Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Thursday, November 4, 2010

NOT SO FAST, MR. BOEHNER



The future Speaker of the House, John Boehner, has shown that he, and by extension, his party are already out of touch with the American people.  His promise to amend or possibly repeal the new health care legislation is not what the American people want.  In exit polls taken on election night,  American voters did not indicate that they want the law rescinded.  In fact there are as many Americans who support the law as there are against.  Hardly a mandate to repeal it.


From the New York Times 11/4/10:


"In fact, the American people said no such thing. In polls of Tuesday’s voters, only 18 percent said health care was the nation’s top issue. While 48 percent of voters said they wanted to repeal the health care law, 47 percent said they wanted to keep it the way it is or expand it — hardly a roaring consensus.



The “loud message” to cut spending cited by Mr. Boehner was actually far more muted. The polls showed that 39 percent of voters say cutting the deficit should be the highest priority of Congress, but a statistically equal 37 percent prefer spending money to create jobs. Fully a third of those who want to spend money to create jobs were Republicans.

More voters (correctly) blamed President George W. Bush for the economic problems than President Obama, and even more (also correctly) blamed Wall Street."

The GOP needs to understand that their victory on Tuesday night can easily be overturned in two years if they ignore what Americans want.  This country is evenly divided, and some of the most crucial political contests showed that Americans are not willing to succumb completely to the GOP's ideas of drowning America's future in a bathtub.

President Obama set out a number of ideas and solutions in his press conference yesterday. 

"Mr. Obama offered some specific ideas. Extending unemployment insurance. Extending tax cuts for the middle class. Providing tax breaks for companies that are investing in American research and development.



He proposed finding common ground on energy policy, developing domestic natural gas resources and encouraging electric cars. He took Republicans up on their offer to start banning earmarks, while urging greater investment in infrastructure. And he acknowledged that he could have done more to change Washington’s messy and secretive ways, and to have been in closer touch with those suffering from the recession."




If the GOP continues to obstruct, deny, and say NO! and to embrace Mitch McConnell's idiotic statement that the most important goal of the GOP is to deny Mr. Obama a second term, then they too will receive a well-deserved "shellacking" in the next election.

America is a divided country, and as the NYTimes editorial points out, young people, and minorities--America's future--do NOT vote Republican.  Their voters are overwhelmingly old, white, male, and southern.

 
 

12 comments:

Jerry Critter said...

People now expect the republicans to do something. They are good at complaining and finger pointing. They are not so good at governing, even only one-third of the government.

I suspect they will get their asses handed to them in two years. People want change. They voted for Obama in 2008 for change and they voted for republicans in 2010 for change.

So, come on republicans. What are you really going to do?

Where are the jobs?

Shaw Kenawe said...

Jonathan Chait gets it:

"If [Ross] Douthat is correct about his political premises, both parties had to choose between politics and policy. Democrats could have minimized their losses at the cost of sacrificing the health reform they wanted. Or Republicans could have minimized the scope of health care reform, at the cost of minimizing their potential wave. Democrats chose the best policy, and Republicans chose the best politics. I'm happy with the choice. Mitch McConnell won his election, and Democrats won health care reform. The latter is going to [be] around a lot longer than the former."

Andrew Sullivan:

"I supported Obama precisely because he was about policy more than politics. And his calm reason today was another reason. In the end, I believe policy achievement matters. And that the GOP's greatest problem right now is that they have lost interest in policy - hence their running on ideological abstractions rather than actual proposals. But if the American people reward this, it will keep on happening. And the Morris-Rove era will never end."

Charlene said...

The loudest voice is not the people's voice in this time. Voice can be manufactured by a single voice with lots of money to appear to be many people. You can rent prominent political entertainers for a few thousand dollars.

What concerns me is that those shouting and happily taking the position of a loud voice are not aware that that one moneyed voice is not working for the their interests.

Arthurstone said...

A thumbnail sketch.

Obama and the Democrats won big in 2008.

The Republicans, stung by actually being held accountable for the disasters of the previous eight years looked in the mirror. Summoning up every bit of the integrity for which the right wing is famous they asked the hard question:

'Do we work to solve the problems of the economy and mitigate the disasters in the Middle East or do we work toward regaining power in 2010?'

An old tale. Obfuscation. Exaggeration. Delay. Racism. Red-baiting. Reactionaries doing what they always do.

And guess what?

It still works.

Sue said...

It still works and why??? What is wrong with us?? We are seeing it after just 2 days, the thugs get a little bit of power back and they think they OWN all of Washington and know what it is the people want! They are despicable! They say the people have spoken and are not in the mood for compromise, what a joke!! Those who put the thugs back in power don't have a clue why they did it! So we suffer through 2 years of thug hysteria and vote the fuckers out in 2012. Can we get through it without our BP soaring?? Not sure....

I will be dancing in the street the first time we have an Obama VETO!!

Shaw Kenawe said...

It seems to me that we've lost our way as rational people when segments of our population believe thugs like Paladino and know-nothings like Palin and O'Donnell are considered worthy of holding public office.

When as asshat like McConnell feels comfortable in stating that his party's most pressing goal is to deny President Obama a second term, we know that we're half way to permanent stupid.

Anonymous said...

halfway to permanent stupid? shaw, with the recent elections as proof, we're already there.

Infidel753 said...

More to the point, the "American people" who put Boehnhead where he is today were a much smaller and less representative sub-set of the American people than those who put Obama where he is today. 38.2% of eligible voters cast ballots this week, compared with 62.2% in 2008.

Mandate? Their "tsunami" was a ripple in a puddle. It's an artifact of apathy and low turn-out.

Wait for 2012 when a Presidential race brings out a bigger electorate again. The real "shellacking" will come.

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

Independents and those that only vote during presidential years don't expect the republicans to do anything. The republican bas e of bigots, idiots and homophobes turned out en masse. Their biggest reason for voting was hatred of the black guy in the White House. The republican base voter think it's called "The White House" cause only a white man is allowed to live there.

Their hatred of Obama was multiplied by the name calling towards him, Reid and Pelosi, orchestrated by Karl Rove. They are puppets and Rove pulls their strings. He will be pulling their strings in 2012 also. They are mindless sheep that won't be swayed by logic and reason.

In essence, the future of our Nation is in the hands of the apathetic who stayed home Tuesday. They stay home two years from now we got real trouble. Scalia and Thomas won't be alive forever and a right wing kook president will appoint trwo more assholes like these jokers.

Arthurstone said...

A great quote I ran across yesterday:

"When John Boehner starts crying someone's going to get screwed."

Jerry Critter said...

And those tears were tears of joy.

Shaw Kenawe said...

John Boehner: The next "Weeper of the House."