I’ll make a clear statement here: “I’m really tired of hearing the naysayers complaining about President Obama going too fast and ‘biting off more than he can chew’.” In my opinion that is rubbish.
First, I think most of the complaints are from conservative Republican naysayers who want to maintain the status quo of what they created over 12 years prior to 2006 and were able to continue on to 2008 with President Bush’s vetoes. They spent money “hands over fist” on projects and programs that padded their supporter’s pockets with all sorts of lucrative subsidies, favorable contracts, and topped it off with tax breaks for the wealthy. They got to live a conservative Republican’s dream of deregulating about everything they could deregulate which led to all kinds of financial and governmental failure. They got to be “tough guys” with countries elsewhere in the world that didn’t kowtow to their view, even to the point of unilaterally starting an unnecessary war which distracted from a fully justifiable, clear cut military retaliation that itself has now warped into a war with both of them lasting longer than either of the World Wars of the 20th century. And, they would still be following these failed policies if the economy hadn’t done a “humpty-dumpty” off the wall and they couldn’t put him back together again.
Secondly, I think some are opposed to Obama’s drive to fix things, which requires changing things, because they just don’t like to work that hard. Too many are “too old” and “too slow” and they were coasting in their comfort zone. They are elected from “safe” districts and states; they’ve gotten their “pork barrel” bills through Congress to show people back home how much they “love” them; their campaign “war chests” are full or can be easily refilled with a few phone calls because their supporters both owe them and own them; they’ve got their staffs doing all their grunt work; and they are out doing what they do best – getting re-elected over and over. (In all fairness, there are some Democratic Congressmen that are in the same position which is our collective fault.)
Then, along comes this young President who actually wants to take a shot at doing what he said he was going to do in his campaign. This is almost unheard of in their political world. He has turned them upside down and made them very uncomfortable. When they say he is trying to do too much, it really means he is forcing them to have to hustle just to keep up. When you hear Congressmen publicly complaining about how many pages are in a bill, like Universal Health Care, and that they are struggling to get it read that’s a “smoke screen.” Important bills are almost always that long and most Congressmen haven’t been reading them for years. The best hope is that their staffs have been and give them a one or two page summary with a few talking points to use out on the stump. Suddenly they want time to read these bills? They are just “grasping at straws” and stalling.
Thirdly, when you hear them say they want to slow down and consider all the ramifications of a proposal like Universal Health Care, they are stalling again. Where was the slow down and consideration of ramifications for our unilateral rush to war, our deregulation of the financial world in the early 2000’s, or the creation and inadequate funding of prescription drug program? Drafters of legislation do their best to factor in consequences when they write legislation, but no one can second guess the ramifications of some changes until you get into them. You win some and you lose some and conservative Republican’s lost the last election because the ramifications of their policies resulted in failure.
Every change is a bit of a gamble and ramifications can’t always be forecast accurately. But, if you have problems like a failed economy, failed health care system, failed energy policy, failed educational system, collapsing infrastructure, and failed foreign policy, it behooves you to try to fix them.
But, instead of facing these problems head on and cooperatively working together to find solutions, the conservative Republicans have decided the easiest thing to do is to “stop the train” or at least slow it down with constant negative innuendo, a policy of no to everything, conjuring up a wagon load of fears, and repeating outrageous lies over and over again. There are legitimate concerns and need for serious bi-partisan discussion to deal with these problems – for example how should we pay for these solutions. President Obama has been admirably patient in trying to do this – more than I would be.
If you have a company with bad or out-dated product, poor customer service, sinking sales, "tired" inefficient manufacturing facilities, poorly trained and performing workers, status quo loving “fat cat” managers, etc. you better not approach these problems with let’s go slow and take one thing at a time. You do that, and you are out of business. You had better bring in some new high energy management people with creative minds and innovative ideas. You better do some serious R & D. You’d better invest in up-to-date infrastructure, train and motivate your workers, and hustle to retain existing customers and get new ones. And guess what, you are going to have to borrow money big time to get it done! Try as you may, you aren’t going to foresee all the ramifications of your changes in advance. You are going to have to dump some things, cutting your losses when mistakes are made. You will need to tweak, adapt, build and expand on those things that do work. But, you’d better not rely on “smooth talking”, “glad handing”, “do nothing”, “too old”, “too slow”, “fat cat”, “status quo loving conservatives” to get things up and running. There is a great book written by Jennings and Haughton for the business world in 2000 that I’d recommend, it’s not the Big that eat the Small……it’s the Fast that eat the Slow. We’d better be ready or the Big ole USA is going to be eaten by the rest of the world that is getting faster and faster and smarter and smarter.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Another opinion on Town Hall Meeting in Lindsborg
It was interesting in a kind of disconnected way. You had U.S. Representative Jerry Moran with sweat dripping off his face and soaking his shirt being pleasant, obviously intelligent, showing a good sense of humor, and being very articulate. He was clearly well prepared and spent less than 30 minutes telling his audience his views on the big issues of the day. He was obviously “preaching to the choir,” getting all kinds of smiles, applause and moral support for his rendition of Republican Party ideology. He was “home” and you could tell it bolstered his spirits and he rose to the occasion.
