One year after a “right of center” nation swept Obama to power as an agent of change, Scott Brown wins Ted Kennedy’s seat in liberal Massachusetts, campaigning on a message of change. What’s the heck’s going on here, did I wake up in crazyland?
Clearly the word “change” is a charged word, a word whose time has come. It certainly works swell to win elections! But if one puts aside partisan politics (hard I know), one is forced to think about what change really stands for, I mean beyond its obvious utility as a sound-bite platitude that serves as an empty vessel. It can mean almost anything. People reeling from the “lost decade” fill that vessel with their unfulfilled hopes and dreams, and politicians eagerly imbibe. Whether they care about the contents of the vessel is questionable.
Obama, you promised to be a man of the people. But you caved into the Wall Street crybabies, who had one of their best years ever, after sucking 13 trillion dollars from the public teat. You promised health care reform, then delivered an abomination that does absolutely nothing to reduce skyrocketing health care costs, which is what the people are really concerned about. It only extends the existing out-of-control health care to more people. Yes, we are concerned about those without coverage, but we are thinking “Geez that’s gotta cost me money.” You talk of bringing the government back to the people, but you sold out to the very same greedy corporate interests and lobbies that all the other guys did, and it’s wrecking the middle class, as the parasite wealthy class parties on.
I never begrudged anyone else their wealth until I felt it getting rifled out of my own pocket.
Understandably, we the people are not amused.
Scott Brown, you campaigned as a man of the people too. You campaigned to end wasteful government spending. I really want to believe you. But you see, I’ve been recently burned by someone with much the same line, so this time I’m more skeptical. I’m wondering: you and what army are going to Washington to end wasteful government spending? You are joining a party only one year out of office that doubled the deficit after inheriting a surplus. Republicans were supposed to be the fiscally responsible party, but Bush was the first president in modern history never to veto a spending bill.
In 2003, GW Bush and Congressional Republicans passed the prescription drug benefit. It was a bloated entitlement of the type you would expect from Democrats. But this time it was Republicans looking for every last vote. They used every dirty trick in the book. Nick Smith (R-MI) claimed he was offered campaign funds to change his vote to yea. The bill’s original cost was sold by Bush & Co. as $435 billion, but an administration official, Thomas Scully, had concealed the real number, and reportedly threatened to fire Medicare Chief Actuary Richard Foster if he revealed it. The bill was passed, but took several years for the real amount, $1.2 trillion, to be revealed. Former US Comptroller General David Walker called it “…probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s… because we promise way more than we can afford to keep.”
Groan!… Does this sound just like what the Democratic sausage-making looked like during the health care debate or what?
No wonder we are confused, and sorry Scott, if some of us are skeptical. And as for the “every man” image, spare us. We don’t know your net worth, but apparently you own quite a bit of very expensive real estate. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! It’s just that it should take more than a GMC truck to convince us that you really are a man of the people (MOP). Should, but then again this is the US we’re talking about, the same people who believed Obama was an MOP because he was a community organizer and such.
I wouldn’t vote for Sarah Palin just because she looked good in a bathing suit, and the fact that you look good without one doesn’t do a thing for me. What is up with that anyway? I’m told I look alright for 55, if you squint. Perhaps more people would buy my book and read my blog if I posed provocatively! I’m almost ready…
There’s no doubt that Martha Coakley deserved to lose, running a campaign that started as arrogant, then became way too nasty as soon as she was in trouble. But did you deserve to win on the strength of your record? Or were you just in the right place with the right message at the right time? Because after all, you’re just a three-term state senator with an unremarkable record, what can reasonably be expected from you in a rough town like Washington? No matter, that’s politics, we elected a President on not much more than that.
In an odd way, I’m glad you did win, and here’s why: You said you’re going to Washington to kill health care, but then after you were elected, changed that to “I’m going to renegotiate health care.” That’s exactly what we need! My family’s health care is exactly twice what it was ten years ago, and if it’s twice that in another ten, we’re in big trouble, and I suspect we’re not alone. We need REAL reform!
What scares the bejeebers out of me is that the Democrats have utterly failed at health care reform and the Republicans have never shown the slightest interest in it. Scott, are you up to fighting that dragon? Load your weapons, this is a formidable monster. This monster spends $1.2 million per day lobbying for what they want, a total of half a billion dollars in 2009. They tend to get what they want.
Then again, who knew that health care reform was the third rail of politics? You have to give Obama at least an E for Effort. If the “town hall crazies” are any indication of the mood of the people, who the heck knows what we really want anyway?
Trouble is, Democrats put such a high price on achieving reform, any reform, after a while they were willing to settle for whatever they could get. In the end, they did not have the political capital to achieve the near impossible. They would have better off to admit that in today’s ultra-polarized political climate, and with an entrenched and powerful medical lobby, meaningful reform is simply not possible.
Does that mean we are stuck with a system that is twice the cost of any other country, yet ranks last of all the developed countries in overall health care delivery? A system that medically bankrupts even people who have insurance? A system where health care companies’ bottom line is completely dependent on how much care they deny? Groan…
Scott, you’ll forgive us, but how many times have we heard someone say they aim to change “business as usual” in Washington? One and all, they get chewed up by the machinery in a very short time. Ask Obama how it felt to be handed his marching orders by Ben Bernanke and Wall Street. Ask Max Baucus, the chief architect of the health care bill how it feels deep down inside to so visibly kowtow to the Health Care Industry masters that gave him three million in campaign funds.
Maybe you are a new phenomenon. After all, they called this “the shot that was heard round the world.” Maybe because of the huge media exposure over your upset victory, and the promises you made, and because people are so obviously upset, you and your party will have to come up with your version of health care reform, and then work out the kinks between yours and the Dem’s. Just stonewalling health care will no longer be an option. After all, you voted for universal health care legislation in Massachusetts. The whole country will be watching.
You promised to work toward an end to wasteful government spending. Will you tell the truth, that both parties make this happen? That such a thing will require an uncommon amount of sacrifice from politicians and from the people as well? After all, earmarks are only wasteful spending in someone else’s district, right?
Who will do the tough job of readying Americans for the grim reality of the damage that tax cuts and entitlements have done, a soaring deficit that will just get worse, no matter what happens with the economy itself?
But look what’s happened already. Because of you, President Obama had to completely rewrite his state of the union to include some populist rhetoric, so as to regain some MOP points. Martha Coakley could not have accomplished that!
So, good on you. Few have been sent to Washington with greater expectations. I’m hoping you really do have the strength of your convictions. I hope the party machine doesn’t just hand you your marching orders. But you knew the job was dangerous when you took it…
Doug Friesen 1/26/10
