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The Progressive Caucus and Obama
The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) met with President Obama for one hour in the East Room of the White House yesterday.
CPC Co-Chair, Congressman Raúl Grijalva, said that 50 of the 77 Caucus members attended, and they honed in on two major issues: their commitment to only supporting a healthcare reform bill that includes a public plan option that is "more than a gesture"; and the $83 billion war supplemental.
"It was a serious meeting," Rep. Grijalva said. "It moved quickly, there was a lot of candor from both sides."
Presenting the Caucus' case for healthcare reform were Representatives Yvette Clark, Tammy Baldwin, Jan Schakowsky, and Jim McDermott. Congressman Dennis Kucinich spoke with the President about a single-payer system.
Rep. Grijalva said members made it clear that the Caucus' support for any healthcare bill hinges on a public plan option that is "robust... [and] competitive with the private sector." President Obama called himself "an ally", but said it was up to Congress to deliver him the kind of bill to which the Caucus is committed.
With regard to the $83 billion war supplemental, Rep. Grijalva said the Caucus expressed its concern that "we're making the same mistake -- everything is going into militarization, not institutional reform, human and capital development, healthcare... those kinds of things." They pointed out to the President that the counterinsurgency strategy calls for 80 percent of the resources to be devoted to non-military/political solutions, and 20 percent to the military. But the supplemental devotes $76 billion for the military and approximately $7 billion for diplomatic efforts and foreign aid.
Obama said that the supplemental reflects the mess he inherited from his predecessor and the consequent short-term security needs. He said the Caucus should look at the FY2010 budget to see the kinds of investments that he supports.
Beyond the supplemental, the Caucus cited four other priorities with regard to Afghanistan and Iraq: no permanent bases; a timetable for exit; the aforementioned 80-20 allocation of resources; and the need to cease using drones due to civilian casualties.
Rep. Grijalva reported that President Obama said "he's not going to be caught in a quagmire. We'll be revisiting this decision every week, every month...."
Taking the lead in discussing security issues were Representatives John Tierney, Barbara Lee, Keith Ellison, and Mike Honda.
Grijalva said this wasn't a meeting where they "pinned down" the President and that "he handles tough questions very well." There was mutual respect and the meeting "helped solidify the relationship between the CPC and the White House."
The meeting was a good one for conveying the Caucus' key concerns on critical issues which will loom large in the next 100 days and beyond. It also represented an important and hopeful moment for the CPC itself. Rep. Grijalva explained, "It was good for the Caucus to be unified. There was no questioning the opinions the Caucus members gave to the President. With 50 people -- very few of us were able to speak -- and it demonstrates that members were there to support the Caucus and support each other. That's significant. Today everybody hung together and stuck to these two issues. I think that kind of discipline is very important."
Rep. Grijalva is right. At a time when the significantly smaller Blue Dog Caucusthreatens to impede passage of a much needed budget and real healthcare reform, the CPC's work as a more unified team -- allied with the work of millions of progressives across the country -- could translate to real reform at the federal level.
In the past, Caucus members have had a hard time doing their politics together. This afternoon's meeting with President Obama may signal a new unity that bodes well for the tough fights ahead.
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25 Comments so far
Show AllSee, it is Obama's same cheap rhetoric, i.e. "I inherited a mess" (which he did, but that horse left the barn long ago) and "let's look forward, not backward" (totally wrong attitude). Sorry, Ms. Vanden Heuvel, you still give Obama too much credit and cheerlead for him when other Progressives such as myself, have completely written Obama off as a non-Progressive, corporate and MIC schill, and political hack.
Please, please, please STOP calling Obama progressive. It's a lie and it's offensive to those of us who ARE progressive. Obama is a corporate, centrist Democrat - at best.
'Don't get fooled again' - Pete Townsend
I'd add that half of the members of that so-called Progressive Caucus are nowhere close to being progressive. The more the term progressive gets mutiliated by the DC twerps, the more I feel like calling myself Independent more than Progressive.
