Republicans Tag Archive
A year ago, I wrote that Republicans were putting the “bye” in bipartisanship. A commenter told me I was being premature because President Obama had only been in office a month. A year later, I bet the same commenter would now agree with me. You cannot have bipartisanship unless both parties can come together on a preponderance of disparate issues. When one side refuses to play ball, well that is clearly not bipartisanship.
Watching the “bipartisan” health care reform meeting on Thursday at Blair House was an exercise in mental torture. Even the Supreme Court would have to agree that no Gitmo inmate should be forced to listen to all eight hours or so of this “dialogue”. Watching it was kind of like hitting your head repeatedly against a brick wall. Not that President Obama did not try to lead out Republicans or ask them pragmatic and civil follow up questions. It’s just that Republicans did not have a whole lot of viable suggestions. The script was very shopworn even before the first Republican opened his mouth: start from scratch on a new health care reform bill. The only aspects of health care reform they seem willing to agree to are malpractice reform (which would affect less than one percent of health care spending) and allowing citizens in one state to get health insurance from other states. Everything else: forget about it! Cover the uninsured? Not interested. Seriously reduce the number of uninsured Americans? Not interested. As business reporter Steven Pearlstein pointed out recently in The Washington Post, based on the “discussion” at the Blair House, Republicans don’t give a crap about those too poor to have health insurance and certainly don’t want one dime of taxpayer money spent on the uninsured. In their ideal world, the uninsured would not get into the emergency room until they first brought a statement from their bank that they are credit worthy.
One of the definitions of insanity is to not learn from the same mistake. By this measure, Republicans (and this includes Conservatives and Tea Baggers) are insane. We usually deal with the insane by getting them psychotherapy or, if a menace to others, putting them in a rubber room. A clinical case could be made that the vast majority of Republicans on Capitol Hill should be in a rubber room. Because although we have tried massive tax cuts for the wealthy not once but twice and the result has been to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, Republicans are still convinced that all we need are yet more tax cuts affecting primarily the wealthy to change the situation around. In short, they are insane.
Republicans are insane on so many levels it is hard to know where to begin. Most of them deny that climate change is happening and many of them also want to abolish the EPA. This could revert the United States back to the 1960s when we had no environmental laws and polluters could pollute without restraint. They want to reduce fuel efficiency standards for cars. They actually think we can solve our dependence on foreign oil by drilling off our coastlines. The effect will of course make us more dependent on foreign oil, which will come principally from overseas and at higher and higher prices by not weaning ourselves off oil. It is just insane!
Perhaps most insane of all is that Republicans have this dichotomy about wanting to take a meat cleaver to reduce the size of government then, when asked, find it hard to find something to cut. Take a look at this 2008 American National Election Survey where self identified conservatives try to find things they would cut in federal spending. The number one thing that conservatives would like to cut is foreign aid, which accounts for less than 1 percent of our budget. Even there conservatives could not muster a majority (only 49%). Well, that certainly won’t solve the budget deficit! The next thing they most want to abolish are welfare programs. This is essentially Medicaid and food stamps, but even here, only 35% of conservatives want to do this. Presumably, 65% do not. About twenty percent want to cut funding for the war on terrorism. I assume this is the Ron Paul wing. It is clear from the chart that while tax cuts are always in season, if they were back in charge cutting the size of government would be mostly lip service, as it was under Reagan and two Bush presidencies.
But of course now these same people are in a froth because we are doing all this deficit spending. Moreover, they are deeply upset at President Obama for deficit spending money on tangible goods that we need like new bridges and road surfaces which also help to get us out of a bad recession. They prefer tax cuts and fairy dust instead. (Actually, Obama accommodated Republicans and added plenty of tax cuts in his stimulus package, including tax cuts for small business, and they are still upset.) They are telling us the government should live within its means, even during a severe economic recession. Yet, it is clear that if they were back in charge, the first thing they would do is cut taxes some more, and thereby exacerbate the budget deficit!
So why do Americans keep putting these bozos back in power? It must be because the majority of us are even dumber than Republicans, or as a nation, we suffer from ADD and cannot even remember all the debt we piled up under the last administration. Actually though the polls do not give as much comfort to Republicans as they might hope for. Americans are pissed off that divided government means that things like health care reform are not being accomplished. (By the way, Americans still strongly support health care reform, including a public option.) What is driving voters insane is the inability of politicians to find common ground at a time when it is essential. They are paying the price in house foreclosures, rising health care costs and unemployment. As much as they dislike the way Democrats are using their majorities, they like Republicans even less. Voters have a lot of visceral anger but little way to express it. Moreover, who could blame them? Obama promised change you can believe it, but a progressive president cannot necessarily turn around a deeply partisan and recalcitrant Congress. This was borne out on Thursday at the Blair House.
One thing is clear: you won’t get bipartisanship by electing Republicans. If voters want to end gridlock by voting for Republicans, they might end up breaking the gridlock but it is unlikely they will get real solutions to the problems they care about. Put Republicans back in power and for sure, you can count on more tax cuts for the privileged. You can also count on deficits that will make today’s look small. Voters would be insane to do so. Unfortunately, when you are really, really angry you are not usually thinking clearly in the first place. You are letting your emotions take control of your faculties, instead of using your brain.
If voters want bipartisanship then they have to vote for people who are running on the platform of being bipartisan. These candidates should have a track record of moderation and crossing the aisle. You certainly won’t find that in a tea bagger! Unfortunately, you are unlikely to find any such a creature nominated by the Republican Party this time around, and the odds are not much better for the Democratic Party either. With the exception of the lunatic left wing though, you can at least rest assured that the Democrats running will at least be sane. At least we have one foot firmly in reality.
February 27th, 2010 at 08:06pm
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2009 |
7 comments
Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) lampooned, “It’s going to keep snowing in D.C. until Al Gore cries ‘uncle’.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), observing the record snowfall in the Washington D.C. area wonders where Al Gore was to defend his thesis on global warming against this outrageous assault by winter. Global climate warming skeptic Jim Inhofe (R-OK) had his kids build an igloo for Al Gore on Capitol Hill and posted photos of it in Facebook.
Meanwhile, over at the Fox “News” network, Fox used the occasion of the record snowfall to also castigate Gore and those scientists documenting the unfolding global warming disaster. Naturally, some of the news that Fox “News” did not choose to air was the unnatural lack of snow in Vancouver where the Winter Olympics are underway and where the snow and refrigeration is largely manmade. Nor did they cover the lack of seasonal snow in places like Vermont, which is usually hip deep in the stuff this time of the year but has settled for ice. Nor are they devoting much airtime to the rains and subsequent mudslides in Southern California, which are exceptionally strong this year.
