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Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Jumping Ship Prematurely

The recent victory for Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts and the ensuing meltdown among Democrats in Congress gave pundits an excuse to hammer the standard caricature of the Democratic Party’s inability to lead. Republicans – so the story goes – have a focused message: Stick together on big votes and push through the agenda mercilessly when in power. Democrats are a jumbled mess of a party who cannot execute an agenda even when holding the White House and the largest congressional majority in decades.

This narrative – while attractive for Jon Stewart’s quest for a punchline in the wake of President Bush’s departure – is misleading. In depicting the past week’s events as just another episode of Democratic incompetence, peddlers of this fallacy downplay the magnitude of the Democrats’ current failure.

Comparing Democrats’ agenda today to Bush-era Republican pursuits masks the scale of President Obama’s first-term domestic agenda. One of the most prominent landmark conservative reforms that Bush tried to pass (Social Security privatization) came nowhere close to passage.

But I am not an apologist for the Democrats’ current predicament. Democrats are literally one vote away from passing health care reform. In Wednesday’s State of the Union address, President Obama promised not to “walk away” from the cause of reform. But given recent statements from senior members of Congress, it appears to be a distinct possibility that Democrats will do just that.

uch of the sideline’s rancor throughout the health care debate, including this past week, has fallen on moderate Democrats – especially Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont). Yet it was Baucus who perceptively pushed early on for a bill that could garner 60 votes in the Senate. Liberal Democrats, on the other hand, threw a time-consuming tantrum over the public option – which clearly never had the support needed for passage.

oderates were also quick to abandon their party’s agenda after the mess in Massachusetts. Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) called for a shift away from health care so fast that he seemed to relish the moment. But this sort of overreaction is predictable from swing-state Democrats. Liberal party leaders have a responsibility to keep them in line and the agenda on track.

On this count, they failed miserably. Immediately after the election, a number of high-ranking Democrats – including Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) – declared the health care bill dead. Nearly two weeks later, the leadership still has not unveiled a strategy to revitalize the health care effort. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) – one of the Senate bill’s authors – advocated taking a month off.

Despite the irresponsible drivel spewed by Democrats recently, the path to passage remains simple. The House merely needs to pass the Senate bill, and it would go to the president for signature. Yet House liberals would rather cater to unions and object to the Senate bill’s Cadillac insurance tax than enact reform to deliver coverage to 31 million Americans.

Even still, there is an easy solution to this standoff. The necessary compromises between the House and Senate bills can be accomplished through reconciliation in the Senate.

Dithering members of Congress desperately need forceful leadership to lay out the consequences of failure. So far, President Obama has failed to meet that challenge.

Throughout the health care debate, the president has opted for a behind-the-scenes approach – outsourcing tough decisions to lawmakers. This approach was defensible on the grounds that it was a strategy to ensure that nothing could threaten to derail health care reform. Now, many of the president’s supporters have been left wondering if he is simply not a fighter, a man too cautious to succeed in high office. Last week, for example, The New York Times columnist and influential leftist Paul Krugman lamented on his blog that he was “pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama.”

The fight is not lost yet. President Obama offered a strong reminder Wednesday night of why Democrats must not give up. Still, he provided little specific direction for the coming months. Worse still, the leadership is reportedly considering a scaled-back measure that would almost definitely provide an utterly ineffective antidote to the nation’s health crisis.

The fact that Democrats have been so cavalier about the possibility of giving up is truly shocking. It will take more than dynamic rhetoric to save reform. I still want to believe that President Obama is, in the words of Vice President Joe Biden, a “clear-eyed pragmatist who will get the job done.” But if he casts aside health insurance for more than 30 million Americans in the quixotic effort to salvage his party’s midterm electoral prospects, I stand with Mr. Krugman.

Sam Harbourt is a senior in the School of Foreign Service. He can be reached at harbourtthehoya.com. The Pragmatic Progressive appears every other Friday.

*To send a letter to the editor on a recent campus issue or Hoya story or a viewpoint on any topic, contact opinionthehoya.com. Letters should not exceed 300 words, and viewpoints should be between 600 to 800 words.*”

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