, and he ends up getting almost everything he asks for. He doesn't say, Congress would never pass that extreme an energy bill. He just keeps asking for everything, even highly controversial things like drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. In the end, ANWR was excluded from the bill, but Bush got all the other bad stuff he wanted.
Similar story on taxes. Bush has asked for all manner of ridiculous, unaffordable tax cuts. He kept asking, even if Congress didn't immediately pass what he asked for. At this point, the only thing he couldn't get through was the permanent repeal of the estate tax. But he aimed high and got almost everything else he wanted.
Hillary Clinton's starting point on health care will be a few nibbles here and there, trying to get health insurance for some portion of the enormous uninsured population. Even if Congress gave her everything she asked for (which wouldn't happen), we would be far from universal access to health care.
Barack Obama's plan seems much better than Hillary's, and more detailed, but from what I have read, it is also less than a universal plan, and it lacks some of the elements I like in Edwards' plan.
I am under no illusion that Congress would rubber-stamp what Edwards asks for, but I feel quite confident that he will drive a hard bargain and get us the best possible deal for health care. I feel that Clinton and Obama will not push Congress as hard on this issue.
On energy policy, so far Dodd, Richardson and Edwards have offered the most ambitious proposals to combat global warming. No doubt these would not get through Congress intact, but it is very important to aim high (e.g. policies that would achieve an 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050).
So bring on the details, I say, and tell us what your legislative priorities would be.
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