Fair / 26° FEditorial: Enough with the one-item agenda to make Obama fail
Published 11:59am Monday, March 8, 2010Monday, March 8, 2010
Obstruction, obfuscation and outright lies – death panels! – the Republicans have doggedly pursued a one-line to-do list: bring down Obama. Never mind we fail if our president fails.
As we shed another 36,000 jobs in February, Americans are increasingly furious and frustrated – Pentagon shootout! Pilot attacks Austin IRS building! A CNN poll found 62 percent believe most members of Congress don’t deserve re-election – a 10-point surge since 2006.
Filibustering Senate Republicans delayed 80 percent of major legislation in 2009, compared to an average of one a decade from the dawn of the Republic until the Civil War. Filibusters are obviously no longer the weapon of last resort, but a strategic element in calculated gridlock. In the meantime, a consequence of this cynical strategy is that trust in government is extinct.
Tea, a grassroots movement which isn’t really a party, but homage to the 1773 Boston Harbor protest, is fascinating and a force for the two parties to reckon with like they haven’t had since Ross Perot in 1992. Many regard themselves as independent thinkers against big government who, like George Washington, desire politics without parties. These angry Americans are blinded by their rage to one salient fact: the government could play a role in solving huge festering national problems that have been kicked down the road like dodge balls for decades. Debt, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, health care, energy, climate change, plus two endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which patient terrorists will count as a win if they succeed at bleeding us into ruin.
Solving such intractable problems requires an America-first spirit of compromise and bipartisanship. The conservative revolution elected Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. After the GOP lost the White House to two terms by Democrat Bill Clinton, Republicans realized political polarization could level their playing field by bottling up Democrats, then using their failure to win elections.
In the ’80s there still were such quaint things as moderate Republicans who represented blue states from Oregon to Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Vermont.
Their collegiality in an era when “activist government” were not yet swear words accomplished things, such as the 1986 reform bill to simplify the tax code – Mark Siljander was our congressman! – and the 1990 Clean Air Act setting pollution limits.
Since Republicans occupied the White House, trying to demonize federal government as corrupt and incompetent would damage their party. Clinton’s ascendancy to power ushered in a new breed of Republican, such as House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay. “Under President Reagan,” Gingrich recalls, “we never had a majority in the House, so every bill had to include a lot of Democrats. The negotiating was difficult, and the debates were tough, but in the end we got a lot done … President Clinton and I had a series of very tough negotiations, but in the end we accomplished welfare reform, Medicare reform, the first tax cuts in 16 years and the first four consecutive budgets (reducing the public debt by $450 billion) since the 1920s.”
Gingrich, who used filibusters to brake Clinton’s agenda, adds, “Some GOP partisans so deeply distrust Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that they assume even meeting with them is an act of betrayal.”
Like sleazy ads, Republicans cling to this line of attack because it works. They quickly grasped that Americans so loath political infighting they take out their ire on whoever happens to be in charge, like the 1994 midterms. Jubilant Democrats thought Obama roared onto the scene strong. They underestimated how the Republican strategy feeds on polarization. The Senate Republican caucus petrified as it shrank.
Obama persuaded three Republicans to break ranks for his stimulus plan – the two women from Maine and Sen. Arlen Specter, who switched parties. Now we’re down to the sickening spectacle of Republican leader Mitch McConnell filibustering a deficit-reduction commission he demanded. Republicans keep getting rewarded by public revulsion with Washington, crippling health care reform by chipping away at government credibility.
Our hot tub time machine has delivered us back to 1993!
The highlight of 2010 so far is the televised exchange in Baltimore between Obama and the House Republican leadership.
Honest debate can be civil, neither side has a monopoly on the truth and not everyone across the aisle is evil.
I watched Glen Beck on FOX TV talking about
how Someone Stole His country, and He
wanted it Back.
So I ran to the window, and there it was, either
I had stoled it, or somebody else had and stashed it
in My backyard.
I had to run to Downtown Atherton, a small town in California
I live in, the Same police Officers still walked the same beat.
So I asked them if America was missing?
“Nope” they said “Its still here”
I sure wish I knew who was that Evil felon, that Stoled Glen Beck’s America,
but I do this he can sure twist History, from His nonaligned Mind,
and the Republicans actually believe the drivel of Propaganda of
the G.O.P., and really hate democrats.
they actually believe Genghis Khan was a saint compared to democrats.
I do know this the one whom accuses another of “Evil Intentions”
usually comes from the one with Evil Intentions.
Losing 36,000 jobs was to Harry Reid, a “great day in America.” One has to wonder what a bad day would be? To make the assuption that ONLY the Republicans are propagandizing today is to do a vast disservice to propaganda. First, let’s look at “Health Care.” Exactly WHAT will this piece of legislation do for the American people? Will it make us more healthy? Will we live longer, more full lives as a result of it? No. The reality is that we will have fewer choices, higher cost, and less care than before.
Those Americans who are participating in the T.E.A. movement are indeed angry, but certainly not for the reasons that the editorial suggests. There is one fact in government that is a constant. GOVERNMENT DOES NOT SOLVE PROBLEMS. Government merely postpones problems, usually by throwing money at them. Take Social Security for example. When begun, it was intended as a “safetty net” for retirees who, after the Depression had no pension or savings to rely on for living. We were given a “no opt out” program that today is trillions in debt (because the government has plundered it annually) and provides only minimal assistance. Problem solved? No. Next, lets look at Medicare and Medicaid. Two programs that took us into the realm of socialized medicine, and as a result are again trillions in debt, fraught with fraud and waste, and fail to cover many expenses. Problem solved? No. We must assume, as a result of the governments inability to deal well with ANYTHING that health care will be no different. THAT is the source of anger for many, and is certainly justified. There is little rage, but a great deal of frustration that the government continues to do the same thing over and over again-and expects a different result. Just because we now have Obama.
We can demonize Delay and Gingerich all day, and to be sure, both were at times very heavy handed. Pelosi, Reid, Axelrod, and Emmanuel however make them look like kindergartners.
Why do we really need a “deficit panel?” Hasn’t the Obama White House figured out yet what is causing deficit? That is akin to forming a panel to figure out what causes pregnancy! W simply cannot afford to fund every social program that these people want without either raising taxes to the point where we all are poor, or borrowing. That doesn’t take a “panel” to figure out.
Republicans today are not much different than their Democratic counterparts. They all are addicted to spending which they have equated to buying votes. It is time to stop that, and I don’t care what party you belong to, as a candidate today, if you don’t realize that, you will lose.
Taxpayers make this country, and they are about to retake it. I’m not sure what Beck wants back, but as for this conservate and small r republican, I want back my choices. I want back my liberties, and I want back the notion that as an American I am exceptional in this world. I also want back our troops. We are helping no one by our continued involvement around the world. I want back fairness, and I want back the jobs that we have lost in the past decades because we have decided that we can’t produce things in this country because factories are dirty and harm the environment.