NyTimes' Bob Herbert: They Still Don’t Get It

[chimpymustgo]

They Still Don’t Get It

By BOB HERBERT
Published: January 22, 2010

How loud do the alarms have to get? There is an economic emergency in the country with millions upon millions of Americans riddled with fear and anxiety as they struggle with long-term joblessness, home foreclosures, personal bankruptcies and dwindling opportunities for themselves and their children.
Skip to next paragraph

The door is being slammed on the American dream and the politicians, including the president and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill, seem not just helpless to deal with the crisis, but completely out of touch with the hardships that have fallen on so many.

While the nation was suffering through the worst economy since the Depression, the Democrats wasted a year squabbling like unruly toddlers over health insurance legislation. No one in his or her right mind could have believed that a workable, efficient, cost-effective system could come out of the monstrously ugly plan that finally emerged from the Senate after long months of shady alliances, disgraceful back-room deals, outlandish payoffs and abject capitulation to the insurance companies and giant pharmaceutical outfits.

-edit-

A new study from the Brookings Institution tells us that the largest and fastest-growing population of poor people in the U.S. is in the suburbs. You don’t hear about this from the politicians who are always so anxious to tell you, in between fund-raisers and photo-ops, what a great job they’re doing. From 2000 to 2008, the number of poor people in the U.S. grew by 5.2 million, reaching nearly 40 million. That represented an increase of 15.4 percent in the poor population, which was more than twice the increase in the population as a whole during that period.

-edit-

Democrats in search of clues as to why voters are unhappy may want to take a look at the report. In 2008, a startling 91.6 million people — more than 30 percent of the entire U.S. population — fell below 200 percent of the federal poverty line, which is a meager $21,834 for a family of four.

The question for Democrats is whether there is anything that will wake them up to their obligation to extend a powerful hand to ordinary Americans and help them take the government, including the Supreme Court, back from the big banks, the giant corporations and the myriad other predatory interests that put the value of a dollar high above the value of human beings.

The Democrats still hold the presidency and large majorities in both houses of Congress. The idea that they are not spending every waking hour trying to fix the broken economic system and put suffering Americans back to work is beyond pathetic. Deficit reduction is now the mantra in Washington, which means that new large-scale investments in infrastructure and other measures to ease the employment crisis and jump-start the most promising industries of the 21st century are highly unlikely.

What we’ll get instead is rhetoric. It’s cheap, so we can expect a lot of it.

-edit-

*****
Much more at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/opinion/23herbert.html

[Mari333]

1. they live in the DC bubble

and dont seem to care a whit.
knr

[Tesha]

2. K & R, especially for that last line quoted! (NT)

[Joe Fields]

3. He nailed it. What more can be said?

Fear and loathing on Main Street.

[Sherman A1]

60. Yup,

Nothing more can be said.

[Mojorabbit]

80. Yes, he gets it. nt

[Catshrink]

4. The Dems act like they're afraid of Repug criticism

Who cares? If jobs start coming and the middle class begins to recover, who cares what the repugs say? I know -- they're afraid of what Rush or Beck might say. IIRC, Rush/Beck aren't the head of both the RNC and DNC but pols from both parties act like they are.

Grow a spine!

[tblue37]

17. FDR stood up to Republican criticism, and by doing what was right for Americans, he

created a strong liberal consensus all across the country. Even Eisenhower, a Republican president, was quite liberal compared to most of our current Democrats. Heck, even Richard Nixon was more liberal than most of today's Democrats! The baseline, the accepted "center," for the country was liberalism, so the "right" was just to he right of that center, which is far to the left of what is being called "centrist" or "moderate" today.

BTW, I get really disgusted when even the people on our side--including many progressive bloggers--use "centrist" and "moderate" as labels for rightwing hacks like Lieberman and Nelson. We need to squawk about that whenever we hear it. The RW squawks about everthing, but as someone recently said, the left doesn't have the same organized outrage infrastructure. We need to build an "outrage infrastructure" to make noise whenever the MSM or some clueless politican says or does something that goes against everything we believe.

[Bullet1987]

24. It's not just about Republican criticism

It's also about corporate control of policy. And how doing what Liberals and it seems everyone else wants him to do will be actively going against the corporate masters wishes. Which is why Republicans know they can do and say whatever they want and get away with it. Democrats are bound for failure and millions of pissed off voters if they don't do something.

[glitch]

33. They're only bound for failure in human terms. Financially they will be fine

They would harm all mankind just to save their own.

[Ken Burch]

61. "They would harm all mankind just to save their own"

As Curtis and Bob would say.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQqTxK7VhSk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBxZti_JyRo

[glitch]

83. :) thanks for the great links. nt

[Ken Burch]

85. You're welcome

That's Taylor Dayne(best known for "Tell It To My Heart")doing the duet with Curtis Mayfield. I think that was one of the last performances he did before the accident that paralyzed him.

