Where are the liberal town hall outbursts?

Dave Weigel in an article on Slate.com, wrote this column chastising Democrats for not being able to scrounge enough "grassroots" outrage to Rep. Paul Ryan's budget plan, like the summer town halls where the newly emerging tea party folks screamed and hollered about the injustice of President Obama's healthcare plan, which failed on a policy level but won on a political level as it energized Republican voters for 2010. (I'm sorry tea partiers are comprised of a WIDE cross-section of American political tradition.)



Now, I hate to slam a fellow NU wildcat, but the reason that there are no liberal town hall outbursts is because liberals actually believe in compromise. And although we're willing to call Republicans out on the things we disagree with, we at least let the debate happen. See below for how "angry" liberals face off with their Representative Ryan below:



There you have it. Sighs of "ah...come on Paul" and boos that calm down within 2 or 3 seconds.

This is both the Democratic Party's biggest strength and biggest weakness. It's the "I see your point" quality that most Democrats have. Politically it doesn't make for the strongest case and Republicans use this weakness to play to win as the healthcare debate showed where conservative ideas to reduce costs (such as online exchanges, individual mandates, and living will planning) were all reduced to "death panels" and "government takeover".

Public Speaking Matters

One of my favorite critiques of then Senator Obama during the 2008 Presidential Campaign was, "All that guy can do is give a good speech! You know who gave good speeches and had lots of people listen to him?  HITLER!!!!"

Ah yes, the "the only thing that politician knows how to do is speak!" argument. Classic.  The argument poses that 1.) These promises will all be broken anyway and 2.) Past actions are a much better indicator of leadership than speaking!  There are two ways we can judge candidates: by their records and by their plans for the future.  Now unless you would like to read through all of the policy memos by the Obama administration on agriculture subsidies or the full detail of nuclear defense policy on Mitt Romney's future Presidential website (he's totally running), I'll take a speech that summarizes those policy goals please.

Now watch Governor Jan Brewer (R-AZ) in her opening statement for the Arizona Governor debates.

Even if you agree with her on every policy, in your gut do you feel like voting for her after that? Probably not.

Speeches and opinion articles are ways for politicians to summarize their plans for their office and in order for us to either agree or disagree with their ideas (which likely don't vary much from their party's ideas).  We judge politicians by how they communicate with us and try to win us with their arguments and ideas. A good speaker can solidify the people in his base. A great speaker can win moderates and heck, even perhaps people from the other political party. In short, public speaking matters. Our presidents will be men and women who can communicate their ideas clearly and with brevity and intellect.

Well...most of the time.

Why the Democratic Healthcare bill is like a trip to Costco

It might cost a bit more upfront, but it will give us more stuff (coverage) and save us more in the long run. And that's not my opinion, it's the Congressional Budget Office's as David M. Herzenhorn of the New York Times writes in this article. Key passage below.

The Republican bill, which has no chance of passage, would extend insurance overage to about 3 million people by 2019, and would leave about 52 million people uninsured, the budget office said, meaning the proportion of non-elderly Americans with coverage would remain about the same as now, at roughly 83 percent.

The budget office has said that the Democrats’ health care proposal would extend coverage to 36 million people, meaning that 96 percent of legal residents would have health benefits. The Democrats’ bill would cost $1.1 trillion, with the costs more than covered by revenues from new taxes or cuts in government spending, particularly on Medicare.

House Republicans, including their leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, have said that they did not intend for their legislation to expand insurance coverage, because they viewed that goal as unaffordable. Instead, they said the bill was tailored narrowly to reduce costs.

According to the report by nonpartisan budget office, the Republican bill would reduce future federal deficits by $68 billion over 10 years, compared to a reduction of $104 billion by the House Democrats’ legislation.

Democratic Senators need to fall in line

Honestly, this is why people vote Republican. If a popular President with strong majorities in both houses of Congress can't get through his own proposal then what's the point?

Republicans fight for what they believe in and they stick together, even if it will cost them personal political capital. Do you think all of the congressional Republicans wanted to vote for Bush's tax cuts? No. Do you think all Republicans wanted to vote for the creation of Medicare Part D, one of the largest -- and unfunded, I might add -- parts of the welfare state? No. Do you think that Rep. Joe Wilson wanted to apologize for his "You LIE!!!" outburst? No, but Boehner and McConnell made him do it anyway. Sometimes you gotta take one for the team and Republicans do that when they've got one of theirs in the White House. And politically, I respect them for that.

But the Senate Dems don't believe in team. They believe in holding onto their jobs and lining their campaign coffers, so they can be ultra cautious for the 2010 elections. That's why you do things in the first year of a cycle, so you have a year to recover and distance yourself!!!

Look, I believe in democracy, I really do. But I believe every president, regardless of party, should get roughly one year of a gimme. Heck, I'll only give the President 10 months to November, but he should receive a rubber stamp from at least his own party to try out his proposals. Obama's policies were voted on by the public and those policies won by a significant margin. Everything that this debate has brought up was talked about in the campaign and Obama's proposals are similar to Mitt Romney's (creating an online insurance exchange for individuals to purchase) and include ideas from John McCain (taxing healthcare benefits above a certain threshold as income). These ideas are hardly radical or revolutionary.

Bush won in 2000, I'll give Repubs that. But he won by a margin of -0.49 percent. Obama won by 7.3% with a majority of the votes. Give him until November of this year, if the ideas don't work that's why we have November 2012.

And if some Republicans and moderate Democrats really think that the public option is socialism then I suggest they start protesting outside of UMass or UDel, because it's the same damn thing. Just sayin'.

Husband and wife duo James Carville and Mary Matalin square off on health care

Back from vacation. I'm tired but looking forward to the next couple of months.

I think Carville is right here, both politically and policywise. Aside from policy matters, there is no use wasting all of this political capital on something that you don't want in the first place. Also, not having a full vote on this allows scared blue dog Dems to not vote for the thing even if they really support it.



For the record, I don't necessarily support a public option as proposed. I think the government should offer a basic plan that everyone should be required to have or the insurance companies through regulation must be required to offer a basic plan and then people can purchase supplemental insurance on top of it.

I also don't think it's fair to just tax the wealthy. My dad feels that the government should increase payroll tax for all income brackets by 1%. Everyone should contribute funds to something that I believe everyone should have access to.

What we really need to focus on is funding end-of-life care and those who have really complex terminal illness. We can afford regular checkups and the random stitches and illnesses that the large majority of people go through.