Are the Tides beginning to Turn?

By Ernesto Villanueva, Jr.

Since last November and the election that laid siege to the House of Representatives and lessened the hold Democrats had in the Senate, the Republicans have run on a motto, a motto that suggests they are the will of the people, on the premise that their motives and governance is in line with what that American people truly want out of Washington. We will get back to that in just a minute.

Looking at the record of the 112st Congress we can examine if our new law makers are truly doing the will of the people or simply putting forth a Republican agenda under the guise of reform in politics.

Since January we have seen the House vote to repeal the affordable Health Care Act, knowing there is no way it would pass the Senate or survive the President’s veto. Still they trudged ahead in with, what some called, a symbolic vote. A curious move, I thought, from a group of politicians interested in spending, debt and an unemployment rate at 10%, but hey who I am to judge. Then the new congress decided to hold up discussions, after finally reaching a somewhat compromise on the budget, over Planned Parenthood. Now I know that tackling the women’s rights issues is important to the economy and creates jobs,*sarcasm*, but with all rhetoric coming from the right on jobs, the economy and how poorly the Democrats have done in what they call “Obama’s Recession., “ I thought they would have some out swinging with jobs in hand….not s. In fact the first “jobs bill” that was proposed was not until last week, nearly 6 months after taking the reigns. Needless to say, they were riding a wave of Republican mojo…..until it happened, they went after Medicare and that’s when people really started to look closer at the agenda.

See the problem lies in that these are not new ideas, the right has been trying to privatize Social Security and get rid of Medicare for a long time, I guess with the last election the party felt bold enough to push forward old agendas and as a result millions of voters are having real buyer’s remorse from the 2010 election.

In Wisconsin, Scott Walker and the state legislature voted to strip union rights citing a budget crises as the reason and as a result of this highly unpopular bill we now we see a 43% approval rating for the governor and six state representatives facing a recall only months after they got to work. Ohio’s Governor Kasich, who in most respects has mirrored WI, has seen his approval rating plummet to right around 30%. Governor Rick
Scott out of Florida has seen his approval plummet to 29% after slashing education under the pretense that cutting billions form education was needed to help balance the budget, only to give that saved money away in corporate tax breaks.

Now May has been an interesting month for the Republicans while 2011 has been a kind of scary year for the republican legislators at the state level. The biggest issue Republicans are facing though is…you got it, Medicare! Paul Ryan’s plan wants to take the Medicare that we have today and make it a voucher program where seniors would be given a voucher of 13,000/year to purchase private insurance, let me repeat that….to
PURCHASE private insurance. Now what we have to take away from this is that the coupon, as it is, will not cover the expense of healthcare costs, it is only meant to pay for the premiums. So what happens when the bills come, especially when most insurance companies pay about 80-85% of total costs, what happens with the difference, what happens when its time to pay up? Now as we know to treat senior citizens is not cheap,

And if you’re a senior you probably had a hard time getting insurance, why, because you cost too much! people need to realize that an insurance company is a business and their primary purpose is make a profit to make money, which is why people get denied and why there is an entire practice in law dedicated to fighting insurance companies. This is the reason we have Medicare, because when you have a profit motive your not too inclined in taking someone that going to lose the company money. I know I sound like a cynic but it’s a valid argument, an argument we can have in another discussion.

What I can say is that voters in New York’s 26th congressional district wondered the same thing, and in arguably the reddest district in America, votes that traditionally went to Republicans, now went to a Democrat. Kathy Hochul campaigned on preserving Medicare while Jane Corwin aligned herself with Ryan Budget. It’s a catch 22 though because if you’re a Republican candidate if you support the Ryan plan, you loose votes in the election. If you don’t support the plan, as Newt Gingrich found out, the party turns
you like a pack of wild dogs, what to do? In this case, a district that was considered a gimme, in the bag, went to a Democrat over this very real concern. The 26th is not alone; Jacksonville, FL elected a Democrat for mayor for the first time on over 20 years when the Republican candidate aligned himself with Rick Scott and the Ryan budget plan. A similar result in Tampa, and in Florida the last thing you want to campaign on is killing Medicare.

So getting back to where we started, are the Republicans truly the voice of the people, are they acting solely on the will of the American public? Well looking at what’s going on at the state level and Republican seats dropping like flies, I’m inclined to disagree.

Are the tides beginning to change on this issue? Can the Democrats take the overreach from the right and turn to their advantage? I don’t know but I do know this, according to the New York Times Mitch McConnell, The Senate Minority leader, made it pretty clear the Republicans are not backing down and in fact want to make the Democrats share in their misery by making them cut Medicare before the Republicans cast a vote to raise the debt ceiling. If the Senate and House Democrats are waiting for an opportunity to strike,I think they have it, the base is beginning to reenergized and the Medicare is going to be a major issue in 2012 …and if what’s happened in 2011 thus far serves as an indicator to the next election, the right had better start thinking of an exit strategy and distance themselves from this budget. People in Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan learned there lesson on voting Republican, the question is if the rest of the country is learning.