[Enthusiast]

91. Republicans have the

M$M on their side. Any criticism of Obama is repeated many times over by the corporate media.

[misanthrope]

31. Horse hockey...

..Dems have the same corporate masters as their colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

[Jackpine Radical]

69. For the most part that's true.

I used to say years before Obama, the Dems are 75% sold out, but the Republicans are 100% sold out, and the difference is worth voting for. Now with the Dems appearing to be 90% sold out, the people are figuring things out and not liking it.

[SomeGuyInEagan]

99. Agreed ... continuation of Reagan-Bush-Clinton corporate agenda

The great democratic experiment began dying 30 years ago with Reagan. Bush and Clinton finished it off. Bush, jr., picked the bones clean.

[slipslidingaway]

5. knr nt

[flyarm]

6. ohhh so NOW BOB HERBERT is finally "getting it"?? get real Bob..many of us gave up on you a long

time ago..you pushed Obama on us!..take your own blame.

well Bob, Bob, Bob..so many of us were told.."IT HAS ONLY BEEN..____..( fill in the blank) AMOUNT OF TIME..give him time..
( fuck the people out of work and losing everything they ever worked for )

MY STATE NOW HAS 11.8 % UNEMPLOYMENT.. BUT SHHHHH DON'T BRING THAT UP TO CHEERLEADERS.. one of which you have been *BOBBB*...

Now it is too late for many of those workers..because they have lost homes and Businesses. Businesses??well the store fronts here look like a fire sale.. there are so many available..in fact there are more empty...empty with "for rent" signs on them.. than filled with goods..or workers.

Many of us wrote you BOBBBBB..and warned you of this..we saw it long before many parts of the nation BOBBBBBBBB..here in Fla and in Ca and MI..but you ignored us BOBBBBBBB..

now who is catching on ..BOBBBBBB..

you are a day late and a dollar short BOBBBBBBB..

and Obama and the dems are behind your enlightenment..now that is indeed sad BOBBBBBBBB.

[chimpymustgo]

8. Flyarm, I thought Herbert was one of the few who did not turn into complete cheerleaders for Obama.

[flyarm]

11. not that i have seen! eom

[DisgustedInMN]

21. Isn't it hilarious ...

.. that the just-had-my-eyes-opened "experts", NOW want to make like they had "warned of this"????????

Tone deaf till it's too late.

WTG, BOOOOOOOOOBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

27. Bob Herbert may have been an Obama cheerleader, but

his non-campaign columns have always highlighted the plight of the unemployed, the foreclosed-upon, the cheated, and other "little" people. No other NY Times columnist does this.

Unlike Krugman, who was fantastic at criticizing Bush but now seems to think exclusively in terms of what's good for the banks and the Democratic Party, Bob Herbert doesn't forget that policies affect real people.

[depakid]

7. Trending third world

and still pandering to the corporate right...

All the while the right coopts the populist anger and resentment- then dishonestly frames the issues and defines the narrative.

Almost seems like a classical tragedy.

[Autumn]

9. Hey ... they will give us a

bone. All the meat will be stripped off of it and we will probably have to dig through a big pile of shit to get it but we will get one.

[WestSeattle2]

13. ...and we'll have to pay for it with devalued, worthless dollars...n/t

[underpants]

10. The rush to jump on the faux populist bandwagon but the stutus quo crowd

must be so they can look back at Obama when there are no seats left.

[Political Heretic]

43. Maybe.... but as someone living below the poverty line, his words ring true.

[FedUp_Queer]

52. But at least Wall Street is "profitable."

I have a Brazilian partner. He would talk to me extensively about the income inequalities in Brazil. We are looking more and more like that, with one difference. We're Brazil in steroids.

[truedelphi]

64. A sad observation but true. n/t

[The Stranger]

12. It's too late for the Supreme Court. The Democrats "kept their powder dry," and now it's all over

for them and for us. The impact of that decision Thursday cannot be overemphasized. It is a systemic, profound and ubiquitous change. They could have prevented it when they had the chance, but they didn't.

[rhett o rick]

73. "Keeping their powder dry" is to nice a way to put it. The Democrats try to pretend they favor

the working class, but when push comes to shove, they are owned by the same corporations that own the republicans. They werent keeping their powder dry when they supported each and every thing bush* did.

Now they have the power and they are afraid that we will find out that they really agree with the corporatists. No HCR, no repeal of the Patriot Act, no ending DADT, no ending rendition or prosecution of the war criminals, on down the friggin line. I remember Tom (asswipe) Dashle giving reason after reason for not invading Iraq. He got my hopes up. Then he said he would support King Georgie Bush's decision to kill over a million Iraqis. He wasnt the only Democrat that kissed King Georgie's ass.

[bbgrunt]

81. yep, and I hope they choke on all their "dry powder".

