Word: carefulness
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...that is the real nub: America isn't investing enough in its future. We are failing to mobilize resources to improve our health care and infrastructure and stay competitive in a global economy that is more clamorous than ever. Focusing on how much we owe won't help us meet our real challenges. America's problem isn't large clothing; it's a body politic that is sliding into dangerous habits. Obsessing about the debt is a distraction we can't afford...
...health reform stands as another crucial juncture. If the President fails to win the upcoming series of congressional votes that are designed to get health care legislation to his desk, it will be a calamitous failure for his presidency and for him personally, dwarfing the potholes he has hit during his first bumpy year in office. Indeed, the notion of defeat is so unthinkable for his Administration that Obama's foremost argument in rounding up support in the House and Senate is a panoptic imperative: health care is too important - politically and substantively - to fail. Should the effort collapse, regaining...
...President has brought some of his current travails on himself, of course, and in some cases failed to head off the harsh squalls that have made this final stage so arduous. Most important, the President long ago lost control of the message behind his drive for health care. Now, as far as a wary and weary American public is concerned, Obama's health care endeavor means messy legislative wrangling and a frightening increase in government spending rather than necessary and overdue improvements to a system defined by inefficiency and rising costs. (See pictures from the front lines of the health...
...usual eleventh-hour incentives are off limits after the pointed backlash against a spate of clumsy sweetheart deals like the so-called Cornhusker Kickback given to Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson. That's why the reality for the Democratic Party - that they must all hang together on the health care vote or they will surely all be hung separately in the midterm elections - is at the center of the case the President is now making, both in public and (more intensely) behind the scenes...
...downplay his sway over Congress's committee process while laboring behind the scenes to keep the Hill on track in timing and substance. He knew setting public deadlines for congressional action was a necessary risk. He knew that it was vital to make deals with the for-profit health care industry (such as the pharmaceutical companies) and labor unions in order to keep them on board and defanged, despite the heated negative reaction from his critics on the left and the right. He knew the intraparty disputes over divisive issues such as abortion and immigration would require a particular finesse...