As the old axiom goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Sadly, even after last week's crushing defeat in the special election in New York's 26th congressional district, the GOP is doing exactly that: returning to the same idea again.
What amazes us is not that Republicans seem to want to continue to fight a battle that it was just proven they will not win.
It's that Republicans are in denial about WHY they lost.
Rep. Cliff Stearns of Florida admitted to the the Wall Street Journal over the holiday weekend that Republicans don't think it was the Republican plan that was wrong - they think it was how they framed their message about their plan to the public.
The plan proposed by Wisconsin Republican, Rep. Paul Ryan was voted down last week - with the exception of a number of Republicans who insist this is the political hill they want to die on. That vote now makes it not just Ryan's plan, but also the plan of the entire GOP.
The Republican plan isn't hard to understand. For those Americans currently 55 or above, your Medicare eligibility age will go up to 67. Some benefits will likely be clipped. For those currently below age 55 - say, age 54 - when you are supposed to begin receiving Medicare, you'll get a voucher from the government instead. That voucher coupon is supposed to allow you to buy health care insurance from a private company. Of course, the Republican plan says that no private company will be required to sell you health insurance.
What insurance company, that is worth ANY of its stock, will sell an insurance policy to any American over the age of 67? Even for the few who won't have pre-existing conditions, the actuarial tables just don't add up to any kind of worthwhile risk for an insurance company.
This isn't rocket science - but it IS the Republican plan for "saving" Medicare. The only thing the current Republican Party honestly wants to save though, is the name Medicare, so they can slap it on their health care privatization plan.
There ARE some actions that previous iterations of the Republican Party approved that would help lower health care costs for everyone - like the individual mandate, which they invented and supported for most of the last twenty years. Instead of supporting those parts of the ACA they agree with, then focusing on the parts they still want changed, Republicans continue to demonize the entire Affordable Care Act as "ObamaCare" as though it doesn't include any ideas they originated.
If Republican legislators were truly interested in improving policy - which is their JOB - they would also have to make clear what parts of the ACA they originally stood for, including the individual health care mandate which they invented.
As Johnathan Bernstein pointed out in the Washington Post over the weekend, there aren't currently any incentives for Republicans to get their policy positions straight. As Republican Rep. Stearns clearly said, to them, it's about how the GOP's message on that flawed Ryan plan was framed - not the flaws in the policy itself, but the message.
We know some Republicans think taking another swing at health care reform is too smart by half.
Sadly, the facts make it clear that taking another whack at health care reform is only going to give the GOP a splitting headache going into 2012.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
Friday Funday: Don't Forget To Remember
As we're sure you already know, Memorial Day marks the traditional beginning of summer in the U.S., the time for sun, fun, and for most children, summer vacation from school.
Of course, it's also the primary holiday to honor those Americans who have died in the service of their country. We thank those service members today, and wish that no other Americans, now serving, would ever be forced to join the rosters of those who died while in service to the nation.
Some people believe this holiday should be observed exclusively in somber and quiet respect. While we understand that position, we tend to believe that attitude is all wrong.
Memorial Day shouldn't just be about those men and women who died for our freedoms.
It should also be about celebrating that which they died for.
So, for those kids graduating high school this weekend - who have the opportunity to live in a country with relatively high academic standards - we salute you. Toss that cap and tassel with pride this weekend.
For those of you who are helping friends, neighbors, family, and other loved ones pick up the pieces from the weather related disasters around the country - or who are working to prevent more disasters, like flooding - we salute you too.
For all of those who keep the world running, even on holiday weekends - police, fire, and paramedics; doctors, nurses and hospital staff; members of the media; even retail workers - we salute you as well.
America isn't just a country. It's a series of communities and people tied together by common bonds, including the belief that things can always improve if we work together and believe in one another. We give each other hope to keep reaching farther; to keep working harder (and smarter); to do the right thing, when it would be easier to do the wrong one. All of that is possible, thanks to those who were willing to give their last measure so that the rest of us might have one more day, week, month, or trip around the sun.
Memorial Day, to us, is about celebrating the lives of those servicemembers, men and women alike, from all walks of life, who made the ultimate sacrifice so that those of us still living might have better, longer lives.
We hope you remember this weekend and those who sacrificed for their country, as we all begin the next season on the calendar.
Enjoy your holiday weekend.
We'll see you when we return on Tuesday, May 31.
Of course, it's also the primary holiday to honor those Americans who have died in the service of their country. We thank those service members today, and wish that no other Americans, now serving, would ever be forced to join the rosters of those who died while in service to the nation.
Some people believe this holiday should be observed exclusively in somber and quiet respect. While we understand that position, we tend to believe that attitude is all wrong.
Memorial Day shouldn't just be about those men and women who died for our freedoms.
It should also be about celebrating that which they died for.
So, for those kids graduating high school this weekend - who have the opportunity to live in a country with relatively high academic standards - we salute you. Toss that cap and tassel with pride this weekend.
For those of you who are helping friends, neighbors, family, and other loved ones pick up the pieces from the weather related disasters around the country - or who are working to prevent more disasters, like flooding - we salute you too.
For all of those who keep the world running, even on holiday weekends - police, fire, and paramedics; doctors, nurses and hospital staff; members of the media; even retail workers - we salute you as well.
America isn't just a country. It's a series of communities and people tied together by common bonds, including the belief that things can always improve if we work together and believe in one another. We give each other hope to keep reaching farther; to keep working harder (and smarter); to do the right thing, when it would be easier to do the wrong one. All of that is possible, thanks to those who were willing to give their last measure so that the rest of us might have one more day, week, month, or trip around the sun.
