Good Government/Open Government-- My obligation to voters...

 

The question of why I decided to become Chairman of the Democratic Party--within a certain range of voters this is becoming a very common for me to be getting--so i'm going to spend some time on that issue.  As I've mentioned 1 reason is just generational.  I came of age politically with the Bush Administration.   But I'll continue to give examples as I go along so that people have a better understanding of my political leanings and determining factors regarding my policy preferences.

I believe in open government and therefore I'm intrigued by this concept of being a legislator that "thinks outloud," using blogging and twitter to crowd source, open up my own thinking, random questions I still have unanswered, and the things that i'm reading/are influencing me.  Voters are then able to help persuade me/influence my policy priorities and agenda via email/comments/tweets with their own research/findings.  That is at its core what this is about--not political power, not putting my reelection above true representation, but a dialogue and debate over good, pragmatic, policy rather than ideology.  

I have an inherent distrust of government so open government is one of my priorities--thinking outloud, and in public; might be a little messy or seem strange to some voters; but I think open government is at its core one of the most important goals and priorities we as citizens should have.

Here's another recent example...  Republicans over the past decade have prioritized political power over good policy (see reason 1 above)

THE GOP REVERSAL ON INDIVIDUAL MANDATES....

In many cases, Republican lawmakers asked Democratic leaders to make specific concessions on health care reform. When Dems like Max Baucus agreed, the GOP balked anyway.

But there are other areas in which Democrats simply embrace policy ideas endorsed, or even created by, the right. For quite a while, conservatives liked the idea of giving an Independent Medicare Advisory Council more power to determine what the program should pay for. It's a straightforward, money-saving measure. When the Obama administration agreed, Republicans decided they didn't like their own idea anymore.

The same thing is happening with an individual mandate, which Republicans trashed during the first day of Senate Finance Committee debate yesterday.

Advocates of a coverage mandate say it is needed to ensure that young, healthy people get insurance and contribute to the system. They say this will ease costs associated with an influx of less-healthy people who are expected to get coverage under the Baucus legislation.

Republicans, who are trying to slow Democratic efforts to pass a health overhaul by the end of the year, rushed to criticize the proposal.

Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the Finance Committee's senior Republican, said the mandate is among the reasons that he couldn't support the bill despite months of negotiations with Mr. Baucus. "Individuals should maintain their freedom to chose health-care coverage, or not," he said.

"This bill is a stunning assault on liberty," said Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Senate's second-ranking Republican.

 

 

That's pretty strong rhetoric under any circumstances, but it's especially striking since the GOP used to think individual mandates were fine. Indeed, Sam Stein noted yesterday that the idea was "once considered so non-controversial that it was endorsed by several major Republican officials."

As recently as a month ago, Chuck Grassley, the same senator bashing the idea of a mandate yesterday, announced that the way to get universal coverage is "through an individual mandate." He told Nightly Business report, "That's individual responsibility, and even Republicans believe in individual responsibility." Earlier this year, Grassley told Fox News that there wasn't "anything wrong" with mandates even if some may view them "as an infringement upon individual freedom."

Now, apparently, he disagrees with himself. There's a lot of that going around.

Congressional Republicans could probably save themselves a lot of trouble by simply saying, "Whatever Democrats are for, we're against," in response to every question.

 

Posted via web from Jim Nichols for GA State House