Senator Charles Schumer, in a recent speech, stated President Obama and Democratic majorities in Congress were elected in 2008 to get the economy working for middle class families. Consequently, assigning extraordinary priority to passing the Affordable Care Act was a mistake.
In 2008, most middle class families had private insurance they liked; their incomes had been falling for about a decade.
The ACA was really part of Democrats’ agenda to assist the working poor—raising the minimum wage, and expanding Medicaid, food stamps, the earned-income tax credit, and higher education grants—while cozying up to big business to finance Democratic campaigns.
Schumer wants Democrats to advocate big government programs to cure middle class woes, and portray Republicans as servants of big corporate interests. He still embraces the ACA as sound policy, even though it made health care more expensive for many middle class families and it enriches Democratic contributors among top executives and shareholders in the health care industries.
That’s not surprising—Schumer championed the 2010 Dodd-Frank banking reforms.
Those made compliance with new mortgage and business lending regulations so cumbersome that many regional banks sold out to bigger banks—and lots of decently-paying jobs in smaller city banks were lost. In turn, with more deposits to invest, the Wall Street banks keep finding new scams—like rigging foreign currency markets and speculating in commodities—to keep funding multi-million dollar bonuses for New York executives and big campaign contributions to Democrats in the Senate and House.
Cozying up to big business—while championing the poor and offering lip service to the middle class—is what Democrats have done best lately.
President Obama’s favorite fund raising venue is the home of Comcast’s CEO, and his Administration has rewarded cable providers with little effort to curb abusive rates, which rise faster than inflation.
