HYPOTHETICAL NEWS FLASH: President Obama to Congress: “I Screwed Up. Now I’m Busy Fixing It”

[A Hypothetical Encounter Somewhere in the Nation’s capital]

14 NOVEMBER 2013

WASHINGTON, D.C.: In a Surprise, Imaginary Visit to the Capitol yesterday afternoon in the midst of an ongoing crisis over the Affordable Care Act Web site, President Barack Obama delivered the following address to a joint session of Congress:

“Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen, and thank you for meeting here with me, to hear my unequivocal, public apology about the ongoing situation at healthcare-dot-gov.

“First of all, let me say it straight out: I screwed up. Now I’m busy fixing it.

“No question about it. It was my job to get this website up and running, so that millions of Americans can finally get access to the kind of healthcare insurance that Obamacare makes available. This was my job. We had an opening date of October first. The site wasn’t ready. It’s in better shape now, but it’s still not what it should be. It’s my fault. I deserve all of the blame. I screwed up.

“I’m sorry. I apologize. Words cannot convey how bad and embarrassed I feel that this happened, to my signature achievement, so deep into my watch.

“In addition to a fix, I owe you a full accounting. I intend to make sure that you get that accounting. I promise that you will have that accounting, as soon as this ACA start-up work is complete.

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“But For right now—

“Hey! It’s only a website.

“And as the ‘face’ of Obamacare, with my name on it, it’s an important website.

“But still. It’s only the face. It’s not the insurance programs themselves.

“The important thing is to get the insurance policies up and running.

“Getting Obamacare up and running: that’s what my people are working on right now. Even as we speak.

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“Now, we only have four more months left to do it. Only four more months, if we’re to see this thing through on time.

“And just about a month left, for people to get those first policies, that start January 1, 2014.

“Now, I realize it’s tempting, to spend a lot of time right now, figuring out how to blame the guy responsible. It’s tempting to call some people out on the carpet, and to see some heads roll. Right now!

“But we are busy right now! We have to get Obamacare up and running as soon as possible. We want millions of Americans get the solid healthcare coverage they are entitled to.

“And we still need to make that happen on time.

“When you’re aboard a ship that’s sprung a leak, you have two options:

“First, you can work to fix the leak, and keep the ship moving forward while you’re doing it.

“The second option is to sit around talking about how bad the leak is, and who caused it. Maybe make them walk the plank.

“So while you in Congress sit around, and hold hearings, and subpoena witnesses to assign blame (and we know that the blame falls on me), my people are going to keep working on patching the leak in the boat. We will keep busy, bailing and paddling. Moving the Obamacare forward.

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“Hopefully, we can agree that we all want the best outcome for the American people. So in every thing we do, in the White House and here in the Capitol, blame has to come second. Because what comes first is working for the people. We are all here for one thing: to bring the American people the best outcomes possible.

“In that regard, my people and I have important work to do. We have a leaky website to fix. And then we have to make sure a bunch of insurance policies get to a bunch of our people.

____________________

“So if you’ll excuse me for the time being, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have important work to do. And right now, I’m going to get back to work.

“Thank you for your interest in the progress of the Affordable Care Act, and especially in the terrible website we put together.

 “It’s still ‘All Obama’s fault.’ I can’t really tell you sorry I am about that.

“God bless America.”

@GozoTweets

Why “Deficits” Don’t Always Matter:

12 November 2013

As “Fiscal Conservatives,” we take issue with how the “Conservative” side of American politics looks at deficit spending and debt. Here’s why:

Every year, our family takes in a certain amount of money as “income.” A portion of that income, we use to make “capital improvements” and “investments.”

A portion of funds employed for capital investments constitutes down-payments for new real estate properties, for which we take out mortgages.

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If One Were to Look at selective parts of our family balance sheet, one might see:

Deficit Spending: We have added 80% of “spending” in relation to the 20% down-payment

Increasing Debt: We have added that 80% of “debt” to the balance sheet. This debt addition may be offset by total reduction of principal on all mortgages.

Over more than three decades of such “deficit spending,” our debt-to-equity ratio is less than 50%.

Any political “Conservative” might say that we are “spending” ourselves to ruin, and that we risk leaving a mountain of debt to our children and grandchildren.

Our children don’t mind.

