Republican Ruse to Destroy the ACA Failing Sadly

Last Sunday NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, House Budget Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Budget Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) discussed the bipartisan budget deal which will ensure that Republicans won’t shut down the government for the next 2 years. Naturally the subject turned to the ACA. Senator Murray said that as Americans experience the benefits of the ACA, and as the dust settles, it will become more and more popular. She cited the story of a mother with disabled 29 year old son who, for the first time in his life, can get proper medical attention. For the first time in her life she can sleep at night. 

Paul Ryan, on the other hand, had this to say: “...We also don’t want to have shutdown drama so we can focus on replacing Obamacare, so we can focus on showing better ideas and what this is coming in. Cause we don’t think people like this law and we don’t think it’s gonna get any more popular.” Interesting reason for not wanting to shut down the government.

He should know what Americans want. He was the unsuccessful 2012 presidential candidate. I wonder how a private conversation would go between him and House Speaker John Boehner, who signed up and has a great policy. Despite his support of the Tea Party’s blackmail that led to the government shut down. “We fought the good fight” he said, then promptly signed up, using the HealthCare.gov website. He was hoping to prove that he couldn't get a policy. Unfortunately - or fortunately, for him - his hopes were dashed.

The latest CBS News /New York Times Poll shows just how wrong Paul Ryan and his cohorts are.

• Obamacare disapproval has dropped from 61% in November to 50% now;
• Approval has risen from 31% in November to 39% now. 
• President Obama’s job approval rating has risen from 37% in November to 42% now;
• Disapproval has dropped from 57% in November to 50% now. 

That’s in one month. One wonders if Republicans will ever read the polls or take reality into account. They’ve made 40 attempts to repeal Obamacare and have failed every time. This isn’t a new fight for them either. They opposed Medicare, predicting that it would turn America into a socialized state. They said Americans didn’t want it. 

In 1961 Ronald Reagan released an LP calling for resistance to Medicare. His final words were: “If you don’t [do something about stopping Medicare], this program, I promise you, will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow and behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country until one day as Normal Thomas said we will wake to find that we have socialism, and if you don’t do this and I don’t do this, one of these days we are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”

Republicans had a good run of scare-mongering and they managed to fool some of the people but not all of the people.President Lyndon Johnson signed the Social Security Act, which included Medicare, into law in 1965 and Americans came to understand that it was a good thing. It has had 48 years of success. The dire predictions of Reagan et al about America becoming a socialist state haven’t come to pass. 

The HealthCare.gov glitches have been mostly fixed. And Americans are showing just how much they don’t want Obamacare by visiting the site by the millions. The US government recently released the following figures for November. SBM’s are State Based Marketplaces and FFM is Federally-faciliated Marketplace.

• 258,497 enrolled in November. The figure for October was 106,185.  
• From 1 October to 30 November, 39.1 million people visited SBMs and FFM websites and there were 5.2 million calls to the call centers. 
• 1.8 million completed applications were submitted to SBMs and FFM and those applications represented 3.7 million people applying for Coverage. 
• 2.3 million people were determined eligible to enroll in a Marketplace plan by the SBMs and FFM. 
• 365,000 individuals have selected a plan through the SBMs and FFM. 
• 1.9 million eligible people have not yet selected a Marketplace plan through the SBMs and FFM. 
• 1.2 million people have selected a Marketplace plan or had a Medicaid/CHIP Determination or Assessment. 
• 803,000 individuals have been determined or assessed to be eligible for Medicaid/CHIP by the SBMs and FFM.

The last word on this belongs to Senator Harry Reid who has carried around a newspaper clipping showing Republican scaremongering against Medicare. He tweeted it in October, saying this: “Been carrying this in my wallet a long time. It shows you how long Republicans have been wrong about health care.” It's had 2072 retweets. If you can’t read the print in the image, these are the quotes:

"I was there, fighting the fight, one of twelve, voting against Medicare, because we knew it wouldn't work in 1965." - Sen. Bob Dole. [This was in 1996. What didn’t work was Dole’s run for Presidency.]

"Now we didn't get rid of it in round one because we didn't think it politically smart ... But we believe (Medicare) is going to wither on the vine." - House Speaker Newt Gingrich. [Yeah. Gingrich also lost in 2012.]

"Medicare has no place in a free world.  Social Security is a rotten trick ... I think we're going to have to bite the bullet on Social Security and phase it out over time." - House Majority Leader Dick Armey. [It's been going strong for 48 years now.]

 

An Unremorseful Tea Party Already Spoiling for Another Fight

For people to learn lessons from their mistakes five things have to happen: they have to have an element of humility in their nature; understand that they are not the center of the universe; have empathy and a basic respect for their fellow humans; be aware of themselves and the impact of their behavior on those around them; and want to change very much. 

If any of those are absent, they might do little temporary shifts but it’ll only be to try and get out of crisis.  Essentially they’ll carry on doing the same old same old. Or else they might not even make any superficial move towards changing. Carry that to the extreme and you have a sociopath.