Back when I was studying communications in college, I learned about the phenomenon of selective perception. Most of us go through life with blinders on, perceiving what we choose to perceive and ignoring or dismissing evidence that doesn’t match our view of the world. This seems to be a reflexive human trait. Sometimes selective perception can get in our way. George Washington, our first president, essentially bled to death at the hands of his physician. At the time, bleeding someone who was ill was considered good medicine. No one was studying whether this practice was stupid or smart, but it was the conventional wisdom, such as it was. Eventually enough research was done and the practice was stopped when it was deemed counterproductive.
In the real world, we hire scientists and researchers to tell us fact from fiction because we need to infer knowledge based on evidence, not fantasy. Unfortunately, to be elected to Congress you do not have to have accreditation as a scientist or researcher, although a law degree helps. An educated American would look at the Jim Inhofes and Glenn Becks of the world and know their opinions on these matters are ill informed. Instead, particularly when it came to topics like global warming, we should be listening to people like Jane Lubchenco. You probably have no idea who Jane Lubchenco is, which is a shame. She is the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as well as a professional scientist with sterling credentials. Prior to her nomination by President Obama, she had an illustrious career and received a number of notable awards including the 8th Heinz Award in the environment in 2002. Lubchenco has not abandoned her position on the reality of global warming because of one snowstorm in the D.C. area. She would be a moron to do so.
Could it be possible that Fox News is just a wee bit biased on the whole global warming question? Could it possibly be that they are far more interested in returning Republicans to political power at any cost than they are in learning the true about global warming as a result of human activity? As if I needed more proof, this reality was driven home to me yesterday at the health club where I happened to watch Bill O’Reilly on Fox “News” redefine the term socialism. Before, it has always meant that the government controlled the means of production. In O’Reilly’s weird world, socialism is anything the government does to shift wealth from one class of Americans to another class of Americans. Clearly, O’Reilly was asleep during the lectures on socialism when he was in school. Communism attempts to make everyone live at the same socioeconomic level, not socialism. Such ignorance is appalling, particularly when the whole point of government is to redistribute wealth. If it didn’t redistribute wealth, there would be no roads, no public schools, no bridges, no military, no regulated airwaves, no assurance that our drugs would be reasonably safe, ad nauseum. If it didn’t redistribute wealth, there would be no food stamp program, which due to the bad economy now feeds one in eight Americans. These fellow Americans would be starving, but that apparently is okay in O’Reilly’s world. (O’Reilly does seem to be okay with redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich, which has been underway for years.)
In short, the people who are spouting such opinions are either delusional, have an agenda or both. If they really believe that thirty something inches of snowfall on the Washington region means there is no global warming, then they are really morons who cannot see two inches beyond their own nose. Rather than taking them seriously, the media should be laughing them off for being such fools. Meanwhile, glaciers keep melting, the Arctic sea ice recedes to lowest levels ever, mountains of evidence shows winter snow melts beginning earlier every year, tiny Pacific countries are in imminent danger of disappearing due to rising sea levels, and devastating droughts are happening both here in the United States and elsewhere. Climatologists have overwhelming evidence that these are a direct result of shifting climate patterns due to global warming.
The last time I had the flu back in 2005, I remember regularly monitoring my temperature. For much of it I had a temperature in the 102 to 103 degree range. There were other times that I took my temperature and it was normal. Then it would go back up again. The moment it reached 98.6 did I no longer have the flu? My experience suggested this was the wrong inference to draw. The same is true with large snowstorms. One large snowstorm does nothing to disprove global warming. Scientists record temperatures across the globe, look at available evidence, measure carbon emissions and carbon levels in the atmosphere and draw inferences.
In fact, our snowstorms if anything give more credence to global warming, not less because they are more extreme. What makes a snowstorm bigger? It is the amount of water vapor in the air. How to you put more water vapor in the air? Well, if the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic is warmer than it was, the atmosphere above it is capable of holding more water vapor. This is why we get hurricanes during the warm part of the year and not in the middle of the winter. If you move that body of water vapor over a part of the country that is still cold enough in the winter to generate snow, not only do you get snow but a whole lot more snow. Looking for evidence? Look at the length of the Gulf Stream this year, which extends further north than usual. Why? Well, I am not a climate scientist but it seems likely to be that if you have a warmer body of water it has more energy so it can push further north. These changes are likely causing the unusual snowfalls experienced in Great Britain and elsewhere in Northern Europe this year, where it is still cold enough to turn rain into snow, but where there is also more water vapor to turn into snow.
If you “get” global warming, I think you have a duty to get the facts out. We must vigorously challenge these global warming Luddites. If these people succeed in their agenda, not only will the planet rapidly warm up but also we will also likely be dooming ourselves as a species on this planet. Climate change will also drive human migration and competition for resources, increasing the probability of war, conflict and endangering our national security. Speak up! Do not let the sirens of ignorance get away with these outrageous claims.
February 15th, 2010 at 09:58am
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2010 |
no comments
I woke up this morning and realized I was living in the Divided States of America.
Actually, I have known this for quite a while, but in the last week or so, it has all become so very crystal clear. Like dust on the furniture so thick you cannot see the wood underneath it, I have been sort of pretending to myself that we really do not have completely dysfunctional government. You might say this morning I awoke fully from my intellectual stupor.
Here is what is clear: Republicans will put party and wacky extremist principle before their country. In fact, so will many Democrats. It’s my tribe over your tribe. Our country can go to hell for all they care, and as long as their base is happy, it does not matter. Take the latest cause for bitching: our exploding deficits. Republicans, who were happy when they were in charge to cast votes that caused the deficits in the first place, are now all about fiscal discipline. However, they are not enough about fiscal discipline to, like, actually do something about exploding deficits like maybe raise a tax or two, or simply let a tax cut expire. That might show leadership and political weakness. It’s too scaaaary for them to go there. What would their fellow tea baggers say if they actually moved toward a middle ground?
What an irony. Instead of showing courage, they are actually showing cowardice, not to mention abuse of their public office. When a nation has two wars going on, exploding deficits, ten percent unemployment and hosts of other major problems clearly it is the job of government to come together for the good of the country. At times like these, we need a government that cares more about whether the nation holds together at all, than whether a party gains or loses seats in the next election. By digging in their heals, of course, these political obfuscators only make the situation much worse and I might add much more costly. Inaction only breeds the bigger deficits about which they claim to be so upset.
Scared of rising deficits? It’s not too hard to figure out what’s driving most of them. It’s health care costs. What gives when they rise unchecked? Pretty much everything else gets short shrift, just the way your house would if you neglected the roof and invested it all in lottery tickets instead. If you don’t fix health care, everything continues to get much, much worse. So what is Congress busy doing? It’s trying to not fix health care, even though through a reconciliation process there is an obvious way to do so. Can’t do it. Too scaaaary.
It’s too scaaaary to do lots of things apparently. Too scaaaary to stop telling our military industrial complex to make lots of weaponry we don’t need. To scaaaary to raise taxes on the wealthy back to where they were when Bill Clinton was president and we enjoyed record prosperity. Change is just so darn scaaaary, at least when it requires political compromise. It’s in to be extremely partisan. It’s scaaaary to compromise.
