| This is the last Bill Clinton at Netroots Nation '09 footage I'll be posting -- and it's below the fold in deference to our dial-up readers. I think Clinton is exactly right about the importance of passing health care reform, and about the effects of that reform. Ditto for climate change. I hope he is correct that we are on the brink of a revolution in our public life, an age where we engage in honest debate and seek win-win solutions instead of winning at someone else's expense. Keep hoping and keep working - we'll get there someday.
First up are Clinton's extremely timely remarks about the health care reform bill:
The third problem that the President has was best articulated by Nikolai Machiavelli in the 15th century when he said there is nothing so difficult in all of human affairs as to change the established order of things, because -- I'll switch now to Clinton's 21st Century jargon -- because the people who have got it are certain of what they're going to lose and the people who will gain are uncertain of their advance.
If we spend 16% of GDP on health care and Canada spends 11 and all our other major competitors are between 9.5 and 10, that means we're spotting all our competitors 750 to 800 billion dollars a year. If we insure 84% and they all insure 100, where is the money going? Follow the money. ... That's what the President and the Congress are facing. ... What should you do about it?
If you don't think their plan is good enough it's fine for you to advocate a public option, I personally favor a public option, and I always have. I also favored some way of letting people who are uninsured buy into the federal plan because there are 36 different options and young single people who want a more catastrophic type coverage so they wouldn't pass their cost onto anybody else would have an even less costly option there.
...
The worst thing of all and the most danger to the most people is sticking with the status quo. It is bankrupting America, making families insecure ... The second thing I think you have to do is to figure the 3 or 4 things that 100% of the people who are going to vote for this agree on has to be in the bill and the 3 or 4 things that none of us want in the bill, that we're all being accused of. ...
Then you can say whatever you want about -- here's what's wrong with the Senate plan, here's what's wrong with the House plan. Whatever you believe is fine. Trying to hold the progressives' feet to the fire is fine. Trying to get the best bill you can is fine.
But first we have to win the big argument. The worst thing to do is nothing. Here are the things that everybody wants, here are the things that nobody wants. Then, here are your differences. If you can do that you can reach millions and millions and millions of people ...
The President needs your help and the cause needs your help. This is really important. There's just one other thing I'd like to say that I wish many of you would write. It is not only the morally right thing to do, it is politically imperative for the Democrats to pass a health care bill now. Because one thing we know and that I've lived through is that if you get out there and then you don't prevail, the victors get to rewrite history.
I'm telling you, I don't care how low they drive support for this with misinformation, the minute the President signs the Health Care Reform Bill, approval will go up because Americans are inherently optimistic. Secondly, within a year, within a year, when all those bad things they say are going to happen, don't happen, and the good things do begin to happen, approval will explode. ... We can't let people lose their nerve, so I am pleading with you. It's ok with me if you want to keep everybody honest. If I say something you don't agree with on health care, by all means criticize me but try to keep this thing in the lane of getting something done. We need to pass the bill and move this thing forward.
Then climate change legislation:
I feel the same way about climate change. ... Again I say, the President stuck his neck out here, the Congress has stuck it's neck out and we've got to have a bill. ... There are a lot of practical things that need to be advanced before we can get there. ... This Cash for Clunkers program has worked great. ... We ought to put that on steroids when we can sell electric cars ... The biggest thing we can do to help the President economically and help our country economically is to concentrate on the least sexy part of the climate change debate: efficiency.
The problem is there is no parallel financing for clean energy in America. ... Let's take some taxpayer money and create a small business guarantee fund like the one for the SBA and have 10 times as much retrofitting done. That's the kind of thing you need to think about. |
