Bipartisanship and the 2011 State of the Union Address

The question now is "Does sitting with people 'across the aisle' or of different beliefs then you, create bipartisanship." And just like debating about guns and clips distracts us from the fact that people were shot, and some died, so this distracts us.

If Congress can convince us that they are creating bipartisanship by sitting together at the State of the Union, then we have a very short memory. If we believe this will create bipartisanship then we have already forgotten the vote to repeal health care, a vote that was rather partisan. Not only did it pass the House, which has a Republican majority, by almost complete party lines, but it was introduced in a House that knew it would not get signed by the President. It does appear that republicans are locking down government by trying to pass this repeal so that they can blame it on President Obama in 2012. So what is Mr. Obama's defense to this now locked down government?

To ask people to sit together at the State of the Union, to create a bipartisanship that isn't there. Harry Reid is not going to slap John Boehner on the back and say, "Gotcha!" And have repeal in committee Wednesday morning. John Boehner is not going to apologize for locking up and shutting down the government. There is only one semblance of what the general public considers bipartisanship and this is in President Obama's further move to the center.

The ultimate thing professional politicians want us to believe is that their word 'bipartisanship' is the same thing as the compromise the Founding Fathers had, and it is not. The Founding Fathers did not move to the center more and more the closer it got to election time, the Founding Fathers stood staunch in their beliefs, and the compromise came out in the law. Now we have spineless snakes who want to lie and steal, who want to cheat each other and cut each other down.

So is this State of the Union 'Buddy - Up' system a sign of bipartisanship? Unlikely. More likely it's a great attempt at blinding and pacifying us to the reality of the world around us.

- J. Alexander Fisher

Regarding Healthcare Repeal

Dear Editor,

On January 1, 2011, several new things came into effect because of the new health care law passed under President Obama and the 111th U.S. Congress. Here are a few of those things: “Insurers (not employers) will be required to spend 85% of large - group and 80% of small group and individual plan premiums (with certain adjustments) on health care or to improve health care quality, or return the difference to the customer as a rebate.” This is to suggest that before the CEO’s of health insurance companies go lining their pockets, all making over a million dollars, that they spend 85% of the money people pay in as premiums, on the health care of the people who pay the premiums. Is it an evil idea to the majority of the House? That people get what they paid for in premiums?

What some may try to suggest is we are only targeting the spending of the health insurers, but that doesn’t explain why on January 1, 2011 this all came into effect: “Flexible spending accounts, health care reimbursement arrangements and health savings accounts cannot be used to pay for over the counter drugs, purchased without a prescription, except for insulin.” There it is. Citizens! Stop trying to get your insurer to pay for drugs you must not need. And you must not need it or your doctor would have prescribed it to you.

If these are not good things, and if people are still not convinced that this repeal is a bad idea, then look to the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO says that repealing this health care law would INCREASE, are you listening fiscal conservatives, INCREASE the deficit by $230 million dollars. Do we want to increase the deficit? I thought the idea was to decrease the deficit? Or is it more important to defeat President Obama and make him look bad than it is to make this a more fiscally responsible country? Are we becoming that shallow? This law that the House majority wants to repeal tells insurance companies to spend people’s money on the people, is that bad? Health insurers were supposed to help people save and invest their money for the INSURANCE OF THEIR HEALTH!!! Not to line their own pockets.

So do we repeal this law for the sake of opposing our sitting president? Or do we call our representatives and our senators and tell them we don’t want them voting to perpetuate the deficit in the name of party politics? The decision is yours.


- J. Alexander Fisher