Democrats sacrifice Social issues to Progressive Fiscal Irresponsibility
ObamaCare’s First Major Casualties: Gays and Aliens
"It takes hard work to squander the kind of political clout Democrats have in this Congress, but they have managed quite nicely as yesterday’s debacle with the defense appropriations bill eloquently demonstrates."
Democrats had massive majorities in the House, and a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, as well as controlling the Presidency, and yet the Democrats supporters are still whining that the Republicans are the ones who stood in the way of their "progress".
Let's be clear as the President likes to say. Yesterday's filibuster of the defense appropriations bill was predictable and unfortunate. Republicans stood against it, and the opposition to it was even bi-partisan as some Democrats stood against it as well.
The bill would have ended "Don't Ask Don't Tell" the discriminatory practice which bars the hard working and courageous men and women who fight and defend our nation from openly admitting to being gay or lesbian if they are - and which has lead to the dismissal of qualified service members from our armed forces at a time when military recruitment has been suffering. Israel, one of the best military fighting forces in the world has had gay and lesbian service members serving their country for a long time. To think that the United States of America would not remain the most advanced and powerful military might in the world if we allowed gay and lesbian citizens to defend our country is almost beyond belief. I think it's on the way out. I can understand some of the objections to the bill yesterday, at least in terms of waiting for the military to make their reports as was originally agreed, but this policy needs to be terminated one way or another. The military will adjust, and they will be just as strong afterward, there is good reason we have such faith in them as a nation.
The bill would also have allowed a pathway to citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, who know no other home but our country, who have no "home" in their parents native countries to go to, and who do not find themselves in their predicament of their own fault. We stand as a nation to benefit from the productive lives they can live here, as they contribute to our economy, and continue to assimilate just as every wave of immigrant children have done in this country in the past. So it's difficult to see something like this blocked, when it didn't need to be as controversial as it wound up being.
But the fault has to be laid at the feet of the Democrats, and particularly with the ugly way they decided to play the game with their health care reform fiasco. They had overwhelming majorities able to enact what they would have willed over the last two years, but rather than trying to form a sensible compromise on legislation in towards the center, they left their far left and extreme flank run wild and dictate the terms of how legislation was going to go forward. Those extreme progressives still did not get everything they wanted and may still be disappointed, but they prevented any sort of reasonable and bi-partisan compromise from occurring - and soured the relationship between the parties to the hyper-partisan levels that we are currently experiencing.
And so, when sensible legislation like this comes along, when compromise certainly *could* have been had here, there's no political good will or capital left to be spent from the other side. All it would have taken was the inclusion of a few of the good ideas the Republicans actually had in the health care debate to be inserted into legislation, things like allowing insurers to compete across State lines, or tackling tort reform, and we might have seen a different end. Instead, the Democrats decided they wanted to get ugly and flat out rejected compromise towards Republican positions that weren't being required by their own moderates.
So here we are... 40 days before the election which is looking to be a Republican landslide, and the Democrats having squandered their opportunity to lead on health care reform the public isn't growing fonder of as they claimed we would, but in fact more resistant to. The great aspects of social liberalism have been sacrificed to the worst elements of their fiscal liberalism, and in return the country is probably going to punish them for it. It's sad, and ultimately rather pathetic.
"It takes hard work to squander the kind of political clout Democrats have in this Congress, but they have managed quite nicely as yesterday’s debacle with the defense appropriations bill eloquently demonstrates."
Democrats had massive majorities in the House, and a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, as well as controlling the Presidency, and yet the Democrats supporters are still whining that the Republicans are the ones who stood in the way of their "progress".
Let's be clear as the President likes to say. Yesterday's filibuster of the defense appropriations bill was predictable and unfortunate. Republicans stood against it, and the opposition to it was even bi-partisan as some Democrats stood against it as well.
The bill would have ended "Don't Ask Don't Tell" the discriminatory practice which bars the hard working and courageous men and women who fight and defend our nation from openly admitting to being gay or lesbian if they are - and which has lead to the dismissal of qualified service members from our armed forces at a time when military recruitment has been suffering. Israel, one of the best military fighting forces in the world has had gay and lesbian service members serving their country for a long time. To think that the United States of America would not remain the most advanced and powerful military might in the world if we allowed gay and lesbian citizens to defend our country is almost beyond belief. I think it's on the way out. I can understand some of the objections to the bill yesterday, at least in terms of waiting for the military to make their reports as was originally agreed, but this policy needs to be terminated one way or another. The military will adjust, and they will be just as strong afterward, there is good reason we have such faith in them as a nation.
The bill would also have allowed a pathway to citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, who know no other home but our country, who have no "home" in their parents native countries to go to, and who do not find themselves in their predicament of their own fault. We stand as a nation to benefit from the productive lives they can live here, as they contribute to our economy, and continue to assimilate just as every wave of immigrant children have done in this country in the past. So it's difficult to see something like this blocked, when it didn't need to be as controversial as it wound up being.
But the fault has to be laid at the feet of the Democrats, and particularly with the ugly way they decided to play the game with their health care reform fiasco. They had overwhelming majorities able to enact what they would have willed over the last two years, but rather than trying to form a sensible compromise on legislation in towards the center, they left their far left and extreme flank run wild and dictate the terms of how legislation was going to go forward. Those extreme progressives still did not get everything they wanted and may still be disappointed, but they prevented any sort of reasonable and bi-partisan compromise from occurring - and soured the relationship between the parties to the hyper-partisan levels that we are currently experiencing.
And so, when sensible legislation like this comes along, when compromise certainly *could* have been had here, there's no political good will or capital left to be spent from the other side. All it would have taken was the inclusion of a few of the good ideas the Republicans actually had in the health care debate to be inserted into legislation, things like allowing insurers to compete across State lines, or tackling tort reform, and we might have seen a different end. Instead, the Democrats decided they wanted to get ugly and flat out rejected compromise towards Republican positions that weren't being required by their own moderates.
So here we are... 40 days before the election which is looking to be a Republican landslide, and the Democrats having squandered their opportunity to lead on health care reform the public isn't growing fonder of as they claimed we would, but in fact more resistant to. The great aspects of social liberalism have been sacrificed to the worst elements of their fiscal liberalism, and in return the country is probably going to punish them for it. It's sad, and ultimately rather pathetic.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home