My priorities are (1) climate (2) deficit reduction and that’s it for now, unless we come up with a health care plan that reduces costs to the government and increases coverage. The Atlantic had a great cover story last month that points the way forward, using markets to reduce costs, give customers more power over their care and expand coverage. See “How American Health Care Killed My Father.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care

So President Obama’s priorities don’t make sense to me, either.

I view climate and deficit reduction as legacy issues. Ignore them and we are failing our children and grandchildren.

They are also both “investments,” a word that Democrats wildly overuse to describe any kind of spending. Dealing with climate change will have a short term cost. We’ll create “green jobs” but destroy brown ones. But over time, a more efficient and low-carbon economy will be a more prosperous one.

Similarly, moving closer to a pay-as-you-go government will increase the capital available for private investment and spur growth, which is the best way to lift people out of poverty–and, not incidentally, help more of us afford health care.

None of it will matter, though, if we don’t deal with the climate emergency.

You write:

“Put bluntly, Americans have the money; the Chinese don’t. (Our government doesn’t have the money, but that’s another story.) …………… Not to mention a moral obligation to deal with the climate threat and not leave it as a legacy for our children.”

The money issue is not another story; it is a key part of your moral obligation statement.
We can’t do everything, so choices have to be made. Here are issues that require investment with my “moral imperative to our children” ranking.

1) Fixing our structural deficit; we are on the road to the deficit being 100% of GDP in 10 -12 years. There is no greater failure to our children then this. On a practical note, our current direction won’t allow us to invest in anything, because we will be too poor.
2) Climate change
3) Expanded U.S. healthcare to a nation already blessed with health care that 95% of the world can’t dream of…….
4) Spending $100 – 200 Billion a year in our Mideast war/nation building experiment.

How would you rank these 4 items? President Obama picks health care first, war second, climate change third, and our structural deficit last. And this understates the case because he is expending 95% of his political capital on health care.
That doesn’t make sense to me.