Friday, December 12, 2014

There Is No Difference

Imagine for a moment that you're the leader of a political party that just crushed your opponent in a mid-term election. The voters handed you a mandate of stunning proportions, totally rejecting the policies of the other party and its leader.

Now its time to address a major piece of legislation. This is an opportunity to stand up to the party in power; to show the voters that you received their message loud and clear.

What do you do?

If you're John Boehner and the republican establishment you fold like a cheap chair.

Boehner and Obama Join to Pass Bill Funding Obamacare and Amnesty
House Speaker John Boehner and President Barack Obama joined forces today to push their respective party members to provide 219 votes--one more than was needed--to ensure passage of an omnibus government funding bill that permits the administration to spend money implementing Obamacare and Obama's planned unilateral actions that will effectively amnesty as many as five million illegal aliens.
Wait a minute! Didn't the American people just demonstrate that they wanted no part of obamacare or obamnesty? Did I misinterpret the results of the November elections?

I don't think so.

I think this is further evidence that there really is no significant difference between the two main political parties. They're both more concerned about lining their own pockets at the expense of the rest of us than with solving this country's problems.

This may be 'business as usual' for them, but it's the last straw for me.

A pox on both their houses ... and that spineless hypocrite John Boehner.


Edited to add:
For all the Sturm und Drang of the bill's passage last night, there's a simple reason House Democrats ultimately provided the votes to pass the CRomnibus*, and always were going to provide the votes to pass the CRomnibus: they didn't have a better alternative. If the CRomnibus collapsed, what came next would have been worse for Democrats.
* (Cromnibus = a mash-up between a Continuing Resolution, which is how congress funds the government when it fails to do its jobn and pass a real budget, and an omnibus bill, which is how congress should fund the government)
... Republicans had a Plan B. If the CRomnibus hadn't passed, they would pass a three-month stopgap spending bill. Then the next Congress could worry about how to fund the government through the rest of the year. It was actually a pretty reasonable Plan B — which is why it scared Democrats. If there was going to be a shutdown over this, it was going to be up to Democrats to cause it, and it was going to be Democrats who took the blame for it.
But noooo ... Boehner and his buddies bailed obama and the dems out.
The 219-206 House vote saved Obama from embarrassment and a quick renewal of bitter partisan fights over short-term spending bills. But it couldn't hide his strained relations with Democrats who largely blame his sagging popularity for their Nov. 4 midterm election setbacks. They lost the Senate majority and a dozen House seats.
And yet in spite of that Boehner and the republicans bent over and grabbed their ankles for barry and the dems.

Elizabeth Warren and Nancy Pelosi have bigger cojones than John Boehner...

3 comments:

Mel said...

That's why on the national election November 4th I left the GOP and voted for the Libertarian candidates. Our local GOP are conservative and do a fairly good job.
To rephrase your comment on Harpers' blog "They've got a good job, they know what they want and their expectations are reasonable".
Our only hope is for a new speaker of house next year.

Well Seasoned Fool said...

Had coffee today with my most left wing friend. The only thing we agreed on was the spending bill sucked. Different views, of course, but the restoring of taxpayer guarantees of bank's reskless hedge fund activities was one point we agreed on.

CenTexTim said...

Mel - Like you, I voted for every Libertarian on the ticket at the national and state level. Local guys were mostly repubs.

WSF - Agree 100% with you and you left wing friend. Combine the hedge fund guarantees with the recent Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac lowering of down payment requirements for people with unproven credit records, and we have the ingredients for another mortgage/hedge fund meltdown. What a pack of rogues...