RSS Feed MenuTwo reports last night of what the GOP’s “No, no, no” policy has wrought:
1) Instead of a healthcare reform to slow cost increases, Democrats in the Senate seem to be converging upon an expansion of Medicare to include age 55-64 year-olds and an expansion in Medicaid up to some higher multiple of the poverty limit. You might wonder why they didn’t do this before: expanding existing programs is always easier than creating new ones. So now instead of a new system that attempts to control costs, we’re just going to have a bigger and more expensive version of the old system, with a few tinkers around the edges. Republicans could have been architects of improvement, instead we made ourselves impotent spectators as things get radically worse. Plus – the bad new Democratic proposal will likely be less unpopular with voters than their more promising earlier proposal. Nice work everybody.
2) House and Senate conferees last night rejected a proposal to deny EPA funds to enforce its new powers over greenhouse gasses. So instead of an economically rational approach to carbon abatement – a carbon tax or even a cap-and-trade system stripped of the abuses and boondoggles attached to it by House Democrats – we’re going to have the least rational approach: bureaucratic enforcement.
The furious rejectionist frenzy of the past 12 months is exacting a terrible price upon Republicans. We’re getting worse and less conservative results out of Washington than we could have negotiated, if we had negotiated.
As is, we’re betting heavily that a bad economy will collapse Democratic support without us having to lift a finger. Maybe that will happen. But existing party strategy has to be reckoned a terrible failure. Most Republicans will shrug off that news. If polls are right, rank-and-file Republicans feel little regard for the Washington party, and don’t expect much from it. But it’s the rank-and-file who are the problem here! Republican leaders do not dare try deals for fear of being branded sell-outs by a party base that wants war to the knife. So we got war. And we’re losing. Even if we gain seats in 2010, the actions of this congressional session will not be reversed. Shrink Medicare after it has expanded? Hey- we said we’d never do that.
I hear a lot of talk about the importance of “principle.” But what’s the principle that obliges us to be stupid?
urban // Dec 10, 2009 at 10:42 am
@ CO Independent:
“The Republican Party was our home from 1980 through 2000″
You are suffering from a little case of selective deception here. Ronald Reagan raised taxes when the country was in financial trouble. Ronald Reagan spent more money we didn’t have than any other modern president up until him. Remember Dick “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter” Cheney?
The problem is the GOP has never matched its words with reality. It preaches free markets, and then as soon as it gets in to power it is corporate welfare and cronyism as far as the eye can see. Was so during Bush, was so during Reagan. You don’t see any correlation between Bush’s policies bringing us this financial meltdown and Regan’s policies bringing us the savings and loan crisis?
It will be a long time until the American people are stupid enough to believe that the GOP might actually stand for what it preaches, and thus trust them into power again.
urban // Dec 10, 2009 at 10:49 am
@sdspringy: “All this legislation was written behind CLOSED doors. With NO input from Republicans allowed.”
Complete falsehood, the GOP was invited to the table, and gave the Dems the finger. You do realize that the senate version was written mostly be the finance committee of three Dems and three GOP?
“. Voters by the droves are leaving. Independents, moderates, and even some Dems see the current administration and by extension those in the House and Senate as fools”
Boy are you going to be upset when he gets re-elected in 2012. the GOP simply has no alternative ideas and no viable candidates.
urban // Dec 10, 2009 at 10:50 am
“this would explain the huge surge in Republican id”
Are you delusional? Only 1 in 5 Americans call themselves Republicans, the lwoest it has ever been. what are you talking about?!?!?
urban // Dec 10, 2009 at 10:58 am
It will be a long time before the American people forget that the GOP added $5 trillion to the national debt and got nothing in return except more money in the pockets of the uber-rich and dead American soldiers. The American people may be wary of changes to our health-care system, but at least the feel it is a noble cause. The GOP spends money like drunken sailors. The American people may have short memories, but not that short.
And you can keep saying Obama-deficits, but it doesn’t make it any more true. When Obama took office in Jan 09 the deficit he was handed by bush was $1.3 Trillion. He added the stimulus, and that is it. There have been no other major spending programs in his administration. I know Beck and Rush keep telling you that he has spent $3 trillion dollars in one year, but it is a complete falsehood.
If you hate change, you are going to like irrelevance even less.
LFC // Dec 10, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Oh, Urban. Stop trying to confuse the Bush and GOP apologists with facts. They have no use for them.
Demosthenes // Dec 10, 2009 at 12:10 pm
A spot-on analysis as always, Mr. Frum. I really think, at least politically, the Democrats pwned the Republicans with this Medicare-expansion proposal. The Republicans in Congress have supported their opposition to HCR with loud (and I believe disengenuous) fulsome praise of Medicare. So what do the Democrats do? They make the Republicans look stupid by expanding the program the Republicans praise. Moreover, Medicare is single payer care, which most Democrats support, so this is just the first step to Medicare for all, which is the real goal. Do the Republicans learn anything from this? I doubt it. The Republican Party seems to have been taken over the stupid brigade.
