Shathus wrote:Roots wrote:I wouldn't say it's that dems can't agree on anything, but rather democrats just pick up all the view points that aren't the "republicans believe this and only this"
Because of this, republicans have a very easy time to all stand together and vote in one direction, whereas in the democratic party you have a range of views from moderates to extreme liberals.
I don't like the republican party, yet a lot of my views are considered "moderate republican" (don't hate, I'm still pro-choice/pro gay marriage, we're talking from more of a business/tax/money standpoint)
As my wife will tell you, Republicans have forgotten what it is they used to stand for, fiscal conservatives that favor small government. Which is why the health care bill (and a lot of other recent stuff) has driven us crazy. Granted, the 'public option' is a point of debate between the 2 bills as it is, but I'm not in favor of the government controlling my health care and taking up even more debt for a solution that doesn't really solve any problems.
All the talk of this being paid for with medicare cuts and whatever else was said, we knew that A) it wasn't going to be enough or B) the cost will just increase beyond what they thought it would take anyways. Granted I feel that's generally true on most political bills, whether it be the Dems or GOP.
Republicans have bought into the theory that the best way to get reelected is to get money to your district. That's hard to do while being fiscally responsible, and is a mechanism that will always favor the democrats in the current model. That tends to cause problems within the republican party. For instance, they had no problem pushing through the Bush tax cuts, but they didn't cut government spending to go along with that, which ultimately has a similar effect economically to just raising costs, albeit without the negative social impacts. The fiscal conservatives, like myself, often find that Republicans are only fiscally conservative on paper, but in practice aren't much different than the democrats, so it's a party with plenty of it's own issues.
I find that both sides operate primarily out of their own self interests, over that of the nation at large. Obama was able to get a lot of votes out of the belief that he was different in that regard. That whether your agreed with his policies or not (which he portrayed as far more centrist than the evidence suggests), the intent was always for the best of the country. There's probably some truth to that, I find him to be more of an idealist, but for the most part I disagree with his ideas. However, Presidents don't write laws Congress does, and he's been allowing his party in Congress come up with legislation that is definitely more about expansion of power and control which will dramatically help them down the road, than it is about solving the problems. Pelosi's been clear that she's willing to live with giving up the majority to get this done. She knows the bill is very unpopular so there will be a backlash, but also because it sets them up for regaining that majority and maintaining a strangle hold on it in the future, it's worth the short term hit. It's also why they actually tried to write language into the bill that suggested it couldn't be repealed in any way. Apparantly, the constitution be damned when it gets in the way.
There has even been talk that the democrats want the house to approve the senate version of the bill, circumventing the newly elected senator by avoiding another senate vote on the issue. That seems unlikely to happen, but it's certainly a pretty shady idea. Regardless, I have no interest in turning over my healthcare to these people. I'm all for reform and getting reasonable coverage to those who can't currently afford it, our current model certainly has issues, but the current bills aren't any better.
