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The right wing hears the people’s voice speaking up against … the public interest. You can’t make this stuff up.
Listening to speeches on the floor of Congress, it’s plain that the right wing is promising they are hearing the people. As Judd Gregg declared Thursday, around 3:15 PM, "The people have spoken". Okay, that made me laugh out loud. Surely that’s supposed to mean that the elected representatives of the people are sure that democratic elections mean something, and they are going to enact the president’s programs? Actually, no.*
In fact, the members of the right wing who are constantly speaking about the people’s will are dedicating themselves to defeating that very thing. Although they are not elected by all the people, but just their own state, the wingers are out to impose their will, not the program of the President of all the people. The right wing is using the excuse of a popular mandate to try to defeat the health care program that most polls are showing the people would like.
When the health care bill is put before the American people, they choose a more complete program than the right is allowing, and would prefer the public option.
Conducted by Research 2000 for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) and Democracy for America (DFA), the survey finds only 33 percent of likely voters favor a health care bill that does not include a public health insurance option and does not expand Medicare, but does require all Americans to get health insurance. Slightly more Democrats — 37 percent — favor the idea, while only 30 percent of Republicans and 31 percent of independents do.
Meanwhile, if the public option and Medicare buy-in are added, 58 percent of people support the idea. The number of Republican supporters drops to 22 percent, but independent support rises to 57 percent and Democratic support to a whopping 88 percent.
Since the right is vociferously demanding the people be served, why aren’t they working for a public option?
Perhaps we need to speak up a little louder. a poll taken more recently, in the second week of February, indicates that most people want to see a comprehensive health care reform passed.
A 63 percent majority of Americans, notably Democratic and Independent voters, want Congress to "Keep Trying" to pass a comprehensive health care reform plan, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll.
The survey, conducted Thursday through Monday, queried more than 1,000 voters across the country, and also asked which party is responsible for lack of cooperation in Washington, D.C. The margin of error was 3.5 percent.
The key question: "Do you think lawmakers in Washington should keep trying to pass a comprehensive health care reform plan, or should they give up on comprehensive health care reform?
Sixty-three percent said "Keep Trying" while 34 percent opted for "Give Up."
Does this mean that the right wing is listening to the voice of the people? That would be a first. No. As usual, the right is trying to defeat the will of people and beat back their interests.
In terms of public attitudes, the country approves of the reform proposal quite a bit more when Americans actually learn what’s in the plan, and get beyond the nonsense spread by people like McConnell.
But McConnell’s notion that polls should dictate policy outcomes is just odd. Indeed, it’s not even helpful to the Republican leader’s own cause.
The conservative Kentucky senator may not realize this, but public opinion generally runs counter to Republicans on most areas of public policy. Republicans don’t care — they have their agenda and they’re sticking to it — and aren’t about to let surveys dictate legislative outcomes.
Is it "arrogant" for GOP lawmakers to take positions that run counter to public attitudes? Americans didn’t want to see escalation in Iraq in 2007 and Republicans said, "Well, we’re going to give it to you anyway." Americans didn’t want to see federal lawmakers intervene in the Terri Schiavo case in 2005 or spend time working on an anti-gay constitutional amendment in 2006, but Republicans said, "Well, we’re going to give it to you anyway." Americans weren’t especially fond of the bank bailout in 2008, but that didn’t stop Mitch McConnell from voting for it, effectively telling Americans, "Well, we’re going to give it to you anyway."
The irony of the very people who ran the country into monumental debt by their policies when they were in power now decrying every expenditure for the public good is one they are incapable of seeing or discussing. When the wingers stand up on the floor and declare that the ‘people have spoken’, they show their complete deafness. The people chose this President, not them. They are hard at work against the people’s interests, the people’s voice, and the people’s elected president.
When the U.S. people speak, their voice is being shut out by right wingers intent on working to defeat the public interest.
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* NO is the operative word when the right wing has anything to say.
38 Comments
Apparently, politicians like Gregg don’t believe in our elective form of democracy. In the last two national elections, the people have spoken quite clearly that we want to give the Democrats a shot at running things. If we’re not satisfied, we’ll vote them out in 2010 and 2012. Opinion polls taken in the meantime don’t mean a thing. The only one that counts is Election Day.
