The President and Socialism

Three months ago, after Governor Paterson vetoed a bill that would have extended Tier 2 pension rights to future cops and firefighters, a retired NYPD Sergeant at a protest outside the Governor's birthday celebration bitterly criticized him and Mayor Bloomberg, then added President Obama to his complaint.

"What's Obama got to do with it?" he was asked.

He responded that the new President was bringing socialism to this country. It wasn't clear what that had to do with pension rights being reduced; our guess is Karl Marx would consider pensions a just reward for workers rather than something to be done away with. And so what seemed to be a non sequitur was a particularly puzzling one; the only thing the three men seemed to have in common was that the retired Sergeant disliked their policies.

Obviously, to anyone who pays attention to the media, particularly that large chunk of it in the employ of Rupert Murdoch, he is hardly the only person assailing the President by calling him a socialist. There are people who believe that the label has become a kind of code word; that those who mistrust the first black President because he looks or acts different from his predecessors don't want to attribute it to his race and so they grasp at other descriptions that suggest he is somehow un-American. (The case that it's very much a racial thing was strengthened by the outburst during Mr. Obama's health-care speech before Congress by U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina—can anyone imagine a Member of Congress shouting "You lie!" at a previous President, and on a matter about which the Commander in Chief was telling the truth?)

The case for Obama As Socialist appears to rest on the government takeover of General Motors and his attempts to transform the health-care system in this country.

In both cases, however, the President is taking necessary steps to deal with intractable problems. It had become clear that GM's leadership at the time was incapable of making the changes that would allow it to once again become competitive with Toyota, and so it was logical that a government bailout would have a very large string attached in the form of control over its operations. (If anything, Mr. Obama could be criticized for not doing enough along those lines to rein in the Wall Street investment firms that got huge infusions of Federal money to stay afloat.)

The health-care system as it now exists primarily benefits the insurers and the pharmaceutical companies. Beyond excluding nearly 50 million Americans from coverage, it is disliked by the medical profession; businesses and local governments that find ballooning health-care costs are a continuing drain on their budgets, and more than a few of those who are covered object to the limitations it places upon them. It is also a source of concern to the labor movement, from the United Auto Workers to public-sector unions, because each dollar spent on health care is one dollar less that's available for wages.

The caricatures of Mr. Obama's still-evolving health plan from the industry interests whose profits are threatened, in collaboration with those on the far right in both the media and Congress who have frankly admitted they want it to fail because of the political setback it would deal to his presidency, have exacerbated the understandable concerns that many Americans have about how the changes will affect them. There are still major issues to be worked out pertaining to the level of coverage for those presently receiving insurance, as well as those not enrolled, and the cost of a new program and its impact on the national deficit.

But the debate should focus on the merits of those matters, without the distractions of shrieking "socialism" as if it represented the end of American life as we know it. The truth is, more than a few elements of our lives are already governed by a kind of hybrid of socialism and capitalism in the form of popular programs.

Mr. Obama cited one of the obvious ones in his speech last week: public colleges. Although the public option of any health-care plan seems likely to be shelved before a bill comes forth with the President's imprimatur, those schools—beacons of achievement from New York to California and points in between— are an example of the advantages of competition with private institutions. Enrollment in the State University of New York is up in recent years—as is the caliber of applicants—because the cost of the more-prestigious private colleges has grown so prohibitive that many students are looking for cheaper alternatives that have established reputations for offering a highquality education.

Social Security and Medicare both came into being over the raucous protests of some who brayed that we were being led down the dark path of socialism, and they have since become key elements of the fabric of life for older Americans.

Even that sport most-cited as a representation of an aggressive national character—pro football—is socialist in some of its core elements: the equal sharing of television revenue despite the huge disparities in the markets and popularity of the various teams; the college draft that tries to boost the weakest teams at the expense of the strongest; even the gambling system in which winning the game—as Giant bettors this past weekend could tell you—can still leave you a loser if your team didn't cover the point-spread.

Not to mention labor unions, whose essence is steeped in the collective good.

Which, actually, is a very American principle.