I do give President Obama credit for trying. He was quite brave standing in front of the Congressional Republican Caucus in Baltimore last week. He could not have been more polite and respectful. He simply told Republicans that they have an obligation not just to oppose but also to find middle ground and work on behalf of all Americans. What an idea! It appears that it was not a message they wanted to hear.
It would be nice if there were any leaders in Congress willing to move toward the middle, but it’s hard to see where they will come from because to lead you necessarily take risk. The “leadership” got where it is primarily by moving toward the extreme and eschewing political compromise. What we need is someone with a very firm paddle to move these recalcitrant assholes. They are not leaders. They are pathetic whiners too busy covering their backs to care about the country they claim to love.
It sure would be nice just to hear a tad bit of honesty from these weasels. A mea culpa would be nice. How about this for a start: “You know what? At the time we passed those enormous tax cuts, they seemed like a good idea. They were a mistake. A big mistake. I regret with my whole heart voting for them because they caused this fiscal mess we are in right now. I also regret my vote for the Iraq War. What a waste of money and precious American lives! I cannot undo those votes, but I can vow to do what is right for my country from now on. I will vote to let those tax cuts expire as my contribution to helping reduce our $1.3 trillion dollar deficit. Moreover, I will work with my colleagues from the other side of the aisle to find some middle ground to solve many of our other pressing problems, like health care reform. It’s going to hurt, but I will give a little. In return, I expect the other side to give a little too. It may cost me my party’s nomination, but this time I really will act in the best interest of the American people as a whole, not for my political base. I know this process will be imperfect, but it will be better than the mess we have now. I will not contribute toward anymore of it.”
Gosh, I would vote for someone like this if he (or she) were sincere and actually followed through, even if they were a Republican. It’s not being mavericky, it’s being a statesman. It’s called doing your fucking job.
I would like to see the leadership on both sides of Congress come out with statements like these where they honestly acknowledge their mistakes, pledge to end the pointless finger pointing and pledge to do their jobs. I would like to see the leadership arm-twist their whips and committee chairmen into following along. If necessary, I would like to put the leadership of Congress and the White House in a room with nothing but Dominoes pizzas slipped under the door until they find middle ground. Moreover, I would not let them see their spouses or their children until we have a health care bill that contains costs and covers all the uninsured, a jobs program that puts people back to work doing meaningful work and a climate bill that actually shows Americans want to join the rest of the world in surviving as a species.
Then perhaps we ordinary Americans could feel hopeful again. Most likely we would be so thrilled to see government work again, we would reward those who showed the courage to compromise. In fact, mine is a fool’s hope. Instead, our political parties appear to favor dismantling our country piece by piece than compromise on anything. And so we sink further into the muck, sinking in part because we keep throwing more muck on each other. At some point in our not too distant future, the U.S.A. is nothing will be nothing but an ugly mud pit, fit only for the partisan pigs who brought it down.
As for the rest of us ordinary citizens, we sure would like to have a government that works for us again. Unfortunately, there is no place that three hundred million of us can emigrate to in order to get it.
February 2nd, 2010 at 09:26pm
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2010 |
no comments
In case you haven’t heard, not only does Massachusetts have a new senator-elect, but Virginia has a new Governor. Bob McDonnell, your typical grey haired white Republican male with a toothy smile and a blonde arm candy wife was sworn in a week ago. He won election by promising no new taxes (a position few find hard to argue with) but also by promising all these new services. Yes, he has a four billion dollar budget hole to fill, but somehow he’s going to cut spending and add services. This includes increasing funds to the Virginia Department of Transportation, which is already decades behind where it needs to be in providing sufficient roads to handle Virginia’s burgeoning population.
Good luck with that, Governor McDonnell. Not that I am wishing you any bad luck or anything, but you are hardly the first governor, Republican or Democratic, to promise all these magical new services without raising any additional taxes. In a way, it’s an easy promise to make. After all, you don’t have to worry about reelection. Virginia governors can only serve one term.
I guess it wouldn’t work to tell voters the truth: that state services, already cut to the bone, have zero fat in them already. To close the four billion dollar gap outgoing Governor Tim Kaine outlined, most residents are going to squeal when they see what it actually means. Virginia’s total budget is around $38 billion, so $4 billion is hardly a drop in the bucket and amounts to about ten percent of the budget. I doesn’t take an accountant to figure out that if you are not going to raise taxes, you are going to add services and you already have a large projected deficit, then you are going to have to further cut services somewhere. You already promised to give more money to transportation and increase the portion of state money given to fund teacher salaries. The only problem is that both the easy and the hard cuts were made years ago.
How crazy has it gotten? The last cut to VDOT budget was $42 million from the road maintenance fund. How much is Fairfax County getting from the state for road maintenance this year? Zero dollars. That’s right, despite being the most prosperous county in the state as well as providing more tax revenue to the state than any other county as well as tons of revenue in gas taxes which is supposed to go for things like highway maintenance, we will get zero dollars for maintenance. So either we just let the potholes get bigger or we raise county taxes to pay to fix potholes which hitherto has been at least partially a state responsibility.
Now as a frequent driver, I’m all for changing this, so I think it’s great that our new governor is going to add to VDOT’s funding but I just don’t see where the money is going to come from. Education, health and human services, and transportation, in that order, are the biggest consumers of state tax dollars. It doesn’t look like education will be cut, unless it is subsidies to state universities, which have already been dramatically reduced and have students howling over their tuition rate increases. You say that transportation will get more funding which leaves human services as a likely place to use your budget knife. These services of course have already been pared to the bone. It’s hard to see how you reduce spending more there. It’s not like Medicaid is optional. It’s a nice gesture that you and your senior staff are going to be taking pay cuts, but that’s all it is and will do almost nothing to address a four billion dollar shortfall.
As best I can tell, you are pinning your hopes on two scenarios. One: the overall economy will improve to the point where more tax revenues come in. I would not take that one to the bank at least for a year or two. The other is your hope to sell oil leases off Virginia’s coast in 2011 and using some of that money to fund the state budget. I’d say the odds are pretty long there too. First, you have to get the federal government to agree to do this. Second, you have to hope that oil companies will be willing to front the money. Lastly, you are assuming that environmentalists won’t tangle this up in the courts for years.
So good luck governor but as Virginia is not licensed to print money, it’s pretty easy to see what’s going to give. Since you promised not to raise any taxes, it likely means that our overstretched state services are going to be more overstretched, which is to say the state will have to stop doing stuff that states typically do and we’re already pretty much giving up on road maintenance. I think it is much more likely that you will find reason to consolidate prisons and let non-violent prisoners out early in an attempt to make your budget math work. You just have to hope Virginia voters do not notice. As costly as prisons are, you still won’t be able to cough up four billion dollars in savings from them.
