A Government of the Congress, by the Congress, for the Congress --- oops, just forget the people
Today's dilemma of a government shutdown has nothing to do with the needs and wants of the great majority of the American people. It's a fight among a group of stubborn, arrogant, hopelessly provincial politicians, many of whom seem to have no broad concept of American democracy, or for that matter any significant education.
One thing is completely baffling. There are 233 Republican members of the House of Representatives. 30 of those are extremely activist anarchist, nihilist, cranks or radicals by any standard. Another 50 or so members of the House are estimated to be relatively quiet but strong supporters of the 30 crazy people. What's happened to the other 153 members of the House. Are they just too intimidated to think like responsible American citizens? Do they feel like just being followers protects their dear House seats for another election. They all vote as a group, just following the extremists. The media acts as if the extremists are the central element of the House. So does the White House. Where are the 153?
Are they just afraid or racist or such non risk takers that they have no spines(I could use another word).
Anyway, most Americans, maybe 90% by some polls, agree that Congress is an incompetent and ineffective mess.
Obama can't be left untouched by this comment. From this perspective he has made three critical mistakes. First, from the outset he stated that any hint of a compromise was non-negotiable. That may have been true, but why say it at the outset with no outreach and essentially make the 153 and their constituents feel completely disenfranchised. Second, buried in an NYT article on the health care bill last week was the information about software systems not being "completely" ready. How many years have they had to work on this, and we saw yesterday the truth of that NYT observation. Obama turned it around by saying the failure to the system to handle a majority of those trying to access the system demonstrated the success of the demand for the program. On top of that the Spanish language version of the system will not be ready for "several weeks". Again, two or more years of lead time and the systems are either inadequate or don't work. Third, to my knowledge the administration has never published what in business would be called an executive summary of the program, and what here could be called a "people's summary" of the highlights. That has left most citizens simply reliant on the media and the politicians to interpret this program that is bundled into a more than 2000 page document. It is safe to say that many of the uninsured are either working too much and have too many family responsibilities to study these program choices. Many may have minimal education and many young people are too busy with their lives to care. Perhaps even more to the point, many generally well informed people do not know the details of the program.
How simple would it have been for the government to put full page ads in the NYT and newspapers across the country explaining the program in basic layman's terms?
There is so much more to this that this brief post can't possibly cover. Why are so many states not participating in aspects of the program that would only benefit both their embattled budgets and the health of their citizens? It appears to be simply a political unwillingness to accept anything designed by Democrats or Obama. --- and on and on the questions could go.
One thing is completely baffling. There are 233 Republican members of the House of Representatives. 30 of those are extremely activist anarchist, nihilist, cranks or radicals by any standard. Another 50 or so members of the House are estimated to be relatively quiet but strong supporters of the 30 crazy people. What's happened to the other 153 members of the House. Are they just too intimidated to think like responsible American citizens? Do they feel like just being followers protects their dear House seats for another election. They all vote as a group, just following the extremists. The media acts as if the extremists are the central element of the House. So does the White House. Where are the 153?
Are they just afraid or racist or such non risk takers that they have no spines(I could use another word).
Anyway, most Americans, maybe 90% by some polls, agree that Congress is an incompetent and ineffective mess.
Obama can't be left untouched by this comment. From this perspective he has made three critical mistakes. First, from the outset he stated that any hint of a compromise was non-negotiable. That may have been true, but why say it at the outset with no outreach and essentially make the 153 and their constituents feel completely disenfranchised. Second, buried in an NYT article on the health care bill last week was the information about software systems not being "completely" ready. How many years have they had to work on this, and we saw yesterday the truth of that NYT observation. Obama turned it around by saying the failure to the system to handle a majority of those trying to access the system demonstrated the success of the demand for the program. On top of that the Spanish language version of the system will not be ready for "several weeks". Again, two or more years of lead time and the systems are either inadequate or don't work. Third, to my knowledge the administration has never published what in business would be called an executive summary of the program, and what here could be called a "people's summary" of the highlights. That has left most citizens simply reliant on the media and the politicians to interpret this program that is bundled into a more than 2000 page document. It is safe to say that many of the uninsured are either working too much and have too many family responsibilities to study these program choices. Many may have minimal education and many young people are too busy with their lives to care. Perhaps even more to the point, many generally well informed people do not know the details of the program.
How simple would it have been for the government to put full page ads in the NYT and newspapers across the country explaining the program in basic layman's terms?
There is so much more to this that this brief post can't possibly cover. Why are so many states not participating in aspects of the program that would only benefit both their embattled budgets and the health of their citizens? It appears to be simply a political unwillingness to accept anything designed by Democrats or Obama. --- and on and on the questions could go.
posted by John Borden at 1:19 PM
1 Comments:
I concur.
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