Memorial Day, to us, is about celebrating the lives of those servicemembers, men and women alike, from all walks of life, who made the ultimate sacrifice so that those of us still living might have better, longer lives.
We hope you remember this weekend and those who sacrificed for their country, as we all begin the next season on the calendar.
Enjoy your holiday weekend.
We'll see you when we return on Tuesday, May 31.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Time To Grow Up
As anyone who has ever been in junior high or high school knows, peer pressure can not only make individuals do and say things they wouldn't otherwise do or say - but taken to extremes, it can even be deadly.
In some twisted 'Lord of the Flies' kind of way, the Republican Party is beginning to find this out all over again as the internal politics of political puritanism they've followed over the last two decades finally bear their twisted, rotten fruit in the form of the Republican Party Civil War.
As with any so-called civil war, there are no real winners in a conflict of this kind, only degrees of losing. There have been small skirmishes in this affair for many years, now; the Bush-McCain battle in 2000, for example. This year, there have already been more than a few political causalities, including the Presidential campaigns that never came to be for Mike Huckabee and Mitch Daniels.
But the 'Fort Sumter' shot of this Republican civil war was fired earlier this week, in two parts.
The first part was the embarrassing loss on Tuesday by Republicans in the 26th Congressional District of New York. In 2010, even when the rest of New York state thought bombastic, crazy Carl Palladino was too conservative, even for them, the 26th chose Palladino. Yet on Tuesday night, the voters in New York's 26th gave the Democratic candidate a six point victory over the GOP's pick.
For comparison, using statistics, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com pointed out that average candidates in the 26th, in a two-way race, should have resulted in an outcome where the Republican won by 12 points. In case you're unclear, that's an 18 point swing, from Republican to Democratic, from what it should have been, to what it was, in a district so conservative that political wonks used to refer to it as 'ruby red.'
That loss, while embarrassing to Republicans, was merely the light flash from the metaphorical gun.
The bullet was the failed vote in the Senate on Wednesday of the Republican budget, which would have killed Medicare as we know it.
With the exception of five Republican Senators - including, surprisingly, Rand Paul of Kentucky - EVERY Republican Senator voted to kill Medicare on Wednesday.
It's a fact acknowledged by nearly everyone on both sides of the left-right political divide, that when the 2012 elections heat up this summer and fall, everyone trying to unseat a Republican - including other nominal Republicans - will be pillorying anyone who voted for the Republican budget proposal that failed so spectacularly on Wednesday.
We hate to repeat ourselves two days in a row, but we've warned our Republican friends of this day for many years, now. The insanity of political puritanism is exactly what exploded in the face of the Democratic Party in 1980, dividing the far left from the center-left for a dozen years.
Thirty years later, it appears the Republican Party may be about to - finally - go through a similar maturation process.
We'd like to think Republicans will refrain from completely savaging one another, as they enter into the full-fledged phase of their intra-party civil war.
We'd like to to think that - but, sadly, we know better.
In some twisted 'Lord of the Flies' kind of way, the Republican Party is beginning to find this out all over again as the internal politics of political puritanism they've followed over the last two decades finally bear their twisted, rotten fruit in the form of the Republican Party Civil War.
As with any so-called civil war, there are no real winners in a conflict of this kind, only degrees of losing. There have been small skirmishes in this affair for many years, now; the Bush-McCain battle in 2000, for example. This year, there have already been more than a few political causalities, including the Presidential campaigns that never came to be for Mike Huckabee and Mitch Daniels.
But the 'Fort Sumter' shot of this Republican civil war was fired earlier this week, in two parts.
The first part was the embarrassing loss on Tuesday by Republicans in the 26th Congressional District of New York. In 2010, even when the rest of New York state thought bombastic, crazy Carl Palladino was too conservative, even for them, the 26th chose Palladino. Yet on Tuesday night, the voters in New York's 26th gave the Democratic candidate a six point victory over the GOP's pick.
For comparison, using statistics, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com pointed out that average candidates in the 26th, in a two-way race, should have resulted in an outcome where the Republican won by 12 points. In case you're unclear, that's an 18 point swing, from Republican to Democratic, from what it should have been, to what it was, in a district so conservative that political wonks used to refer to it as 'ruby red.'
That loss, while embarrassing to Republicans, was merely the light flash from the metaphorical gun.
The bullet was the failed vote in the Senate on Wednesday of the Republican budget, which would have killed Medicare as we know it.
With the exception of five Republican Senators - including, surprisingly, Rand Paul of Kentucky - EVERY Republican Senator voted to kill Medicare on Wednesday.
It's a fact acknowledged by nearly everyone on both sides of the left-right political divide, that when the 2012 elections heat up this summer and fall, everyone trying to unseat a Republican - including other nominal Republicans - will be pillorying anyone who voted for the Republican budget proposal that failed so spectacularly on Wednesday.
We hate to repeat ourselves two days in a row, but we've warned our Republican friends of this day for many years, now. The insanity of political puritanism is exactly what exploded in the face of the Democratic Party in 1980, dividing the far left from the center-left for a dozen years.
Thirty years later, it appears the Republican Party may be about to - finally - go through a similar maturation process.
We'd like to think Republicans will refrain from completely savaging one another, as they enter into the full-fledged phase of their intra-party civil war.
We'd like to to think that - but, sadly, we know better.
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