Greer McVay’s Web Log (BLOG)

Volume 1, Issue 7

August 13, 2009

Who’s Running this Country?

Get over it all ready. We have a new president. And contrary to what you hear on the nightly news, he is doing a fantastic job. By fantastic I don’t mean that the unemployment rate is down to five percent and the Dow is back over 14,000. What I mean is that the man is taking a complete shambles of an organization (the U.S. government) and methodically piecing it back together: one issue at a time, simultaneously.

While some of President Obama’s plans have been met with confused opposition and derision, each step along the way we have eventually seen the political brilliance behind his moves. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 better known as the Stimulus Plan was eviscerated by republicans and spun by the right-wing media as a socialist plot to part rich people from their money. Interestingly, we only see poor “real Americans” taking to the streets to protest, but I digress.

The stimulus contained within it enough money and flexibility to carve out [now] $4 Billion to fund the “Cash for Clunkers” program which simultaneously helps “real Americans” (the owners of clunkers) purchase new cars; while helping the American auto manufacturers get assembly lines moving; while accelerating the recycling industry’s production of new products derived from the byproducts of old vehicles; while improving the environment by reducing pollution and discharge of toxic fumes into our air, which, in turn, positively impacts global warming. President Obama did all this while still being home to have dinner with his daughters at the end of his workday and making time to take in a Broadway show with his wife (keeping his date-night promise). Gotta love him!

Healthcare Reform is the latest bane in the president’s existence. I’m not convinced that he rolled out his plan with the precision that I have come to expect from him, but it’s here nonetheless. We now have neo-Nazis commandeering Town Hall meetings from coast to coast doing everything in their corporate-funded power to stall and kill any discussion that might move the plans forward. I concede that the definition of healthcare reform is nebulous and perplexing, but regardless of which complexities I am able to comprehend, I do not have any problem understanding that when I was unemployed I had no health insurance. When I did purchase health insurance while not part of a group (such as an employer group) I paid over $700 each month for my healthy self and my healthy son; Only to never even need to take advantage of the insurance I had purchased.

I also comprehend that if I were to lose my job (which hundreds of thousands of people have been doing every single month for at least the last 15 months), I am likely to find myself without healthcare at a time when I can least afford illness or injury. I comprehend that for-profit health insurance companies are making the same sort of profits that the oil and gas industry is making. I also understand that the millions of uninsured, under-insured and people battling pre-existing conditions don’t need whackjobs from the right taking to the streets protesting against president Obama with a goal of helping secure even greater profits for the healthcare industry.

If our government only implemented initiatives that represent Greer McVay’s own selfish interests, like so many of the naysayers seem to insist upon, then we’d only have Michael Jackson memorial concerts, kittens, puppies, 24-hour happy hours, two-day workweeks and free cash giveaways--not meaningful things that make this county stronger such as a solid GDP, a clean environment, fair taxation and yes, universal healthcare. When Obama took office he swore to “provide for the general welfare” of American citizens. Yes, that is part of the Constitution. So keeping government out of everybody’s business is not consistent with the oath that I saw taken on January 20.

We all need to recognize that we are not in the president’s all-day strategy sessions and briefings and if we are lucky we at least get some straight talk on the evening news. [You will get straight talk, by the way, if you listen to Randi Rhodes’ radio show. Look for it or download her daily podcast.] More often than not, we don’t have the benefit of detailed analysis and the strategic thinking that guides the administration’s decisions, so for now, let’s just back off and let the man do his job.