Victory for Democrats

Dwight Pelz
Chair, Washington State Democratic Party
November 21, 2009

If the Democrats get 60 votes for cloture this week, then a health care bill will probably pass the Senate. The bill will go to Conference Committee, and a new health care bill will emerge which can be expected to pass both houses and be signed by the President. When that happens, it will be a great victory for Democrats and working families in America.

When Congress passes a health care bill it will be declaring that health care for Americans below the age of Medicare is now a federal responsibility. Health care will join the list of issues "federalized" in the last 75 years by Congress: unemployment, retirement, and health care for seniors. Congress created unemployment insurance and Social Security in 1935, and Medicare in 1965.

The fierce battle taking place in America over this issue is actually a more critical battle of whether it is the role of government to solve problems facing our nation. This opposition is spearheaded by forces and ideas that have not accepted, and still seek to roll back, the New Deal.

For the greater part of the 20th Century it was the clear understanding of both political parties that the role of government was to solve problems, and that taxes were to be collected to finance these solutions. Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon were classic New Deal American political liberals in this tradition. Eisenhower had utilized the full power of the American government to defeat Hitler; then directed the government to build the Interstate system and to respond to Sputnik by investing in education. Nixon was the greatest environmental President of all time, responding to Rachel Carson and the first Earth Day by passing the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and creating the Environmental Protection Agency.

Kennedy thrilled America with his challenge, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Lyndon Johnson was the last New Deal President, passing the Great Society, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and Medicare.

It was Ronald Reagan and his right wing oil patch patrons that declared war on the role of government in America. Reagan announced that "government is the problem, not the solution.", and promised that the way to improve government was to starve it of its funds. He cut the top income tax rates for his patrons from 70% to 28%, and launched an era of 25 years in which the income for the median American family remained flat while the top 1% doubled, and top .01% quadrupled.

GW Bush picked up Ronald Reagan's torch and carried it with a vengeance. He almost repealed Social Security, the New Deal bulwark once considered untouchable by American politicians. He became the first President to cut taxes during a war, reducing the rates for his friends in the top one percent by $930 billion, while creating a $1 trillion deficit in the midst of a growing economy. Bush asked his political base, “What can your country do for you?”

To illustrate how far we moved on the role of government, take the issue of poverty. When Michael Harrington's 1962 book "The Other America" identified destitute families and communities in America, his findings shocked the nation. In 1964, Congress, on a bi-partisan vote, quickly declared "War on Poverty". In George Bush's America we came to accept the homeless sleeping on the streeet, and beggars on every freeway ramp. These were simply the "have nots" in Bush's "Ownership Society".

Barack Obama has challenged the Reagan/Bush doctrine that the government should not confront the myriad problems facing America. In his Inaugural Address he said, "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified." Obama has called on the government to end the Recession, enact health care reform, curb global warming, and boost clean energy jobs.

The opposition to the health care bill is fierce because the stakes are so high. FOX News commentators and Right Wing intellectuals lie daily about the basic facts of our health care system and the proposed legislation. Republicans in Congress offer no solutions because they do not believe the federal government should play a role in fixing the health care system.

If Congress enacts health care reform in the weeks ahead, the legislation will not be perfect. But once it becomes a federal policy matter, Congress will be forced in the future to improve the system and root out the inefficiencies and inequities. As that happens, it will be a great victory for Democrats and working families in America.