Not unless they’re up for re-election.
Not even then – or have you forgotten how many ways they attempt to discourage/block people from voting?
And don’t forget the pushpoll. Here in N.TX., we’re getting imitation census forms from the NRC, that then tell you what horrors real health care will bring into our lives.
For those they have the Supremes giving corporations the direct path to buy them votes.
The mantra that polls are now the Word is pretty funny after the years of denying poll results in favor of party ideology.
I’ve been waiting for a long time for someone in the media, in whatever forum, to simply ask a Republican, any Republican, why it is that the Party seems so obviously to forever disdain serving the well-being of the lower and middle class individual, invariably in favor instead of the corporate entity or those who already are extremely wealthy? No health care reform, the insurance industry is doing just fine. No need to address climate change, the carbon industry is doing just fine. No need to regulate and control banks, the banking industry is doing just fine (after taxpayers bailed them out, hauled them up from the crevice they had dug for themselves and then fallen into). Meanwhile, extend unemployment benefits? “Not until they’re fully funded! The lazy buggers, if they weren’t getting handouts they’d be getting jobs!”
Right.
Any GOPers out there who’d like to take a shot at answering the basic question? I didn’t think so. Press? Anyone care to explore the issue?
Watching Kyl tell us from the floor of the Senate that unemployment compensation is a disincentive to getting a job … was pretty amazing. I guess in order to fight the public interest, you just have to convince yourself that anyone who’s being punched by the economy really deserves it.
He’s just using Larry Kudlow as his economics mentor. I’ve heard Kudlow state multiple times over the years that all Unemployment is, is an opportunity for lazy ‘workers’ to get a paid vacation.
I’d like to see Kyl or Kudlow either one try to live for six months on unemployment and pay their bills. And I’ll even let them pick the state that actually has the highest weekly payout (last I checked that was MA) rather than force them to live on what NY or AZ pay each week as a max.
Oh! I thought you meant Congress!
Reminds me of the environmentalist who witnessed Mark Hatfield telling someone on the phone that he had to “consult with his constituents” only to then turn to the timber industry lobbyists in his office and ask them what they wanted. Done deal. The People vs the Corporate Persons…
You have made my day.
Take it from me, from NH, Gregg is the snake under the snake under the rock. He is the lowest piece of dirt that ever was. He is a pig. A boy that ran on daddy’s money. A privileged prick.
Not for nothing that he is often known as Dud Gregg
I can’t hear that name without remembering “Pore Judd Is Daid” from Oklahoma!, sung to give a total piece of trash some reason to try being a decent human by singing him a flattering obit.
Edit; and thanks, hearing that really made me laugh out loud.
The people’s will vs. the corporate greed. Like David and Goliath.
And Goliath is cutting through the thong in the slingshot.
I think we need bigger rocks.
Actually just waving a few bucks in front of their noses will bring them down.
Yeah. :(
When Juddy baby has finished his span there will be pissing on his grave not singing him praises. If his family turns up it will be only to get some of the taxpayers money that he has been ripping off for years.
The construction he, through his brother’s company, is building are totally excessive, un-needed, buildings with the use of federal funds all the while decrying the excessive federal spending. The worm makes me sick.
Oh, I think that both branches of our single-party system, Repugnantcraps, actually DO listen to and vote FOR their constituents all the time, every day. It’s just that those constituents are represented by K Street, and us lousy serfs here at FDL (and elsewhere) aren’t their constituents. When we all figure that out (said somewhat in snark), then we’ll “understand” that these pols ARE doing the job that they’ve been “hired” to do. It’s just not the job that we want them to do, but hey: money talks. And: I got mine, eff you!
People only support reform when it isn’t a naked corporatist power grab. Any bill that compels people to purchase the products of a private oligarchy, especially when they’re highly defective and massively overpriced, as is almost all private insurance, is utterly outrageous.
Actually, it goes beyond outrageous. It’s a direct assault on both democracy and capitalism.