Regards,
(($; -)}
Gozo!

[NOTE: The above post on “deficit spending” was prompted by our reading of Why The Most Important Budget Event Of The Year Has Had No Impact, which was posted earlier today by Stan Collender, at “StanCollender’s Capital Gains and Games.”

@GozoTweets

The Best of Both Worlds:

10 November 2013

The Best Way to buy ACA insurance is the best way to buy an airline ticket on Kayak or Expedia: do your comparison shopping on the website, and then contact your chosen provider directly.

You can create an account on healthcare.gov, log on, and shop for the policy you want.

Once you’ve narrowed down your options, call the insurer or insurers directly. These are helpful, sales-motivated people who will give you all the information you need, and then walk you through the application process. 

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Just as When Working with any “sales-motivated people,” it’s best to know ahead of time what you plan to choose. 

On the other hand, one great thing about Obamacare: 

If you don’t like what you end up with this first go-around, you are free to change it a year from now. Such an easy way of comparison shopping and of changing policies never used to be available. 

 But now there’s better policies and the convenience of Obamacare.

 “Priceless.” 

Regards,
(($; -)}
Gozo!

@GozoTweets

TIME-TRAVELERS DENIED ACA COVERAGE:

31 October 2013

Raise Your Hand if you are a time-traveler. If so, your 2014 insurance may have been delayed by website “glitches.” 

Otherwise, your complaints are premature. Or maybe you’re only complaining because you want Obamacare to fail. 

A key element in the ACA planning is that we still have until December 15th. 

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There’s Still Plenty of time to get on board the ACA wagon. Time travelers not included.... 

Regards,  

(($; -)} 

Gozo!

@GozoTweets

THE ROLE—AND THE VALUE—OF POLITICIANS:

10 October 2013

Anyone of Us can stand firm with the dictates of our conscience. It takes a special kind of person to negotiate the differences among us. It takes a politician.
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The Naivety of Tea Party Republicans in Congress, who did not know what the “debt ceiling” was (and who still seem not to know), points to this.

Compromise is what keeps America from becoming a “dictatorship by the minority.” We fought our 1776 revolution to free ourselves from dictatorship. Then we gave ourselves a government “of and by and for the people.”

The fact that one side of our political divide thinks of our democratic government as “Them” is a burden that those on the Left are prepared to continually shoulder.

But when those on the Right decide that their own values are somehow more-valuable or more-American than counterpart values, what we end up with is something like the Tea Party Conservatives:

A group of rigid ideologues, willing to bring down our country if that’s what it takes to dictate their own values.
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Fortunately for our great American experiment, our democracy will prevail over those ideologues who remain “determined to deny liberty to others.”

Fortunately for the American people, we have those willing to do our dirty work: trash collectors, and sewer-repair people—and politicians.

Regards,
(($; -)}
Gozo!

@GozoTweets

IF GOZO TWEETED: Tweet #0102

   06 September 2013

 __________

How about a constitutional amendment, that if you don’t believe government can work, you can’t work for government?
__________

Regards,
(($; -)}
Gozo!

@GozoTweets

“WELL, NO WONDER!” DEPT.

22 May 2013

Writing for The Washington Post on Monday (Austerity and Keynes Can Coexist), Post editorial writer Charles Lane asserted the following:

“Nobelists may be better qualified to describe the issues than the average voter, but they are no better qualified to decide them.”

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Here in America, we live by the belief that any amateur’s opinion (especially one’s own) is equal in all qualities to that of any expert’s knowledge-based views. But did Mr. Lane truly mean to assert this belief? Or was it an byproduct of flattering his readers? One does not usually expect to read such a limited point of view from the staff of one of America’s leading daily newspapers.
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Most Americans agree that our educational system is challenged to keep up with others throughout the world. Our educational challenges are supported by this belief that my opinion beats your expert knowledge. Any nation that does not value learning and education—and facts—is not likely to do to well at teaching its children how to excel in those regards. When even the bulk of our school teachers read no challenging books in their off time, is it any wonder American education is suffering?
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If a paid-professional writer such as Charles Lane asserts that his readers opinions are valid equally to his or anyone else’s, why would any of us want to be reading newspapers in the first place? Especially The Washington Post.

Regards,
(($; -)}
Gozo!

@GozoTweets