[ananda]

14. ananda's astute political prediction:

The next stage of politics will be one of near and
complete nihilism.

The program infrastructure in place to give people
a social safety net will implode due to the complete
lack of energy and money to support them.

Remember, the word NO extends to NOthing.

[Jackpine Radical]

70. And Kris Kristofferson told us what comes next.

"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose."

Sometimes I'm glad I'm old.

[Tansy_Gold]

15. What I wrote last night (Friday) in the Week-End Economists' thread

<snip>
Talk is cheap, even elegant, polished talk filled with complete sentences and subjunctive mood and insubordinate(sic) clauses. Remember how we used to complain that boooosh was in a protected bubble, that he only heard what his handlers wanted him to hear, that no one told him the truth because it might upset him? Does it seem like maybe the same thing is happening to Obama?
<end snip>

There's more, like how the administration doesn't seem to be addressing the issues. There appears to be no coordination, no effort at all. Maybe there is, behind the scenes, and maybe the MSM is ignoring it. But for cryin' out loud, what kind of leadership is Obama providing if he can't even get his spokespeople on the media????

Talk is cheap indeed, and yet we aren't even getting much of that from the administration. What the hell ARE they doing?



Tansy Gold

[Political Heretic]

44. Week-end economists thread?

What?

I never see this?

And political economy is my life! Can you link me to one so I know what to look for?

[Tansy_Gold]

48. Every week-end, following the close of the markets on Friday

in the Editorials forum

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x512262

[Political Heretic]

67. Dammit I gotta remember ot go to the Ed. forum.

That's why I miss it.

[frazzled]

16. What Bob Hebert doesn't get, though

While he throws health insurance reform under the bus, is that 30 million people (and growing) remain unable to obtain or pay for health insurance. And that many of these people will suffer or even die because of it. That wages remain stagnant--throwing more and more people into the poverty category-- and jobs are exported because of the unsustainable, rising costs of health care.

These problems are not unrelated, Bob. Fixing health care, even if imperfectly, is a big part of "trying to fix the broken economic system and put suffering Americans back to work." Let's put the blame for the failure to pass what he hyperbolically calls a "monstrously ugly plan" squarely where it belongs: on the corporate interests; on the obstructionist, lying right; on the feckless centrists; and on the perfectionist left.

I suggest he read this letter posted on TPM today:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/01/one_readers_sob-story.php#more?ref=fpblg

[chimpymustgo]

23. Obama should have passed REAL reform early on, rather than dicking around, capitulating

to corporations, and ending up with a bad bill that's nearly dead.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

28. Having looked closely at the bill, I believe that the Senate bill is a Trojan horse

designed by the Blue Dogs to discredit the idea of health care reform.

Yes, millions are languishing without health care.

This bill will NOT provide any timely relief unless they are lucky enough to live near one of the new public clinics that Bernie Sanders is proposing.

I repeat, the bill will not provide ANYONE with the relief they are looking for.

Instead, it will burden the working poor and lower middle class with an extra cost (compulsory private insurance) that may not even be useful to them, due to high deductibles. The much-vaunted "affordability" is a Senator's idea of "affordability," and is not indexed for people who live in high-cost parts of the country like New York or the Bay Area.

Furthermore, it strengthens instead of dismantling the core problem of our system, the unnecessary middlemen known as insurance companies.

Almost all the good provisions have been stripped out.

[frazzled]

35. That's not what Jacob Hacker (father of the Public Option) says

Along with some 4 dozen of the top health economists and policy experts from the PROGRESSIVE side, who wrote a letter the other day in a letter to Congress:

Nearly four dozen of the nation's leading health care luminaries--including Jacob Hacker, the man who brought the public option to light--are urging the House of Representatives to pass the Senate health care bill, and quickly pass a separate bill to modify it: an approach favored by some members of Democratic leadership, major unions, and reform advocates.

In a stark message to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and her health care lieutenants--Reps. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), Henry Waxman (D-CA), and George Miller (D-CA)--the experts say it's time for the House to act.

"Both houses of Congress have adopted legislation that would provide health coverage to tens of millions of Americans, begin to control health care costs that seriously threaten our economy, and improve the quality of health care for every American," reads a letter, obtained by TPMDC. "These bills are imperfect. Yet they represent a huge step forward in creating a more humane, effective, and sustainable health care system for every American. We have come further than we have ever come before. Only two steps remain. The House must adopt the Senate bill, and the President must sign it."
Some differences between the bills, such as the scope of the tax on high-cost plans and the allocation of premium subsidies, should be repaired through the reconciliation process," the experts say. "Key elements of this repair enjoy broad support in both houses. Other limitations of the Senate bill can be addressed through other means."

They also warn of political recriminations if the year-long push for reform falls short.

