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After Cruz Has Said His Piece . . .
| danceswithvowels: I think Cruz is fighting the last possible battle. After this, we’re likely done. Unless you get a veto-overriding Congress, your next shot at repeal will be to win the Senate and Whitehouse, which will be after Obamacare’s been in place for 3 years, minimum. And if you think there would be screaming about a govt shutdown now, how much steely spine will be needed for “taking away poor people’s health insurance” by shutting down the exchanges in a repeal? Not to mention, you can’t legislatively undo years of damage.
Help me out — I’m ready to grasp whatever straws you’ve got handy … · 19 minutes ago |
Unlike Troy and many others, I think that there is a point to Ted Cruz’ grandstanding and to what the House Republicans did when they sent up a budget that does not include funding for Obamacare. Obamacare is about to go into effect; and, as one Democratic Senator acknowledged not all that long ago, it really is going to be a train-wreck.
Corporations are going to drop their healthcare coverage. Insurance costs are going to soar. People who are working full-time will soon discover that they have part-time jobs. This has already begun, and the unions are screaming bloody murder. The Longshoreman have walked out of the AFL-CIO. All hell is going to break loose.
What the hearties in the House are doing — and what Ted Cruz is doing — is signaling to the discontented that there really is another way. They can vote Republican in 2014; and, if they do so big time, there will be a correction of course.
The leadership of the Republican Party hates this. Like Jeb Bush in early 2009, they want “to get beyond Reagan.” They want to surrender on immigration; they have designed a Republican healthcare bill that is little more than Romneycare writ large; and they desperately want to make nice with the Democrats. They do not really want a change of course. They merely want to take their turn as managers of the administrative entitlements state. They want to take advantage of discontent without having to commit themselves to a reduction in the size and scope of the government.
If they hate Ted Cruz — if behind the scenes they are feeding the media attacks on him — it is because he is threatening to throw a monkey wrench into the works. They hated the Tea Party. Initially, in 2009, they tried to dismiss it and get on with the process of surrendering to the Democrats on the healthcare question; and then, in August 2009, all hell broke loose in the town meetings, and Charles Grassley and the rest of them found that they had to back off. The Republican tide of 2010 kept them cornered, but the Tea Party folks did not have a plausible candidate to run for the nomination in 2012 and the whole thing subsided. Now the regulars are once again fully in charge — and along comes this maniac Cruz who threatens to revive the fervor of the Tea Party and force the Republicans to move in the direction of smaller government.
Published in General
The most recent is HR 2300, proposed by Rep. Tom Price of Georgia. It’s called the “Empowering Patients First” act
I’m aware of these proposals. None of the concrete proposals have been embraced by party leadership, not even Paul Ryan’s comprehensive bill, and he’s in the leadership.
You should see the “replacement” bill the GOP leadership puts out from time to time. It’s pathetic.
The most recent is HR 2300, proposed by Rep. Tom Price of Georgia. It’s called the “Empowering Patients First” act
I’m aware of these proposals. None of theconcreteproposals have been embraced by party leadership, not even Paul Ryan’s comprehensive bill, and he’sinthe leadership.
Is that a problem with the proposals or with the leadership?
The way things have been going, I’m seeing a problem with the leadership.
The most recent is HR 2300, proposed by Rep. Tom Price of Georgia. It’s called the “Empowering Patients First” act
I’m aware of these proposals. None of theconcreteproposals have been embraced by party leadership, not even Paul Ryan’s comprehensive bill, and he’sinthe leadership.
Is that a problem with the proposals or with the leadership?
The way things have been going, I’m seeing a problem with the leadership. ·1 minute ago
It’s a problem with our activist base. The rise of libertarians has made healthcare politics difficult for us.
The most recent is HR 2300, proposed by Rep. Tom Price of Georgia. It’s called the “Empowering Patients First” act.
There are alternatives to replace Obamacare. The media doesn’t want you to know about them. ·9 minutes ago
Edited 8 minutes ago
Thanks, Drew, for so convincingly demolishing that trope.