Since President Obama stood his ground, backed by Harry Reid and sane politicians, and the Tea Party experienced a resounding loss, many have expressed the hope that now the Tea Party will be sobered; will have learned their lessons. They’ll take a long hard look at how detrimental to everybody – including themselves – their actions have been. How they’ve undermined democracy by acting against the wishes of the majority of the electorate and underestimated Obama, Harry Reid and Democrats in general. 

How their behavior was so outside of the bounds of normalcy and decency that they turned even moderate Republicans against them, making enemies where before they had friends. How absolutely nothing good resulted from their actions. Nothing for them, nothing for anybody else.

The idea that this group has been sobered in any way at all is naïve. The Tea Party is already spoiling for another fight, congratulating themselves and Ted Cruz on a fight well fought. Bob Vander Plaats, CEO of The Family Leader (an umbrella Christian conservative organization), anti-gay, anti-abortion, who has become increasingly unpopular in Iowa, has backed losers and has failed in every run he himself has made in politics but believes he has a political future said of Cruz “[he] is a rock star sucking all the energy in the conservative movement. He’s making all the right enemies with the Republican establishment, which is taking him to unprecedented heights.”

And judging by the type of support the Tea Party is garnering, from organizations like the Heritage Foundation which has turned ultra conservative in the past six months and whose money helps secure seats in the House for Republican Representatives, they’ll never surrender. It isn’t going to bother them that the GOP job approval rating has taken a massive hit or that its chances of succeeding in any future election are diminished. That’s because they don’t want to nurture the Republican Party as a moderate party. They want to take it over. They’re taking the long view. 

It’s hard to take this group seriously when they’re so out of touch and are openly saying that what they’ve learned is how to be more effective next time, how to up the stakes, how to create more pressure. Or that’s what they think they’ve learned. How you believe you can up the stakes from government shutdown and defaulting on debt is hard to imagine. How you can imagine there’s anywhere to go against a President who just flat out says “no” and stands his ground is beyond rational. 

How you think you can take over a whole country which is ruled by democracy and retain power for any length of time when your support is 22% and on a downward trajectory – words fail.

They behave like fools and none of the normal parameters of rationality apply to them. But they’re fools with a mission and with money backing them. Which adds something sinister to the mix. Can you imagine an America run by super conservatives who have secured power by gerrymandering and some of whose members wave the Confederate flag in front of the Whitehouse? You might not be able to but they can. And they believe it’s a good thing.

They won’t succeed in the long run. But they can do damage in the short run and they’ve already illustrated that they have a talent for that, so it's probably not a good idea to dismiss them entirely.

Senators Reid and McConnell Reach a Deal and Save America from Default

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have reached an agreement to reopen the government and avert a US default on its debt by extending the government's authority to borrow into next year. Since the first rumors surfaced of the agreement, the Dow Jones has surged 200 points. 

Congress still has to act, which should press alarm bells, but most people seem to believe that it will, including Warren Buffet, speaking to CNN's Poppy Harlow. He also said "the first thing that should be done after it passes is for both sides to say 'we will not use the debt limit as a weapon any more'. In fact," he continued, "we should get rid of it entirely." He added that it was wrong to put the American people through unnecessary worry as Congress has been doing lately. "It almost becomes a game...it's beneath the level of our Congress" he said. When Poppy asked him if this, being a short term deal, would harm business, he said it wouldn't if both parties promised not to use the debt ceiling, which was as much as he was prepared to say on that subject.  

He didn’t need to say that only one side has been using the debt ceiling as a weapon. So for now a global crisis is close to being averted one more time. Most importantly, Obama's line in the sand wasn't breached. This deal has conceded nothing to Republicans. They played a dirty game for the second time, gambled and lost for the second time. Will Congress change, will it learn its lesson? Not likely. 

The Press Secretary, speaking at a press conference at the White House, when asked if the agreement reached in the Senate was a win for the President, a vindication, replied that there were no winners, stressing the point that Obama didn’t stand his ground as a strategy in a game that he hoped to win. 

There was a winner, though. Sanity. Sanity came out on top. And the biggest loser?  A Tea Party that didn’t after all manage to herald in a new world order or spark off any great social movement of change other than that of stirring up scorn for a Speaker who let them get out of control; inflaming anger against Congress that has blocked progress for almost 5 years; and nurturing repugnance for themselves as a party and for the individuals like Ted Cruz whose hearts are filled with a lust for power, whose heads are filled with sawdust it appears, but who are well and truly whipped.    

Congress Republicans Backed into a Corner as President Obama Stands Firm

On the 8th of October, eight days into the government shutdown, President Obama spoke from the White House about the need for Congress to understand that funding the government and paying the nation’s bills are not bargaining chips, they are part of Congress’s primary role. He said “…members of Congress - and the House Republicans in particular - don't get to demand ransom in exchange for doing their jobs. And two of their very basic jobs are passing a budget and making sure that America is paying its bills."

