In April of 2011, potential GOP Presidential nominee hopefuls from Michelle Bachmann to Mitt Romney have been stepping up their criticisms of President Obama.
This from Romney...
"President Obama's policies have failed. He and virtually all the people around him have never worked in the real economy. They just don't know how jobs are created in the private sector."
(source)This from Bachmann's most recent speech in Iowa...
Slide on screen proclaimed, "$1.83, the price of a gallon of gasoline the day before Barack Obama took office." to which she blared, "Is it time for a change?"
(source)The problems with both and, indeed, all the 'hopefuls' on the GOP side is that they are full of bashing soundbites but not offering solutions. In taking a trip back down memory lane to Barack Obama's campaign for President, he not only was offering ideas and solutions to problems, he was offering plans. His website was literally chock full of every sort of problem being faced by the United States followed by his ideas to solve them. He presented, for example, the problem of rising health care costs and his ideas for a solution – which, by the way, bore no resemblance to what has emerged out of Congress and has been labelled affectionally, no doubt, by the right wing
ObamaCare. Then candidate Obama's contention was that Congress modify national health care such that every American be entitled to the same care as each member of Congress. Far too few people on the conservative side of the aisle ever visited that website and read the actual proposals and plans / vision of the candidate. Instead, they utilized neo-conservative rhetoric about him being a socialist, a wealth distributor, or even un-American. Since then they and their allies have challenged his very birthright in the absence of the one thing America really needs and this is ideas.
This nation was founded actually on bold ideas for how a nation could work. Ironically, ideas are what makes a nation thrive and the more diverse the ideas the better. If we break down past forms of rule, most nation states were ruled by one person with his or her own ideas and those of a trusted inner circle. If you had an idea for how to improve your nation, you either had to be royal or you had to be a subversive and risk your life to get your idea out. Go back and read about all the beheadings and prison terms for people with different ideas throughout the ages. America was to be different. It was to be headed by an elected statesmen who would sit on roughly 1/3 of the power shared then equally by an elected body of Congressmen and a judiciary made of life-time appointed justices. The powers were split and a series of checks and balances on each put in place. The main purpose, however, was to allow for a body of minds to come together, to argue, to debate, to bring ideas from all over, and to formulate policies based on a consensus of compromises. There was not supposed to be anything totalitarian about it. There weren't supposed to be mindless political parties to be highjacked by the rich and powerful to cram an ethos or philosophy down anyone's throats. Recall of course in the beginning there were no Republicans at all. It was supposed to be about the ideas and the persuasive speech. It was supposed to be more about listening than talking.
This freedom of expression and freedom of ideas is what helped make the United States rise to become the world's greatest super power. It was the suppression of ideas that brought down the USSR and every other totalitarian regime with the exception of a few that only now being shaken as more and more people have access to information about other ways of doing things.
Whether left or right, conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican, Libertarian or Tea Partier, Independent or Otherwise, we are a better nation when all ideas are on the table and from the ideas emerge the best solutions. Now more than ever, there needs to be a call for ideas. It's great to lead to a battle to cut programs you don't like, but this is not an idea for how to make our country better. Simply cutting the deficit doesn't make our country better, especially if the cuts cause the next generation of children to grow up without the basic services a nation should provide for it. Cutting for ideological reasons also is not the right tact if the programs were put in place to address a previous problem that still exists, well then that accomplishes nothing and sets us back. An allusion was made in an earlier post to the notion that insofar as there is a giant federal deficit there is more than one way to reduce it. One way, and one that is certainly needed, is to examine spending and cut waste. While true that one man's waste is another man's meal ticket – in other words it's fine to call a $1 million study at Columbia University on fruit fly genetics a waste, but if that $1 million leads to a cure for cancer and nets the company that licenses the drug $1 billion in profits, then it's a million well spent and a million consequently that went to fund the salaries of the lab scientists who have families, own homes, and pay taxes. Waste is when a profiteering company bills the government $1 million for a project that cost $10,000. In a capitalistic society, people are entitled to make a profit by not 100 times profit off the backs of tax payers. Another way, however, to reduce the deficit is to grow the economy, increase exports, create jobs. Romney talks about how he knows how to create jobs in the private sector. Is it a secret he's holding to the vest only to reveal if he is ever elected president? If he knows, he should share now or stop saying it. It's one of those hollow campaign promises. The most troubling part of this campaign rhetoric is that the new way of operating leaps from this weird premise that the only way to win power is to ensure your rival doesn't succeed. This would be fine if the GOP and the Democrats were playing chess, but they are not. They are leading a nation. Once in office, it's not their sworn duty to destroy the other party's efforts, filibuster their decisions, and quash their plans. It's their duty to serve the American people – all of us. Yes, you have loyalty to your constituents first and foremost, but you are now part of the national Congress not your statehouse. Your decisions, your ideas, your efforts affect an entire nation. Somewhere along the way in the past 30 years this concept has been lost.
It's time for the nation's leaders from President Obama to the Representative from Wyoming to come together, put forth great ideas, debate the merits, and move our nation forward into the future and stop miring it it the petty bickering of the past. This is 2011 and not 1950. Times and the world are moving on. Russia just announced solid plans to build a moon base and send people to Mars by 2050. China is linking its major cities with high speed rail of the future to improve all aspects of life in China but more importantly to move goods and services among its billion+ consumer. We've got to get ourselves back on track and be motivated and galvanized toward improving our nation, not setting it back to pre-WWII times. It's time to expect and challenge our leaders to stop telling us they can do things and, instead, expecting them to do things. Create jobs. Continue to improve the economy. Bring justice to the world. Reignite the American Dream for the global masses. If you cut all the branches off a tree, it may just die.