Link Updated: Thu., Oct. 29, 2009, 3:55 AM
It's the jobs, stupid
By BYRON YORK

How many times have you heard Barack Obama talk about "the fierce urgency of now"? The president has used the quote, from Martin Luther King Jr., to call for quick action on the war in Iraq, on global warming, on homelessness, on education -- you name it.

Now, Obama and his fellow Democrats are trying to convince the nation of the fiercely urgent need to enact health-care reform this very instant.

"We have been waiting for health reform since the days of Teddy Roosevelt," Obama told the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation in September. "We cannot wait any longer. . . There comes a time to remember the fierce urgency of right now."

But the American people simply don't share Obama's sense of urgency about health-care reform. In a new poll, Gallup asked: "Should Congress deal with health-care reform on a gradual basis over several years, or should Congress try to pass a comprehensive health-care reform plan this year?" Just 38 percent of those surveyed want reform now, versus a clear majority -- 58 percent -- who want reform on a gradual basis.

When you break Gallup's results down by political party, you see that Democrats are the only ones feeling any urgency at all. Fifty-nine percent of Democrats want reform now, but 77 percent of Republicans, and 63 percent of independents, want gradual reform. When it comes to health-care reform, there is no "fierce urgency of now."

The plain fact is, the public's top priority lies elsewhere. "The only issue that people have a sense of fierce urgency about right now is the economy and jobs," says GOP pollster David Winston. "The president is in an uphill battle to try to move the discussion to other topics."

It's not that people think health care is unimportant. They just think the economy and jobs are more important -- far more important.

Obama knows that; that's why he tries to link health care and economic recovery, arguing that we can't have real recovery without health-care reform.

But people aren't buying it.

For a recent report to House GOP leader John Boehner, Winston asked people to judge two different approaches to today's woes. The choice was between "Republicans who say Congress should be focusing on long-term policies that create jobs, like small business and family tax relief, and controlling federal spending to get our economy moving again" and "Democrats who say that health-insurance reform is key to jump-starting the economy by expanding coverage to the uninsured, lowering costs and restricting the worst insurance company practices, and we must get it done this year."

Fifty-four percent of respondents agreed with the GOP approach, versus 40 percent who agreed with the Democratic approach. That's not because they like Republicans better (they don't), but because they want their leaders to directly address the economy and jobs.

Now, with White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer conceding that unemployment, nearing 10 percent, is "likely to remain at severely elevated levels" through all of 2010, the contrast between the public's deep worries over jobs and the president's obsession with passing health-care reform could not be more striking.

"There's a concern that the administration is off on the wrong topic," Winston says. "Americans are saying, 'What about the economy? What about jobs? Let's get that taken care of, and then we can address health care.' "

But Obama and his allies in Congress aren't answering. If you want to know why, just go back to that speech to the Congressional Black Caucus. National health care has been the holy grail of the Democratic Party for decades. Democrats now hold 256 seats in the House and 60 in the Senate, counting the two independents who generally vote with them. Most observers expect them to lose seats in November 2010, and much of next year to be consumed by midterm election campaigning. So there will never be a moment better than now for Obama and his party to achieve their long-cherished goal.

Yet the public thinks there are more important things to do at the moment. If Obama and his party ignore their wishes, the voters' next fiercely urgent priority might be defeating Democrats at election time.

I think he knows he can't produce any jobs it must be the private sector. As over 70% know in a pew poll.

quote:

Obama knows that; that's why he tries to link health care and economic recovery, arguing that we can't have real recovery without health-care reform.

Since PBHO insists health care reform and economic recovery are interconnected, I have two questions:

1) The health care "reform" is designed to take effect in 2013. By design, and PBHO's own words, can the economic recovery wait until 2013?

2) If the two are interconnected, then why did the GDP grow by 3.5% in the third quarter?


HMMMMMMMM?

As far as the 3.5% growth,to paraphrase Bill Clinton,'It's the stimulus stupid'.But certain people won't give this administration credit for anything.If the healthcare bill ever gets enacted it will eventually help too at which time there will be something else to whine about.

Byron York should know stupid. He's the definition of it.

There's only so much any president can do about jobs. It's like moving an ocean liner, not a race car.

President Obama and his willing supporters are pushing healthcare for one reason and one reason only: Socialization of this country. Anybody over 65 already knows about that.

TheSS Administration of which I am dealing with now pays out 50 million accounts per month! For God's sake I have to believe that their are not that many retired people or actual disabled people who really earned any SS bebefits.

I have seen with my own eyes now at the SS office some of the people who show up to try and calim and do receive benefits. I have had two people who have worked with me express how glad they were to be actually be working with someone who by their admissions deserve SS benefits. I was to say the least shocked at idea would be so foreign to them.

We the individual tax payers along with corporations are floating the bill for so much bogus benefits that if we would just clean up the programs we have right now we could possibly afford them.