As the fateful date of Obamacare’s arrival in 2014 approaches, an in-progress review seems in order. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s main stated purpose was to make medical care more affordable and/or available to Americans, and the unstated reality is that it needs to do so in a sustainable fashion.
In the balancing act going on in Washington right now, for one side the term is layered with meaning, while for the other, its meaning could not be clearer. For President Obama and the Democrats, first and foremost balance means making sure the “wealthiest Americans” ante up and pay their “fair share.”
Ronald Reagan’s birthday will be commemorated this week. He took office just a few weeks shy of his 70th birthday in 1981 making him the oldest man elected to serve as our Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief, that is until he stood for re-election in 1984.
Winston Churchill once quipped you can “trust the American people to do the right thing after they have tried everything else.” His observation touches on a recurring theme in United States history: major political change is often preceded by a decade long learning curve. This pattern can be seen from the Founding era up to the election of 2012.
The American people judge their Presidents by whether they succeed in meeting the central challenges of their Presidency. This is the case with Barack Obama.
I was a college student in the fall of 1988; it was Presidential election year, and I could finally vote. The choice before me, and the country, then was do we go forward with the policies begun under Ronald Reagan or was it time for a change? Reagan was finishing an incredible run that saw nation’s economy experience an unprecedented rebound and America reestablished as the unquestioned leader of the free world. His Vice President, George H.W. Bush, made clear upon accepting the Republican nomination that “the most important work of my life is to complete the mission we started in 1980.”
On the campaign trail, President Obama often makes references to Bill Clinton and the 1990s as proof that increasing taxes on the “wealthy” will be no impediment to restoring our nation's economic health. In fact, he truly seems to believe it is good for the economy, like having an extra portion of broccoli or something.
Everyone loves the movie Back to the Future. Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) mistakenly launches Doc Brown’s DeLorean time machine car back to November 1955 and finds himself a peer of his high school parents. Thanks to Marty’s interactions with them, he sets in motion an alternate future for his entire family.
With political convention season quickly approaching, now would be a good time to take a look back at Barack Obama’s much-vaunted, Styrofoam pillar, Democratic Nomination Acceptance Speech at Invesco Field in 2008 and do a little comparison of fantasy versus reality. At the time of the big speech, he was accused, and rightly so, of lifting lines (more kindly, drawing inspiration) for his speech from the fictional portrayal of the nation’s Chief Executive in the movie The American President.
If we as a nation want to know what it will take to get back on track, we need look no further than what Republican Governors are doing throughout the country. The principles they are following are the key to our salvation and lead down the exact opposite road Barack Obama and the Democrats want to take to go “FORWARD.”
The history of America is one of overcoming abuse. Our nation began with a legal document, the Declaration of Independence, listing a “train of abuses,” which violated the colonists’ God-given rights and required them to found a new nation.
I had recently moved to Los Angeles when the nation received the news in early June of 2004 that former President Ronald Reagan’s health was rapidly declining. In true LA fashion, helicopters began flying overhead and news trucks zipped near my apartment on the West Side. I knew Reagan’s home was fairly close by, but until that day, I didn’t realize how close: a mere two miles away.
