President Obama, Congress should set health-care reform asideA bit of a surprise to hear this coming out of the Seattle Times but it is nice to see that even progressives can wake up and smell the fscking Cappuccino from time to time... Posted by DaveH at December 20, 2009 11:32 PM
The health-care dance in Washington, D.C., has gone on long enough. Congress needs to focus on the economy and set health care aside.
This is a change of position for us. This page supported Barack Obama for president, enthusiastically. We have supported the health-care effort until now. We still support universal coverage as a social goal.
But the longer the fight goes on, the more it feels that the timing is all wrong. The economy is wounded. Employers are hurting. The time to think about loading employers with new burdens is when they are strong. Not now.
Right now, Congress needs to focus on the economy. It needs to follow the lead of Sen. Maria Cantwell and re-enact Glass-Steagall, the law that separated investment banking from commercial banking and for 50 years helped maintain sanity on Wall Street. It needs to bolster the antitrust laws. It needs to lower the estate tax.
It needs to target the rest of the stimulus money at things that really stimulate � all of these actions to provide breathing room to small- and middle-sized family businesses that were once the backbone of the economy and can be again.
It needs to rejuvenate a trade agenda, starting by ratifying the agreement with Korea.
The Denver Post (liberal) came out today with an editorial urging the Colorado senators to vote against the health care bill for similar reasons. It was a pretty safe editorial; the vote is only hours away.
Posted by: Colorado at December 23, 2009 4:52 PM