Guests: Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., weigh in on the numerous issues facing the Obama administration. Also: Erin Burnett and Andrew Ross Sorkin on the possible repercussions of cutting executive pay on Wall Street. Plus, a political roundtable: Jane Mayer, Joe Scarborough, Dan Senor and Tavis Smiley.
Today's program centered around two topics, no matter what segment and who the guest, the public option of the healthcare bill and Afghanistan strategy. I listed the guests above simply for reference.
Straight off, we need to discuss the statement made by Senator Schumer that he believes the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, has the 60 votes in the chamber to pass a public option, which he will introduce into the bill. Obviously, Republicans are not for the public option in the healthcare and simply feel that letting people buy insurance across state lines would suffice to foster mpre competition and hence more competitive pricing which will lower costs overall. Both have their pitfalls to be sure and Senator Cornyn stated what all Republicans think is that the public option is just the first step to singular payer (as they have in many European countries).
Erin Burnett, who by the way has been wrong on so many occasions with regard to the market that we distrust her expertise, said that the U.S. will be borrowing a lot money to cover everything until 2019. Will we be running deficits until then as she's saying? Not necessarily. Pragmatically, what she is calling for is fiscal responsibility. To say that one party, usually the Republicans, have a monopoly on responsible spending is complete nonsense. Both parties spend big, they just spend big on different things. Republicans incur huge military debt and Democrats spend big domestically.
However, right now we're in a position where we have to do both.
With regard to Afghanistan, there is disagreement within the administration and amongst the public on what to do - increase the troop levels another 41,000+ as General McChrystal is recommending or concentrate more on Al Qeada solely as Vice President Biden is advocating.
The former Vice President Dick Cheney now famously said this week that the President is 'dithering' with regard to his no decision on Afghanistan. The politically correct thing to say here is that this is out of line because it undermines the Administration and the U.S. policy blah blah blah... Not Mr. Cheney's style of course, and it was a cheap shot, and we agree with what many in the press have said that Mr. Cheney is so discredited on good foreign policy decisions that he should really just.... to use his words, 'fuck off.'
The back and forth, the up and down, side to side.... Anyway, you look at it, here's the bottom line:
President Obama really does need to step up and start making some hard decisions. This column is growing impatient with just hearing that 'The White House is signaling... etc.' With regard to Afghanistan, frankly the Administration is stuck and caught in a holding pattern because of the election run-off, the United States can not announce a strategy while the Afghan government is in question. They should explain this to the public and plan for the different scenarios in the meantime.
This column recommends that the U.S. should commit more troops, but what ever number we commit, the N.A.T.O. forces should match to put as much of an international face on the increase as possible. Have them take the in-country/city patrols with U.S. assistance and then with the rest of our force concentrate on the border - Al Qeada and extremists. But this should be done in post-haste so we can get out of there as quickly as possible.
So when the election is decided, President Obama better have something at the ready. We're giving him a little window here.
However, what has been much more disappointing is Administration's positions on healthcare. We now here that they are leaning toward the 'trigger' idea with regard to the public option, employed only if the insurance companies don't get their act together as Senator Snowe of Maine suggested. What this essentially does is drop the public option from the bill. But... remember, the Administration has given such a declarative statement.
We could go on, but the time is overdue that the President, not people in his administration, but the man himself should state precisely what he believes should be in the bill. (It should be a public option - 61% of the public want it - in so many words, he campaigned on it.) If the public option is of the state by state opt-out, fine. Trigger or nothing at all, this column would just like to know for what he is willing to go to the mat. He's trying not to get his hands too dirty, leaving it to others in the administration.
Mr. President, whatever it is you believe, tell us flat out and take the lead. The time for wonder on these two critic issues is over.
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