Mr. Blumenauer Goes To Washington
The New York Times has a great little piece about Earl Blumenauer, a liberal congressman from Portland, Oregon. Blumenauer was one of the earliest supporters of Senator Obama’s bid for the Presidency and he is one of the strongest supporters of the public option. In the article Blumenauer talks about his upcoming vote on health care legislation and whether he could vote for a bill that falls short of his wish, “It is still something that I am struggling with.”
But the nut of the article talks about the problems that liberals and progressives are having in Washington today, but also the light at the end of the tunnel.
“We are going to be working on climate, on health care, on the economy for every minute of the next two Congresses and beyond,” he said. “Will the public be patient enough? Will the political process hold together?
“This is not going to be easy,” he said, “but I think we are seeing a process that makes me actually optimistic, even though it is not exactly like I would have liked.”
Tags: Liberals
understand Mr. Blumenauer,s problems with this bill, it is far from perfect, but social security when it was first passed in 1934 looked nothing like it does today, it was mostly unemployment insurance and only taled about retirement savings for the elderly, but the bill passed and was refined over the years by the social security administration, once this bill is passed it will evolve into a means thru which everyone will be able to afford health care. Oppenents of any health care reform are trying to keep the door slammed shut and the status-quo maintained and hope liberals will join them because this bill really doesn,t go far enough. A start towards health care reform is something we have not had since Medi-care was signed into law in 1964. Nit-picking because the bills not perfect is what killed Hillary-Care in 1993, and if you reexamine that bill you can see we would not be in the mess we are now.