"Alternatively, Congress can abandon this effort at this critical moment, leaving millions more Americans to become uninsured in the coming years as health care becomes ever less affordable," the experts say.

Abandoning health care reform--the signature political issue of this administration--would send a message that Democrats are incapable of governing and lead to massive losses in the 2010 election, possibly even in 2012. Such a retreat would also abandon the chance to achieve reforms that millions of Americans across the political spectrum desperately need in these difficult times. Now is the moment for calm and resolute leadership, pressing on toward the goal now within sight.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/leading-health-care-experts-tell-house-to-pass-senate-health-care-bill.php?ref=fpblg

But YOU know better than these people who have been trying to figure out the policy implications of health care reform for several decades now. I guess you'd just call Jacob Hacker a corporate shill. I've look at the bills in depth, too. They should pass it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

36. You know, I just can't avoid the sneaking suspicion that those "improvements"

will never get passed. The House will have "more important things to do," and even if they do pass some improvements, the Senate will neuter them.

The point is not to pass something-anything-make Obama look good. That can be the only reason to hurry, since the bill is so huge (a 2000-page bill just has to have hidden booby traps in it) that no one has really looked at any unintended consequences that might result (or that were deliberately inserted by the Blue Dogs).

The point is to get it right the first time. That means scrapping both versions, reintroducing the two single-payer bills, and negotiating down from there, not from a position of already caving in.

Yes, people will die if the bill is not passed. Nearly as many people will die if it IS passed, especially since most of the provisions don't go into effect for four years.

The people who can't afford insurance now will still find it unaffordable, only they'll be required to buy it.

PASSING this bill will doom the Democratic Party. It places a possibly unaffordable mandate on the average American (with taxpayers' money for the insurance companies if a particular American meets the millionaire Senators' definition of "unaffordable"--such a deal!), it leaves millions still uncovered, and it has NO cost controls.

[frazzled]

37. Not passing it will doom the Democratic Party.

Just keep sticking to your message, though.

Your message about how "people who can't afford insurance now will still find it unaffordable, only they'll be required to buy it" is getting really stale. For the first time in history, people will receive government support in order to get insurance: people earning up to $88K for a family with two kids. More people will be given Medicaid. Those who earn between 150% and 400% of poverty level will get subsidies.

Slogans will not solve this problem. I'm sticking with the people who understand this stuff.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

39. But the subsidies are part of the problem

More government money going to private corporations.

Will the subsidies be tax breaks? Useless to people who don't pay taxes.

Direct transfers to the insurance companies? Whoa, now there's some pure corporate welfare.

Direct transfers to the insured? Now that will require a new bureaucracy easily equivalent to any of the other existing bureaucracies.

There are no cost-cutting provisions and no universal coverage. I repeat, no universal coverage. Millions will still fall through the cracks in 2020. This is the Massachusetts plan on steroids, and the Massachusetts plan has given that state the highest health care costs of any state in what is already the most expensive country in the world (as well as rapidly declining levels of satisfaction). We can do better, but not starting from this pig of a bill. It's like trying to build high speed rail by manufacturing buses.

I know you want to believe in the Democrats. But they have done little to deserve that trust. They have sold themselves to the insurance companies, and they and this bill deserve every bit of scorn I can muster.

By the way, being self-employed, 400% of poverty is a line that I cross back and forth over, and the proposed level of affordability is more than I pay now (and one that I often struggle to meet).

Those of you who think this bill is the best we can do are exercising "the tyranny of low expectations." Either that, or you're such a party loyalist that you'll just follow whatever the party leaders propose.

[Edweird]

50. Wrong. Passing the senate bill is what will doom the Democratic Party.

You obviously have not been paying attention.

[totodeinhere]

78. Subsidies are the wrong way to go.

It will involve so much red tape and paperwork to apply for a subsidy that many people will throw their hands up in frustration and not even apply for it. That's the same reason why there are so many people who are theoretically eligible for government programs who never use them because it's too complicated to apply. For one thing, the means testing necessary to administer the subsidies is degrading and humiliating. The only way to go is a single payer system that everyone is eligible for regardless of means which is supported by a progressive system of taxation.

[Little Star]

94. +1

[Leopolds Ghost]

63. What I read in the Washington Monthly 6 yrs ago was that the DEMS behind the bill said same thing.

Brookings, Insurance lobbyists, and centrist Dems including (sadly) Edwards, Daschle, and Clinton got together and said stuff like "in the event of a new President (Bush was insanely unpopular at the time) we want to make sure we get out in front of any effort to reform the health care system by making sure the INDUSTRY is on board this time. The objective must be to protect industry profits from potential collapse due to baby boomer retirement,

and to provide an ALTERNATIVE to single payer, which there may otherwise be an increasing pressure to impose, and that would be unacceptable to the insurance cos."

And words to that effect, all YEARS before Obama elected, they were discussing the bones of this bill in public.

