The Hightower Report

Obama's Decline

Want to know why Obama and the Democrats find themselves in a political mess, only a year after they came into power on a political high?

It has nothing to do with the nonsense that they went too far on health care reform or spent too much on their economic stimulus plan, as clueless purveyors of conventional wisdom are claiming. Rather, the Obamacan's sinking political fortunes stem directly from the fact that America's great middle class is in a heap of hurt – and this workaday majority can't seem to get Washington's attention, much less help.

In contrast, Wall Street got a massive bailout, health insurance profiteers got to write their own reform plan, and military contractors are getting more taxpayer money than ever.

Meanwhile, as recently pointed out by New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, America lost more jobs in the past 10 years than were created – we had zero job growth, the first decade since the 1940s in which our country fell below a 20% growth in job opportunities. Thus, the real earnings of middle-class families are less today than they were a decade ago.

These are not statistics; they're an economic, social, and political disaster! Our country is in deep trouble, yet people see that Obama – who offered such hope for bold change to make America a better place for all – has lacked the Rooseveltian audacity to take on the power elites, rally the people, and deliver for the middle class.

It will take 10 million new jobs just to get back to the number we had three years ago, yet there is no plan to get us even to the 2007 level of jobs, much less to move us forward to a brighter future. Obama has talked about building a new green economy, rebuilding our neglected infrastructure, and regaining America's manufacturing oomph. Good stuff! But it's talk, not action. He's squandering his presidency.

The Next Health Care Reform Battle

The Obamacans have spent a lot of their political capital during the past year to woo health insurance giants, drug companies, hospital chains, and other corporate chunks of what is called the health care "industry." The White House wanted the industry's support for its health care bill so badly that it compromised its own reform legislation into corporate mush – but at least the industry is now supporting Obama's bill. Or is it?

While lobbying groups for these corporate interests do profess approval of the federal reform, these same interests have slipped into more than a dozen states to lay the political groundwork for gutting the implementation of any national law that Obama might get passed. As usual, the industry's groundwork consists of throwing basketfuls of campaign cash at state legislators. Last year, drug companies alone poured $20 million into the coffers of state politicians, and it's estimated that industry-wide donations to state lawmakers this year will be well above $100 million – more than these corporate interests will spend on congressional races.

The state-level gut job is not a scattershot effort. It is being orchestrated by a network of corporate-funded think tanks, foundations, and front groups. The main legislative tool for blocking the federal reform is a state nullification idea that came out of the Goldwater Institute, a far-right-wing think tank in Arizona. In turn, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-funded front group created specifically to influence state legislators, adopted the Goldwater idea last year and is shopping it around – the nullification scheme has already been introduced in 15 states.

In battling corporate profiteers, the fight is not over, even when it's "over." To keep up with what's going on in the states, including your own, contact, Health Care for America Now: www.healthcareforamericanow.org.