One promise I can make is that when you leave office in four years we will be lucky if our transportation funding is where it is now and our public school teachers do not have an extra four or five pupils in their classes. As for my fellow Virginians, shame on us for falling for these lies once again. Just once, I’d like to hear a Republican run for office promising no lower taxes and fewer services because that’s what it always means. Virginians would be well advised to buy extra heavy-duty shock absorbers for our cars. There will be many bumpy days ahead.
January 24th, 2010 at 07:35pm
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2010 |
no comments
If Democrats are a bunch bleeding heart, do-good tree huggers (which sadly, we are not), it is clear that modern Republicans are pretty much the opposite. They may put on great smiles, but underneath that plastic veneer are a whole lot of seriously hurting and angry people who basically are sadists.
In case you are not familiar with the term, sadists take pleasure in the infliction of mental and emotional pain on others. Being sadistic is not considered a virtue; it is considered a mental illness. Strangely, particularly in our bizarre modern times, Republicans do consider sadism virtuous. It is witnessed by the preponderance of Republicans and conservatives who were all for waterboarding and other forms of torture in our War on Terror.
In fact, some of the leading sadists come out of the conservative Christian community. Have you noticed? Yeah, it puzzles me too. I always thought Christians were for the poor and oppressed and wanted to relieve misery. Just a few of the Christian dominated conservative organizations that are opposed to health care reform include the Southern Baptist Convention, the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, the Freedom Federation and American Values. The consequences of no health care reform are inescapable: health care will become more and more unaffordable, putting more people into misery, poverty and early death, and principally those near the bottom of the income scale. When you advocate policies that hurt and make miserable people you do not know or like, you are being sadistic.
The thing is most sadists enjoy inflicting pain and misery only on people they know personally. Republicans are taking it national, to people they don’t really know and in many cases just imagine. Take ultra-conservative TV show host Glenn Beck. Before he joined Fox “News” he worked for a radio station, B104 in Baltimore. What is more, Beck admits he was a sadist.
Today, when Beck wants to illustrate the jerk he used to be, he tells the story of the time he fired an employee for bringing him the wrong pen during a promotional event. According to former colleagues in Baltimore, Beck didn’t just fire people in fits of rage — he fired them slowly and publicly. “He used to take people to a bar and sit them down and just humiliate them in public. He was a sadist, the kind of guy who rips wings off of flies,” remembers a colleague.
Now that his audience is national, he appears to be in remission. In case you missed it, among Beck’s latest sadistic antics was this one where at first he appeared to boil a live frog.
As I noted back in 2007, Fox “News” commentator Bill O’Reilly is a bully with sadistic tendencies. He also has an explosive temper, both on and off the air. Yet in conservative circles, sadistic tendencies are now a virtue which might get you into their Hall of Fame. Sadistic tendencies show you are serious, just like Hitler was dead serious about ridding the world of the Jews. Indeed, Beck is rising in the public spotlight based on his sadistic notoriety. It’s like conservatives on TV and radio are holding a contest to see who can be the most sadistic and outrageous.
Fueling the sadism of course is anger, anger that must be expressed. When it is expressed in creative ways, such as pretending to boil a live frog, it gets publicity and weird interviews with Katie Couric. Even people who are not sadistic by nature might be drawn to watch Bill O’Reilly or Glenn Beck just to see what crazy sadistic antics they try on a particular day. (I am betting most of these people also watch TV reality shows.) While they are watching, of course, they will get plenty of propaganda. Their hope is that these viewers will make a regular habit watching them and, perhaps in time, enter the black and white world of the Dittoheads.
Perhaps it was Ronald Reagan who most recently started the whole mess, although clearly the underpinnings of this movement go back well before the rise of the John Birch Society. When Reagan first ran for president in 1976, he railed against welfare queens who he was sure were living the high life on the public dole. There was virtually no basis in fact for these allegations, but it made for an easy piñata that conservatives could bash. Given how miserable the economy was doing at the time, alleged welfare queens also made an easy target to advance a larger power agenda.
What was really needed in 1976, and is needed today in our sour economy, was some perspective. In 1976, anger against welfare queens was not the real issue; it was our rampant inflation instead. Our country was rapidly changing for the worse in a new global economy that we were not ready for. Today, the welfare queen may have been replaced with illegal immigrants clogging our emergency rooms, or illusory death panels of government bureaucrats, but their anger is real enough. When you feel angry inside, at some point you have to express the anger, at least you do if you have a short fuse. Naturally, the last place you will look for the source are some defects inside yourself. I am sure this anger has nothing to do with the way their Dads were so liberal with the use of the belt on their backsides.
So just why are conservatives so angry with Democrats in general and Barack Obama in particular? Is it just racist feelings that explain their hatred of all things Obama? That is certainly part of the unstated animus, but only a small part of it. What really gets conservatives riled up is the unacknowledged fear that we have an administration and Congress that just might actually solve a couple of these chronic problems that people really care about. (As I pointed out in my last post, I am not particularly hopeful that Democrats will succeed.) After all, should Americans choose a government run plan over private insurance, and should it be fashioned like Medicare, they might like minor conveniences like not having to hassle with paperwork and knowing that they might be able to afford to be sick. Moreover, that might mean they would want more policies like these, and more Democrats voted into office. Eventually Republicans might devolve into a wholly inchoate bunch.
The truth is, Republicans today pretty much are an inchoate bunch but they are making a hell of a lot of noise. Hurricanes are very loud too and leave a lot of devastation in their wake. When you go from welfare queens, who just might possibly exist in some weird and exceptional case, to government sanctioned death panels trying to kill grandma, it is clear that people like Sarah Palin are not playing with a full deck. The best you can say for them is that their sense of rage has temporarily overtaken their ability to reason based on the known facts. The worst you can say is that they are loose cannons. The last thing you want to do is put one of these impulsive people on the deck of the ship of state. The next thing you know they will be worrying their next-door neighbors are Martians because their next-door neighbor looks like Uncle Martin Martin from My Favorite Martian. This would mean, of course, given their tortured logic, that America is covertly up to its armpits in Martians, and, by the way, Martians look upon us the same way we look upon a juicy steak.
Seriously, if anyone needs health care reform, Republicans need it, and make sure it includes mental health benefits. Many of these folks can no longer discern reality from fantasy. Their world is apparently one full of endless subterfuge where someone is always out to get them or some member of their clan. Perhaps if there is some intelligence behind their hatred of health care reform, it is their hope that by maintaining the status quo we will end up with a nation of paranoid village idiots, just like them. When everyone is pointlessly paranoid, just like them, then perhaps they can relax a bit. Somehow, I doubt that will calm their restless souls.
I know that if I were Glenn Beck’s physician, I would be writing him a prescription for Valium and when he is calm enough send him to a good head shrinker. Chances are he will in there a long time.