However, one could feel a current underlying his opening statements where people in the audience were only somewhat patiently waiting for him to finish so that they could have “their day in court.” This is where the disconnect began.
He announced at the end of his opening comments that he didn’t put much stock in polls, not mentioning the fact that they are usually conducted these days following very scientific processes, but instead he put more stock in “pressing the flesh” and talking directly to the people. I thought “bologna,” but since he is a politician I let it pass until the very end of the town hall meeting when he asked for a show of hands on several topics including how many supported the universal health care plan, the public option in the plan, etc. With a crowd of obviously strong Republican supporters, he got the response he came for, seemingly ignoring the fact that this is about as unscientific a measure as one could imagine. I wondered if he went away from there truly convinced that the overwhelming number of people in Lindsborg really agreed with him.
Then, the people began to speak. Some were well prepared and had good quality questions, comments, and life experiences to share which made it a good learning experience. But, there were some that were to say the least, “off the wall.” People who liked to hear themselves talk and had been saving up for years for their chance to tell their life story to a U.S. Representative and an audience of some 200 people many of which had already made up their mind. It made me happy that we have a small “r” republican form of government, not a pure democracy.
There were quite a few partisan anti-government questions like, “When are you going to shut down this liberal government in Washington that is taking away our freedoms and leading the country to “rack and ruin.” I wondered if this guy wasn’t aware that we recently had a national election where the Democrats gained control of both houses of Congress and the Presidency because the majority of the people in the country believed that the Republican President and Congress (of which Moran was a part) had led us down the “tubes” for years.
One commenter said he had read 45 pages of the 1000+ page plan which Rep.Moran’s staffer had set on the podium as a visual aid. I guess they did so to show that the bill is long and involved. Are we to assume that an issue like this can be reduced to a one or two page list of bullet points? It was interesting that no one, including Rep. Moran, pointed out that this bill was just one of several bills circulating in Washington and that the one he showed from the Commerce Committee in the House of Representatives is not the important one. The one still being hammered out in the Finance Committee by Senator Baucus, of Montana, with the White House’s help, is what most experts are waiting for. This commenter then stated that “the plan on the table,” contained provisions where a committee with a chairman appointed by the President would take up to 18 months to work out the details ‘scares the devil out of him.” I stood there wondering if this guy doesn’t understand that this is the constitutional process in our government – legislative branch (Congress) passes a bill (makes a law) and the executive branch (President) administers the law with Cabinet and/or other agency appointments and that it takes a while to put a process like this in place.
There was a young couple who very emotionally talked about how they opposed the health care bill because it would result in euthanasia of their special needs child. I lost a lot of respect for Rep. Moran when he lacked the courage to come out and say “there are no “death panels” called for in this bill or any other bill and that rumor is out-of-line and totally unfounded. Neither Democrats or Republicans would support such a thing.” He dodged around it and kind of left the audience with the feeling that there might be something to it. Shame on him! Some of the other rumors that are equally out of line were mentioned and he chose not to accurately squelch those either.
In answering a series of questions and comments about how our present system needs changing, Rep. Moran went through a rather long laundry list of how our present system is “broke.” His conclusion was, let’s take this piece-meal and eventually get it fixed. I stood there wondering why. All of the things he mentioned, that have been around for 50+ years and are getting worse, are addressed in these bills being written and discussed. Why wouldn’t you want to fix them ASAP?
Also, he “pulled on the heart strings” of the audience by claiming universal health care would destroy an already marginal/on-the-edge medical service industry in rural America – a lot of applause. It sounded interesting to me as to why. But, he gave no explanation and I left still wondering whether this was just anti-universal health care hype or something to really be concerned about.
The “socialism” word was thrown around a lot in questions and comments – we don’t want socialism! I don’t want socialism either, but what about Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Farm Program, universal education and several other programs that we have that few in the audience would seriously consider eliminating? The U.S. Constitution was written in the 1780’s for a time and period that no longer exists and that one of our country’s strengths is that we have adapted our government to meet the needs of each generation. As conditions change, role of government must carefully change with them and our mixed economy and political structure is a testament to that.
As I said at the outset, there were a lot of disconnects in the experience, but I did think it was good to see this many people out expressing their views. I would like to have seen it run along the lines of the old TV Gong Show. It would have saved a lot of time and allowed more questions and comments. And, it would have been even better if one had the feeling that someone was really listening and really cared rather than just solidifying votes for opinions already held. However, in my mind, one redeeming fact is that up to this point Rep. Jerry Moran is sooo much better than Todd Tiehart.
