Recent Election for U.S. Senator in Massachusetts Was Not A Referendum on Health Care Reform
Contrary to widespread opinion, the recent Senate election in Massachusetts was not a referendum on health care reform.
When broken down by precinct, central and southern Massachusetts favored Republican Scott Brown, with the rest of the State leaning heavily toward Martha Coakley. Those densely populated central and southern districts in large part determined the outcome of the election. More to the point, these precincts have the highest rates of unemployment in the State. In an election in any other state, this would have meant uninsured voters, and the election would indeed have been a referendum on health care, and the pressing need for it. In Massachusetts, though, those unemployed voters and their families find themselves protected under a mandated and funded state-wide health care program. This election was not a referendum against similar health care measures being considered by Congress, but it did reflect a disregard for them. Voting specifically against similar protection for other Americans, who find themselves in similar circumstances, would have been just too cynical. The majority voted against the party in office for a host of other reasons, not to mention the lackluster campaign of Martha Coakley.
Critics of health reform, though, have successfully spun the outcome of the election, and the Congressional Democrats are retreating from health care with their tails between their legs. One reason for Democratic timidity is the rather unfortunate circumstance of "timing." Our nation's financial institutions and markets collapsed only in the closing hours of the Bush Administration, with the effects of that collapse being experienced only under the current one. Candidate Obama infused many of us with his ideas and vision for an American Renaissance. He spoke to something essential about hope and renewal that touched at least this commentator. But, as President, he has, instead, inherited the Herculean task of cleaning up the financial carnage left behind by the Bush Administration, a job made all that much harder by Republican Senators who have decided to filibuster and vote down each and every piece of meaningful legislation proposed by the President, for the sole purpose of creating legislative paralysis, and rendering the Obama presidency ineffective. They are counting on Americans having a short-term memory and a limited-enough understanding, as a way to win back the Executive and Legislative branches of government.
And it may very well work. Independent voters have indicated that they are already waxing nostalgic for the Republican way of doing business, as if eight years of it were not enough. You know, if this country is bent on going down in flames, maybe it’s best that it happen under the watch of the Republican Party and Big Business, which, after all, speak with a unified and unapologetic voice. Let them finish what they began in 2001. Perhaps two wars, two tax cuts, the largest drug entitlement program in decades – all unpaid for, added to the $1.2 Trillion debt handed to President Obama, along with a collapsed housing market, double-digit unemployment and the meltdown of the financial sector, which adds a projected $3 Trillion loss in revenues as a direct result of the recession, which, when rung up, comes to a whopping $7 Trillion in debt – is not enough of a wake-up call for Americans.
Perhaps this is part of a much grander plan. Mathematician and philosopher Arthur Young explained to me that all civilizations rise, and then fall, and tend to deteriorate in time rather than evolve. "Why does civilization move backwards?" he wrote. "Maybe because evolution requires a current against which to swim."
This would mirror the observation by Benjamin Franklin in the closing days of the Constitutional Convention: "…I think a general Government necessary for us… and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other." This, from a Founding Father.
The United States Constitution still forms the bedrock of our society, but maybe that bedrock is best compared to sandstone, which, when exposed to the elements of our darker and more selfish nature, erodes over time.
When broken down by precinct, central and southern Massachusetts favored Republican Scott Brown, with the rest of the State leaning heavily toward Martha Coakley. Those densely populated central and southern districts in large part determined the outcome of the election. More to the point, these precincts have the highest rates of unemployment in the State. In an election in any other state, this would have meant uninsured voters, and the election would indeed have been a referendum on health care, and the pressing need for it. In Massachusetts, though, those unemployed voters and their families find themselves protected under a mandated and funded state-wide health care program. This election was not a referendum against similar health care measures being considered by Congress, but it did reflect a disregard for them. Voting specifically against similar protection for other Americans, who find themselves in similar circumstances, would have been just too cynical. The majority voted against the party in office for a host of other reasons, not to mention the lackluster campaign of Martha Coakley.
Critics of health reform, though, have successfully spun the outcome of the election, and the Congressional Democrats are retreating from health care with their tails between their legs. One reason for Democratic timidity is the rather unfortunate circumstance of "timing." Our nation's financial institutions and markets collapsed only in the closing hours of the Bush Administration, with the effects of that collapse being experienced only under the current one. Candidate Obama infused many of us with his ideas and vision for an American Renaissance. He spoke to something essential about hope and renewal that touched at least this commentator. But, as President, he has, instead, inherited the Herculean task of cleaning up the financial carnage left behind by the Bush Administration, a job made all that much harder by Republican Senators who have decided to filibuster and vote down each and every piece of meaningful legislation proposed by the President, for the sole purpose of creating legislative paralysis, and rendering the Obama presidency ineffective. They are counting on Americans having a short-term memory and a limited-enough understanding, as a way to win back the Executive and Legislative branches of government.
And it may very well work. Independent voters have indicated that they are already waxing nostalgic for the Republican way of doing business, as if eight years of it were not enough. You know, if this country is bent on going down in flames, maybe it’s best that it happen under the watch of the Republican Party and Big Business, which, after all, speak with a unified and unapologetic voice. Let them finish what they began in 2001. Perhaps two wars, two tax cuts, the largest drug entitlement program in decades – all unpaid for, added to the $1.2 Trillion debt handed to President Obama, along with a collapsed housing market, double-digit unemployment and the meltdown of the financial sector, which adds a projected $3 Trillion loss in revenues as a direct result of the recession, which, when rung up, comes to a whopping $7 Trillion in debt – is not enough of a wake-up call for Americans.
Perhaps this is part of a much grander plan. Mathematician and philosopher Arthur Young explained to me that all civilizations rise, and then fall, and tend to deteriorate in time rather than evolve. "Why does civilization move backwards?" he wrote. "Maybe because evolution requires a current against which to swim."
This would mirror the observation by Benjamin Franklin in the closing days of the Constitutional Convention: "…I think a general Government necessary for us… and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other." This, from a Founding Father.
The United States Constitution still forms the bedrock of our society, but maybe that bedrock is best compared to sandstone, which, when exposed to the elements of our darker and more selfish nature, erodes over time.
posted by Jeffrey Reel at
5:30 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home