Obama’s message has been consistent throughout the government shutdown crisis. He will not negotiate with blackmailers. He has said a number of times that if a person blackmails you once, they'll do it again. And again and again. 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid agrees with him. His stand is ‘open the government, raise the debt ceiling and we’ll negotiate’. Colleagues and aides have said recently that in all his 25 years in the Senate Reid has never been this outraged or aggressively proactive. House Republicans have crossed a line in his opinion. As Democrat Senator Patty Murray said of Reid, “He feels passionately that if we allow our country to be run by hostage-taking - ‘I feel [strongly] about an issue, and I’m going to shut down the government unless I get my way’ - it is bad for today, it’s bad for tomorrow, it’s bad for democracy.”

On October 6 President Obama had spoken at FEMA and challenged Boehner on his stand that he didn’t put a clean CR to a vote because there wasn’t a bi-partisan majority to pass it (despite that Democrats and even some House Republicans having said there was one).

“If [some] Republicans and Speaker Boehner are saying there are not enough votes, then they should prove it. Let the bill go to the floor and let’s see what happens. Just vote. Let every member of Congress vote their conscience and they can determine whether or not they want to shut the government down. My suspicion is, my very strong suspicion is, that there are enough votes there.” That suspicion has been shared by many all along. If Boehner was telling the truth he had nothing to lose by putting it to the vote.

Congress has played this game since Obama began his presidency – of taking a hard line when the stakes were high and pushing Obama and Democrats to making concessions. In the beginning Obama was willing to be flexible because that, he has insisted, is what democracy is all about. But he’s also said that when it matters he knows how to draw his line in the sand.

That’s the part that Congress didn't believe. With the government shutdown and their job approval ratings according to Gallup at 11%, one percentage point higher than their lowest in Gallup history, they blindly tried the same tactic again recently when Obama invited the House to speak with him. John Boehner said last Sunday, after that invitation was issued, that he would not let a default happen, which got him a few kudos for a day or so because most people believed he was saying he wouldn't participate in blackmail again.

But they were wrong. What he didn't say on Sunday was that his idea of not letting the default happen was to continue the blackmail but with the stakes so high that the President and the Senate would have no option but to cave. 

He and his Tea Party backers not only proved Obama to have understood them perfectly, but they also miscalculated badly. Neither Obama nor the Democrats caved and the House has truly backed itself into a corner with the debt default date looming - something that even hard-core members like Ted Cruz have begun to realize. He's not making any grand speeches these days.

Perhaps they've finally looked at the polls and realized where reality lies. They're still whining about Democrats and the President refusing to negotiate but they're sounding embarrassingly pitiful now. With Congress job approval ratings virtually at an historic all-time low, overall favorability is at 28%, down from 38% in September (as opposed to Democrat job approval at 43%). As for the Tea Party, the highest support it’s ever had was 32% in late 2010. That support has dwindled to 22%.

It becomes clearer and clearer that the Tea Party isn't interested in democracy but wants to impose its will on a reluctant American electorate. It seems to have a vested interest in the Republican party imploding, even if it means that the US economy falls apart. They clearly see themselves as David versus Goliath and a new world order emerging with them triumphantly heralding it in. The point they haven’t apparently grasped is that a new world order always has a huge groundswell moving it with a fully representative leader. This group of political bandits hasn’t just taken on Obama, they’ve pit themselves against the voters, actually creating a groundswell - of opposition to themselves. 

It’s very strange in a civilized country to see a political party so blinded by self-delusion and behave so stupidly and self-destructively as this one has since 2008. 

The Republican Party is a rag-tag bunch now, disintegrating at the speed of light. Controlled by a group addicted to blackmail and gambling, unable to see or acknowledge how lousy they are at both. 

It was always going to be difficult for Republicans at the 2016 elections as their main support base – older whites – dies off and as minority groups become increasingly franchised. But they’re making it worse for themselves, actively doing all the dirty work for Democrats, making it even easier for them way ahead of the next elections. It defies belief. If there are any sensible Republican politicians, now is the time for them to show leadership and fiercely lobby for what the American voters really want - a clean CR and to raise the debt ceiling - and show the electorate that not all Republican politicians are gamblers and hostage takers. 

But it doesn’t look as if that’s going to happen. More moderate Republicans in Congress are being more open about their desire to stop the hostage taking but so far none of them seem to have the courage to really take a stand against the Tea Party. No  wonder. Those who have, have lost Tea Party funding and support. The President isn't the only who's been blackmailed. 

All of which casts a pretty optimistic light on 2016; a Democrat President, Democrat Senate, Democrat Congress. 

It’s a tragedy of history that President Obama hasn’t had that kind of support, solely because of an undercurrent of racism and fear of losing status quo that is still embedded deep into the psyche of so many Americans, so deep that it's unacknowledged and hotly denied. But it's an absolute triumph that he has established a legacy that will impact on the US and the world for a long time. He is the man who has truly heralded in a new world order, the leader of a genuine groundswell in America with a genuinely representative leader. When change happens, whether it's in an individual or a nation, all the entrenched, destructive old ways fight to the death. That's what we're seeing here: the death rattle of the old order.