Arkady
President
Here's a fascinating article drawing parallels between Obama and Bush:
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/09/bushs_approach_to_social_insurance_still_rules/
Most of us are already familiar with glaring similarities between the two politicians when it comes to the police state and permanent war. Both like the idea of the government being able to spy on its own citizens without the need for independent judicial warrants. Both want the president to be able to lock people up for as long as he desires without a warrant (though Obama is using that power a little less, since he sometimes just kills people without a warrant, instead). Both favored spectacularly bloated military budgets, five times the size of any other nation's. Both involved the country in a foreign war with a Muslim nation. Both favor saber-rattling with Iran and North Korea, and no-strings-attached support of Israel. Both abused the state-secrets doctrine to avoid oversight (though, in Bush's defense, he wasn't as eager to prosecute whistle blowers as spies as Obama is). Both have waged war on recreational drug users, even in states where the drugs are legal (though, in Bush's defense, he went after the medical dispensaries only, not the medical users, in such states, unlike Obama does). But the article I linked to looks at insurance policy, where the similarities may be more surprising.
Both Bush and Obama created a hugely expensive healthcare benefit (Bush with Medicare Part D, Obama with Obamacare). And both did so in a way consciously designed to increase the profitability of our hyper-profitable private healthcare industry, rather than expanding on the far more efficient policies of the New Deal and Great Society (or mimicking successful policies in other wealthy nations). Bush did that by including a ban on the government negotiating drug prices for Medicare recipients, resulting in taxpayers overpaying private corporations by at least 58% for Medicare Part D drugs. Obama did it by creating a mandate to buy private health insurance, without providing for a public option, or any of the other strategies successful nations have used to keep their healthcare costs so much lower than ours.
That's not the only parallel on the insurance front, either. Bush and Obama both started their second terms by attempting to cut Social Security (Bush with privatization, Obama with a COLA adjustment that would erode Social Security benefits progressively over time, primarily to the detriment of the young). As the article rightly points out, Obama's move is back-door privatization, since any decrease in the real value of Social Security benefits means a greater share of retirement saving has to be done in the private sector, where Wall Street rentiers can collect their fat cut of the contributions. Bush was more ambitious -- trying to end Social Security as we know it all at once-- but Obama is moving us in the same direction, with his characteristic gradualism.
It's interesting that Bush and Obama both waited until their second terms to attack Social Security. That's likely because such attacks are wildly unpopular. According to the article, only 16% of voters support the chained-CPI move that Obama is trying to push on them, and Bush's privatization scheme was similarly unpopular. Making more than a token push for such unpopular moves in one's first term would be politically suicidal, but in the second term a president is free to work for the 1%, against the American people, and thus win himself and those he loves the gratitude of the monied class. I'm sure Obama's daughters will find people throwing any job they want at them, when they come of age, no matter how unqualified they may be. If they want to be "journalists" the big corporate media will make it happen. If they want six-figure starting jobs on Wall Street, they're welcome to them. Ask the Bush girls and Chelsea Clinton how that works. Sell out your fellow citizens, as president, and you'll get a lot more than thirty pieces of silver in return. The plutocracy remembers who its friends are.
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/09/bushs_approach_to_social_insurance_still_rules/
Most of us are already familiar with glaring similarities between the two politicians when it comes to the police state and permanent war. Both like the idea of the government being able to spy on its own citizens without the need for independent judicial warrants. Both want the president to be able to lock people up for as long as he desires without a warrant (though Obama is using that power a little less, since he sometimes just kills people without a warrant, instead). Both favored spectacularly bloated military budgets, five times the size of any other nation's. Both involved the country in a foreign war with a Muslim nation. Both favor saber-rattling with Iran and North Korea, and no-strings-attached support of Israel. Both abused the state-secrets doctrine to avoid oversight (though, in Bush's defense, he wasn't as eager to prosecute whistle blowers as spies as Obama is). Both have waged war on recreational drug users, even in states where the drugs are legal (though, in Bush's defense, he went after the medical dispensaries only, not the medical users, in such states, unlike Obama does). But the article I linked to looks at insurance policy, where the similarities may be more surprising.
Both Bush and Obama created a hugely expensive healthcare benefit (Bush with Medicare Part D, Obama with Obamacare). And both did so in a way consciously designed to increase the profitability of our hyper-profitable private healthcare industry, rather than expanding on the far more efficient policies of the New Deal and Great Society (or mimicking successful policies in other wealthy nations). Bush did that by including a ban on the government negotiating drug prices for Medicare recipients, resulting in taxpayers overpaying private corporations by at least 58% for Medicare Part D drugs. Obama did it by creating a mandate to buy private health insurance, without providing for a public option, or any of the other strategies successful nations have used to keep their healthcare costs so much lower than ours.
That's not the only parallel on the insurance front, either. Bush and Obama both started their second terms by attempting to cut Social Security (Bush with privatization, Obama with a COLA adjustment that would erode Social Security benefits progressively over time, primarily to the detriment of the young). As the article rightly points out, Obama's move is back-door privatization, since any decrease in the real value of Social Security benefits means a greater share of retirement saving has to be done in the private sector, where Wall Street rentiers can collect their fat cut of the contributions. Bush was more ambitious -- trying to end Social Security as we know it all at once-- but Obama is moving us in the same direction, with his characteristic gradualism.
It's interesting that Bush and Obama both waited until their second terms to attack Social Security. That's likely because such attacks are wildly unpopular. According to the article, only 16% of voters support the chained-CPI move that Obama is trying to push on them, and Bush's privatization scheme was similarly unpopular. Making more than a token push for such unpopular moves in one's first term would be politically suicidal, but in the second term a president is free to work for the 1%, against the American people, and thus win himself and those he loves the gratitude of the monied class. I'm sure Obama's daughters will find people throwing any job they want at them, when they come of age, no matter how unqualified they may be. If they want to be "journalists" the big corporate media will make it happen. If they want six-figure starting jobs on Wall Street, they're welcome to them. Ask the Bush girls and Chelsea Clinton how that works. Sell out your fellow citizens, as president, and you'll get a lot more than thirty pieces of silver in return. The plutocracy remembers who its friends are.
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