Ah, the new civility. I had been meaning to do a followup post on the president’s missed opportunity to offer a serious response to the serious budget reform proposal House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) had presented earlier this month. I would have quoted from the speech itself to show how the president treated Republican ideas as he would those of an opponent against whom he’s running in a hard-fought election and those of the leadership of one legislative chamber with whom he’s negotiating to set federal fiscal policy.
Yet, to show just how divisive this supposedly new kind of politician is, we don’t need go back to an important speech he delivered last week, just turn to a townhall he conducted yesterday in Palo Alto, California where he attacked Republican plans with campaign-style rhetoric rather than attempt to approach differences in a less divisive manner, as he had promised in his successful presidential campaign in 2008:
President Barack Obama declared Wednesday that congressional Republicans are pushing a radical plan to trim Medicare and Medicaid, ramping up the rhetoric before a friendly Facebook crowd at the headquarters of the popular social networking site.
Still, as Obama and Congress approach crucial decisions on spending and the national debt the president said he thinks a bipartisan accord is possible.
“I think it’s fair to say that their vision is radical,” Obama told a town hall gathering that included questions posed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and sent in by site users.“I don’t think it’s particularly courageous,” he said of the GOP plan to convert Medicare to a voucher program and make big cuts to the federal-state Medicaid program for the poor.
“Nothing is easier than solving a problem on the backs of people who are poor, or people who are powerless, or don’t have lobbyists, or don’t have clout,” Obama said.
Once again, he resorts to the old Democratic tactic of class warfare, attacking Republicans as indifferent (or perhaps even hostile) to the less fortunate. It seems he’s living in the world of the perpetual campaign where one must always be on the attack and where one’s noble sentiments matter more than his record. He hints that Republicans respond only to the pleas of lobbyists and those with clout, as if no one had documented his own administration’s cozy relationship with lobbyists.
-Rush Limbaugh
Emphasis mine
http://tinyurl.com/4y49glr
Nice
The guy who wants an unelected, unaccountable bureaucratic entity (IPAB, a.k.a. the Death Panel) to make cuts to Medicare so he can absolve himself of responsibility, and who appoints a second Deficit Reduction Commission after ignoring the recommendations of the first one so he can kick the can down the road again… deigns to lecture the Republicans on “Courage?”
Here’s a thought: Why not give recipients a choice between Medicare and a voucher and see what people do, given the choice of dealing with a Federal bureaucracy or paying their own way.
President Obama is the radical in the room as he projects himself on the “enemy” Republicans. Why doesn’t he stand by ObamaCare & Porkulus? He has yet to defend these accomplishments because they are radioactive & rejected. Unemployment remains high, despite Obama playing with the numbers; the people know the truth. Gas is rising as he points to the blame at Big Oil. Obama really is the radical who needs to go back to his imaginary world of ObamaLand post-haste. Otherwise, the radical Obama will destroy the United States with his second term.
Duh Left: “We Must End Our Addiction to Economic growth”
Yeah, but the Republicans are the radicals. /sarc
Actually, I think the Republicans are radicals, and I admire them for it. They are acting like the rebels of the American Revolution. They are standing up to King George/Obama for the betterment of the citizens. That is a radical approach these days–and I always cheer for the rebels in the American Revolution.
Prepared to be bored; I will write of “back then.”
The “Progressives” of the late 1800’s created all manner of fraternal organizations which took care of widows, orphans and the aged. This county was dotted with “homes” and local governments even began to run “old folks homes.” The “insane asylums” pre-dated hospitals.
But, social security and a change in the meaning of “welfare” dried up the need for public homes and they closed, one by one. So did the huge number of “charity” hospitals across the country. Finally, the mental institutions were shut in the 1970’s and homelessness became a national phenomenon.
“Welfare” used to mean protecting the “general welfare” of the public against tough children on their own, mentally incompetent people disrupting the flow, widows begging and starving in the streets, etc.
Mary Mallon was a cook who was a typhoid carrier and distributor. She had to work, but she left a plague with the people who ate her food, so she threaded herself from cooking job to cooking job in Manhattan until she was finally cornered by the health police. Known as Typhoid Mary, she was the agent of many deaths, but society had no law and no cure for her. So, she was isolated by the state to keep her from spreading her disease on the grounds that she was a menace to ….. the general welfare.
Welfare Island in the East River housed all manner of threats to the general welfare.