[laughingliberal]

32. Here's the problem with the letter writers point

<snip> There's a bill that would mean we'd never be rejected for health insurance or have it canceled. Health insurance that could ease our final years, or maybe even save us. <snip>

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/01/one_readers_sob-story.php#more?ref=fpblg


As unwieldy as the bill is it has been easy for the proponents to obscure (or remain unaware of) the fact that the above cited 'fact' about the Senate HCR bill is untrue. It is appalling to me that our lawmakers who crafted this abomination of a bill can still stand up and repeat this talking point when they know perfectly well the bill does not forbid rescissions. One huge concern if the bill is passed is massive numbers of people who think they are safe from having their policies cancelled will find just that happening to them and will, only then, realize the loophole was not closed.

[Bluenorthwest]

18. Gosh, the President's plate is reallly full guys

He has to keep time open to attend Family run prayer meetings with the author of the Ugandan genocide legislation and things like that. I mean, if he is not able to provide photo ops for his fellow Christians when they need to get down to some pogroms, what kind of a President would he be? He can not just send McClurkin every time they need to legitimize genocide, you know. Geez!

[PSPS]

19. Don't forget squeezing in the Nobel Peace Prize award between "war council" meetings.

[chimpymustgo]

20. It's so depressing. I wonder if they really don't get it, or just don't care? I think the latter.

[peace frog]

53. +1

If they cared, they would at least try to get it.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Number23]

56. Link please? Given your track record, one is desperately needed

He has to keep time open to attend Family run prayer meetings with the author of the Ugandan genocide legislation

Thanks.

[mdmc]

25. $$$

[donheld]

26. k & R it's a wonder some here at DU are suprised we're not all Cheerleaders

I'd love to cheer, but now's not really the time.

[chimpymustgo]

51. So true. I was cheering so loudly a year ago. But I'm sad and angry now.

[change_notfinetuning]

96. Like the old ABC Wide World of Sports intro said - The Thrill of Victory; the

Agony of Defeat Deceit.

For those of you who are too young to remember, check out "ABC Wide World of Sports Opening Theme 1974" on You Tube. The video accompanying the "agony of defeat" phrase is of a ski jumper going off the side of the very bottom of the ramp, after building up all that momentum. It is a perfect analogy for the Obama phenomenon. He had built up all of that momentum, with a public mandate and the majorities in Congress. Nothing could stop him. He was just about to soar into Washington on the wings (skis?) of hope and change, but then he derailed his message and his presidency by veering to the right and crashing. After a year of deceit, we have just seen the start of the agony of defeat. If you think you are sad and angry now, you ain't seen nothing yet. More to come in November, unless Obama and the Democrats get it. Don't hold your breath.

[WillyT]

29. Big K & R !!!

:kick:

[treestar]

30. If Bob only "got" how to get elected

He could learn about how the system works, too!

He might even find it does not yield to his dictates, even from the Oval Office!

[olegramps]

34. Why would you expect millionaire representatives to give a shit about the working class?

Are you out of your cotton picking mind? They have more important things to do primarily to raise enough money to get reelected so they can make more money. Most of their time is spent ingratiating themselves to corporations that will hire them when they ready to "spend more quality time with their family." Translation: Thanks suckers; all that money you spent getting me elected was well invested in my future.

[Greyhound]

38. Oversimplified, but accurate. K&R.

[whatchamacallit]

40. It's DUH for everyone but the folks running the show (n/t)

[Political Heretic]

41. I strongly agree with that first bold paragraph

[malaise]

42. Bob Herbert et al remained silent

while the corporations took over. Too late my brother - STFU - you're all guilty.

[ProSense]

46. Exactly. n/t

[ProSense]

45. "In 2008, a startling 91.6 million people " Wasn't Bush in office then?

Democrats in search of clues as to why voters are unhappy may want to take a look at the report. In 2008, a startling 91.6 million people — more than 30 percent of the entire U.S. population — fell below 200 percent of the federal poverty line, which is a meager $21,834 for a family of four.

Here's what I don't get: The media, all of them, ignored the fact that Gore was unselected, ignored the 2004 election fiasco and ignored homelessness and poverty while the Republicans ran the country into the ground. Now all of a sudden they're up in arms because the pace of change isn't fast enough. Screw them. Seriously, screw them.

State-Level Data Show Recovery Act Protecting Millions From Poverty

In addition to keeping more than 6 million Americans out of poverty in 2009, ARRA is reducing the severity of poverty for 33 million additional Americans who are poor by lifting their incomes, typically by more than $700. Due to data limitations, these figures are conservative and underestimate the number of people that the seven ARRA provisions examined here have helped in 2009.

