Subject: Re: Barack Obama is officially one of the most consequential presidents in American history - Vox
From: <[email-masked]>
To: "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>, "Alexander S. Mackler" <[email-masked]>, "Eric Schwerin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 12:34:34 +0000 (UTC)

Excellent analysis. I wonder what Bill=Clinton did to make him mad?

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------ Original Message ------

From: Eri= Schwerin
To: Hunter Biden, Alex Snyder-Mackler, Ted Kaufman
=b>Sent: June 27, 2015 at 7:47 AM
Subject: Barack Obama is of=icially one of the most consequential presidents in American history - Vox=/blockquote>

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/26/8849925/obama-obamacare-history-pr=sidents

Barack Obama is officially one of the most consequential pre=idents in American history

After Thursday's S=preme Court ruling, there's no longer any doubt: Barack Obama is o=e of the most consequential presidents in American history — and he =ill be a particularly towering figure in the history of American progressi=ism.

National health insurance has been the single defining goal of American =rogressivism for more than a century. There have been other struggles, of =ourse: for equality for women, African-Americans, and LGBT people; for en=ironmental protection; against militarism in Southeast Asia and the Middle=East. But ever since its inclusion in Teddy Roosevelt's 1912 Bull Moose platform, a federall= guaranteed right to health coverage has been the one economic and social =olicy demand that loomed over all others. It was the big gap between our w=lfare state and those of our peers in Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zeala=d, and Japan.

Curtis Duffy Shows Us How =o Cure Meat the Stephen Stryjewski Way

And for more than a century, efforts to achieve national health insuranc= failed. Roosevelt's third-party run came up short. His Progressive al=ies, despite support from the American Medical Association, failed to pass a bill in the 1910s. FD= declined to include health insurance in the Social Security Act, fea=ing it would sink the whole program, and the Wagner Act, his second attemp=, ended in failure too. Harry Truman included a =ingle-payer plan open to all Americans in his Fair Deal set of proposa=s, but it went nowhere. LBJ got Medicare and Medicaid done after JFK utter=y failed, but both programs targeted l=mited groups.

Richard Nixon proposed a universal health-care plan remarkably simi=ar to Obamacare that was killed when then–Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) walked away from a dea= to pass it, in what Kennedy would later call his greatest regret as a senator. Jimmy Carte= endorsed single-payer on the campaign =rail, but despite having a Democratic supermajority in Congress did no=hing to pass it. And the is the stuff of legend.=/p>

What Obamacare achieved

Obama signs Obamacare into law. (Pete Souza)Then, on March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act =nto law. It wasn't perfect by any means. It wasn't single-payer; i= lacked a public option, or all-payer rate-setting=/a>. And it still left many uninsured. But it established, for the first t=me in history, that it was the responsibility of the United States governm=nt to provide health insurance to nearly all Americans, and it expanded Me=icaid and offered hundreds of billions of dollars in insurance subsidies t= fulfill that responsibility.

In an email, UC Berkeley's Paul Pierson likened the law to a "s=arter home" to be expanded later on, much as Social Security — =hich initially had no disability benefits, left out surviving dependents a=d widows, and excluded (largely black) agricultural and home wo=kers — was.

Brian Steensland, a sociologist who studies American social policy at In=iana University in Indianapolis, agrees. "The main thing it does, I t=ink, is establish the expectation in the public’s mind that access t= basic health care is a right. It’s going to be hard to go back to a=time when access to health insurance, and the subsidies to help pay for it= wasn’t near-universal."

To pay for it all, the Affordable Care Act cut back on Medicare spending=and hiked up taxes on rich people's investment income and health plans= It effected a massive downward redistribution of income. It's one of =he most startlingly progressive laws this country has ever enacted.

And it was passed with more opposition than the social insurance program= it followed. "FDR and LBJ had lots of fellow Democrats in Congress w=en they pushed for the New Deal and Great Society," College of Willia= and Mary political scientist Chris Howard says. "Their opponents, in=and out of government, were not nearly as ideological or hostile as the on=s facing Obama. The fact that the ACA exists at all is pretty remarkable.=quot;

"Obama is the most consequential and=successful Democratic president since LBJ"

A lot of these facts are familiar to people who've been following Ob=macare, but it's worth dwelling on them for a second. When you conside= the law in the context of 100 years of progressive activism, and in the g=and scheme of American history, it starts to look less like a moderate ref=rm and more like an epochal achievement, on the order of FDR's passage=of Social Security, or LBJ's Great Society programs. It is, to quote H=rvard political scientist Theda Skocpol, "a century-defining accomplishment in the last industrial democrac= to resist using national government to ensure access to health coverage f=r most citizens." FDR failed, Truman failed, Nixon failed, Carter fai=ed, Clinton failed — and Obama succeeded. He filled in the one big r=maining gap in the American welfare state when all his forerunners couldn&=39;t.

It's not just Obamacare

Obama shakes hands with Cuban President Raul Castro during the official =emorial service for Nelson Mandela. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

And of course, the Affordable Care Act was hardly Obama's only accom=lishment. He passed a stimulus bill that i=cluded major reforms to the nation's education system, big spending on=clean energy, and significant expansions of anti-poverty programs. He shep=erded through the Dodd-Frank Act, the first significant crackdown on Wall =treet's power in a generation, which has been far more successful than commonly acknowledged.

He used executive action to enact bold regulations to curb greenhouse gas emissions, a=d to protect nearly 6 million=undocumented immigrants from deportation. He ended the ban on gay and =esbian service in the military, made it easier for women and minorities to=fight wage discrimination, cut out wasteful p=ivate sector involvement in student loans, and hiked the top income tax ra=e.

He reopened relations w=th Cuba after a failed half-century estrangement and has tentatively r=ached a historic deal to keep Iran from getting=a nuclear weapon — and, much more importantly, to avoid a war wi=h Iran. He reprofessionalized the Dep=rtment of Justice and refashioned the National Labor Relations Board and t=e Wage and Hour Division of the Labor Department into highly effective forces for workers' rights.

His presidency holds massive symbolic value as proof that the reign of w=ite men over American government can be halted and America as a whole can =e represented. And while he was too slow in announcing support =or same-sex marriage, he appointed two of the justices behind the Supreme Court's historic=decision legalizing it nationwide, and enlisted his Justice Depa=tment on the side of the plaintiffs.

There are obviously places Obama fell short. I think he didn't take monetary policy nearly seriously e=ough, that the drone war is a mora= catastrophe, that he's fallen short on combating HIV/AIDS and other public he=lth scourges abroad, that the 2009 su=ge in Afghanistan was a mistake, and that perpetrators of torture and =ther war crimes from the Bush administration should have been criminally p=osecuted. But while Obama could have accomplished more, it could never be =aid that he accomplished little.

"When you add the ACA to the reforms in the stimulus package, Dodd-=rank, and his various climate initiatives," Pierson says, "I don=#39;t think there is any doubt: On domestic issues Obama is the most conse=uential and successful Democratic president since LBJ. It isn't close.=quot; And LBJ's presidency was so marred by the Vietnam War that he de=lined to seek a second term — there is no similar stain on Obama'=s record.

You can generally divide American presidents into two camps: the m=ldly good or bad but ultimately forgettable (Clinton, Carter, Taft, Harris=n), and the hugely consequential for good or ill (FDR, Lincoln, Nixon, And=ew Johnson). Whether you love or hate his record, there's no question =bama is firmly in the latter camp.

Everything you need to know about Obamacare

Eric D. Schwerin
[email-masked]

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