September 26th, 2009 at 08:03pm
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2009, Sociology |
one comment
I suspect that it was mostly us political junkies who watched President Obama’s speech before a joint session of Congress last night. My wife cares very much about health care reform, but not enough, apparently, to watch the speech with me. It was one of Obama’s better speeches, but it should have been delivered months ago. His administration has been floundering trying to master the health care reform debate and the speech was a belated attempt to regain control of the debate. For such an important initiative, it required better marketing effort than it has so far received.
Granted, Obama has had a few distractions to deal with, like fixing our tanking economy. It appears that our recession is over, but to the unemployed, whose ranks are likely to continue to swell in the months ahead, this is meaningless. Health care reform appears to be in part a victim of an administration trying to do too much at once. It is also the victim of learning too many lessons from the failure of health care reform during the Clinton Administration. Certain those dynamics are still in play, they appear to have floundered responding forcefully to the new dynamics of the debate. With luck, Obama’s speech at least changed the dynamics.
South Carolina Republican Congressman Joe Wilson certainly made a name of himself by heckling Obama during the speech. When Obama said accusations that reform would cover illegal immigrants was false, Wilson stood up in the middle of a joint session and called the president a liar. He has subsequently apologized for the incident, although it sounded halfhearted. While he agrees he acted disrespectfully, he still believes that health care reform proposals will indeed cover illegal immigrants, even though this is demonstrably false.
As Wilson demonstrates, Republicans seem to state as fact what could happen rather than what is actually being proposed. Using the “could” argument, of course, anything is possible. A subsequent Congress could explicitly decide to cover illegal immigrants so there you go, it must be true. In the minds of many Republicans, because anything is possible in the future, this means that Democrats are actively planning to make it so. There is a word for this sort of behavior: paranoia. Sometimes paranoia is justifiable. When paranoia extends to acts that are only imagined but have no basis in fact, one of two things is going on. In the case of Joe Wilson, it suggests a psychosis. Wilson could probably use some therapy, including anger management therapy. Most Republicans in Congress though are too smart to be psychotic. Which means that when they spew garbage like these imaginary death panels they are simply lying. Obama was correct to call those spewing these lies what they are: liars.
Wilson apparently transgressed the line of propriety by expressing his opinion during a joint session of Congress. However, being a politician means that you are free to lie the rest of the time, unless you are under oath. The only thing that really matters is whether voters will hold you accountable for your lies. The odds are stacked in an incumbent’s favor, but in the egregious case of Joe Wilson, perhaps not. His outburst spurred many contributions to his likely opposition candidate in 2010.
It may be late in the game, but maybe Democrats should to respond with a weapon similar to the one launched on them. Such a strategy may be hard to swallow, since it is so disingenuous, but it has proven remarkable effective for the Republicans. After all, if Republicans are going to charge as truth things that could happen, why should not Democrats and the Administration feel free to do the same? Of course, it would have the effect of burning bridges with the Republicans, but heck, Republicans have already burnt the bridges! What is the point of reconstructing the bridge of bipartisanship on the Democratic side if the Republicans are unwilling to also reconstruct their side? As I noted recently, bipartisanship is now perceived as for losers.
Perhaps it is time to marshal forces like MoveOn.org in a deliberate disinformation campaign. What would it look like? Here are some lies that, like the Republican lies, could be true, if not now then in Democrats’ imaginations but based on not wholly unreasonable inferences:
- The Republican Party has a master plan to destroy Medicare and Medicaid.
- Republicans hate poor people and want them to die young. Their opposition to health care reform is all about killing these Democrats to create a new Republican majority.
- Republicans also want to destroy the Social Security system because they see it as just more socialism.
- Republicans hate all but wealthy senior citizens. They want to destroy Medicare so their access to high quality care is unrestrained. If this means that other seniors die prematurely, that’s okay.
- Republicans are racists who want to deport African Americans back to Africa and send all Hispanics back to their native countries.
Like Republican lies such as the death panel lie, these lies sound a bit crazy, but not so crazy to not have a whiff of believability to them. For example, it is easy to find quotes by Glenn Beck or Pat Buchanan suggesting they are racists. It is also easy to find far-right members of Congress, like Ron Paul, who really are in favor of getting rid of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The reason a smear so often works is because you really only need one egregious example to infer the truth about an entire class. In this sense, these lies are more credible than those Republicans have uttered. Since Republican lies have proven good at putting Democrats on the defensive, it is likely these lies would stick like superglue to Republicans. After all, their recent stints in power have left them with little credibility and their approval numbers are in the gutter. Moreover, the lies would keep Republicans busy explaining why the lies are not true, essentially taking the wind from their sails, as their lies did to Democrats at many town halls this summer.
In reality, it is not Republicans whose votes are needed. They will be opposed to it, no matter how much Obama and Democrats try to sweeten it for them. It is Democrats, particularly those Democrats that represent rather conservative districts and states, who are scared. I see it here in Virginia, a purple state. Senator Jim Webb is calling for more time for discussion and debate on health care reform, as if the last fifteen years have not been enough. Senator Mark Warner is being cautious and hedgy, and in particular seems to be backing away from supporting a public option.
Outspoken citizens at town halls are disproportionately influencing both senators. Numerous polls, such as this New York Time poll, show that the public option is strongly supported by a majority of Americans. Democrats have to summon the nerve to vote the will of their constituents. If they do, they will be rewarded by reelection because they will be seen as working for their constituents for a change. However, capitulation to a loud minority will only help ensure that Democrats reenter minority party status far sooner than need be.
September 10th, 2009 at 05:17pm
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2009 |
no comments
My two weeks out west on vacation were great. While I love the extra oxygen we have here in the lower altitudes on the East Coast, I do not particularly welcome the return of hazy, hot and humid, which passes for normal summer weather around here.
Nor did I particularly welcome the stack of unpaid bills, many of them large co-pays from various specialists for various procedures for my wife and I. My co-pay to have a varicose vein cauterized was $490.30. Still, at least I am insured. Anthem BC/BS paid the doctor another $3,268.71. The list price for the procedure was $4,843.00. Bear in mind the procedure was done out patient and including time in the waiting room took no more than two and a half hours. I was sedated but awake through the whole procedure.
Wednesday afternoon while I was still recuperating from the jet lag, I went in for a second procedure, this one taking about an hour longer. I expect I will pay at least another $490.30 co-pay for this procedure too. I hope that as a result the pressure will ease on the nerves in my right foot, although there is no guarantee.
