rssKey Obama Adviser: No Second Thoughts About Moving Health Care Before Climate Bill
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 10:02 am
- 8 Comments
Melody Barnes, President Obama’s top domestic policy adviser, said today that the Obama administration does not have second thoughts about pushing health care legislation before a cap-and-trade bill. Some have argued that the administration’s aggressive push to pass a health care bill took the wind out of the sails of efforts to pass a climate bill in the Senate.
Barnes, speaking at The Atlantic’s Green Intelligence Forum today, said that health care reform was one of Obama’s top priorities during the campaign. “One of the things that we heard is that we had to deal with the issue of health care,” she said.
Barnes also demurred on the question of a climate and energy bill’s legislative prospects. “One of the things that I’ve learned is that when you start to put your money down on when Congress will act, you’re going to lose your money,” she said. But she stressed that while Congress was far from “crossing the finish line” on a climate bill, the Obama administration is committed to using its regulatory authority, at the Environmental Protection Agency and elsewhere, to address climate change.
Barnes expressed frustration with those who oppose measures to address climate change. ”There is no debate globally about the importance of this issue, it’s when we return home that we are pushing and shoving and trying to convince people of the importance of this issue,” she said. But she added that she is seeing a shift in the viewpoint of the American people on climate change, though she acknowledged that many Americans still question the science of climate change.
“Even if you, for whatever reason, don’t believe the science, you’ve got to believe the economic imperative of a clean energy economy,” she said.
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8 Comments
Pingback posted October 27, 2010 @ 10:47 am
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Pingback posted October 27, 2010 @ 12:09 pm
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Trackback posted October 27, 2010 @ 1:40 pm
Key Obama Adviser: No Second Thoughts About Moving Health Care ……
Here at World Spinner we are debating the same thing……
Comment posted October 27, 2010 @ 5:37 pm
Ms. Barnes-as a domestic policy adviser, perhaps you should consider a different profession! Yes, we need health care. Yes, we need a climate change bill. BUT FIRST WE NEED JOBS AND HOMES! WE NEEDED THEM IN 2008 AND WE NEED THEM NOW! Your refusal to push the President to address these economic issues first may well have cost him his presidency, and gave rise to the Tea Party. People in this nation are going hungry (1 in 5 each and every day!) and we have a foreclosure crisis in this nation as the result of not properly regulating the banks when you first came into office. Maybe if you would come down from your mountaintop in DC and actually face the American people you could explain why you did not press a jobs bill when you had the chance or pressed for an unemployment extension before the elections (the unemployed vote, in case you were unaware of that, and you sent them right into the arms of the GOP, even though they are the ones who blocked the bill). Your weak-kneed approach to domestic policy is nothing short of criminal. How dare you stand in front of an environmental group that could grow jobs if they had public financing through SBA and banking regulation changes, and tell them you were right to push a health care bill that only benefited Rahm Emanuel's insurance lobbyist friends and punished Americans well into the future, despite a few changes. But, none of this means anything if you do not stop pressing for the continuation of globalization in economic domestic policy – it is a lie and it is harming the job base of this nation.
You, madam, should have not pushed for health care reform or climate bills – you should have been pushing financial reform, jobs creation bills, public works bills, and education bills that actually keep people in jobs. But you wanted to push the Clinton agenda of health care and the Devil be Damned! Well, thanks for nothing from those of us who are unemployed, homeless, and disabled. You really shafted us and we may never recover because you could not get your priorities straight! It is my fervent hope that among those that the President sends packing in 2011 is you – and I hope you have the same luck finding a job that the rest of us are having – but I know you will get some cushy lobbying job and laugh all the way to the bank!
Pingback posted October 28, 2010 @ 3:53 am
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Pingback posted October 29, 2010 @ 12:37 am
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Pingback posted October 31, 2010 @ 3:15 pm
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Trackback posted November 10, 2010 @ 7:06 am
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