From No to No Can Do

On Friday the GOP pulled their Obamacare repeal and replace bill from the House floor, avoiding a vote that was destine to fail.  This was a stunning defeat for Republicans, and Democrats only had to stand by to watch the self-inflicted carnage.

Republicans demonstrated an inability to govern. We will have to wait to see if the GOP can muster a healthcare policy, but this debacle places the other parts of their agenda of tax reform, immigration reform, and infrastructure renewal in peril.  Democrats are more emboldened to their stated battle plan to obstruct all GOP policies.  The Republicans will need at least eight Democrat Senators to pass new legislation and the opportunity to reach across the aisle is now close to non-existent.

During the Obama Administration, Democrats called Republicans obstructionists to Obama’s “reasonable” policies.  The media branded Republicans the “Party of No”.  However, on Friday, the GOP became the “Party of No Can Do”.  Eight years of complaints and dozens of votes to repeal Obamacare, and Republicans could not deliver anything else, let alone better.

However, the real, and sad, story is voters and their representatives.  Too many voters want stuff that someone else pays for, regardless of its affordability.  And representatives, who have little interest in delivering enlightened representation, thus adopt the simple selfish posture to “give them what they want if it gets me reelected.”