Social Security almost went broke in the early 80s, and people accepted the fix. If a program gets in bad enough straits, it has to be fixed. ·2 minutes ago
Okay, put it this way: is it an easier fight now or when Democrats can tell 35 million people that the GOP wants to take away all health care for seniors, reproductive rights for young women, etc, etc. The scare tactics are already part of the defunding discussion. It will be ten times worse in three years. ·0 minutes ago
And speaking of Social Security, I’m convinced I will receive no benefits under the program and yet I continue to pay into it. I’ve accepted an impossible status quo. ·10 hours ago
But at what cost was Social Security fixed? We now pay 12.4%. Financial planners typically recommend saving 10% for an individual to retire. So we now have a program that takes as much money as most people would need to retire and dumps it into a pit that will be cut up to 30% by the time I retire.
I met with a customer today who runs a 19 store convenience store chain that HAS gone from 90% Full Time employees to 90% Part Time Employees in the course of 1 year. All because of the Affordable Care Act. If the Republican Party would like to be put in charge of the levers of power for this NEW country and manage this new system….God have mercy….
Scarlett: I am afraid I don’t know much about Goldwater except what I have heard–mainly his huge loss, and how traumatized Republicans were, and many still are, it seems, by that loss. So, I can’t comment on the comparison with Goldwater. He could be, I don’t know.
But I am more familiar with Reagan, including how bitterly the Republican Establishment attacked him. I view the fight against Obamacare as a signature fight, which, from all I have seen, the Republican moderates do not appear to have the stomach for; it’s just more business as usual for these politicians. So, I admire Cruz for taking up that fight on all our behalf; in the same way I admired Reagan for what he stood for. Cruz has the same doggedness that Reagan also had; and he makes a lot more sense when I listen to what he says than the image of nuttiness that the Republican Establishment tries to project onto him. Cruz is really starting to impress me more and more (I am impressed with Mike Lee too).
Well said, and I agree about Mike Lee (no one’s gonna call him a wacko-bird).
Our party is in no position to enact any meaningful health reform so soon. Simply repealing the law won’t work, not after a year of implementation. We’d have to enact real reforms of our own.
We’re not ready for those reforms. 2016 is a much better possibility. The public elected Obama twice; they can suffer through three years of ACA implementation. That will give us the time we need, and it will also build up public support for Republican reforms. ·1 hour ago
Edited 1 hour ago
Huh? Every day you allow it to go on, you allow a few more to start thinking of it as the status quo. We’re not ready? For what? Not being ready didn’t stop this law from being passed. You wait for the buildup and you’re conceding defeat. By the time reform is ‘ready,’ people will have forgotten the problem.
Mr. Lord in the American Spectator compares the treatment of Cruz to that of Ronnie, to good effect. Everybody keeps asking, where’s our new Reagan? He’s right in front of us! Don’t let the liberal Republicans distract you. Wacko bird? They called Reagan worse. Get on board with Ted and his compatriots, especially Mike Lee.
Edited 1 hour ago
Optics? Do you really believe that anyoneoutside our base is going to be impressed by Cruz? ·1 hour ago
Yes, but not in the way you mean. He can leave an impression that there is an alternative, that there are elected officials in government that recognize the public uncertainty over the enactment of this law and that those elected officials are members of the GOP. Do I think they will be impressed by Cruz personally? Probably not unless they tune in to C-SPAN.
Koolee:
I know enough about Goldwater to fill you in. Republicans should not have been traumatized by the loss. It was inevitable after the Kennedy assassination. Goldwater was a guy who would speak his mind, an often brutally honest sort, while LBJ was the classically sleazy liar.
Goldwater stood on his principles. While he didn’t have electoral success nationally, the people he energized were a major part of the Reagan Revolution (including Reagan himself).
Cruz, Lee and Paul — while I may disagree in small details (ok, with Paul, occasionally more than small) — are standing on principles. That, of course, is a foreign concept to too many in the GOP.
Ruff.
Our party is in no position to enact any meaningful health reform so soon. Simply repealing the law won’t work, not after a year of implementation. We’d have to enact real reforms of our own.
Huh? Every day you allow it to go on, you allow a few more to start thinking of it as the status quo. We’re not ready? For what? Not being ready didn’t stop this law from being passed. You wait for the buildup and you’re conceding defeat. By the time reform is ‘ready,’ people will have forgotten the problem. ·5 minutes ago
That assumes the “problem” stays a mere problem, as opposed to collapsing into a major policy crisis. If the status quo is going to collapse on its own. . .
