The House narrowly approved a sweeping plan to crack down on offshore drilling Friday, despite objections from Gulf Coast lawmakers and oil industry advocates who said the measure would slash U.S. jobs and curb domestic energy production. – The Houston Chronicle, July 30
Color me flabbergasted that advocates for the petroleum industry weren't pleased with the political fall-out for their little embarrassment of an environmental disaster. I had to read that opening sentence four or five times just to comprehend it. The scumbags that make millions off of ignoring safety regulations and approving drilling proposals as though they were birth control prescriptions are somehow not happy with the crack down on their industry!
Maybe the pesky Obama administration should have worked just a little bit harder to cater to their interests; after all, before and after the advent of this most recent catastrophe, Obama was stubbornly pushing through the largest expansion of offshore drilling in American history in combination with other measures designed to help achieve the goal of “energy independence.” People wondering why Obama was going back on his leftist campaign rhetoric should look no further than the stimulus package and the health care bill, both of which were watered down and compromised to ridiculous levels only to gain virtually no Republican support whatsoever. For example, the stimulus consisted nearly half of tax cuts, which despite the questionable logic of cutting taxes when the deficit is supposedly such a paramount concern, was hoped to entice Republicans into supporting the bill. Instead, they attacked it as an unjustified expansion of the government.
Despite the recent indicators that their lone GOP hold-out for energy and climate change reform, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), was no longer willing to play ball, Obama continued to insist on expanding offshore drilling as part of a larger energy package. Some speculated that Obama's closest advisers were keeping him in the dark regarding the size and scope of the oil spill, and this may well be true, but what this shows is that Obama's political style of “winning” depends less on adhering to campaign promises and ideological principles and more on passing something, anything, which at best can be spun as “laying the groundwork” for future, more sweeping reforms. I'm not here to spin for the Obama administration, however, and every so often I think about the fact that he managed to get the entirety of the American left on board with a proposal which essentially mandates that everyone purchase health insurance, which until 2009 was a suggestion floated by right wing politicians who sensed a winning corporatist solution to the health care problem.
Perhaps that is what 'Health Care Reform' may turn out to be, and it is certainly far preferable to the status quo it replaces, but now that it has been accomplished, does that mean that substantial health care reform is not going to happen? These are the sorts of questions that universal, single payer advocates might be asking. One unfortunate consequence may be that in passing HCR, it could become even more difficult to legislate truly monumental changes to the system. It is worth considering, from this perspective, just how much damage the Obama administration may be capable of doing – by halfheartedly tackling a number of liberal agenda issues and then “taking them off the table.” Expect to see some wonderfully inadequate, corporatist “solutions” to energy, immigration, even campaign finance.
It is tempting to say that all of this is better than doing nothing, but that is a difficult pill to swallow when one considers the billions in profits that every health insurance giant will make now that another forty million people have been mandated to purchase their product.
Incidentally, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) announced recently that though he would vote for cloture, he would vote against Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court – despite voting in favor of Samuel Alito in 2006. Perhaps I should attempt to convince Sen. Nelson of the righteousness of my Food for Lions Assistance Reform (FLA Reform) proposal, which recognizes the plight of lions across the United States who are denied the basic right to feast on the flesh of hypocrites. So far, I have not had too much luck getting this one into the mainstream, but all noble pursuits require dedication.