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION AWARDS NEARLY $1.4 BILLION IN HOMELESS GRANTS

Highlights of HUD's Homeless Assistance

• HUD is awarding nearly $1.4 billion to renew funding to 6,445 local programs. HUD awarded $1.2 billion to 5,825 renewal projects last year.
  
  
• More than $738 million is being awarded to 2,997 projects that provide permanent housing solutions for homeless families and individuals, including persons who are chronically homeless
  
  
• More than 3,200 local projects that serve families with children will receive over $733 million.
  HUD’s housing and service programs funded through the Continuum of Care competition establish the foundation for communities to serve many of the nation’s most vulnerable individuals and families. Based on the Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) released by HUD in July 2009:
  
  
• Nearly 1.6 million people use emergency or transitional housing programs over the course of a year; and
  
  
• On a given night, approximately 664,000 people are homeless. Of those:
  
  1. More than 124,000 are chronically homeless;
     
  2. 36.5 percent are chronic substance abusers;
     
  3. 26.3 percent are severely mentally ill; and
     
  4. About 15 percent are veterans.

Write about that Bob.

[rpannier]

72. In the article he does address 2009

Citing that statistics haven't been released

The study does not include data from 2009, when so many millions of families were just hammered by the recession. So the reality is worse than the Brookings figures would indicate.

[femrap]

47. Those numbers

are just astounding. The Dems should be ashamed.

Tax the fuck out of the rich and the corporations. Make them pay their fair share for a change.

And every job that is outsourced is charged a 'fee'....just like the banks do to its customers.

[amborin]

49. K&R

[bvar22]

54. Gee.

Who coulda predicted that FORCING a Republican Health Care Plan and a Republican Wall Street Bailout on America would PISS OFF so many Working Class Democrats? :shrug:



Mandates + No public Option+ Trillion Dollars WELFARE for Corporations = Republican Plan
Written by Joe Lieberman and Olympia Snow

"When given the choice between a Republican, and a Democrat who acts like a Republican, the voters will choose the Republican every time." ---Harry Truman

QED

[lunatica]

55. We need another Dorothea Lange

To document this time for history. Without the photos of the Great Depression very few of us would know about it no matter how many words were printed about it. And to show everyone what the modern day homeless are doing. I wish I could take six months off to travel with my camera just to take photos of people in soup kitchens and living in their cars and of people hanging out on those street corners waiting for someone to give them work for a day. Pictures are very powerful and not even Republicans can ignore them.


edited to add more.

[TexasObserver]

57. Recommend

[uponit7771]

58. Not blaming republican policies have hurt more than fighting over health care

[democrank]

59. ".......but completely out of touch with the hardships........"

K & R

[hulka38]

62. Thank you Bob

[scentopine]

65. "Democrats in search of clues..." don't worry Deputy Dawg is on the case -nt

[jonathon]

66. These are not people of passion but the people are afraid to elect people of passion

How on earth do you get real people who will actually lead when milque toast superficial 'charmisma' and meaningless slogans win the day.

The people get the government they deserve.

[BREMPRO]

68. Herbert ignores that the health care system is an obstacle to job creation

and one of the many critical reasons there was so much focus on it. I think its clear toward the end of the negotiations to get the last few Dems on board, the compromise and sweetheart deals soured most on the whole process and the outcome. When people are polled about the health care bill they oppose it by a good margin. When they are told of the individual provisions in the bill, they approve of most of them by a good majority. Obama needs to do a better job of "selling" and leadership on this issue. Scott Brown is the best thing that has happened to the dems this year- force them to fight for principle, instead of negotiate and compromise to the point of undermining those core principles.

here we go...

[rpannier]

71. Nicely put

+1

[rhett o rick]

74. You are making the assumtion that the Democrats in Congress want HCR. I dont see it. nt

[SandWalker1984]

75. It's more dire than we thought - the US government's debt obligations

Our government has orchestrated many cover ups of their deeds and/or misdeeds over the years. The deliberate cover up of their FINANCIAL misdeeds may be the worst. Until I read the statistics from the article below, I didn't fully grasp how dire our country's financial situation was.

The article is long and in depth, but I've posted some of the main paragraphs of importance here:

America's Impending Master Class Dictatorship

By Stewart Dougherty

- snip -

One stark and sobering way to frame the crisis is this: if the United States government were to nationalize (in other words, steal) every penny of private wealth accumulated by America’s citizens since the nation’s founding 235 years ago, the government would remain totally bankrupt.

According to the Federal Reserve’s most recent report on wealth, America’s private net worth was $53.4 trillion as of September, 2009. But at the same time, America’s debt and unfunded liabilities totaled at least $120,000,000,000,000.00 ($120 trillion), or 225% of the citizens’ net worth. Even if the government expropriated every dollar of private wealth in the nation, it would still have a deficit of $66,600,000,000,000.00 ($66.6 trillion), equal to $214,286.00 for every man, woman and child in America and roughly 500% of GDP.

