Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery
The State of the Union
Wednesday, January 27, 2009
Washington, DC
Madame Speaker, Vice President Biden, Members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:
Our Constitution declares that from time to time, the President shall give to Congress information about the state of our union. For two hundred and twenty years, our leaders have fulfilled this duty. They have done so during periods of prosperity and tranquility. And they have done so in the midst of war and depression; at moments of great strife and great struggle.
Harold Pollack is a professor at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and Special Correspondent for The Treatment.
At a low moment of the Second World War, a breathless young aide barged in on Winston Churchill to report some bad news. Showing the aplomb one fully achieves only within the pages of one’s own memoir, Churchill quotes himself responding: “I’ve heard worse.” That’s the resilience Democrats need.
Treatment readers already know that many health policy experts across the political spectrum support House passage of the Senate bill, with an accompanying fix of the bills various shortcomings through the reconciliation process. Like Paul Krugman, Jonathan Cohn, Ezra Klein, and Jacob Hacker, Tim Jost and I very much agree that this is the best approach.
Yesterday, Tim and I crafted a simple letter (shown below), which we emailed other health policy experts we know. Some are progressives who identify with a single-payer approach. Others are more politically moderate economists, sociologists, and political scientists. Still others identify with organized labor, medicine, or public health.
Within several hours, many outstanding scholars, activists, and practitioners signed on. Signers include Henry Aaron, David Cutler, Jon Gruber, Theda Skocpol, Paul Starr, and many others, including Anna Burger, Secretary-Treasurer of SEIU.
Some people we contacted could not sign on, but reported that they are seeking the same goal through more private means. Virtually no one we contacted disagreed with this letter on either political or policy grounds. Our letter represents a broad consensus of those supporting health care reform.
We are so close to enacting a historic reform. Now is the time for calm and resolute Congressional action. The Massachusetts election was a setback. Democrats still have large majorities in both the Senate and the House. We’ve heard worse. It’s time to act.
Allan Sloan, in a column criticizing the proposed tax on expensive health insurance plans, says that most of the revenue from this tax wouldn't come from the high-cost plans:
Want a hint about what the president will say tonight? Check out the guest list for the First Lady's box, which the White House just published. It's full of people who had trouble paying for their medical care--people who, though from different walks of life, all had to confront the same essential dilemmas. Whether or not Obama mentions them explicitly, it suggests the personal stakes Americans have in reform will be a major theme tonight--as it should be, but hasn't always in the last few months.
One other notable guest: Vietoria Kennedy, widow of Senator Ted.
Full list of guests follows:
The roundtable on hiphop over at the Atlantic is interesting. A discussion on what's new on the hiphop scene? That'd make perfect sense to me - but then that alone would fall somewhat outside of the Atlantic purview and be more like a piece by Sascha Frere-Jones at the New Yorker.
No, the roundtable participants are musing over hiphop as something Potentially Important. It is this treatment of the music that has confused and bemused me for years. When I wrote a book explaining why, a common response (to the extent that there were any!) was that the whole idea that anybody thinks hiphop is more than just good music was a figment of my imagination.
For weary McCain staffers, the campaign is not over. Now comes the after-campaign, the period following a high profile loss when each failure is hashed and rehashed in the press and everyone with a score to settle goes on background with reporters to settle them.
Did McCain attack too little or not enough? Was the choice of Palin a success or a disaster? Why didn't McCain respond better to the fiscal crisis? Was the campaign even winnable?
If you are a critic of the Bush administration, chances are that, at some point over the past six months, Ron Paul has said something that appealed to you. Paul describes himself as a libertarian, but, since his presidential campaign took off earlier this year, the Republican congressman has attracted donations and plaudits from across the ideological spectrum.
From The Editors: This week, our historical piece is “Press Against Politics,” Henry Fairlie’s 1976 call to arms for more passion and more conviction from the listless class of political journalists covering the Carter-Ford election. (He was clearly upset: “The fact is that James Reston writes now like a sports columnist on the slope of Olympus.
