Some random thoughts on being a Democrat after the 2010 mid-term election

I agree with John Stewart on The Daily Show that President Obama and, especially, the Democrats in Congress should have been much more “audacious” in writing and passing legislation during the past two years.

The desire to find compromise with a group of angry and unhappy people who tell you up front that they will not agree to anything you want is obviously ill fated from the start. This desire by Democrats to feel like “I’m a bigger person than you are” while failing to get the job done frustrates everyone including the very Know Nothings who are beating your brains out.

That 3,700 page health care reform bill typifies what everyone thinks is wrong with Washington. Of course, it got that way because of the Republicans and their “doubling-down” to a big no on everything that came before them. Compromise to conservatives is to do it their way, which in the case of health care insurance reform was and still is to NOT do it at all!

So the dopey Democrats end up with a bill that pleases no one, is practically indecipherable to the average bumper sticker reading citizen, and lets their opponents make all manner of outrageous charges about what it contains.

Here’s what Democrats should have insisted on:

Universal health care insurance coverage in a single payer system that covers children until age 26 and prohibits denial for pre-existing conditions. The insurance companies can administer it. Period. That is not my thought. It actually comes from the CEO of our local hospital group here on Cape Cod.

And as much as Democrats wish to feel like free spirits, they are not when they serve in Congress as Democrats. The leadership needs to explain what will happen if you break ranks. Clearly the Republicans did. Had the Democrats held together on the health care bill many more of them would be returning to Congress in 2011 than will be.

What should Democrats do now?

Forget compromise. It is frightening to hear the President saying he is willing to compromise even more! What the Hell hasn’t he already compromised on?

Let the Republicans think of ways to cut the Federal budget in the House.  There will be few cuts and they will be far between because, as I have heard from their leadership since the election, approximately 93% of the Federal budget is off limits or so they say. But let them do that and let the people now targeted to be jobless from the Head Start program, from the FBI, from the local schools, and police departments begin contacting their local reps. Since 80% or more of federal funds are used on personnel budgets, let’s see how that changy-feely crap works out for them.

Just one of the ironies of electing a Republican House at this point is that the tax breaks for the wealthy that they will insist on, the wars they hope to continue, the deficits they rack up and all the people who will lose their jobs to the few budget cuts they actually make will only worsen the recession situation. This, of course, pleases some in their ranks because they hope it will lead to President Obama being a one term President as Mitch McConnell said the other day.