Obama’s political capital problem

President Obama speaks today at the UN General Assembly in New York (Mario Tama/Getty)

What will happen to President Obama if health care passes? I know, I know–don’t count your chickens before they hatch, etc. But now that the health care endgame is in sight, it’s worth considering what political benefits would accrue to the president were his reform efforts to prove successful. It should go without saying that, on solely a policy basis, even ushering Max Baucus’s altogether mild bill into law would represent an enormous triumph, unprecedented in recent history, and a giant leap forward for social equality. But if this moment of policy glory leads to little political glory, then future policy achievements will be much harder to muster.

The Administration, to its everlasting credit, knows this. They’ve staked everything on this debate, telling supporters that other issues will come later. Worried about Afghanistan? The President will focus on it after health care. What about climate change legislation, which seems stalled in Congress? Wait until after we get through the health care slog. Heck, the Administration is barely budging to help get Obama’s federal judges through Congress. The White House is demonstrating how deep its fealty is to the lessons of the Clinton White House. The common wisdom holds that Clinton’s failure to pass health care reform was the single greatest factor in the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress. Obama wants to avoid that outcome at all csots.

But as Mark Twain pointed out, history doesn’t repeat itself–it rhymes. In this case, that rhyme might mean that health care legislation, even if it passes, will be no cure-all for Barack Obama. The political capital he’s spending now to achieve health care reform isn’t coming back, Moreover, any long-term political benefits might be a long time coming. Yes, of course, following the signing of any major bill, the president would be greeted by a chorus of support and enthusiasm, among his supporters past and present, as well as the media. Success breeds appreciation, which, in this case, would come in the form of a bump in his approval ratings. But that can be perilously short-lived.

Some of the key policy benefits of Obamacare probably won’t kick in for a while. For instance, health insurance exchanges, which some progressive experts have seen as the best part of the Baucus bill, would be open to all businesses–but not until 2022. Or consider the mandate that the bill would place on individuals to buy insurance–it wouldn’t be in place until 2013. Generous Medicaid expansion access wouldn’t kick in until 2014. Get the picture? The most substantive policy benefits of Obamacare won’t kick in until after his reelection; arguably the best parts won’t kick in until well after the next president has been up for reelection. For many Washington politicians, that’s several lifetimes away.

I had assumed that, following health care’s passage, the rest of the progressive agenda would be turned into law rather quickly. Health care, then climate change, then the completion of Iraq withdrawal and the rollback of the Bush tax cuts. But it all hinged on health care. Call it the progressive domino theory. I’m pretty sure the Administration subscribed to it.

Yet if the substance of the first domino doesn’t fall for several years, then the president might be in trouble. For politicians, creating entitlement programs has immense political benefits–namely, such programs disburse resources to voters. (The political value of entitlement programs in part explains why Bush couldn’t privatize social security.) But if there’s a significant lag between the passage of a law and the disbursement of resources, then all we’ll be left hearing about is the cost of a bill, the resultant increase to the deficit, etc.

Meanwhile, Obama’s political capital will already have been spent. And that’s not the kind of thing that’s easy to get back.