Last night, the House voted to pass the Senate's version of the Health Care Reform Bill. With the passage of the reconciliation package in the Senate in the next week and President Obama's signature, Americans will finally get health care reform that has been sought by several presidents for nearly 110 years. The battle against hate, fear, and corporate greed was won by compassion, hope, and the will of the American people.
But where will the Progressive movement go from here?
Well, obviously some sort of job legislation. Rah, rah, rah, I know, I know, what a cop out, predicting some sort of economy focused legislation during a time of incredible recession. But it's obviously true, I'm absolutely certain that our Congress' big focus, probably through the 2010 election at least, will be about waking up our economy, probably through some sort of incentivizing manufacturing in the United States through tax breaks or something, hopefully (!) through the development of our 30 year old mass-transit infrastructure. Wouldn't it be great if we developed a high-speed train system, like one every other developed country in the world has? Or just fixing our highways and roads so they don't have giant potholes and gaps in them? And imagine all the jobs we'd make, not just in the short term, but all of the long term jobs at train stations and highway maintenance patrols! I'm just saying, developing the infrastructure would be an excellent job source, boost our economy, and make our country more technologically competitive with other developed nations. And to make it more progressive, maybe a certain percentage of the jobs would need to be completed by organized labor unions? I can't think of a better way to increase the power of labor unions and ensure the quality of the construction of these projects.
But you can't just expect Congress to work on job legislation, that would be too boring. If I could wish upon a star, I would want to see some education and financial reforms! Our education system is one of the poorest in the country, and a lot of it has to do with our set standards and the ways our schools are funded as set by President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act. The act actually determines federal funding for schools based on their performance on standardized testing, even though logically the schools that would need the funding the most most likely have the lowest standardized test scores. And even before NCLB, local funding was determined by local property taxes; the schools that need the funding the most, that have the lowest graduation rates and testing scores, are located in poorer urban neighborhoods. The new plan should push an emphasis for magnet schooling, support strong science and liberal arts programs in high schools, reform funding so federal funding is based on population and need and local funding is equally provided and distributed by the state, place restrictions on college business techniques so that overhead administrative costs and tuition rates are lowered and college life is geared more toward academia than partying, and provide more financial aid and scholarships for higher education. To be honest though, I don't expect this reform bill to even touch the American secondary education system. But even if it's just centered on the public K-12 education sector, if it only does one thing, for the love of God, get rid of summer vacation! The United States is no longer an agrarian society, it hasn't been for a while, and this three-month break in school is undermining the very nature of education by allowing students' minds to go unstimulated for months on end. GET RID OF IT!
Financial reform. That's different... If there is one thing I truly do not understand, it is our national financial system. I have no idea how corporations can buy or sell debt or build seperate companies to house crap properties so the parent company looks stronger. It's all so ridiculous to me! Our rampant deregulation of our banking system has led to widespread global economic collapse, with our banks being involved in the hiding of national debt in Europe and causing financial crises to shoot up all over the world. It needs to stop! Put the leash on these dogs! Fold them accountable for what they've done. We need to go back to a time of strict financial reform, where government influence set up by the Roosevelt Administration prevented banking-based recessions from occurring for nearly seventy years. Doesn't anyone notice that the state with lowest unemployment rate at 4.2% and one of the few with a budget surplus, North Dakota, is financed by a state-owned bank? The Congress has made smart first steps with its credit card regulations that were implemented last year. But they can't stop there! Put Wall Street in its place and get our nation's debt crisis under control!
Unfortunately, my wish is only half right... Instead of education reform, we'll be getting immigration reform... Hopefully the legislation will focus on a path to citizenship and amnesty for illegal Hispanic immigrants and developing immigration and visitor worker programs that are easy to understand and take part in. But if the Republican voices are anything like they were for health care reform, they're going to want to build a wall and start an advanced drone bomber operation to "secure our borders". Either way, I can't say this legislation seems very interesting. I just hope it's effective.
It's going to be weird, not really talking about health care reform that much any more. I know, Rep. Alan Grayson has offered a Medicare Buy-In Option so that all citizens of the United States can buy into Medicare, but I don't think I'll have much to say unless something really goes wrong or, more surprisingly, it actually passes. But, you know, as much as I miss health care, I really look forward to talking about these other reforms in the future. It should be fun.
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