ANOTHER LESSON LEARNED by T. Edwin Perry
Back in January, 2010, the voters of Massachusetts voted for Republican Scott Brown to fill the seat vacated by the death of long-time Senator Teddy Kennedy, and Conservatives all did a collective “Snoopy” dance. Here at MaverickVoice.com, Steve Hansen asked the question, “Do you think Congress and the President will stop and think about what this says about their positions as a whole?” Well, today, we got the answer.
On July 15, 2010, with most media outlets providing about as much attention to it as they do to anything else this Administration has “accomplished,” the Senate voted for and approved the passage of “Comprehensive Financial Reform.” Much in the same manner as “Comprehensive Healthcare Reform,” the bill approved by the Senate was over 2,400 pages in length; it creates expansive and redundant Government Bureaucracies to ADD TO, not to replace, the EXISTING Government Bureaucracies; and, yes, to provide “Bail Outs” to companies deemed “Too Big to Fail” while Taxing the rest. The bill creates a means to target the personal and accumulated wealth of successful investors while mitigating the risk of “less successful” investors, all in the name of “Consumer Protections.” (For the record, if you don’t know you can LOSE your investment in the stock market, you have no business INVESTING in it! Didn’t anyone else watch the Brady Bunch growing up? Caveat Emptor: Let the Buyer Beware!)
The bill passed by a very narrow vote: 60 – 39. The 60 votes were necessary to get the job done, and the vote was almost completely down party lines. All but one of the 39 votes AGAINST the measure were Republican, with Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin voting with the opposition. (Good job, Mr. Feingold!) On the other side, THREE Republicans voted FOR the measure, along with 57 Democrats. Who switched sides? First, there’s the double threat from Maine: Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. (I keep wondering why they’ve stayed in the Republican Party, and then I realize: the REPUBLICANS keep sponsoring them!) And then there’s the Republican Messiah of Massachusetts: Scott Brown!
As Steve pointed out in his post, Scott Brown pledged to “vote against the existing health care bill.” (He did exactly as he said he’d do…well, he might have if he had gotten he opportunity to vote.) He pledged to vote against “Deficit Spending.” He’s pledged to vote against “Higher Taxes.” Clearly, those pledges don’t mean much. The National Assumption that Brown’s election was a mandate from the voters in Massachusetts for a Conservative Resurgence in the Congress was clearly false…at least as far as Scott Brown is concerned. I guess the “Snoopy Dance” is officially OVER!
Steve asked another important question, though: “What does this say for the 2010 mid-term elections?” The answer is clear: we need to KNOW our candidates! Scott Brown campaigned as a Conservative, but is clearly more Progressive than we anticipated. It can’t just be about “Anybody but…” It has to be about re-establishing CONSERVATIVES in Congress. They have to not only talk the talk, but also LEAD THE WALK in a New Direction. It’s not enough to just vote “Republican.” We have to vote CONSERVATIVE!
Leave a Reply