The Fear of Saying No

Politics, it seems, is endless disappointment. Just as Lucy promises time and time again not to snatch the football away, only to send Charlie Brown tumbling every single time, politicians promise time and time again to honor their campaign pledges, only to drive voters to disappointment and despair.

So it goes with today’s Republican Party. The GOP promised, time and time again, that it would repeal ObamaCare. In fact, it voted to do so more than 50 times… when it knew that Obama would certainly veto any such proposal that managed to reach his desk.

Enter Donald Trump, who also promised to repeal ObamaCare. 68 times. The GOP today, has a 44 seat majority in the House, a 4 seat majority in the Senate, and of course the Presidency. One might think that the party would go ahead and cast its 53rd repeal vote, that the President would sign the bill, and that an oft-repeated promise would be fulfilled.

Please.

No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems — of which getting elected and re-elected are No. 1 and No. 2. Whatever is No. 3 is far behind. — Thomas Sowell

The Left and the Press (but I repeat myself) made it their mission to trumpet the number of Americans who gained health insurance coverage under ObamaCare. They conveniently left out some details, including that the vast majority of newly covered simply went on Medicaid rather than actually buying policies, but details don’t matter in today’s sound-bite political forum. Predictably, a truckload of Republicans got squirrely about repeal, fearing that they’d be accused of throwing Granny out onto the street to die when their reelection bids came up. So, the GOP coughed up an ugly hairball of a replacement plan, one that was promptly and fairly dubbed ObamaCare Lite, and one that fell FAR short of the original promise to repeal.

Pragmatists argued (and argue) that unraveling ObamaCare is difficult and problematic, and their argument proves, yet again, the conclusion that the most difficult animal to kill in the entire world is an on-going government program. Everyone thinks selfishly and short-term, fixing programs that don’t work or are doomed to collapse is kicked down the road lest the attempt to fix either go wrong or be spun as “heartless,” and politicians disappoint us time and time again.

The root of all this is the fear of saying “no” to those who stick their hands out. It’s easier to give the panhandler a buck than to risk his wrath with tough love, especially when he’s in your face, when he’s got a crowd with him, when “advocates” who don’t give half a shit about the long-term future of the country bark in his favor, and when you perceive a threat to your career.

Sadly, it is the handful of principled Republicans that did honor the pledge to repeal and thus opposed the American Health Care Act aka RyanCare who are being blamed, excoriated and, now, threatened by the President himself. Their opposition killed the bill before it got to a floor vote, but rather than laud them for standing on principle and campaign pledge, the mainstream GOP, the Trumpkins and the “pragmatists” (/spit) are blaming them for pinning a “loss” on Trump that has the Left chortling.

This has echoes of the 2010 battle over the Bush tax cut expiration. Back then, the Tea Party movement installed 50 or so Republican Congressmen and handed the House majority back to the GOP. Then-President Obama, he of “elections have consequences” fame, opted to go to war with the GOP over taxes. The GOP was ready to cave, but the Tea Party freshmen stood their ground in honor of their pledge to fight tax increases. They were called all sorts of nasty names, and the GOP mainstreamers’ message was “thanks for the win, now shut up and do as you’re told.” Ultimately, the Tea Party Freshmen prevailed, and we’re better off for it.

After RyanCare was pulled, Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks filed a simple bill in the House:

“Effective as of Dec. 31, 2017, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is repealed, and the provisions of law amended or repealed by such Act are restored or revived as if such Act had not been enacted.”

THAT is how a campaign promise gets fulfilled.

It also has the beauty of lighting a fire under the GOP to write legislation that will address the problems in health care and health insurance, both those created or exacerbated by ObamaCare and those that preceded it. They should be able to put something decent together in half a year.

Sadly, too many Republicans will be too chickenshit to vote in favor of Brooks’ bill, and I suspect the leadership won’t let it come to of committee. They won’t have the guts to do the right thing, to say “no” to the freebie-seekers, even though “no” will ultimately produce better health care coverage for them.

And so it goes for just about every promise to roll back or scale back the government. There are always people who either benefit directly or perceive a direct benefit from a government program, and they always squawk when they see that benefit “threatened.” No matter that others are harmed by that benefit, no matter that the program is detrimental, or that it doesn’t work “as intended,” or that the nation as a whole is worse off for it. The squawkers are loud and concentrated in their demands, and the rest of us are either too busy, too jaded or too “pragmatic” (/spit) to be as loud and concentrated in our calls for honoring campaign promises. And, since pols care first and second about winning the next election, they inevitably “pull the football away” and leave us sprawled on our backs, angry that we trusted them again.

What do people do, come election time? Fret that “the other guy is worse” and vote the promise-breakers back into office.

Shame on them.