If that’s the ‘President’s agenda’, count me out. And as Jon Walker has documented again and again, despite all his pretty words to the contrary, Obama has not, and does not, actually support a public option.
Let’s not forget that our leader, Mr. Bipartisan, wanted Gregg to be on his team. Obama, no vision, no conviction and no leadership.
Especially enjoyed that Judd realized that meant supporting democratic policies, and jumped off the wagon.
Book Salon up at the Mothership with Frank Schaeffer’s Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism) hosted by Peterr
I have been watching the press and the Democrats let the GOPers’ incessant claims the people don’t want HCR completely unchallenged
Why don’t the Democrats protest these lies? This is how we got be a “center right nation.” and so much more.
It is trite to say it but: Lies told often enough unchallenged become truth.
Can anyone explaine to me why the Democrats simply fail over and over to challenge?
Exactly. Who allows the Republicans to get away with this crap? When you answer that question, you have found the real problem.
My rubbish radar always goes off when I hear a politician answering a question about his or her views by talking about what the American people want. I don’t care if the politician is even defending views I agree to. I want to vote for someone with the guts to stand up, speak clearly about what she or he believes and will work for, and do it without hedging.
It’s not the job in a democracy for the politician to say what the American People want. It’s the job in a democracy for the politician to say what she or he wants to do. It’s the American People’s job to say what they want in the election.
Stop telling me what I want!
The people have spoken (past tense). Should we ignore the direction we are headed. Trillions in spending, debt future generations can’t pay back unless everyone is taxed to the limit. The largest States in the Union unable to make payrolls, cutting education because Unions, Pensions, and entitlements have devoured State budgets. Wake up and smell the “tomales.” Yes, Voters are doing the math, and are waiting again to be heard.
The progressives had the presidency, a lopsided majority in the house and “the holy grail” a supermajority in the senate for a year and you still could not pass health care. So it seems Senator Gregg was correct …. The people have spoken, and quite clearly…. They Dont Want Obamacare… What part of that dont you get. If they wanted it …. It would be law…. Again when you have a supermajority and fail, there can only be 1 conclusion… The people dont want it….the people have spoken…and the progressives arent listening
Just out of curiosity, what exactly, is Progressive about this Presidency, the Senate, or the House of Representatives?
“….if the public option and Medicare buy-in are added, 58 percent of people support the idea….”
As afterseven so belligerently states, the democrats “had the presidency, a lopsided majority in the house and “the holy grail” a supermajority in the senate.”, and we still don’t have a bill passed, not even the lousy senate one. The problem here is NOT the republicans.
It is the democrats led by the president, who are not listening that matter because presumeably they had enough votes to do the people’s business without the help of a single republican. they choose to ignore the people and spent a year bickering among themselves about to best avoid giving the majority what they want. It is shameful.
The republicans may be twisting the facts, stretching the truth or outright lying but they are representing the people that voted for them
representing the people that voted for them… That would be the Republican-voting constituents who poisoned the very thought of health care reform by intoning death panels, Socialism, ‘government-run’ systems, ‘putting bureaucrats between you and your doctor’…
No, those would be the Republicans in the Senate and House.
The Democrats are weak and feckless, and the Republicans have made a feast of that, not on behalf of their constituents, but rather, at their expense.
Link to the PDF
http://www.politico.com/static/PPM136_100303_rnc_finance_leadership.html
Leave it to spineless, bought and paid for democrats to surrender the Constitution to war criminals like Cheney, Rumsfeld & Bush, then receive a decisive electorate mandate in 2008 to reverse the multiple catastrophes perpetrated on America only to sell out the country.
Health care access reform that puts people’s health and well being above corporate profit?
Not in this country.
To all of the later posters; See today’s diary (going up around 10 ET) about the general welfare of the country, that thing the government is there for.
Ruth Calvo…hopefully you will define the “general welfare.” Is it the party in power or the American people? The Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain are perfect examples of why the people rose up against their governments definition of “general welfare.”
“the “general welfare.” Is it the party in power or the American people?”
Of course it’s neither. It’s the good condition of the country.