Presidential candidate, Illinois senator and mainstream media darling Barack Obama entertained over 3,000 people at The Backyard in Austin on November 17. While turnout was nowhere near that of Senator Obama’s performance at Auditorium Shores last February, the crowd’s intensity and vigor remained.
Sen. Obama launched his speech into applause and cheers by reminding everyone that in next year’s presidential election, “the name ‘George W. Bush’ will not be on the ballot.”
He announced the end of Scooter Libby justice and Karl Rove politics, allowing for a revolutionary White House. By highlighting the negatives of wiretapping and Katrina inadequacies, Sen. Obama reaffirmed his distance from President Bush. He also differentiated himself from other candidates by committing to a new style of politics and campaign strategy.
“Telling people what we think they want to hear rather than what they need to hear just won’t do,” Obama challenged his Democratic contenders.
Unfortunately, as is the case with most politicians, no matter how new blood they are, Obama’s speech fell trap to resembling a political pep rally rather than talking about the very issues on which he claimed his rivals wouldn’t elaborate.
Key among debated domestic policies is health care.
“I’m tired of talking about the outrage of 47 million Americans without health care, and I want to start doing something about it,” Obama proclaimed. He continued by guaranteeing every American a health insurance plan comparable to those enjoyed by members of Congress. However, he failed to mention any specifics.
In a document titled Barack Obama’s Plan for a Healthy America (available for viewing on his Web site, BarackObama.com), Obama highlights his strategy for universal health care and claims that his plan will “save a typical American family up to $2,500 every year on medical expenditures.”
Obama’s plan includes subsidizing families who need health care through federal funds, requiring hospitals and providers to submit information to federal bureaucrats concerning their methods and practices and implementing a national health insurance exchange. Additionally, he would force insurers to charge premiums based on income level of customers rather than health needs and mandate employers who don’t cover their workers substantially to pay a portion of payroll to the national health program. Other intrusions include more federal control over public schools to decrease obesity and increase nutrition.
While the plan barely makes a dent in pockets of larger corporations, those most likely to suffer are the smaller business owners who cannot afford to provide a sizeable amount of health care to employees. Obama makes the argument that each business will be able to provide health insurance coverage because costs will decrease. However, Sen. Obama is relying on tax revenue and artificial subsidies to keep prices low.
While Obama continually states that Americans need to take responsibility for themselves, his plan contradicts his professing self-reliance by promoting an ‘Obama knows best’ mindset – or even worse, ‘government knows best.’ Such extensive federal oversight into privacy and market intervention goes well beyond the boundaries of government; of course, the current health care system isn’t exactly doing a great job of allowing the private sector to flex its capability either.
And, of course, as is the case with most politicians, Sen. Obama forgot to mention – both in his speech Saturday afternoon and in his health care plan – the cost of his universal health care. According to the campaign office, the Obama Plan ranges between $50-65 billion dollars per year. How will we pay for it? Sen. Obama says he will let the Bush tax cuts expire for those individuals earning $250,000 or more.
The presidential hopeful’s approach is similar to many other universal health care plans that involve taking money from American citizens through taxes and having the government manage these additional revenues to pay the salaries of its bureaucrats first and health care second.
After evaluating and criticizing current tenets of the Democratic Party, Sen. Obama benevolently vowed to pay teachers higher salaries during his first term but did not explain where the money would come from.
Obama shifted quickly from education to the foreign policy and war powers and immediately differentiated himself from other major Democratic rivals: “I’m tired of Democrats thinking that the only way to look tough on national security is to talk, act and vote like George Bush Republicans.”
Commendable within his speech was Obama’s desire to restore habeas corpus, which was essentially suspended by the Military Commissions Act of 2006 – a bill that passed both houses of Congress in September 2006 and a bill for which Sen. Obama voted against.
Sen. Obama hardly spent any time on the Iraq occupation. He mentioned only that he would bring the troops home within 16 months. He did not elaborate on the costs involved and what the result of his Iraq plan would be.
Unfortunately for Obama, his support might have increased greatly had he explained his plan for getting out of Iraq. His Web site provides a detailed document similar to his health care plan, titled Barack Obama: Turning the Page in Iraq, which describes the shortcomings of current strategies in Iraq, such as the recent troop surge.
Additionally, Obama highlights that removing American troops is the best way to improve our national security and secure Iraqi independence, but he doesn’t stop there. In addition to halting US assistance to different sects, Obama outlines a constitutional convention headed by the UN, for Iraqi leaders “to develop a more sustainable balance between Baghdad’s central authority and provincial governments.”
And finally, Sen. Obama includes in his plan a troop surge to the long-forgotten Afghanistan, to correctly fight the Taliban and capture the man responsible for 9/11.
While his speech excited the crowd, Sen. Obama did not focus on the specifics concerning the two important topics of health care and the Iraq occupation. Instead, he told the audience what it wanted to hear – watered down political euphemisms with the gift of good intentions, leaving his revolutionary campaign strategy in the dust.
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