Congressional Republicans have walked into the unforced error of having endorsed the Ryan budget's demolition of Medicare, and voters are reacting with hostility at town hall meetings taking place over the two-week recess.
Surely no one has forgotten the highly choreographed hostility during the health care town hall meetings during the summer of 2009. But the current activity doesn't appear to be coordinated in any coherent fashion, beyond the fact that the news that the Republican budget disassembles Medicare tends to strike a chord with a certain demographic.
It's got to make you wonder, though, how much more potent the push-back (both outside the Beltway and inside Congress) could be if there had been some effort expended on coordinating it. Seems like something of a missed opportunity, doesn't it? Because instead of seeing Congressional Democrats leveraging the rising opposition, we're seeing them falling all over themselves to join one "gang" or another, each aimed, it would seem, at heaping still more benefit cuts on top of the rising fire fueled by the Ryan budget.
I'm sure the thinking is that Dems come off looking "serious" and "reasonable" by looking to "meet Republicans in the middle" here. But predictably, as Dems move to "meet Republicans in the middle," Republicans are instead already moving to the right:
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) poses a significant obstacle to any bipartisan deficit reduction deal in the Senate that would raise taxes, according to Senate aides and activists.Hatch would have significant say over any deficit-reduction as ranking Republican on the Senate Finance panel, which has jurisdiction over taxes, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
He told conservative activists shortly before the April recess that he would oppose any deficit-reduction package that raises taxes, period.
I have little doubt but that a significant number of Senate Republicans will be joining Hatch there. And the Senate being what it is (i.e., a dysfunctional body, ruled by minority veto power), it's a fair guess that it won't matter much what "reasonable" Dems work out with their supposed "gang" partners, because "the middle" won't be there anymore by the time they work out their "deals."
But if the game is to appear like you're working towards something, I guess we've got that covered. Unless the rest of the world has realized by now that these exercises don't actually pan out. So far, though, no apparent danger of The Village media catching on to that.
Don't you wish they were forced to cover a rising tide of discontent, though? That'd be pretty sweet. I guess it could still happen. And it should be noted that not everyone is terribly concerned that the push-back hasn't been that aggressive. But as I read it, that's a position being taken with respect to setting up the destruction of Medicare as a 2012 campaign issue. And that's important, to be sure. But if the issue is pushing back on the issue at hand?that is, the Republican FY2012 budget, and the interrelated debt ceiling hostage crisis and the GOP attempt to use it to reconfigure the budgeting process such that the skids are greased for their priorities?then I think the window of opportunity for leveraging popular opposition is a lot smaller.
Process matters. Winning the elections will be critical. Winning the elections without first conceding major changes in the structure of the budgeting process going forward might be nice, too.
world news pennsylvania senators and representatives california senators and representatives colorado senators and representatives
No comments:
Post a Comment