Now, we look at individual welfare in deference to the general welfare.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio is lauded by some for treating his charges like criminals. Pink underwear, voluntary chain gangs, green colored bologna, tent cities and the likes are to remind his “customers” that they are incarcerated and there are better places than his jail to spend their lives. Arguably, he does this for the general welfare of the community by giving his charges a reason not to be recidivists.
Charity hospitals, public clinics, homes for old folks may not be the Hilton, but when you can not afford the Hilton level paid provider, a proper charity or public shelter is better than no facilities at all.
In short, I strongly support a return to community based care for the indigent and the low-income people instead of an out of control national Medicare, medicaid system. The traditional fraternal old folks home required that you surrender all of your assets when you enter. Furniture, jewelry, trinkets and all. In exchange, you received total care. My nutty great aunt lived in one for 25 years before dying at the age of 105.
One problem with individual welfare is that it gives a person a standard to adapt to and live free on the back of the general welfare. If a person has to throw himself on the mercy of community welfare, there is an incentive to shake free, if possible.
There is a world of difference between rural and populous areas and our one-size fits all individual welfare payments scheme is a cruel joke when you consider varying costs of living.
All this demagoguery about starving grandma would be moot if the local government and charities went back to housing and caring for grandma if she were indigent.
At the same town hall, Obama declared Paul Ryan & the other Republicans to be cowards for pushing his deficit reform; however, Obama is the coward as he wants the Welfare State to supplant Capitalism. Instead of constituents, we are now subjects of Obama’s fiefdom. Obama is looking to be dictator of the United States–not President of the United States.
The Republicans need to take off the kid gloves & be far more aggressive with President Obama & the Obama thugs to show they are bullies.
I see Obama’s town halls are backfiring since Obama is refusing to run on his repudiated record of ObamaCare-Porkulus while Obama himself acts like candidate Obama rather than President Obama. The disconnect is just too unreal. Hence, his need to be in colleges in an attempt to mold the young minds rather than dealing with adults 30 & older. Obama’s already running on weakness since I doubt the college crowd will turnout for 2012 as they did in 2008. Obama can’t sell his HopeChange anymore given it has turned into an upset stomach.
Sebastian Shaw @ #7:
I will see your “kid gloves” and raise you a tire iron.
Obama has come out with guns blazing and firing demagogic shrapnel powered by complacent, subservient MSM broadcast chutzpah. To Obama, a redesign of the social security system equals an end to food stamps, public housing, medicare, college loans, public sanitation and bridge repair.
When the Demagogocrats fight this way, kid gloves prove that the Republicans are asking to be raped, beaten and stomped on. But removing the gloves means that the bare-knuckle fight to come has to be monitored by attentive, loyal goons on the sideline who will break the backs of interlopers.
I hate Chicago politics beyond all sense of loathing, but I know the rules.
Democrat party minions who go to nursing homes to register Alzheimer’s patients to vote are so far beyond ethics and morality that discussing the fact in civilized terms is a waste of oxygen.
Obama in particular and vast numbers of leftists in general are so consumed with power that how they achieve it is of little practical consequence and well within their purview of moral relevancy.
Levi, Cas, Doom, Auntie Dogma, Tim and so many other who spray their invective here are just the tip of the mountain of corruptocrats who seek the power of the state to crush dissent.
Hi Heliotrope,
“Levi, Cas, Doom, Auntie Dogma, Tim and so many other who spray their invective here are just the tip of the mountain of corruptocrats who seek the power of the state to crush dissent.”
I guess this doesn’t count as invective, does it? Just a rhetorical question…
Hi! Cas:
I’m sorry, did I paint you into the wrong portrait. You are a warrior against the power of the state to crush dissent? My bad. Glad to have you on side of representative democracy, transparency, principle based debate, the courage to take a stand and the ability to express your principles in a cogent and succinct manner. Welcome to the enlightened side.
Hi HT,
Thank you. Sarcasm suits you much better! 🙂
Hi! Cas:
What? You are not a warrior against the power of the state to crush dissent? My bad.
So, where do you weigh in with the corruptocrats spewing invective? Have you taken even that much of a principled stand?
And here I unwittingly believed you had crossed over to the side of representative democracy, transparency, principle based debate, the courage to take a stand and the ability to express your principles in a cogent and succinct manner. I even welcomed you to the enlightened side.
Guess you made a real chump of me that time! Good one!!! See how gullible we true believers really are? You know, turn the other cheek and all of that. Slap with a dead fish again, please. It is so instructive.
“Guess you made a real chump of me that time! Good one!!! See how gullible we true believers really are? You know, turn the other cheek and all of that. Slap with a dead fish again, please. It is so instructive.”
Sure, big guy, sure… 🙂