No by oleg.ski (flickr)
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.
Tags: 2008 elections, elections matter, health care reform, Popular causes, Republicans
