Status of American Politics: April 2009 Archives

Former Democratic Congressman and presidential candidate Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), is saying Obama should not attempt universal health care (UHC) this year. His argument is that without first lowering the cost of health care delivery, the funding additions to create universal health care will cause the effort to fail. Gephardt recommends a more piecemeal approach. Pres. Obama bills universal health care as essential to future productivity, economic growth private sector competitiveness with other nation's whose corporations are not burdened by shouldering the costs of health care for employees. Who is right?

Reality, at any given moment in time, is the culmination of infinite variables coming together across time and distance. A pragmatist attempts to identify a finite variable set available for changing, in order to produce a desired outcome. Ideology is a view of how the world SHOULD work based on a finite set of preferred variables toward a desired end. Ideologues are having a very bad day today, as Pres. Obama, the pragmatist, defies yet again his critic's ideological projections and desire for his, and our nation's, failure.

On Jan. 8, U.S. Representative Steve Israel (D-NY) and U.S. Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wi) introduced the Weekend Voting Act in the Senate and House in an effort to increase voter turnout. This is only 60 years late in coming. Sensing however, that there is a new Sheriff in town who reiterates that he will sign bills that make sense for America, not just bills that make sense for his party, some of the more responsible Representatives in our Congress are going to seize the opportunity to make political reforms never introduced before, but, long overdo, like this one.