While I sat in the waiting room, a working class man shuffled into the office. He did not have insurance and inquired on how much it would cost for a consultation. The fee was $475. Yes, it would cost $475 just to find out how bad his varicose vein problems were and to determine a treatment plan. If he requires surgery similar to mine, he can look forward to $10,000 or more of out of pocket costs to address them. As a self-employed individual, he is priced out of the health care market. His best hope is to work out a payment schedule with the doctor. Since he is not insured, it is likely that he is looking at years of payments to deal with his vein problems, assuming the doctor decides his credit is good enough to go ahead with the surgery, and assuming he can convince his wallet to go ahead with the work. With luck at age 39, this is his only major medical problem. What is clear is that like millions of uninsured Americans, he is playing health care roulette.
According to Republicans, he must be protected from socialized medicine at all costs. While he clearly cannot afford health insurance, according to Republicans he is better with no health insurance reform. In particular, Republicans, who are so much about “choice”, want to deny him the option of belonging to a public plan, perhaps similar to Medicare. For that would be “socialized” medicine, which must be bad, although would be perfectly acceptable if he were 65 instead of 39 and thus eligible for Medicare. We know the public option is bad because so many disgruntled Americans are shouting down speakers who say otherwise at community forums. According to Republicans, Americans will be better off, more solvent and presumably healthier if uninsured people like this man remain uninsured.
The disinformation campaign is working to some extent. P.T. Barnum famously told us a sucker is born every minute. Americans seem to revel in their ignorance.
About 11 percent of young citizens of the U.S. couldn’t even locate the U.S. on a map. The Pacific Ocean’s location was a mystery to 29 percent; Japan, to 58 percent; France, to 65 percent; and the United Kingdom, to 69 percent.
With such widespread geographic illiteracy, it is not surprising that well-funded campaigns financed primarily by insurance companies who are benefiting handsomely from the status quo are succeeding in convincing many Americans to act against their own interest. It is like we are living the novel 1984: Ignorance is Strength!
Republicans have proven adept at exploiting America’s ignorance and paranoid tendencies and seem to have no problem with bald-faced lying. The “problem” with Democrats is they seem incapable of the same disgusting behavior. Perhaps this is nowhere more evident than in shameless and bogus claims that health care reform will mean government-sanctioned “death panels” that will determine whether you live or die.
What one bill proposes is that Medicare will reimburse your doctor if you are in Medicare (i.e. age 65 and above) and choose to meet with him or her to discuss end of life care alternatives, such as whether you would like to be placed in a hospice toward the end of your life or should get a living will. This is certainly not a death panel, and such sessions are not even required. The patient chooses. If this is a government death panel then apparently our doctors are going to be secretly inducted into the civil service and given strict marching orders. It is such a mind-bogglingly false claim that it is amazing that anyone with two brain cells would believe it. Nevertheless, this is America, and our paranoia is always close to the surface. Thanks to Republicans, we are conditioned to believe the ridiculous. After all a plurality of Americans (45%) believe the earth was created by God no more than 10,000 years ago.
News flash: we already have medical death panels that effectively determine whether you live or die. We would be fortunate if the government was deciding, then we might have some say in it. Instead, the insurance companies often decide whether you live or die. If you don’t believe me and are insured, simply take the time to read the fine print of your health insurance contract to find out what conditions they will not cover. If your particular condition is not covered, assuming they do not unilaterally drop you as a client, you have two choices. If you are independently wealthy, you can pay for these other treatments out of your pocket. Alternatively, you can sell pretty much everything you own until you are nearly destitute and hope that the socialized medical system called Medicaid will cover the treatment you need.
It is legitimate to question the cost of a new national health insurance program. It is not legitimate to focus the debate on spurious and bogus claims that are simply bald-faced lies, like these imaginary government death panels. Other bogus claims: that illegal aliens will get health insurance, that federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and that you will be required to sign up for a government health care plan. It’s a public option, not a public requirement.
What you will likely get from any bill that the president signs is the right to be insured by any insurance company licensed in your community, including a nationwide government plan if you prefer or if no insurance companies are available in your area, regardless of your preexisting conditions and with no fear of being dropped because your conditions have become too expensive. What you will also get is the ability to buy into any plan offered, including a government plan if you choose. If you are poor or have modest means, most bills would subsidize the cost of your insurance for a period. In short, you are much more likely to be able to be insured and more likely to stay insured. Logically, this should trickle down to those of us who are lucky enough to be insured now. For our premiums are already marked up to cover the cost of the uninsured clogging our emergency rooms.
I am sorry, but if you really believe that the government is getting ready to set up death panels for grandma, you are dumber than a box of rocks. Please send me your name and address so I can invite you to purchase some fine land that sits in the middle of Lake Okeechobee. Moreover, if by shouting down other voices at these rallies you succeed in stopping health insurance reform, you and millions of others who desperately need insurance will needlessly reap the foul results of your ignorance and rank stupidity. Instead of the government you need, you will get the government you deserve.
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:27am
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2009 |
no comments
There are few things more American than the right to make an ass of yourself. Perhaps it is the swine flu but lately it seems like the Republican Party is being gripped by a form of insanity. It must be a fever because what else could explain such delusional thinking of late? Substantial numbers of Republicans actually believe that Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen, but was born in Kenya. Then there are these orchestrated protests at town halls being given by our congressional representatives and senators that seem to be attracting large numbers of orchestrated lunatics. It is one thing to be opposed to health care reform and to speak up in a civil manner. It is quite another thing to show up at these events, recite inanities if not outright falsehoods about health care reform and basically try to prohibit even a discussion on the topic from taking place. The National Republican Committee seems to be behind these protests, but they are also being whipped up by prominent conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck too.
What is really going on here? What is happening is that America’s demographics are changing to the point where their impact is being acutely felt. What is really very scary to these protestors is that white privilege is losing its grip on America. For years the demographics of America have been trending less white and more multicultural. America witnessed a watershed moment with the election of Barack Obama. In the minds of most of these protestors, having an African American as president was insulting enough. It was just as insulting that Barack Obama would also try to rapidly enact the exact reforms on which he campaigned.
The opposition, as it always does, tries to push back. What is unique this time is the extraordinary lengths this group is going to in order to get attention. Obviously these people have been seething since the election. When a balloon pops, it pops at its weakest point. Today we see that when these feelings become overwhelming, they are articulated by their loosest cannons on the GOP ship of state.
Do not assume though that these loose cannons are rolling around the deck because their pins rusted out. The crew (in this case the National Republican Committee and prominent conservative commentators) has been actively working to pull out their pins. They do so deliberately because they know that talk has its limits and to effect change it must be followed by actions. These tactics seem to be working to some extent. People whose support for Obama was tentative to begin with might be persuaded to believe the incredible about him if sufficient numbers of their neighbors say so, particularly in a bad economy. Similarly, much of the disinformation about national health care reform feeds into general American paranoia about Washington and its surreptitious motives.
The general thrust of all these actions is arguably quite conservative. Conservatives by their nature do not welcome change. They resist change. Conservatives are used to a power structure where white men hold most of the political power. It is as American in their minds as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. However, when you run out of convincing arguments and when the American people are generally not behind you, then in their mind some extreme tactics are required. Playing by the rules simply means they will become further marginalized. Go on the offensive using bizarre and unworldly tactics and at least you have attention and can attempt to direct the conversation. Trying to do so in gentlemanly conversations in Congress does not change the dynamics.