If the government does not directly seize the nation’s private wealth, then it will require $389,610 from each and every citizen to balance the country’s books. State, county and municipal debts and deficits are additional, already elephantine in many states (e.g., California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York) and growing at an alarming rate nationwide. In addition to the federal government, dozens of states are already bankrupt and sinking deeper into the morass every day.

The government continues to dig a deeper and deeper fiscal grave in which to bury its citizens. This year, the federal deficit will total at least $1,600,000,000,000.00 ($1.6 trillion), which represents overspending of $4,383,561,600.00 ($4.38 billion) per day. (The deficit during October and November, 2009, the first two months of Fiscal Year 2010, totaled $296,700,000,000.00 ($297 billion), or $4,863,934,000.00 ($4.9 billion) per day, a record.)

Using the GAAP accounting method (which is what corporations are required to use because it presents a far more accurate and honest picture of a company’s finances than the cash accounting method primarily and misleadingly used by the U.S. government), the nation’s fiscal year 2009 deficit was roughly $9,000,000,000,000.00 ($9 trillion), or $24,700,000,000.00 ($24.7 billion) per day, as calculated by brilliant and well-respected economist John Williams. (www.shadowstats.com) Fiscal Year 2010’s cash- and GAAP-accounting deficits will likely be worse than 2009’s, given government bailout and new program spending that is on steroids and psychotic.

Putting Fiscal Year 2009’s $9,000,000,000,000.00 ($9 trillion) deficit another way, 17% of America’s private wealth, accumulated over a period of 235 years, was wiped out by just one year’s worth of government deficit spending insanity.

- snip -

The enslavement of the American people has been orchestrated by a pernicious Master Class that has taken the United States by the throat. This Master Class is now choking the nation to death as it accelerates its master plan to plunder the people’s dwindling remaining assets. The Master Class comprises politicians, the Wall Street money elite, the Federal Reserve, high-end government (including military) officials, government lobbyists and their paymasters, military suppliers and media oligarchs. The interests and mindset of the Master Class are so totally divorced from those of the average American citizen that it is utterly tone deaf and blind to the justifiable rage sweeping the nation. Its guiding ethics of greed, plunder, power, control and violence are so alien to mainstream American culture and thought that the Master Class might as well be an enemy invader from Mars. But the Master Class here, it is real and it is laying waste to America. To the members of the Master Class, the people are not fellow-citizens; they are instruments of labor, servitude and profit. At first, the Master Class viewed the citizens as serfs; now that they have raped and destroyed the national economy, while in the process amassing unprecedented wealth and power for themselves, they see the people as nothing more than slaves.

America’s public finances are now so completely dysfunctional and chaotic that something far worse than debt enslavement and monetary implosion, terrible curses unto themselves, looms on the horizon: namely, a Master Class-sponsored American dictatorship.

- snip -

Recent American events paint an ominous picture of a Master Class that is now in total control.

When 90% of the American people vehemently rejected the $700,000,000,000.00 ($700 billion) TARP bailout plan, the Master Class put it on a fast track and approved it anyway.

When a clear majority of the American people said no to a government takeover of Chrysler and GM, the Master Class poured billions of taxpayer dollars into those corporate sinkholes and took them over anyway.

When the people said no to multi-trillion dollar crony bailouts for the bankers and insurers whose corruption had caused global financial mayhem, the government pledged to those elite insiders more than $13,000,000,000,000.00 ($13 trillion) of the people’s money anyway.

When the people expressed astonishment and anger that Wall Street planned to pay itself record 2009 bonuses, in the midst of America’s worst-ever fiscal and financial crisis caused by them, Wall Street stuffed its pockets with taxpayer-supported bonus money anyway.

When the people said no to a proposed $40,000,000,000.00 ($40 billion) bailout of AIG and its elite trading partners such as Goldman Sachs (an amount that subsequently exploded to $180,000,000,000.00+ ($180+ billion)), the Master Class went underground, covertly misappropriated taxpayer money and made the payoffs anyway.

When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were nationalized at enormous taxpayer expense, the government approved $6,000,000.00 individual pay packages in 2009 (150 times the average American wage) for the CEOs of both failed companies anyway.

When a clear majority of the people said no to nationalized health care, even after being bombarded by a multi-million dollar, lie-drenched propaganda campaign designed to bamboozle them, the House and Senate passed nationalized health care bills anyway.

When more than seven million American workers lost their jobs and were subsisting on unemployment benefits and food stamps, federal government employees, who now earn DOUBLE what private sector workers earn, were given another round of pay and benefits increases anyway.

