Day: August 25, 2009

Leopard’s spots

Bill McGurn in Wall Street Journal considers how Obama can save his presidency, mired now in health care legislation, as Clinton was mired in health care legislation.  Avoid Clinton’s “mistakes,” say Obama-ites.  McGurn calls that “not a winning strategy.”

A far more productive strategy would be to embrace Mr. Clinton’s success, which was freeing himself from his party’s left and returning to the centrist themes he had campaigned on.

But would that not be to surrender the raison d’etre of his political career?  If he has to continue the campaign charade in deed as well as word, what’s the point of it all?

Belated sighting of elephant in room

Now and then an obvious truth is restated:

The budget shortfall for 2010 would mark the second straight year of trillion-dollar deficits. Along with the unemployment numbers, the deficit may complicate President Barack Obama’s drive for his top domestic priority, overhauling the U.S. health care system.

“It throws a wrench in health-care reforms,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in an interview. “No matter the specific numbers, they’re a constant reminder that we’re in bad, bad shape.

And a Republican goes further:

“If anyone had any doubts that this burden on future generations is unsustainable, they’re gone,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, adding that economic stimulus funds should be diverted to pay down U.S. debt.

Oh that golden stimulus, oh that golden stimulus.  Liquidate that!

Oak Park walker reports from Sin City

Gina from Vegas looks back in delight at Oak Park IL, where she used to live, in a comment in this CNN Money article about “walkability” in city neighborhoods:

I live in Las Vegas . . . [where] efforts to bring walkability to insulated planned communities has primarily been shut down by the economy, though my last neighborhood was close, with two parks, a library, some shopping, and restaurants all within a few miles. It was also in a new (built around 2002) upper-class master planned community. It still didnt hold a candle to my old neighborhood in Oak Park, IL outside of Chicago. I frequently went months without seeing my car when I lived there.

She has that right.