The attempt will likely prove futile. At best it may prove effective in the short term, but it will not prove effective in the long term. While there is an excitable minority that believes in conspiracy theories, most of us have brains that are more firmly attached to reality. For those of us who inhabit the real world, the silly belief that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and is thus a “false” president, is laughable and ludicrous. It amazes us that anyone other than the tiniest fraction of the weirdoes could possibly believe something proven so demonstrably false.
Similarly, we wonder what these people are smoking when they worry about socialized medicine. We already have Medicare and Medicaid. Many of the people squawking the loudest are already receiving Medicare and would be unable to pay for their own medical care if it disappeared. Many of these same people choose to remain blissfully mindless that health insurance companies already effectively decide who lives and dies by deciding which treatments they will or will not cover. The only way to make sure that insurance companies will not deny necessary coverage is to have the law require universal coverage. In any event, America is a democracy. Who would you rather make this crucial decision, a representative democracy where at least you could petition for changes or an unelected insurance company accountable only to their stockholders?
America’s changing demographics is a trend that cannot be changed. America is already very multiracial. The biggest change is that changing is that the era of white male privilege is going away, and it is being noticed in the form of “scary” things like Hispanic Supreme Court justices, African American presidents and new policies that include audacious notions like health insurance companies shouldn’t be able to pick and choose who they cover. This is a privilege, by the way, that has been enjoyed by members of Congress and federal employees for decades with no complaints. No member of Congress, even the conservative Republican ones, is anxious to change their Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan so they could be excluded from coverage because of their preexisting conditions. Regardless of what happens to other Americans, they will give up their FEHBP coverage shortly after their cold dead fingers are pried off their guns.
The sad reality is that protestors trying to crash town hall meetings on health care or who push crazy ideas like Obama was not born in the United States are being manipulated by people who really do not have their best interest at heart. Except for the self made millionaires attending these rallies, attempts to avoid health insurance reform simply mean these very people are likely to be excluded for their own preconditions, if they have not been already. Moreover, they will likely soon be priced out of the health insurance market altogether as premiums continue to rise beyond their ability to pay for them.
August 7th, 2009 at 05:26pm
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2009 |
no comments
The Republican Party could save a lot of time if they would just come out and admit it: they hate people not like themselves. They sure do not like Democrats, which is understandable, but they really loathe the poor. They actually seem to relish the fact that the ranks of the poor keep swelling. They seem to enjoy seeing them miserable.
It is clear Republicans figure that poor people do not deserve health insurance. To paraphrase the musical The Music Man, their message to the poor is, “You can have all the health insurance that you can afford buy for yourself.” The minor fact that if you are poor you may not even be able to afford to keep a roof over your head, let along pay hundreds of dollars a month in health insurance premiums, clearly doesn’t faze them at all. If they cannot afford to health insurance, then screw ‘em. It’s their own damn fault for being poor and all.
In rural Virginia last weekend, thousands of poor people lined up days in advance to get free health care at an annual clinic held at the Wise County Fairgrounds. They cannot afford health insurance. Preventative health care? This is as close as it comes for these people, assuming they are lucky enough to be seen at all. In many cases this “care” is more reactive than preventative. One woman reports that a visit last year saved her life.
“They done an ultrasound and told me that my gallbladder was enlarged and was ready to burst and it could kill me,” Miller recalls. “They told me if I hadn’t got help when I did, literally I could have died.”
Forty seven million uninsured Americans, roughly fifteen percent of the population, are priced out of the health care market. The number goes up every month as more people lose or can no longer afford health insurance. Even if you are employed, it is hard to maintain health insurance when premiums keep climbing at two or three times the rate of inflation. With nothing to change the dynamic, this simply means that more people will become priced out of health care every year.
And the Republican Party’s response? Kill any attempt to reform health care! They figure this will undercut President Obama and help them get back into power. It sure will not make them any more popular with the swelling ranks of the uninsured. But that doesn’t matter, you see, because this is all about principle. “Socialized medicine” is bad. You can tell it’s bad because of the excellent health insurance “system” we have right now, the best in the world, they claim. Surely, we don’t want to change such a perfect system? Anyhow, doing so would violate their free market principles. Apparently violating free market principles is not a sin when it comes to, say, crop subsidies, but it sure is when it comes to health insurance. Instead, it is much better if we all continue to engage in a Darwinian struggle for health care. The well insured or deeply moneyed get to rise to the top of the heap. If lack of affordable health care means that the poor die young and disproportionately, well, to quote Ebenezer Scrooge, “if they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
Many of these same people are all about protecting the sanctity of life at all costs, providing, of course, that no portion of their taxes goes to support anyone once they are born.
My wife is a friend of two lesbians, Nancy and Annie, who live in the Amish country in Lanchester County, Pennsylvania. The two women have been partners for a quarter of a century and would be married if they could but, of course, Pennsylvania does not allow gay marriage. Both women are incredibly impoverished. They live in a house built in the 19th century that should be condemned. Annie has a terrible case of adult diabetes. Because she is disabled, her health insurance is Medicaid. Her “free” socialized medical care of course leaves much to be desired but is much better than Nancy’s. Nancy has no health insurance at all. She feels lucky to have a job. Over the years, she has spent many anxious months unemployed and trying not to be thrown out on the street. She is currently working two part time jobs, neither of which allows her to purchase health insurance. Even if she had the option, the premium would likely be way above her reach.
Nancy’s health care plan is to trust to luck and when necessary visit the emergency room and plead indigence. Of course by then any condition she has is very chronic. She recently spent two weeks in the hospital. Because she had no insurance and could not afford to see a dentist, she developed an abscessed tooth. The infection spread to her lymph nodes, which swelled grotesquely and caused a lung to collapse. She spent two weeks in the hospital and is fortunate to be alive. She could not afford to pay her hospital bill of course, so it was passed on in the form of higher premiums to those patients with insurance. Meanwhile, she was unable to care for her nearly immobile partner. My wife was one of a handful of friends who tried to care for her partner while she was in the hospital, driving three hours each way.
This is “the world’s best health care system” that Republicans want to keep. Even if not perfect, this “system” must be far better than this scary thing called “socialized medicine”. You know how bad socialized medicine is because Medicare is “socialized medicine”, which means retirees must hate it, right? Well, no. In fact, seniors give Medicare high marks. The fact that someone pays the bills of the uninsured, and that someone is effectively those of us who are insured, is not socialized medicine, so it must be okay. Reality rolls over them like water off a duck’s back. It is far more important that they can see the doctor they want at a time of their convenience because they have money and are insured. Those others do not deserve the same privilege because they cannot afford it, so screw ‘em. They try to scare us with stories about the evils of socialized medicine in Canada yet put up blinders at the millions of stories of like my wife’s friends that happen every day in this country.
