Obama's Early Political Errors Have Made America Reject His Presidency

This might have been a day of celebration for President Obama - not just the nondescript US Presidents Day that tries to make Americans forget that Lincoln was born on February 12 and Washington on 22 February, by creating an extra Monday holiday for federal employees - no, Obama might be celebrating the fifth anniversary of the $700 billion stimulus bill that he signed on February 17, 2009. The bill contained an array of spending cuts, tax breaks and welfare provisions and plenty of long-sought Democratic policy prescriptions. Even today, the President’s senior economic adviser insisted that the stimulus helped the US avoid a “second Great Depression” and will pay dividends for years to come. But the economic recovery has been very uneven and unusually weak since the end of the recession in mid-2009. Liberals such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argued then and now that the stimulus was too small to give the economy the jump-start it needed. They believe a bigger Keynesian-style stimulus, worth well over a trillion dollars, would have led to a stronger recovery. Conservatives dismiss this, saying most of the stimulus package was wasteful and misdirected, adding substantially to the US national debt without any long-term benefit. They say the government should have cut taxes, scaled back regulations and kept spending in check. The debate on the stimulus is likely to go on for years, perhaps with no resolution, because only Obama's approach was tried. Yes, as a forewarning of things to come, the stimulus bill passed with hardly any Republican support and became a political football for several years until superseded by an even more profound fight over Obamacare, passed with no Republican votes. And that's the second reason why President Obama is not celebrating today. He has been dealt a stunning new blow by Obamacare because even though there was a December-January upward tick in sign-up numbers, reports show that only half the people "enrolled" at Obamacare exchanges in various states have actually paid their premiums. With the March 31 deadline for enrollment just seven weeks away, the number of sign-ups in federal and state marketplaces has slowed down alarmingly since the sudden surge in the latter part of December and early January. But the bigger problem for the Obama administration is that roughly 50% of those who had supposedly enrolled for Obama's healthcare reform have missed their payment deadline for January 1, according to Investor's Business Daily's website. Examples show how bad it is -- *in Washington state, the goal was to sign up 340,000 participants by the end of March, but only 170,000, have filled out the Obamacare forms and only 88,071 of those had paid their premium as of Febeuary 1 - a little more than half the sign-ups and 25% of the number that Washington had hoped to enlist by March 31 with their premiums paid up. *in Wisconsin, half of the 40,752 state residents that signed up for health insurance through Obamacare by December 31 have paid their premiums and are currently receiving coverage. *in Nevada, they had targeted 115,000 sign-ups for Obamacare by the March 31 deadline, but just 14,999 paid their premiums by February 1, or 66% of those who enrolled and 12% of the target figure. *in Minnesota, 27,775 households had received private coverage as of January 18, but only half (14,500) have paid or have payments pending, out of the 67,000 targeted sign-ups by March 31, and there has been a slow-down in Obamacare ebrollments, from 4,000 a week for five weeks over December and early January, to just 700 a week now, which is about the same as the abyssmal October-November figures. Investors.com says that the January data from New York, Colorado, Maryland and Kentucky also show that the Obamacare sign-ups have slowed significantly in the second half of the month. According to the report, the "spotty" payment rate may indicate that the demographics of paid enrollees "may be older and possibly sicker than even the national sign-up data have signaled." Obamacare needs young and healthy customers to sign up with state and federal healthcare exchanges to keep the cost down for older and less healthy consumers. ~~~~~ Dear readers, neither the stimulus nor Obamacare can give Barack Obama any reason to celebrate today. His lack of understanding of how to enact programs by enlisting Republican support, combined with his 2009-2010 Democrat majority in both the House and Senate, made Obama push through both the stimulus and Obamacare with only Democrat votes. Those early power plays left the GOP angry and frustrated that their advice - advice that represented half of America - was ignored and belittled. And President Obama has paid the price for those early strategic errors ever since. There is no way now to repair the damage, either with the Republicans in Congress or with America.