Demosthenes // Dec 10, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Typo: The last sentence should read” The Republican Party seems to have been take over by the stupid brigade. My apologies.
sdspringy // Dec 10, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Otto:
…….Frum has forgotten more about p0litics than you’ve ever known and he understands what’s going on in the political landscape unlike your superficial reading
Do I sense some desperation, some anger, possibly you feel like the Titanic and there is a gigantic conservative iceberg in your path.
Tuesday saw a special election in TN for a State Senate state in a majority Dem district. The Dem spent 2 million of his own funds and LOST to a Rep. So overwhelming Dem district, massive amounts of money, and the Dems receive a LOSS. It has now happened over 30 times, Dems losing state wide elections since the Messiah appeared.
It will be the trend through 2010 and 2012. Frum, that is a win for Rep, in chase you want to frame all these wins as a problem for Republicans.
Mario Piperni dot Com » Blog Archive » Going Down The Road Of NO // Dec 10, 2009 at 12:43 pm
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Krauthammer’s Take! « If-By-Whiskey // Dec 10, 2009 at 4:37 pm
[...] but with dirty lyrics while the Democrats and the White House tried to get them to play ball. Frum explains the fallout of it all here, but the basic takeaway is that Republicans want to act like children even with an administration [...]
Ahead of the Curve « The United States of Jamerica // Dec 10, 2009 at 4:49 pm
[...] 2009 December 10 tags: health care reform by Jamelle Here’s David Frum on the downside of the GOP’s categorical opposition to any and all Democratic legislation: Instead of a [...]
ProfNickD // Dec 10, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Sinz said,
If a child gets an asthma attack because of smog caused by cars and trucks, how are you going to find the specific cars and trucks who emitted those pollutants at that precise moment?
Exactly my point: if it cannot be shown (at a very low standard of the preponderance of the evidence) that a child’s asthma was due to X factory or Y automobile, then X factory owner or Y automobile owner should not be compelled to pay any compensation.
The legal approach guarantees that only those individuals causing actual harms (“torts”) to others will have to pay compensation; the “economic” approach (i.e., taxation of all carbon emissions) is really social engineering — and, again, no conservative would approve of that.
ProfNickD // Dec 10, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Sinz54 said,
Ergo, you are in favor of abolishing Medicare too–because it’s certainly “nationalized.” In fact, you ought to be against the government health care to veterans offered by the Veterans Administration.
And those would be political non-starters in this country. Reagan would NEVER have won if he had campaigned on abolishing Medicare.
Congratulations. You’re making Reagan look like a moderate.
Interesting: Reagan did say he opposed Medicare in the 1980 campaign — it’s when he made his famous “there you go again” retort to Carter in the 1980 Presidential debate. Reagan made it clear that he opposed Medicare at the time (in 1964), that he wished an alternative bill would have been passed, with the implication that he still (in 1980) opposed Medicare.
Further, it was fairly well-known in 1980 that Reagan had been a paid spokesperson for the AMA in the early 1960s, lobbying against Medicare — he even made a recording railing against it, calling Medicare “socialism.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FzNTB1qtFA
(Here’s the full quote from the 1980 Presidential debate):
“There you go again [Laughter]. When I opposed Medicare, there was another piece of legislation meeting the same problem before the Congress. I happened to favor the other piece of legislation and thought it would be better for the senior citizens and provide better care than the one that was finally passed. I was not opposing the principle of providing care for them. I was opposing one piece of legislation versus another.”
fgtayl01 // Dec 10, 2009 at 6:22 pm
But is the goal of the Republican policy to promote conservative governance or to get elected?
If it’s to promote conservative governance, then the criticism is well placed.
If it’s to get elected, then the criticism misses the mark.
GayPatriot » Whose Side is David Frum on, anyway? // Dec 10, 2009 at 8:46 pm
[...] Instead of offering even one hint of concern about Democratic intransigence in his blog post today, Frum blames those pesky Republicans who don’t live in Washington, D.C.: “But, it’s the rank-and-file who are the problem here!“ [...]
Going Down The Road Of NO // Dec 11, 2009 at 12:26 am
[...] David Frum on where Republican’s “no, no, no policy” has left the party. The furious rejectionist frenzy of the past 12 months is exacting a terrible price upon [...]
palomino70 // Dec 11, 2009 at 2:57 am
CO: “All the stars are aligned for a Republican revival in 2010 and 2012.”
===================================
There’s a lot of enthusiasm right now among the base, but it’s gonna take leadership and some ideas to bring about a revival. Currently those don’t exist. There’s no Newt Gingrich or Contract with America; and the tea partiers aren’t really on board.
And a slowly but surely emerging demographic disaster looms up ahead for the GOP. No successful appeals to minority voters. Young voters, gays, immigrants–all flocking to the Dems.
If the GOP just wants to be the southern white christian party, they don’t have much hope of being the majority anytime soon.
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