However, one could feel a current underlying his opening statements where people in the audience were only somewhat patiently waiting for him to finish so that they could have “their day in court.” This is where the disconnect began.
He announced at the end of his opening comments that he didn’t put much stock in polls, not mentioning the fact that they are usually conducted these days following very scientific processes, but instead he put more stock in “pressing the flesh” and talking directly to the people. I thought “bologna,” but since he is a politician I let it pass until the very end of the town hall meeting when he asked for a show of hands on several topics including how many supported the universal health care plan, the public option in the plan, etc. With a crowd of obviously strong Republican supporters, he got the response he came for, seemingly ignoring the fact that this is about as unscientific a measure as one could imagine. I wondered if he went away from there truly convinced that the overwhelming number of people in Lindsborg really agreed with him.
Then, the people began to speak. Some were well prepared and had good quality questions, comments, and life experiences to share which made it a good learning experience. But, there were some that were to say the least, “off the wall.” People who liked to hear themselves talk and had been saving up for years for their chance to tell their life story to a U.S. Representative and an audience of some 200 people many of which had already made up their mind. It made me happy that we have a small “r” republican form of government, not a pure democracy.
There were quite a few partisan anti-government questions like, “When are you going to shut down this liberal government in Washington that is taking away our freedoms and leading the country to “rack and ruin.” I wondered if this guy wasn’t aware that we recently had a national election where the Democrats gained control of both houses of Congress and the Presidency because the majority of the people in the country believed that the Republican President and Congress (of which Moran was a part) had led us down the “tubes” for years.
One commenter said he had read 45 pages of the 1000+ page plan which Rep.Moran’s staffer had set on the podium as a visual aid. I guess they did so to show that the bill is long and involved. Are we to assume that an issue like this can be reduced to a one or two page list of bullet points? It was interesting that no one, including Rep. Moran, pointed out that this bill was just one of several bills circulating in Washington and that the one he showed from the Commerce Committee in the House of Representatives is not the important one. The one still being hammered out in the Finance Committee by Senator Baucus, of Montana, with the White House’s help, is what most experts are waiting for. This commenter then stated that “the plan on the table,” contained provisions where a committee with a chairman appointed by the President would take up to 18 months to work out the details ‘scares the devil out of him.” I stood there wondering if this guy doesn’t understand that this is the constitutional process in our government – legislative branch (Congress) passes a bill (makes a law) and the executive branch (President) administers the law with Cabinet and/or other agency appointments and that it takes a while to put a process like this in place.
There was a young couple who very emotionally talked about how they opposed the health care bill because it would result in euthanasia of their special needs child. I lost a lot of respect for Rep. Moran when he lacked the courage to come out and say “there are no “death panels” called for in this bill or any other bill and that rumor is out-of-line and totally unfounded. Neither Democrats or Republicans would support such a thing.” He dodged around it and kind of left the audience with the feeling that there might be something to it. Shame on him! Some of the other rumors that are equally out of line were mentioned and he chose not to accurately squelch those either.
In answering a series of questions and comments about how our present system needs changing, Rep. Moran went through a rather long laundry list of how our present system is “broke.” His conclusion was, let’s take this piece-meal and eventually get it fixed. I stood there wondering why. All of the things he mentioned, that have been around for 50+ years and are getting worse, are addressed in these bills being written and discussed. Why wouldn’t you want to fix them ASAP?
Also, he “pulled on the heart strings” of the audience by claiming universal health care would destroy an already marginal/on-the-edge medical service industry in rural America – a lot of applause. It sounded interesting to me as to why. But, he gave no explanation and I left still wondering whether this was just anti-universal health care hype or something to really be concerned about.
The “socialism” word was thrown around a lot in questions and comments – we don’t want socialism! I don’t want socialism either, but what about Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Farm Program, universal education and several other programs that we have that few in the audience would seriously consider eliminating? The U.S. Constitution was written in the 1780’s for a time and period that no longer exists and that one of our country’s strengths is that we have adapted our government to meet the needs of each generation. As conditions change, role of government must carefully change with them and our mixed economy and political structure is a testament to that.
As I said at the outset, there were a lot of disconnects in the experience, but I did think it was good to see this many people out expressing their views. I would like to have seen it run along the lines of the old TV Gong Show. It would have saved a lot of time and allowed more questions and comments. And, it would have been even better if one had the feeling that someone was really listening and really cared rather than just solidifying votes for opinions already held. However, in my mind, one redeeming fact is that up to this point Rep. Jerry Moran is sooo much better than Todd Tiehart.
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