Monday, August 1, 2011

A Failure Of Imagination, The Remix

Rather than repeat myself, just read what I had to say when we got a tax cuts-only deal in December.

Before you go say that we would have been better of under President Clinton, imagine what Health Care Reform would have looked like if Al Franken and Mark Begich weren't in the Senate.

2 comments:

low-tech cyclist said...

"Before you go say that we would have been better of under President Clinton, imagine what Health Care Reform would have looked like if Al Franken and Mark Begich weren't in the Senate."

Yeah, I left a comment to that effect on Krugman's blog a couple of weeks back when he was making one of his regular "I warned you about this guy" comments. I can attest that a lot of otherwise persuadable voters really hate Hillary. Obama was able to win enough of them to win a 53-46 election; it's hard to see Hillary doing better than 51-48.

Under those circumstances, the Dems lose the Senate races not only in Alaska and Minnesota, but also Oregon and probably North Carolina. That gets them a 55-45 Senate majority, which is good for little besides bragging rights. Even if Arlen Specter switches parties (less likely under those circumstances), it doesn't make any difference.

So not only no health care reform, but no stimulus bill, and frankly not much else. If you think the economy was bad in 2010 as it was, imagine what it would have been like without the stimulus bill.

Sure, Hillary might've made a good case for what the Dems are (or should be) all about, but the economic fundamentals would have been so much worse that the midterms would have had about the same result - or worse.

So much as I feel let down by Obama, I just don't see how it would have been any better under Hillary. And I'm really pretty confident that it would have been worse.

Nick Beaudrot said...

I could see Hillary winning 53-46, by losing by smaller margins in Kentucky and West Virginia, but also winning by smaller margins in Minnesota, Oregon, and Wisconsin.