L L wrote:
Jeff Wigand wrote:
Smoburn trashes Trump with good reason. He's the biggest embarrassment this country has produced in modern times. He doesn't care about anyone outside of himself and his immediate family and all decisions are made to benefit himself, anyone else named Trump and, transactionally, others that fall in line with them. He literally did not care that the virus and wildfires were ravaging liberal strongholds.
He tried. His problem was that the Republicans of this century care more about not giving Democrats a win than enacting meaningful and helpful policies for the people. Democrats have been guilty of this, too, but the GOP has mastered this scorched earth policy.
Obama wanted to use the government to create a better health care reality for most Americans, working towards levels of coverage seen in virtually every other industrialized nation. While Republicans of decades ago could have supported that, there was really no chance of that happening now. Both for the desire to block any success to the Obama administration and because the mantra that Reagan emblazoned onto the GOP was that "government is the problem." Republicans can run with this and reduce funding and essentially sabotage the ability of government programs to work well, and then point to them and say, "see, the government can't run anything. Now let us cut taxes at the top and reduce government funding even more." So passing a new entitlement program for any public benefit doesn't fit in that ideology, and certainly not with a member of the other party in the White House.
Good evidence of Obama's (misguided) attempt to work with Republicans can be seen in his pick of Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court. Garland is not regarded as extreme by anyone and was a few years from 70 at the time of his nomination. It was a gesture of good will that, yes, Obama's nominee to replace Scalia late in his final term as president would change the ideological balance of the court, but that Garland was a middle of the road pick and was old enough that he wouldn't have had the same impact in the long run as a much a young candidate could have.
No one's perfect. But Obama is decent man who wanted to make the country a better place for all Americans. Trump is a horrible person who only cares about his own wealth and protection from consequences. He's entirely lacking in compassion and empathy. There's no comparison.
Jeff Wigand, every time I see you're name I think it's Bad Wiggins, who you obviously are not.
I never see Bad Wiggins in this thread so he must post as Rigged or Sally, because I know he isn't skipping this thread with all of his political opinions elsewhere.
Anyway, good post at the attempted bipartisan effort of Obamacare.
It was literally modeled after Romneycare and former Republican proposals to mandate healthcare insurance and have insurance exchanges and subsidies vs Democrat proposals of a government provided single payer type coverage.
Obama and the Democrats wrote the bill based on Republican proposals and not one Republican would sign off on it.
Just like how Republicans openly said they would accept Merrick Garland as a Supreme Court Justice until Obama actually nominated him.
If Obama introduced the idea of making Reagan a saint, Republicans would vote against it.
And what has Trump done? Looked for anything Obama did and reversed it. He even wouldn't put his portrait up.
LL - why would any Republican have sign off Obamacare when not one Republican was allowed to have input on it? Just like Hillary's failed attempt at health care, it was a closed door affair and no Republicans were allowed inside that door. What is the deal with Democrats totally excluding Republicans from their drafting of legislation? Please don't say they welcome any input from others. It is a lie. It is the Democrats' way or the highway.