Republican BS

Scott Brown and Mitt Romney are mad as hell about Obama's healthcare plan and they are letting the world know it. Romney has been using the bill as one key element in his bid for the 2012 Republican nomination saying Obama is "succumb[ing] to the lowest denominator of incumbent power: justifying the means by extolling the ends" (tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/obama-my-health-care-bill-is-just-like-romneys.php?ref=fpb). This seems ironic given the bill's close proximity to his own; but why bother with history when it's inconvenient? Republicans are particularly adept at this historical amnesia and have really made it into a near art form (see posts below). War is peace, freedom is slavery and the truth is generally just an inconvenient barrier to  And for once the media is kind of doing it's job, reporting on the similarity between the two bills: www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/26/us/politics/AP-US-Romney-Health-Care.html.

Brown, on the other hand, at least doesn't have that bill to erase from his resume. But like most Republicans, he is either ignorant or forgetful about their use of reconciliation in the past -- arguing in an oped in the Boston Globe, "After my election, Washington politicians began an aggressive push to bend the rules and force their unpopular health care bill on an unwilling nation" (www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/03/30/the_health_care_fight_is_not_over?mode=PF). The other problem with this statement is the Gallop poll right after the signing of the bill that found more support than opposition to it (I am, of course, a little annoyed that the first poll to show this reality was after the fact, not before).

He goes on to argue, "They went into secret negotiations to make up their own rules, and eventually found a way to circumvent the will of the people by using the reconciliation process to ram through their health care bill. For the last year, the American people have been shaking their heads at the closed-door meetings, sweetheart deals, and special carve-outs. It has been a very ugly process, and caused many Americans to lose faith in their elected officials in Washington." Um, huh, I think the American people lost faith in their elected officials way before this bill and, in fact, those "closed-door meetings, sweetheart deals and special carve-outs" were the norm during the Bush years and certainly did not make up the bulk of a bill that insurance and healthcare companies fought tooth and nail against.

His next argument is about cost: "When this legislation is fully implemented, the real cost to taxpayers is $2.6 trillion over years." Um, I guess he didn't read the CBO report that the bill would actually reduce the deficit substantially over the next 20 years (www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/health.cfm). He finishes the editorial by claiming that Americans don't want the liberal agenda but jobs. I agree, but what exactly are Republicans proposing to lower unemployment besides more tax cuts; at the same time they complain about the deficit? Nothing really. In fact, there is substantial evidence to support the claim that Obama's stimulus package and Geitner's bailout of the banks helped stave off an even worse economy and might lead us toward a recovery in the future.

Republicans seem to have little to offer except obstructionism and a critique of the rancid environment in DC that they helped create. But by telling lies and half-truths, rewriting history and calling for simple, practical solutions to problems without telling us what those solutions are (simple or not), they sound like the party to fix the problems they are creating. It is a brilliant strategy that might just restore them to power; and might just send the country into a even steeper nose dive from which we will never recover. Congratulations!