'
'If, with the literate, I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it.''
Now, if continually doing the same thing, but expecting different results is Franklin's -- or Twain's or Einstein's or Oscar Wilde's -- notion of insanity, what should we call it when a group does the same thing over and over and over, each time meeting with negative results and knowingly expecting -- if not hoping for -- precisely the same results?
In two words: Congressional Republicans.
This past week, the 241 members of that conservative marching and chowder society -- joined by 5 defecting Democrats -- voted for the 33rd time (!) in 18 months to repeal President Obama's signature Affordable Health Care Act (ACA). Talk about an action begging for a definition! Since January 2011, when they first took back the House, Republicans have voted thirty-three times to repeal, defund or otherwise dramatically scale back what they derisively term "Obamacare." And each time they entered into the vote knowing full well that once their bill passed the House -- which it has 33 times -- there were precisely two chances that the Senate would ever concur: absolutely none and even less than that. Moreover if, somehow the stars misaligned to such a strange degree that the measure actually passed the Senate as well, Congressional Republicans knew full well that President Obama would veto it -- thus playing into their hands.
I for one wouldn't mind them voting 33 -- or even 133 -- times if they at least gave us an idea as to what they wanted to replace the ACA with. I do mind, because they don't have a plan, and instead of creating jobs and saving the economy, they are spending upwards of a million dollars a day (what it costs to run Congress) on sound and fury signifying nothing.
Apparently then, the House Republicans' mantra is "If at first you don't succeed, fail, fail, fail again and be damn glad about it." I don't know that Oscar Wilde -- or even H.P. Lovecraft for that matter -- could come up with a dead-on definition for such a pattern of activity. But if they could, would it be "Hypocrisy?" " Disingenuousness ?" "Cynicism?" "Faux-naà ¯vetà ©?" Methinks the word has yet to be created, for these folks are, to employ a term rarely heard any more, sui generis.
Of course, Boehner, Cantor, McCarthy, McConnell and the rest don't expect the ACA to be overturned or defunded anytime soon . . . and that's just fine with them. So far as they are concerned, these votes are mere stage-turns and plot twists in a drama whose dà ©nouement won't be reached until the first Tuesday in November. Illinois Republican (and Chief Deputy Whip) Peter Roskam underscored this reality when, just before last Wednesday's vote, he said "Here's the good news. The voters get the last word in November. Stay tuned."
Time and again, House and Senate Republicans argue that they are merely trying to enact the will of the American people. Time and again, Speaker Boehner and Minority Leader McConnell have proclaimed that "most Americans not only oppose this health care law -- they support fully repealing it." (In matter of fact, the latest Washington Post poll shows that Americans are split right down the middle: 47% of those surveyed said they opposed the law and 47% said they supported it.) Then there is Majority Leader Cantor who, along with his Tea Party minions warns that the ACA, ". . . is making our economy worse, driving up costs, and making it harder for small businesses to hire." And now, in light of the recent Supreme Court decision, the GOP has taken to calling the ACA "the largest tax increase on the poor and the middle class in the history of this country." Rush Limbaugh, in what can only be termed a bout of steroidal hyperbole, called the ACA "The biggest tax increase in the history of the world."
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