Letter 2 America for November 18, 2014

Dear America,

Very shortly after I saved my entry for last Friday, David Brooks was on the radio and on television reaffirming his conservative credentials, that is, he wasn't allowing some latent liberal streak to surface, but rather was cleaving to the same conservative political self-service as has poisoned this country for the past fifteen years.  And like Brooks, John Boehner, Speaker of The House, was proclaiming that he wanted The President to compromise when all he really wanted was for The President to yield.  Once again, conservative Republicans initiated a movement to repeal "Obamacare," and once again, they threatened to impeach The President if he initiated executive actions on immigration while claiming to want to pass immigration reform of their own, which they only need to vote for in The House if they truly want it because a bi-partisan bill has been there for their approval for a year and a half now.  What's more, at least a few voices have been pointing that out, yet they continue to spout hypocrisy like Old Faithful spouts steam, all of which just goes to prove something I say ad nauseum the day after every election.  On election day, the American people get exactly what they deserve, in the case of 2014, more phony claims of a desire to work with the Democrats to go along with more intransigence on the issues in reality.

During the W. Bush years, at least for the first six of them, the Republican Party controlled both The White House and Congress.  Also during those years, more than 60% of the American people were in favor of a single payer health care system.  And among the ideas that had been floating around in that regard was universal Medicare.  After all, the system was already in place and was tried and true over the course of half a century.  In addition, while the Medicare system is supported by a trust fund that costs the federal government nothing just like Social Security, the fund is imbalanced because it is supported by all, but because the young and not-yet-retired have to also provide health insurance for themselves, it can't be financially supported at a level necessary to sustain the balance of income and expenses incurred by the fund necessary to keep the fund solvent in perpetuity.  But that problem would be solved as would the problem of the unmet need of the American people for universal healthcare like that provided in all of the other industrialized countries.  If everyone were eligible for Medicare, the system could be supported at the necessary level by everyone because other health insurance would no longer be necessary.  And also because membership would be universal, it would be supported by the healthy as well as the infirm.  Voila! Problem solved...but did the Republicans propose such a plan? No-o-o.  So all this palaver about the will of The People that we are hearing now was demonstrated then to be nothing but pretense, yet, after two congresses...four years...the Democrats were thrown out of the majority control they gained in 2006 and Republican recalcitrance designed to ensure the failure of the Democratic agenda became the rule.  Enough Republicans were elected to The Senate to allow the filibuster to shut the institution down, and the Republican House became the least productive congress in history along with Congress...including The Senate...as a whole.  In 2010 and 2012--now in 2014 as well--we got what we voted for, and hence what we deserved.  It's a mystery to me.

How can a country that favored universal health care under a conservative administration and Congress now be opposed to the nearest thing to it that could be politically achieved: Obamacare?  Actually, despite Republican touting to the contrary, the majority of the American people are not opposed to Obamacare.  They want it preserved, but changed.  Yet, in spite of overt Republican pledges to repeal it--remember, repeal is opposed to the will of the American people--they have increased their power to the effect that not only do they control The House, they control The Senate as well, and not just because they have the votes to prevent the Democrats from doing anything.  They have majorities in both houses and a pledge from the leadership of the Democratic Party that the Democrats won't do the same thing to the majority party that the Republicans did to them when the Democrats were in the majority, that is, the Democrats have pledged not to kill every Republican initiative with the inertia of filibusters and withheld votes like what Mitch McConnell and John Boehner orchestrated over the past six years.  In reality, push has now come to shove.  The Republicans can do what they want.  The only remaining issue is whether they actually want anything or not.

In this age of instantaneous communication for almost everyone who wants it, we can all keep our members of Congress informed as to what we want, and there is no excuse for us if we don't.  In Connecticut, we have an entirely Democratic congressional delegation...that is, our representatives and senators are all Democrats.  They know what the people of this state want already, but they have been powerless to get it for us because of partisan opposition.  But in most other states, Republicans hold sway, so it is up to the citizens of those states to let their delegations know what they want.  I hope they do it.

Your friend,

Mike