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Since the introduction of HR 3200, republicans have made a stand against it and all it’s various parts. They are against the employer mandate which would require businesses of a certain size te offer health care to their employees. They are against the individual mandate which would require everyone of legal age and citizenship to purchase a health care plan so they do not get their health care from the ER which is the most expensive place to get anything AND that taxpayers pay for if you cannot. They are against requiring insurance companies to stop dropping customers for seeking care they paid for. They are also against preventing insurance companies from carrying out recissions that drop people from coverage for no apparent reason. They are also against preventing insurance companies from using pre-existing conditions to deny coverage. Amazingly, they are against any remedies that would keep people from going bankrupt in an effort to get some kind of health care or treatment for what ails them. Lastly, in this short and incomplete list, they are against a low cost, government run option to compete with the insurance companies to help keep costs down and provide an alternative to the high priced coverage that exists everywhere AKA the public option.
After all this, you may be asking, what are they for? Tax cuts. They are in favor of using the tax code to cut some of your taxes so you can afford to buy the over-priced insurance that non-employer based plans currently make expensive and unaffordable. The trouble is, that even after the tax cuts, the overwhelming majority of people that cannot afford health care now would also not be able to afford coverage even with a tax cut. In essence, the republican health care plan is to force people to buy expensive coverage they cannot afford or go broke trying. Some plan. That free market crap they peddled to us for the last three decades that put us in this mess is what they think will cure this mess. What a load of shit.
It is very clear that the republican party is fresh out of ideas. They have no real plan for health care. They have no plan for the environment. They have no plan for our children’s education. They have no plan to solve the banking and mortgage crisis. They have no plan to get us out of fighting two wars and bring our troops home. They have no plans to start thinking of a way to come up with some new plans.
They are hoping you will not notice this by screaming about death panels, socialism, ACORN, and a thousand other things. Everything except what is important to everyday Americans. Everything except finding something that works.
In a nutshell, this is how I feel. I know my president is a more forgiving and inclusive man but I am not. I’m not because I know there is nothing to be gained from it. Reaching out to republicans on any issue is like dipping your hand in the piranha tank at feeding time. They’ll rip the flesh off your hand given half a chance.
There was a time in the distant past where there was an honest exchange of ideas between the two parties. The trouble is that, once rightwingers started winning elections using scurrilous scare tactics, they would not quit when the election was over. The proceeded to govern using the same scare tactics and pissed in the well as far as cooperation was concerned. Democrats were less and less likely to come to the middle only to be demonized for doing so in the next election cycle. It stopped being about what was best for America and it became all about one-upping the opposition and winning elections.
Do nothing Congresses run by republicans became the norm and the political climate was increasingly hostile to any outreach. The selection of Chimpy in 2000 wrote an end to serious bipartisanship. The Chimpster wasn’t interested in what Democrats had to say. This bozo could not even get the name of the party right much less come to the table in good faith. “My way or the highway” was the NeoCon mantra he put into place and he made it stick. Moderate republicans were challenged in their own districts by Club For Growth NeoCons approved by the Chimpster himself. It made no difference how long the official had carried the water. He was out unless he marched in lockstep with Chimpy and his flying monkeys. The aura of bipartisanship took a real blow with the Iraq War fiasco.
As soon as it became apparent that the NeoCons had cooked the books on the intel and that lie after lie was told to get us into the war, Democrats started to wake up. We weren’t going after Osama like we should have but we were blowing our wad on a fool’s errand. The elections of 2006 and 2008 took the steam out of the Lie Machine the republicans used to get elected and they were kicked out of power. What Democrats did not count on was President Obama opening the door and letting them back into power.
His first clue should have been the Stimulus package that was supposed to save the economy from melt down. The republicans offered and got amendments added to the package, mainly to help out their districts, and then en masse voted against it. Not one republican voted for it. They railed about it before and after it was passed but not one of them gave back any of the money.
Now comes the health care measure. We’re in the same boat again with these clowns. Change after change was put into the bills before Congress but the result is the same old thing: no republican support for reform. Boehner was even talking about how the President should hit the Reset button and start all over again on health care. I have one question: what the hell for?
The republicans are in the minority. They are out-voted. Elections have consequences. They had plenty of time to fix what was wrong. They knew what to fix but you did not. Step aside and let the adults in so we can move forward as a country. You had your turn. You failed.
Mr President, you were elected to do a job. You ran on the platform of fixing health care. Now fix it. Don’t ask them for help because they are fresh out of ideas and helpful suggestions. Move forward. Either they will get on the train or they will be left at the station’s platform to wave goodbye to us as we go down the track. I say leave them.
Conservatives have opposed every major social change in our country’s history:
They collectively said, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.” Fighting change and progress is the byword of conservatives and particularly of today’s GOP. The status quo suits them fine even when the status quo is crumbling all around them. It’s not surprising when you have no new ideas and you see the world changing without your permission. It’s a hell of a record to run on. Thankfully, they have found a number of minor issues (like gay marriage and school prayer and tax cuts) to drum up support with that obscures their intent once they achieve national office. Too bad President Obama came along and blew their charade of a party out of the political water. His focus on health care for all (once he cleans up the fiscal mess republicans left us) scares the bejesus out of the GOP and rightly so.
There are not a lot of social issues left that have gone unattended in the last 50 years and the few that have seem to be a priority for President Obama much to the consternation of rightwingers of all stripes. He has a lot of political momentum right now and he appears to want to strike while he carries that banner high. The public is with him because he keeps reaching out to republicans (who keep brushing him off) and then asserting his power like a stern schoolmarm on resistant children. The people also seem to realize that, finally, the President is on their side instead of being an apologist for big businesses and corporations.
It is pretty clear that the agenda of the Radical Religious Right is going nowhere and has no traction with the public at large. It is also clear that tax cuts for the wealthy is a failed economic strategy that merely exacerbates our fiscal hardships instead of resolving them. They were unified in opposing a measure that would put to right what they let go wrong but that’s nothing to brag about except in a bizarro world sort of way. What else do the republicans have going for them?
Nothing.
At one time they stood for smaller government. Chimpy and Company pretty much blew that out of the water. They stood for fiscal responsibility but eight years of runaway spending under George Bush pissed all over that concept. They stood for lower taxes and Trickle Down Economics but all the lower tax rate did is made the wealthier wealthier and poor a whole lot poorer while screwing the middle class but good and the Trickle Down part dried up before it left the upper tax brackets. What else do they stand for?
Nothing.
Now the Party of Lincoln that unified our nation and actually stood for something has become the Party of No that stands for nothing, believes in nothing realistic and, in eight long years, accomplished nothing. Starting two wars they couldn’t finish doesn’t count. Neither does breaking the financial system by ripping out all the regulations that protected the people from harm. Letting a major American city drown while patting each other on the back and telling folks what a good job they did doesn’t cut the mustard either. Abandoning our troops once they finished serving their nation isn’t any kind of accomplishment and certainly nothing to stand up for. Ignoring international law and breaking agreements that previous administrations consented to only made us look like hypocrites. Kowtowing to corporate interests that polluted our environment and discounting science in the area of global warming cannot be a rallying cry or a source of pride. What the hell is left?
Nothing.
Black & White and Cardinal Red All Over 