Thank you, Dr. Rahe. You have correctly taken the measure of the Cruz bashers.
That assumes the “problem” staysa mere problem, as opposed to collapsing into a major policy crisis. If the status quo is going to collapse on its own. . . ·4 minutes ago
I hear you there, Joseph, but I just can’t afford to wait it out.
No matter how bad it is, people will simply accept it and they will fear it being taken away. Better to do away with it now. It’s just bad policy, don’t let it blow up into ruining lives.
That assumes the “problem” staysa mere problem, as opposed to collapsing into a major policy crisis. If the status quo is going to collapse on its own. . . ·4 minutes ago
I hear you there, Joseph, but I just can’t afford to wait it out.
No matter how bad it is, people will simply accept it and they will fear it being taken away. Better to do away with it now. It’s just bad policy, don’t let it blow up into ruining lives. ·1 minute ago
Edited 0 minutes ago
Social Security almost went broke in the early 80s, and people accepted the fix. If a program gets in bad enough straits, it has to be fixed.
That assumes the “problem” staysa mere problem, as opposed to collapsing into a major policy crisis. If the status quo is going to collapse on its own. . . ·4 minutes ago
I hear you there, Joseph, but I just can’t afford to wait it out.
No matter how bad it is, people will simply accept it and they will fear it being taken away. Better to do away with it now. It’s just bad policy, don’t let it blow up into ruining lives. ·1 minute ago
Edited 0 minutes ago
Social Security almost went broke in the early 80s, and people accepted the fix. If a program gets in bad enough straits, it has to be fixed. ·2 minutes ago
Okay, put it this way: is it an easier fight now or when Democrats can tell 35 million people that the GOP wants to take away all health care for seniors, reproductive rights for young women, etc, etc. The scare tactics are already part of the defunding discussion. It will be ten times worse in three years.
Social Security almost went broke in the early 80s, and people accepted the fix. If a program gets in bad enough straits, it has to be fixed. ·2 minutes ago
Okay, put it this way: is it an easier fight now or when Democrats can tell 35 million people that the GOP wants to take away all health care for seniors, reproductive rights for young women, etc, etc. The scare tactics are already part of the defunding discussion. It will be ten times worse in three years. ·0 minutes ago
And speaking of Social Security, I’m convinced I will receive no benefits under the program and yet I continue to pay into it. I’ve accepted an impossible status quo.
I support Cruz, because I agree with danceswithvowels that this is our last shot, but I don’t think this is quite fair as an assessment of his opponents. I think most “establishment” Republicans would like to repeal Obamacare, they just have Stockholm Syndrome. They’ve been convinced by the liberals and the media that they can’t win, so, until they have the White House and both Houses of Congress, including a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, they’re not going to try. Instead, they’re going to work to attract the elusive moderate voter by trying not to sound extreme. It’s a less plausible strategy than Cruz’s, but don’t try to tell them that. And either way, I don’t like our odds.
Social Security almost went broke in the early 80s, and people accepted the fix. If a program gets in bad enough straits, it has to be fixed. ·2 minutes ago
Okay, put it this way: is it an easier fight now or when Democrats can tell 35 million people that the GOP wants to take away all health care for seniors, reproductive rights for young women, etc, etc. The scare tactics are already part of the defunding discussion. It will be ten times worse in three years. ·25 minutes ago
If the status quo is that people lose all those things if nothing is done, then yes, it’s an easier fight.
Social Security almost went broke in the early 80s, and people accepted the fix. If a program gets in bad enough straits, it has to be fixed. ·2 minutes ago
Okay, put it this way: is it an easier fight now or when Democrats can tell 35 million people that the GOP wants to take away all health care for seniors, reproductive rights for young women, etc, etc. The scare tactics are already part of the defunding discussion. It will be ten times worse in three years. ·0 minutes ago
And speaking of Social Security, I’m convinced I will receive no benefits under the program and yet I continue to pay into it. I’ve accepted an impossible status quo. ·12 minutes ago
That’s because the checks are still being sent out. If we were mere weeks from that not happening, things would be different.