|
It has been 16 years since the Republicans came up with the “Contract” idea as a way to nationalize Congressional elections, a way to alert voters around the country that they can turn local elections for the House of Representatives into a national poll against a Democratic president. This time, it isn’t going to work, at least not to the extent they are hoping.
They came out with their plan today, Minority Leader John Boehner (pronounced Bay-ner, for obvious reasons) and a host of other would be kings present their “Pledge to America”. They tried very hard to scoop up some of the energy and anger of the Tea Party crowd but failed. They served up half a loaf of bread, half baked.
They want to continue tax cuts for the richest Americans, a measure that would cost the Federal treasury an estimated 700,000,000,000.00 (that’s billion) dollars. Why? Oh, giving, or returning, that money to the rich is going to make us all more prosperous. You see, the guy down the road in that 5 million dollar house just might give you a job for eight dollars an hour cleaning his toilets, so he needs the money. At least you won’t have to cross the border into Mexico illegally to get a job.
They promised to hack away at Obama’s health care plan, but they offer no alternative for solving the problems it is intended to address. Instead, they want to keep a close eye on entitlement programs and make certain they don’t continue to grow. Great, fellas.
Basically, it is a stop Obama plan and if that thrills your heart, sign up and send ten dollars to the cause. While not everything is the world is the fault of George W. Bush, the efforts to stabilize and revitalize the economy were in direct response to events that unfolded while Bush was in the White House. So, in effect, the Republicans are blaming Obama for trying to clean up that mess, which is in mjaor part, their mess. It would have been fascinating to see what they would have done had they won the White House in 2008.
In the main, these career politicians tried to present themselves as insurgents and that is a sad, not funny joke. They missed, as almost all long time, play it safe politicians will do, an historic opportunity.
They want to dance with the Tea Party, but not take it home to meet the parents. If they had decided to fully align themselves with that polyglot movement and put the vague notions behind it’s anger into actual plans, they might have swept to power in the House and Senate in a way not yet imagined. Instead, they tried to play it safe. A play it safe agenda will not work in 2010 nor, it seems likely, in 2012.
The American public voted for change in 2008 and they haven’t quite gotten what they hoped for. Some are deeply disappointed, others are just angry that their side didn’t win last time and would like to negate the results. The whiplash of change movements, progressive versus hold stead/go back, could easily have worked in the Republicans favor, if they had been willing to be bold and strike out in a new direction.
That didn’t happen today. The legacy of the Gingrich crowd still lives in Congress. The idea, then and now, was to talk like revolutionaries and act like hired employees of wealth and major corporations. Somewhere, sometime, this act is going to run out of steam. We might very well have seen that happening today.
Doug Terry, 9.23.10
|