The truth is that if we modeled the Canadian health care system in the United States the vast majority of us would get better health care than we do now and we would pay much less for it. Moreover, we would not be worrying about being dropped for a preexisting condition, or whether we can afford the co-pay, or whether we can afford to get a regular checkup. Wondering if we could afford to be sick would be one less thing to worry about.
The unreasonable ideology on health care reform is unnecessarily killing and bankrupting us. This must change. However, it will not happen on its own. We must do more to make this change happen. I suggest you do what I did this weekend. Write a letter to your senators telling them about the importance of real health care reform, or better yet call them up on the phone. Tell them they must vote for real health care reform that includes a public option. Tell them you will vote them out of office in the next election if they do not. Insurance reform, the “compromise” that seems to be emerging in the Senate, does nothing to ensure that health insurance will be affordable. Nor will it do anything to constrain its costs.
We need a public-plan to help hold the insurance companies feet to the fire. We also need a public plan to make sure some health insurance plan will always be there. The government must be the insurer of last resort. Your life and mine may depend on it.
July 29th, 2009 at 07:46pm
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2009 |
one comment
Newspapers and TV channels are busy writing stories about President Obama’s first hundred days in office. Were they a success? That depends on the tint of your lenses but most Americans would agree, “Hell yeah!” This is remarkable in itself because the economic news for those first hundred days has been dismal and there are only hints that it will improve in the months ahead. Nonetheless, when asked about President Obama’s performance so far, about 68% of Americans give thumbs up. Not only do Americans approve of President Obama’s performance so far by wide margins, about eighty percent also like him as a person. Really, what’s not to like? He’s got it all: charisma, a sunny smile, a low key manner, poise, manners, a trim and muscular body, good looks, two cute kids, a wonderful wife, a Portuguese water dog and (in marked contrast to his predecessor) a brain.
You do not even really have to like the guy to feel the ship of state quickly changing course toward smoother waters. This is happening because Obama knows the levers to pull to actually make it happen. He promised change and thanks to his expanded Democratic Congress, he is quickly delivering. Gitmo is closing along with those overseas CIA black sites where prisoners unknown were probably tortured. As for torture itself: banned. In addition, the Bush Administration’s torture memos have also finally see the light of day. Obama has ordered troop levels increased by 17,000 in Afghanistan. In Iraq, he has given the military instruction to remove all combat forces by August 2010. He shook hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and made overtures to hold talks with Iranian leaders. Cuban Americans can now legally travel to Cuba to see their families.
Domestically, Obama convinced Congress to pass a $787 billion stimulus bill which among doing vital things like fixing our deteriorating infrastructure and moving us to a cleaner energy future also provides extended unemployment benefits to those who were running out of them. He signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act, making it easier for women to collect for past job discrimination. Many of the Bush Administration’s most egregious environmental regulations have been rescinded, including those ones that allowed mountaintop refuse to pollute Appalachian streams or mining in The Grand Canyon. He also convinced Congress to pass the largest tax cut for the middle class in history: $282 billion. Not bad for the first hundred days.
Republicans have a point on his record deficits, but offered no viable solution of their own on how to change the economic situation. In any event, Americans generally sense that Obama is a different sort of president, mindful that he cannot throw borrowed money against our problems forever, but also smart enough to know there are times like today when it is actually the smart thing to do.
A hundred days is just a number. You can be certain if the houses of Congress were divided, his successes would be much smaller. Myriad problems and issues lie ahead, like his promise to provide health insurance for all Americans. However, under a budget reconciliation agreement, the Senate cannot filibuster its health care proposal, meaning it is likely to happen more to his liking, and sooner rather than later. Not that it would have mattered now anyhow. Yesterday, on Day 99, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter found it politically convenient to become a Democrat. At this point even Norm Coleman realizes that his appeals will be for naught and that Al Franken will eventually become Minnesota’s second Democratic senator. That means Democrats will reach the magic 60 votes needed to prevent Republican filibusters assuming, as is always dubious with Democrats, that none cross the aisle.
Meanwhile, the Republican Party seems determined to implode. It is like they want to be politically irrelevant. Democrats held their nose and let Senator Liebermann caucus with them when he won reelection as an Independent in 2006. They pragmatically decided doing so just increased their share of committee seats and power is what the game is all about in Congress. When Senator Arlen Specter switched parties yesterday, some Republicans like Rush Limbaugh felt compelled to kick him on the rear on his way out the door. The message is clear: rather than be a “big tent” party, The Republican Party wants to become even more insular and actually enjoys being mean and nasty.
How Republicans can possibly become politically relevant again while maintaining these attitudes is unclear at best. There does not appear to be a new set of Americans waiting out there for which this message has any appeal. They don’t understand why Republicans have to be both insular and obstructionist. They want politicians to actually solve problems. Since The Republican Party is now essentially The Conservative Party, their only answer to today’s problems is to throw sand into the gears of government. The rest of us are pretty sure that since this didn’t work for the last eight years it probably won’t work very well in the next eight years either.
Moreover, many of these same conservatives, who just a few years ago we proclaiming “My country, right are wrong”, now want to secede from the United States. Apparently, to many Republicans loyalty to country only lasts as long as they are in charge. According to a Research 2000 poll, half of the Republicans in Texas prefer seceding to staying in the union. There is patriotism for you. I guess this is easier to take your chips and go home than it is to do what you have to do to regain power: accommodate others with many but not all of your opinions. A pragmatic Republican Party for example would be agnostic on gay marriage, since a new generation of Americans simply doesn’t understand why gays should not marry. This would not only encourage not only gay independents to become Republican, but also large number of Libertarians who don’t understand why in a free country gays cannot be as free as the rest of us. Since they cannot, they hamstring themselves into what looks like a long period of political irrelevance.
Normally a midterm election means the opposing party picks up seats. The omens do not look good for Republican pickups in 2010. Democrats are likely to increase their majority with the retirement of Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. With only 23% of Americans identifying themselves as Republican (versus 33% as recently as 2003), it is hard to see where Republicans can pick up seats. It certainly doesn’t help when Republicans pick Club for Growth candidates to field in the general election. It only makes them look more extreme.
It remains to be seen how long The Republican Party will choose to be out of power. If they are waiting for America to become more conservative, it is likely to be a long wait. Their best hope as always is to hope the other guy screws up. Unfortunately, President Obama is proving to be the most politically adept president since Ronald Reagan. He will doubtless make mistakes, but it is unlikely he will make large and egregious mistakes due to not thinking through an issue sufficiently. His poll numbers speak for themselves.
The way things are going, The Grand Old Party may soon become The Grand Dead Party.
April 29th, 2009 at 07:38pm
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2009 |
one comment
