Comments on: White House statement luke-warm on Reid public option announcement

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Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:03:46 +0000

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By: humphreylee

humphreylee — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:20:11 +0000

As much as I would like to know where we are going, and would love to see Obama finally come out and say “Public Option or bust” I do kind of see why he might still be keeping it quiet. Notice how just from this summer we’ve gone from Tea Parties and Death Panels to a time where now we know reform is coming, we just do not know exactly what final form it is going to take. I guess it could just be that football season is in effect and the people have calmed down, or it could be that he wisely just chose to weather the storm until we got to this point where finally a grouping of proposals is about to hit the floor and the real fighting is going to happen. Any time he’s opened his mouth before it’s just caused his enemies to try and shout as hard as they could over top of him, so it has probably been for the best he has just let it be fought out in these committees and on the top of Capitol Hill, and then to finally step in once the big brawl hits and everyone wears themselves out. Of course, this might just be hopeful thinking on my part that Obama is finally going to stand up and be that voice for change again that I cast my ballot for eleven months ago.

By: Brian In NYC

Brian In NYC — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:31:59 +0000

“This might be a good time for the President to actually tell us exactly what it is that he wants.”

Nope, not yet, but soon. The prez IMO will bring his influence to bare on members of the House not the Senate when it gets to conference time. For a lot of political reasons the speaker needs to maintain her standing with the left of the party. Both she and the leader have done a bang up job of bringing the blue dogs in line, someone is going to need to be a tempering force on the left (especially in the House), this is where the president will step in. Keep on the look out for an abortion battle that is going to percolate to the surface in the very near future around health care, the speaker needs to steer clear of this, the president doesn’t.

By: markbolton

markbolton — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:59:41 +0000

“This might be a good time for the President to actually tell us exactly what it is that he wants.”

That time has come and gone. The time for him to get out in front of this thing was back when there was a “front”. The way he’s done healthcare, and pretty much everything else, should be enough to tell us what he wants – whatever passes. And he’ll say he was for it, whatever it is.

Public option? He was for it in his Sept. speech. No public option? Well, didn’t he say it wasn’t the only way to get there? Obama stands for nothing other than what gets through the Congress. It’s might show no leadership, and no commitment to anything at all, but hey – it’s safer. What a punk!

By: libtree09

libtree09 — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:52:00 +0000

I am going to spend the day assuming Obama knows what he is doing. I’m going to put away my frustration as a liberal and not think of the many ways democrats tend to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Is it really good news…no I’m going to spend the day with Batman cartoons where the Joker is defeated and the good guy wins.

By: whitecollargreenspaceguy

whitecollargreenspaceguy — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:59:50 +0000

The government already has the money to pay for universal health and at the same time reduce the carbon footprint of office buildings by 50%.
The Federal government pays for almost one billion square feet of office space. Most office space is very expensive yet it sits unused 70% of the time because most white collar work is scheduled for only one shift per day or only 45 hours out of a 168 hour week. 30% efficiency is completely unacceptable in today’s economic and ecological environment. Most buildings are open for 12 hours each day from 6 am to 6 pm. By keeping buildings open an additional 4 or 5 hours each day, we could schedule 2 shifts of white collar workers, thus increasing our efficiency by 100% and reducing our carbon footprint by 50%. We could cut the cost of overhead for each employee by 40 to 50%, half as much infrastructure, half as much office space, half as many computers and supplies. With the overhead for each of our 2 million Federal workers approaching $50,000 per year, the potential savings could be $50 billion per year, enough to pay for health care reform.
This simple plan will help our government and private industry in the following ways:

•Save federal gov a trillion dollars in next 10 years
•Exactly amount needed for universal healthcare
•Reduce white-collar overhead costs by 50%
•Reduce carbon footprint of office space by 50%
•Reduce budget deficits for most state governments
•Reduce our dependence on foreign oil
•Make workers competitive in the global economy
•Improve profits for all businesses and
•Increase tax receipts for state/fed governments
•Businesses can hire more employees & lower prices
For details and comments see:
http://whitecollargreenspace.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/greenspaceguy