Good point.
Uh, she didn't call Obama a progressive in this article.
After the last eight years, I can't imagine a President listening to progressives. Amazing. Thank you President Obama.
He gave them an hour.
Don't be so cynical there, Vern!
If he gets their uncritical support, in the second term he'll give them an hour and a half!
· Yr Obd't Servant
There will be no second term. His plans and actions along with Congress almost guarantee it at this time.
Not if the Republicans put a really scary candidate. It's 2 and 4 years away. Who knows what will really happen? One year ago, Obama was predicted to lose and he came out from behind and won. There's plenty to be disappointed in him about but who knows what will happen next?
Good start. However, I expect the "no permanent bases" is a throwaway.
Washington will never-ever give up what it went there for in the first place: another forward-outpost for Big Financial and the MIC.
The ever aggressive expansion of (euro-centric) Capitalism is the word. Everything else is B.S..
Katrina vanden Heuvel, same ole...blah,blah,blah. Meaningless.
Thomas, will you please just explain and point out exactly what you find wrong with KVH ? Look, a lot of us are indeed disappointed with folks like her but it would be nice of you to at least detail it a bit. We could learn better from one another. Even I learned to do just that. Come on Thomas. We know you're a lot better than that. Besides, people can change from time to time and not every article is the same. I know I'm disappointed with KVH for her saying one thing and then supporting the wrong candidate but still.
I found the fact this meeting occurred and the topics raised greatly inspiring.
I hope those 50 (or more) form a voting block and insist on truly progressive policies in the key areas mentioned. THEN President Obama (a defender of the corporate regime) and the corporate regime-supporting Democrats will be forced to concede to some true progressive policies, such as those mentioned in this excellent article by KVH.
Congratulations to Raúl Grijalva, Yvette Clark, Tammy Baldwin, Jan Schakowsky, Jim McDermott, and Dennis Kucinich. And to Conyers for calling for a prosecutor. And for Lewis, Lee, Woolsey, McGovern and Edwards for getting arrested recently over they Darfur protest.
Not all the members of the Black and Progressive Congressional Caucuses advocate for progressive policies, but some of them do, and we should support them, even as we also support the Green Party and progressive movements.
We can support progressive Democrats in lots of ways, including establishing progressive caucuses in State Democratic parties, as we did in Kansas, and as others did in about 20 other states.
I worked for the Ellison for Congress campaign and believe that Ellison is a true progressive. He should tell President Obama that it is time for Single payer system in this country. Corporations wont like it because it will lessen their profit margins. However the moral imperative is that all matter all count and that leaving 50 million with out healthcare is just plain wrong. Just imagine if all the uninsured made their voices heard. Things would change quickly. I am disappointed with Obama on this issue as well as ending the war soon enough. I hope he stands tough with Israel and demands a two state solution if we are to give Israel one more dime of taxpayer money. If he just allows the same old same old onthen this is not change we can believe inthe middle east then he is a pawn of special interests. If he is the Change we can believe in then he must deliver and stop worrying about 2012.
On the evening news tonight I heard Obama refer to his decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan and how he had taken heat from it from a "faction within the Democratic Party." I think this, more than his cosmetic meeting with the Progressive Caucus, reflects his own position far to the right of that "faction." Of course he would pretend to "listen to them" and give them soft-soap answers like just wait til the next budget to show you my "real" priorities between diplomacy and military action, and made that treacherous "promise" that he always makes of blaming his current actions on the "mess he inherited." Actually, both the "mess" of bloated war supplementals and that of endless bank bailouts was a mess in which he fully participated as a member of Congress, in voting for these messes, and even leading the "mess-making" campaign to institute the bailouts. KVH can find all the "hope" that her "Progressives for Obama" heart can wish for, but many of the rest of us are not ready to be fed an endless diet of such "I'll do that tomorrow if I can" garbage that is just what a parent tells a child who makes urgent but "unreasonable" demands to which the parent has no intention to accede.