When private sector workers’ 401Ks and IRA retirement plans plummeted in value due to economic collapse and endemic Wall Street-orchestrated market corruption (including systemic front running, flash trading, naked short selling and other manipulations), government “defined benefit,” lifetime-cost-of-living-adjusted pension plans, despite already being underfunded by $2,000,000,000,000.00 ($2 trillion), were made richer than ever anyway.

http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-7149-0-5-5--.html



If those in Washington do not accept the reality of these staggering numbers, if they keep "funding" illegal and unnecessary wars in the mid east and expand them to other nations, if they keep giving Wall Street "bailouts" of money we don't have, then economic collapse will be a certainty not a possibility.

[BP2]

79. $120 trillion, or 225% of the citizens’ net worth - what's the word? Oh yeah, UNSUSTAINABLE. eom

[kenny blankenship]

76. No one in his or her right mind could have believed...

No one in his or her right mind could have believed that a workable, efficient, cost-effective system could come out of the monstrously ugly plan that finally emerged from the Senate after long months of shady alliances, disgraceful back-room deals, outlandish payoffs and abject capitulation to the insurance companies and giant pharmaceutical outfits.

That means about half of Democratic Underground is either crazy or mentally disabled. It was clear as crystal from at least as early as June that the Senate was NOT going to produce anything like Health Care Reform but was instead brewing up a guaranteed profitability act for Big Insurance and Pharma at the expense of taxpayers. IIRC that is when we began to get the first reports out of the Senate Finance Committee helmed by Max Baucus and a select group of REPUBLICAN friends. Up to that point things didn't look too good; after that point all hope was foolish. Did the President chide Senator Baucus and remind him he was supposed to be producing health care legislation, not a insurance company profit assurance program written by industry lobbyists and their Republican allies? No he did not. Features of the legislation that emerged from day 1 and stayed like a herpes infection such as the individual mandate made it clear that passing the eventual bill would be the political equivalent of guzzling RAT POISON, particularly for Democrats. It was clear to everyone, that is, but Hill Democrats and the mental defectives brigade at DU. Then there was the overall failure of any iteration of the plan or of the final bill to reduce the complexity/redundancy of our system, which is a source of much of its exorbitant costs, or to address the real engine of our spiraling costs - the insurance racketeers who NEED TO VANISH INTO HISTORY'S DUSTBIN. The early death of the public option, itself the ghost of real Health Care Reform (called Single Payer when it was alive), was the final straw. Anyone who gives a damn and "is in their right mind" should have known at that point that this process was headed for UTTER CATASTROPHE. You can't impose mandates to buy insurance on people and not give them the option of a non-profit plan to escape to from the predators. It will not contain costs and it is MORALLY and politically wrong and insane. Health care is a PUBLIC crisis in America, arising from the failure of PRIVATE ENTERPRISE, which demands a PUBLIC POLICY response, not an incomprehensible maze of rules enabling privateering and subsidies which would just make the people's government into an enforcement/collection arm of the insurance mafia.

[bbgrunt]

84. thank you kenny. well said. nt

[Skittles]

77. Bob Herbert is a true treasure

HE gets it

[RainDog]

82. agreed

and so glad someone in the big media is telling some truth.

[Skittles]

90. not only does he get it

unlike a lot of other writers, he conveys it in such a way that is easy to read

[leftstreet]

86. K&R

[saracat]

87. Amen. This says it ALL."'Rhetoric is cheap and we can expect a lot of it"

[Douglas Carpenter]

88. kick and recommend

[earcandle]

89. Fiscal Year zero:song or video?

Fiscal Year Zero (live performance)

Fiscal Year Zero

[midnight]

92. "The idea that they are not spending every waking hour trying to fix the broken economic

system and put suffering Americans back to work is beyond pathetic." I have tried numerous ways to create this message, but this is short and to the point....

[Vidar]

93. K&R.

[fasttense]

95. I remember something McCain said (yes, McCain, bear with me)

when he gave his concession speech.

"But that he (Obama) managed to do so (win the election) by inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president."

I think we wrongly believe now that we have little influence not just on the election of a President but in the direction our country is moving. Too many believe they cannot take on the powers that be that are inexplicably moving this country toward fascism.

But we hold the power in our hands. Two hundred million adults can not be controlled by 100, 300 or a million heartless men. We cannot be forced to follow unfair laws set out by 5 ignorant fools or by greedy corporations. Our vast numbers can NOT be controlled without our Consent.

Right now the powers that be think they have us in the palm of their hand but the truth is we hold the reigns of power, we are the backbone of this country and we can stand up and resist. We can gather and march to throw off the reigns of tyranny. We have it in our hands. All we need do is act.

[Clear Blue Sky]

97. They all have jobs so they are clueless...

[4dsc]

98. Fixing 30 years of failed conservative economic policies

will take a miracle but first the democrat's have to realize there is a problem. From globalization to de-regulation to lower taxes for the top 1%, just about every conservative policy that came up over the past 30 years should be rescinded and a new approach should be taken for the sake of the American worker.

Too bad our party is weak. So nothing much will happen.