health care law « The Feehery Theory

Posts Tagged ‘health care law’

The Obama Downgrade

August 8th, 2011 by John Feehery

Democratic spinmeisters have concocted a nice little phrase to describe the actions of the Standard and Poor’s Ratings Agency, which was used to little effect over the weekend: The Tea Party Downgrade.

Nice try. That is kind of like blaming the fire department for not putting out the fire fast enough.

The S&P believes that we spend too much as a nation and that we don’t have the political will to stop spending. The Tea Party was formed primarily to send a message to Washington that America needs to stop spending money we don’t have.

The Tea Party won’t get the blame for the debt rating downgrade. President Obama will get the blame and it will hurt him with the American people in the next election.

This 30-second ad takes less than 30 seconds to create. A picture of the President hanging out with his Democratic colleagues fades in and fades out. A screen shot fades in: “The first President to ever lose America’s AAA credit rating. Had enough?”

The President’s men know this is a bad hit. That is why Tim Geithner is attacking the S&P so harshly. That is why the spinners are trying to pin the blame on conservative Republicans. But it won’t work. Read more...

Tags: AAA rating, America, American people, Barack Obama, Bush administration, Congress, Congressional leaders, Conservatives, debt limit, Democrats, election, FDR, George Bush, George W Bush, GOP, health care law, impson-Bowles deficit commission, JFK, Media, medicare, Politics, President Obama, Presidential election, recession, reform, Republicans, Senate, spending, Standard and Poor’s Ratings Agency, tax increases, taxes, Tea Party, Tim Geithner
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, History, Laws, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Theory, bad news, election, health care, medicare, national security, spending, taxes, war | No Comments »

Water

July 8th, 2010 by John Feehery

If you Google the search term “water main break,” you get close to 6 million hits.

In the Washington D.C. area, the suburb of Potomac is dealing with a huge water main break that has spewed water 50 feet in the air.

That is nothing compared to the water main break in Boston last month, which nearly created a panic for Red Sox fans everywhere.

Philly had a bad water main break, as did Los Angeles, Detroit, Muncie, Richmond, Hackensack, Atlanta, Cleveland, Stamford, and Pittsburgh. Odds are that a water main broke at a town near you.

Water is one of those things that we all need to survive.

Earth is about 75 percent water and muscles in the human body have about the same percentage, so without water, we are basically screwed.

Delivering water is an essential government responsibility. Governments that don’t come up with an effective water allocation plan are completely useless and tend to collapse quickly.

When a water main breaks, it puts a tremendous strain on local governments, especially these days when most of them are going broke anyway. Read more...

Tags: Atlanta, Barack Obama, Cleveland, Detroit, Federal budget, Hackensack, health care law, Los Angeles, Muncie, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Stamford, water, water main break
Posted in Government, Politics, spending | No Comments »

The Health Care Law Sucks

June 2nd, 2010 by John Feehery

Obama Signing the Health Care Bill / Photo Credit: Keith Ellison

As the Obama Administration grapples with a host of crises, from the Gulf Oil spill, to the potential war on the Korean Peninsula between North and South, to another potential war in the Middle East between Turkey and Israel, to the credit crisis in Europe, to the crisis on our Southern border, it will also have to deal with a crisis of its own making.

The health care law, the one the President signed into law, sucks. There is no other way to describe it. It sucks for those who are trying to find a job, it sucks for those who will have to pay more in premiums, it sucks for our deficit problems, it sucks for American competitiveness, it is sucks for doctors, for patients, for, well, everybody, except maybe those who want the whole system to collapse so that we can impose government run health care in its place.

That is the conclusion of a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and the conclusion of the current occupant of that office, although, of course, they would never put it those terms. Read more...

Tags: Barack Obama, Congressional Budget Office, Gore divorce, Government, Gulf Oil spill, health care, health care law, Korean Civil War, Obama Administration, Turkey-Israeli split
Posted in Bad Decisions, Government, health care | 2 Comments »

John Feehery is President of the Feehery Group, a strategic advocacy firm dedicated to helping its clients achieve their legislative and communications objectives in Washington D.C.