Speaker Paul Ryan was brimming with pride and new found confidence based on the Republican Party’s accomplishment in finally sending a bill to President Obama that would repeal his healthcare law. Yes, after only the 62nd try they had achieved their goal! Of course the president would veto this bill but that is not the point. The point is that they will have sent him a message letting him know that Republicans hate his healthcare plan and they plan to come up with something much better to offer the American people.
Never mind the fact that they have had opportunities since 2010 up until now – and even before that time, to come up with a plan of their own or work with the Obama administration to tweak those areas in the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) that might make it more acceptable to them; never mind that the policing situation in America is in chaos and the overall justice system is flailing like a flag in the wind that is on the verge of coming unmoored, never mind that the middle class in America is being obliterated, never mind that the voting rights of American citizens are being threatened, never mind that gun violence is threatening to rip America to shreds, never mind the situation with ISIS and the unstable situation in the Middle East, Republicans have finally gotten their message across to President Obama regarding Obamacare. How great is that?! It’s just what the American people need and what they have been clamoring for – at least, since 2010, right?
Yes, since there is nothing else of real importance to do in the way of governance, the Republicans want to start 2016 with ‘messaging’ bills. The list of things in the previous paragraph is by no means an exhaustive list. There is no doubt that Americans want and need affordable healthcare. But we also want and need equal justice under the law, we also want and need better wages for hardworking Americans who comprise the 99 % and for those who are in the top one percent to pay their fair share of taxes; we also want and need to be allowed to vote without being obstructed or blocked from doing so, we want and need reasonable gun laws and we need congress to work with President Obama to address foreign policy issues.
I have always said that Democrats and Republicans have good ideas about how to run the American government and the kinds of things that would make it run even better. But somewhere along the way politics has completely taken over our elected officials. It has spread like a virus, especially since the first black president was elected, and threatens to rob politicians of any sense of decency that they now have; there is no end in sight to the amount of damage that it will cause. There is no doubt that if one is a politician that politics is going to be in the mix. But there has to be a limit to politics playing; a line that is drawn in the sand where politics ends and serving America with honor begins. If there is no Rubicon, then politicians will see no limit to their political forays and ruination of our country from the inside out is bound to occur. That is something that we can ill-afford.
Speaker Ryan says that he wants to send a message to President Obama and the American people, which presents a clear difference in President Obama’s policies and those that the Republicans advocate. He believes that the bill that The House passed on Wednesday January 6, 2016 does that. According to an article in Real Clear Politics by James Arkin, Speaker Ryan said “How many times have we been saying we want to put bills on his desk that say who we are and what we believe versus what he believes, that he will veto?”
Does Speaker Ryan truly believe that Americans cannot already see the huge, yet hopefully bridgeable, gap that exists between how Democrats and Republicans envision moving America forward? Does he truly believe that he needs to send us a message that brings clarity to that issue? Can’t Speaker Ryan and the Republicans send that message while at the same time helping all Americans by addressing the issues already mentioned in this article?
Wouldn’t addressing those issues be a better way to help the Republican Party and at the same time win new converts among all of the American people to it than by ignoring urgent legitimate governance issues and playing politics by sending ‘messaging’ bills to the president; messaging bills which will – at best – serve to energize the Republican base for the presidential election and at worse turn off mainstream Republicans who want to see the Republican Party take the lead in encouraging and nurturing meaningful governance?
What we need our politicians, especially our national political leaders, to do now is to put America first by placing their service to country first and pulling the American people together rather than pulling them apart based on gender, race, religion, ethnicity – or any other basis, for political gain. Surly they can see that we are being weakened and made more vulnerable to our enemies, domestic and foreign, by the situation that we have put ourselves in, based in no small part on America’s political folly. If they cannot see this then we as voters have failed.
That failure will have come as the result of us not having done our due diligence before voting for those politicians we elected but instead listening to sleek sound bites during election cycles to determine who we ‘like’ best and who would best serve America. It is long past time for our elected leaders to conduct themselves like leaders just as it is long past time for voters to get informed, get involved and elect politicians based on substance and not on sound bites.
Let’s be sure to do our part in all elections including the 2016 presidential election. At best voting politicians into office based on substance will change how our politicians conduct politics and, at worst – by those who are incumbents knowing that voters are educating themselves on the issues, it has the potential to scare them into doing a better job even if they escape being replaced.
Eulus Dennis