While I certainly would have voted against the jobs bill that the junior Senator from the Bay State supported, I did not react as harshly to his vote as did ColoradoPatriot on this blog. I don’t expect perfection in politicians.
I do hope those conservatives who took him to task for that vote are hailing his recent statement on Obamacare. On Monday, Sen. Scott Brown
. . . warned the Obama administration against using the “nuclear option” of ramming through Congress a revised $1 trillion health-care bill outlined yesterday by the White House. . . .
A spokesman for Brown, whose dramatic Senate victory last month halted Capitol Hill momentum for health-care reform, said Democrats better not try to use a reconciliation strategy to pass the bill with a simple Senate majority. . . .
“If the Democrats try to ram their health-care bill through Congress using reconciliation, they are sending a dangerous signal to the American people that they will stop at nothing to raise our taxes, increase premiums and slash Medicare,” said Brown spokesman Colin Reed in a statement. “Using the nuclear option damages the concept of representative leadership and represents more of the politics-as-usual that voters have repeatedly rejected.”
Can you imagine a Massachusetts Democrat delivering such a harsh attack on the Senate Democratic leadership? Brown may have voted for one budget boondoggle, but he hasn’t ratcheted down his opposition to Obamacare, standing against Democrats’ strong-arm tactics and opposed to their statist solutions to a problem, created, in large part, by excessive government regulation.
Whatever happened to the days when John McCain was praised as a ‘maverick’ for daring to take on both parties and find compromises? Now McCain is being forced to the right in order to face primary competitors, and Scott Brown (the most conservative senator you could possibly get out of Massachusetts) is getting an absolute savaging for not strictly following conservative doctrine. The last time I saw a liberal Republican get pushed this hard, he was called Arlen Specter…
This is why I think the Republicans might ruin things for themselves somewhat in 2010. The Democrats won big in 2006 and 2008 because they were willing to run moderate or conservative Democrats in moderate or conservative areas. The Republicans will need to pull the same trick if they want the same gains. Will they? I think it’s hard to tell right now.
Senator Brown did not vote for the bill. He voted to invoke cloture so that it could come to the floor. The filibuster, as indicated by the legislative history, should not become commonplace but rather used sparingly. The Democrats did win the election and should be allowed a great deal of latitude to serve their constituency.
Brown does have obligations to the people who voted for him, namely MA. I may not like his votes, but he is a Republican from the North East.
Unlike our president who wants to ram through his agenda come hell or high water, Brown would like to be reelected in 2 years. In order to do so he must keep his voters happy.
It was only the liberal media that did that. And only when McCain was caving into liberalism. So you should re-phrase your question, What ever happened to the days when the liberal media praised John McCain as a ‘maverick’?
And the answer is: McCain ran a race in 2008 against their beloved Obamaprompter. So he officially became persona non grata among liberals… even though he continues to ‘maverickally’ support destructive liberal policies (for example, the bailouts).
That comment, appended to a blog post which actually praises and defends Scott Brown, if you bother to read it.
As for compromise: Is there any sign Obama is willing to compomise? Say, on Obamacare? Or on deficits? If he wanted to compromise on deficits, he would propose $750 billion in spending cuts, to cut the federal deficit in half (since the fiscal-conservative position is that it should be zero). He isn’t. He would also let Republicans basically write his health care bill, in the same way and to the same degree that George W. Bush basically let Democrats such as Ted Kennedy write his “No Child Left Behind” education bill. Obama isn’t doing that either.
My point: Compromise begins at the top.
He wasn’t the only Republican to vote for the measure, so I am not sure why he should get any specific blame or railed against for it. You have 13 other Republican senators voting for it, even though 8 of them voted against bringing the bill to the floor. I’m not sure what changed their minds…
I actually think it was a good political move. He said he wanted to be bipartisan and this is something he could vote for. It’s a dinky bill compared to what has been out there and there are some tax credits in it. I give him a pass. He’s not Ted Kennedy, he’s not Martha Coakley and for that I am immensely grateful. He turned the entire debate around.
To keep it short: What Maureen and Leah said.
I think most conservatives get it.
better and hotter
I do not understand why people are upset when what was offered is a tax incentive for employers. This to me is far more sound than the pork from last year’s Porkulus.
At the same time I am not sure if it is all that helpful.
Either way, those savaging Brown are dead set wrong in doing that. It was a vote for cloture. It was not a vote for the legislation.
I agree with Leah that Brown is accountable to his constituents. There were a large number of moderate Democrats and Democrat leaning Indies who voted for Brown, plus there were members of the unions including from SEIU who supported Brown. He has to support them.
Brown is very much in the Kennedy mold. By that I mean that he has established a rapport with his constituents. Ted Kennedy got a lot of Kudos for the way he treated his constituents. I can see Brown doing the same thing.
He has to think of what is good for Massachusetts. When we were in Connecticut in July, my husband went into Massachusetts and we had at least 2 other excursions into a portion of that state. What he saw was a lot of empty factories. That means there are people out of work.
The Porkulus last year was never going to work, but giving tax incentives to employers is a move in the right direction.
That is why Brown deserves a break and the critical conservatives and Eeyores need to back off.
StraightAussie, you answer your question:
Well, it further adds to America’s job-crushing deficit. Doing nothing (to add to the deficit) would be better than doing anything, at this point. Unless the alternative is cuts in general tax rates, and more-than-paid-for it with larger cuts in spending, reducing government’s burden on the productive part of the economy. But it’s not on the table. Any action the government takes, except for that, will kill more jobs.
America has reached the end of the road, in terms of government spending and debt being able to have a net-positive effect on jobs (if they ever did). The only way to create jobs now is to cut spending and debt – i.e., reduce the lead weight that the sheer size of government has put on the economy.
So I agree with Brown’s critics: he did the wrong thing. BUT… My expectations of Brown were lower (because he is from MA and had supported RomneyCare). I expect he and some other Republicans to keep making these mistakes; I’m a bit puzzled at the folks who have been super upset with Brown.