Boy, the tone in Washington sure has changed.
I was originall going to make this a comment, but then I got on a tear.
I dont do many diaries and kind of nervous.
Please read (and snicker at my poor diary-fu skillz) after the jump thingie.
(p.s. i am not snarking in this diary.)
I was originall going to make this a comment, but then I got on a tear.
I dont do many diaries and kind of nervous.
Please read (and snicker at my poor diary-fu skillz) after the jump thingie.
This is the third major brouhaha that we've had in Washington in the past few years.
Health care? Yes We can!
Tea party acting all flippy about the uppity socialist Nazi black man who is really from Kenya and pals around with terrorists. Senate and House GOP, and a few dems in both houses, did absolutely everything they could possibly do to make sure that HCR would be of limited or no benefit to most people - in fact, we're just all locked into providing a guaranteed revenue stream for Blue Cross for the rest of our lives.
And it took them an entire year to do this.
This whole thing should have been a no-brainer. Offer the insurance companies the choice between backing off the greed, becoming nationalized, or competing Medicare after the Congress of Obama's inaugural year dropped the "65 or older" off Medicare and enrolled every single uninsured person in the country. Sure it would have been some ugly, messy hell for a while. Instead they gave the insurance companies a portion of the wages of every American worker just to get something, any bill, passed at all
Seriously guys, thanks for selling me into indentured servitude to Aetna for all of my days. Love the new tax you've levied on every American there. And it doesn't even go to the government! Yes. We. Can.
The Bush tax cuts? Extending unemployment? Yes we can!
One of the root causes of our current deficit and growing national debt. The GOP, and again some Dem clowns in the senate, decide that if the rich have to pay their fair share, we're going to stop unemployment benefits. Congress has always, as long as I can remember, extended unemployment when the economy was down. Not doing that is a radical change and a violation of the spirit of the social contract. Let alone saying that the general welfare is subordinate to whether or not rich people get yet another way to avoid paying their fair share! Hello! Tax shelters? Capital gains tax? The "death tax" being cut?
So great - everyone gets the same tax cut that's been driving us into the ditch for another couple of years, they kicked this to right before the next election (anyone want more repubs in Congress and that jackass Rick Perry in the white house?), and guess what, Washington doesn't have the cash on hand to pay for things that Congress already voted to spend on without borrowing more money.
And the Democrats in Congress and the President abetted this, just to get something, any bill, anything, passed at all to provide unemployment. Yes. We. Can.
The debt ceiling
(or choosing to borrow money because Congress appropriated too much) Yes we can!
So these tea partiers and Republicans in Congress say we can't raise the debt ceiling because Washington is out of control, spends too much money, blah blah blah blah. Then why did these same Congress critters appropriate the money in the first place?
Why the hell didn't the president get on TV in prime time and use one of his addresses to start reading off a list of stupid crap Republicans have been blowing our money on appropriating funds for over the years?
"If Congressional republicans hadn't already voted to spend x bazillion dollars for blah blah blah, bleh bleh bleh, and bluh bluh bluh, then we wouldn't have had to increase the debt ceiling for another year or two? They knew we didn't have the money at the time and they voted to spend it anyway. "
I didn't hear him say in a single speech, and I've never heard any Congressperson or pundit mention on TV, that Congress already voted to spend the money and this whole debt ceiling mess is them saying they are changing their minds!
Seriously! If we don't have the money and they know we're not going to have it, why didn't any of this come up when the entire Congress voted to make the middle class pay additional taxes to Kaiser Permanente instead of the government, or when they decided to throw us a bone by letting us keep our piddling fifty dollars a month last year? Why wasn't the debt ceiling brought up and wailed on during either of those protracted train wrecks?
They have to wait until the very day before we, as a nation, run out of money to pay our bills? Yes. We. Can.
Next MOnth's Crisis - Yes we can!
The federal government is only funded until September if I remember correct. So Congress, both parties, are going to give us another deal that nobody likes, screw more of the middle class and weakest among us to put a few more bucks in the pockets of the rich, and not focus on JOBS!!!!! ! AAAARRRRGHHHHGHDIAJDFIOSAJDSIOJASIO!!!!!! for at least how many ever days or weeks it takes the Republicans to screw everyone and the Democrats to go along with it.
Yes. We. Can.
I get that at Obama is in many ways the anti-Bush, and that at his level it's all about building consensus and focusing on what can realistically get done. I get that the Republicans in this Congress bear the brunt of the blame for what is happening right now. I even get that these things aren't permanent, and they could even be just setbacks that can be reversed in the next Congress, or another after that, or at some nebulous point in the future. But I was thinking the same thing with the Patriot act, with the AUMF, with Medicare Part D, and on and on and on...
The point I would like to make and echo is one that I've heard a number of times before on this site. Aiming for consensus and bipartisanship, and trying to work with these guys in the Republican party, and providing political cover for their legislative radicalism or by watering down truly noble and helpful goals like HCR. is having the effect of driving most of us further into the ditch. Just to get something, any bill, anything, passed. At all.
Yes. We. Can.
But we didn't.