Don't get conned by the public - private health plan. Check out http://www.counterpunch.org/redmond04232009.html
I really wish the so-called Progressive Democrats had just voted for Nader in the general election in the safe states. I voted for Obama in the primary and Nader in the general.
If enough people had done this, we would have a real progressive voice for Obama to contend with.
As it is, Nader's singlepayeraction.org is trying to get "single payer" back on the table. His voice would have been much louder if he got 14% (the % considering voting for him) instead of the 1% that actually did.
Really interesting, isn't it, that only one member of that "Progressive Caucus" (Kucinich) spoke for single-payer? The rest bought right into that "Massachusetts model" of mandatory employer-based coverage, with the public-private business just a fig leaf to coverage its exposure of its corporate privates.
I tried to convince people to give Nader a chance myself but unfortunately, like the conservatives blindly electing Republicans, the so-called "progressives" will settle for mediocre choices. Hell, even Dennis Kucinich let alone Nader was never given a chance. I don't know that Nader will run again in 2012 but if not, I hope that there is another progressive independnet replacement to fill in the void. Besides, even on these progressive sites, there's always division and fighting within the progressives. Our electorate is too brainwashed with personality contests rather than paying attention to the issues that really matter. It doesn't matter what race, gender, religion, or even party affiliation a candidate is associated with. What matters is that he or she will show courage and real leadership despite the odds. Until the progressives and liberals understand this and fight for real bravehearts and quit inventing excuses to not fight, it's all a lose-lose.
P.S.: Obama might have been ok if he had been the pre-2005 version and not the spoiled type ever since entering the US Senate in 2005.
I believe that Obama has learned something that Repbulicans, and most people here on CD have not. That occasionally you have to work with those that you do not agree with 100%, in order to solve problems as a whole. I also believe it would help you to view the Dem Party as more than just a sum of liberals and progressives. There are many other types of voters that call the Dem party home, centrists included. And it is as diverse as the 3rd parties that you constantly espouse.
It is hard to believe the mess that the Medicare and Medicaid system has become since it was partly privatized by the corporate gangsters previously in the White House. The people who suffer the most are the disabled, America's most vulnerable citizens. The policy of giving members social security then deducting money for Medicare may not bother those who get a living benefit but those who are way under the poverty level really struggle. America needs to immediately put a compassionate government single payer health care system in place as soon as possible. Religions must not control a human beings health and corporations must not profit from the disabilities, illness or injuries of Americans.
There must also be parity health care for the mentally ill within the U.S. health care system. Even George W. Bush agreed that Mental Health Care in America is in shambles, although he did nothing to improve it.
Any money paid to an insurance company feeds the kitty that purchased this president's attitudes.
I agree with bardamu. It is important to let your senators and congress person know that single payer is the prefered option for healthcare. Even Obama gets caught in the corporate owned form of government we now have. How sad it is to hear him sell out to the special interests at the expense of the rest of us. Some things like affordable healthcare for all are just to important to compromise on. its time to focus on the issues that we sent him to washington to fix. healthcare,economy,enviornment,restore rule of law,and end illegal war in iraq.
How come these right-wingers (who apparently only care about guns, stopping abortion, prayer in schools and tormenting gays) are calling for cessation &/or revolution, whereas, we progressives (whose goals include troops out now, health care for all and nationalization of banking & finance) are content with politics as usual? One would think that it would be the right-wingers who look to politics to get what they want, rather than revolution, being that the owners of Congress & the presidency (banks, that is) would never stand in the way of the right-wing agenda. The same can't be said for the left-wing agenda, since banks already have ordered Congress not to go for a single payer health care system. Yet we progressives keep fooling ourselves into believing that, if only we persevere in playing by the rules, eventually we'll turn things around. And President Obama has no difficulty in seeing our behavior for the illusion that it is - "Ok, I'll give them an hour & that'll hold them off for another six months or so." Are we going to let him get away with this? What can we do about it? What the right-wingers are calling for, rise up en masse, that's what.