Bipartisanship? Where?
By Bill Paisley February 25, 2010Region: North America
Topic: Bipartisanship
In his acceptance speech on election evening in November of last year, President-elect Obama uttered these words:
"To those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices," he said. "I need your help, and I will be your president, too."
A year later those words ring more hollow than most campaign promises have in the past.
From the very beginning of his administration President Obama has chosen to ignore those whose vote he “may not have won”. Beginning with one of his very first acts – an executive order closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – President Obama served notice that “bipartisanship” means nothing when it comes to exercising presidential power. Concerning Guantanamo Bay, a Gallup poll taken last summer showed 65 percent of respondents opposed closing the military prison while a mere 32 percent supported it. Moving the facility to the hinterland of Illinois, as has been suggested, is a prime example of the politically tone-deaf affliction of this administration. Indeed, a great campaign sound bite when pandering to the radicals of your party, but if Gitmo is really the "terrorist recruiting tool" that it is made out to be in the press, the Obama administration is doing nothing more than moving this "recruiting tool" from a safe and benign and easily defended location on the southeastern shore of Cuba to a location in the heartland of the United States. Those Americans who opposed such a short-sided decision were ignored.
“…I will be your president, too”.
Next came President Obama’s first forays into the financial health of America, including the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act”, better known as the Recovery Act. Borrowing and printing enough money to choke a donkey and an elephant AND the Chinese dragon we sold US Bonds to added over a trillion dollars to the deficit with a single stroke of his pen. Keep in mind this is before the Obama administration even submitted its first budget to congress.
Bipartisanship? The total number of congressional Republicans who signed on to this monstrosity was 3 – out of 218 (178 representatives and 40 senators). Any vote that lopsided has nothing to do with “bipartisanship”.
Polls shows this was yet another one-sided, Democrat- only, anyone-else -need-not-apply, effort. A mere 37% of Americans polled favored the legislation, 43% were opposed, and 20% remained neutral. A little-known proviso of this act that had little attention paid to it was the “Make Work Pay” provision where employers were directed to reduce federal withholdings on employee paychecks, ostensibly to get more spending in the economy. What was not emphasized, however, is that all those employees were still liable for the taxes those reduced withholdings would have gone towards. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration estimates up to 15.4 million American taxpayers will unexpectedly owe taxes this year because of these withholdings shenanigans.
“…I will be your president, too”.
The latest example of President Obama’s sticking it to a majority of Americans is the bloated and corpulent Health Reform Act. This attempt at corralling over a trillion dollars of US taxpayer’s money each year and making yet another generation of Americans dependent on government largess is a classic example of the Obama Administration not listening to citizens. After losing the governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey, both states that had either trended Democratic or had been solidly democratic for decades, Democrats rationalized these events as outliers – outside the norm - “Oh, those are local elections. They don’t matter”.
Last month’s election of Republican Scott Brown to fulfill the term of the Massachusetts senate seat formerly held by the late Ted Kennedy, however, should have been the wake-up call for Big Democrats that all is not what they say it is. Senator Brown’s campaign featured a strong emphasis on being the “41st vote”, or the vote that could deny the Democrats the filibuster-proof super-majority needed to ensure passage of this incredibly bad bill. Brown was, in essence, the firebreak on this and everyone who voted in the Massachusetts special election knew that. His victory – convincing, crushing, complete – should have told the Obama administration and the democrats in congress to slow down – what you have is a bill that is not wanted by the American people.
There is little doubt our current health care system can be improved and needs to be in many areas. Trying to solve all the problems at once, however, with one humongous, gargantuan bill that will break the budgetary bank and create a deep, dark, confusing Byzantine maze of bureaucratic inefficiency coupled with a nightmare of paperwork and higher taxes is not the answer, and most Americans know this. The old saying comes to mind: If you think health care is expensive now, just wait till it’s free.
President Obama’s reaction to this, along with congressional democrats, has been to block any negative or contrary concerns about this bill. Immediately after Brown’s senate victory, talk of using the obscure and rarely-used “budget reconciliation” path to a presidential signature cropped up, effectively shutting Republicans and their filibuster plans out. Next came an artificial and contrived one-party ad-hoc conference committee hosted by the White House, a maneuver done without the input of one congressional Republican. Not one. The latest effort is a health care plan drafted by the President himself – again, with no input whatsoever from those opposed to this path to a government-run health care program.
“…I will be your president, too”.
Today, President Obama and congressional Democrats are further muddying the “bipartisanship” waters by going full-steam ahead with a schedule and plans for a “reconciliation” path to enactment while at the same time promising congressional Republicans a “summit” on health care later this week.
By a 61%-28% margin (Rasmussen, 11 Feb 2010), a huge majority of Americans favor a brand-new start on health care reform. Rather than finding ways to make the existing bill better, though, President Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership are doing everything they can to simply get what they have passed.
No wonder “…I will be your president, too” rings hollow.
