Saturday, February 27, 2010

Had Enough Change Yet?

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."- Abraham Lincoln

A lot of Independent voters hoped for a new approach to government with the election of President Barack Obama. Promises of bipartisanship, transparency and elimination of earmarks swayed many Independents to vote for Mr. Obama. After all, they may have thought, what could be worse than the years under President George W. Bush?

Well, we have got change, but not the change that many thought was promised. After a year, we have hyperpartisanship, more government opaqueness, and backroom political deals becoming the norm for our legislative process. While there are some that believe the end will justify the means, I think there may be many more that are appalled at the direction of the change.

A case can be made that Independent voters in Massachusetts have shown they've had enough change. Or perhaps, as the White House has argued, the Massachusetts' election of Scott Brown is not a referendum on President Obama's agenda.

One way to find out is for President Obama to continue pressing his health care reform legislation. I hope he does, so that the 2010 mid term elections can be a referendum on his agenda :-)

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, partisanship has gotten much worse. But you should be pointing the finger of blame squarely at Republicans who are doing any or all of the following:

- Acting as sore losers
- Obstructing government from doing anything
- Inciting a culture of hatred and violence (think back to the anger expressed in town halls)

I think Obama should focus on healthcare. It will be very interesting to see Republicans explain to America why they believe the status quo is acceptable.

1/6 of GDP is spent on healthcare with outcomes being ranked 37th in the world. Countries that spend 1/5 what we do, achieve comparable outcomes. In 15 years, 1 in 3 GDP dollars will go to healthcare... doing nothing is not an option.

If you want to criticize the Obama government you should really criticize him for not holding his own party in Congress accountable for their lack of focus in 2009.

Anonymous said...

If you had better critiques of this administration, I might take you seriously. But actually I haven't had enough change. I think I may need another four years after this remaining term in order to get it.

Every morning when I wake up, I'm thankful that we have an intelligent president/vice president to deal with the numerous problems created (partially) by the previous administration.

Edwin said...

I'm impressed at just how inane this article is. You say Obama is the most hyper partisan? I'm curious as to what reality you are living in to come to this conclusion.

Asehgal covered a few real points but I don't see the point of making a real argument in the face of such a blatant disregard for reality.