As we get ready for John Boehner to take the gavel from Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday, I find myself thinking back to the last time a Republican speaker took control of the House from a Democrat -- and reflecting on how far down the wrong road we have traveled since then.
It was January 1995, and Newt Gingrich, now considered a right-wing bomb thrower, was taking the gavel from Tom Foley. After taking the oath of office, he delivered a speech that praised FDR as "the greatest president of the 20th century" and presented concern for the least among us as a shared national objective. "The balanced budget is the right thing to do," he said. "But it does not in my mind have the moral urgency of coming to grips with what is happening to the poorest Americans."
For the incoming Republican speaker, reducing poverty and lifting the poor into the middle class was a moral imperative beyond the left vs. right battlefield -- not just the purview of lefties, socialists, and community organizers:
I say to those Republicans who believe in total privatization, you cannot believe in the Good Samaritan and explain that as long as business is making money we can walk by a fellow American who is hurt and not do something.... If you cannot afford to leave the public housing project, you are not free. If you do not know how to find a job and do not know how to create a job, you are not free. If you cannot find a place that will educate you, you are not free. If you are afraid to walk to the store because you could get killed, you are not free.
Interestingly, in his first speech as speaker, Gingrich also talked about being moved by the woes of school kids.
"I have seldom been more shaken," he said, "than I was after the election when I had breakfast with two members of the Black Caucus. One of them said to me, 'Can you imagine what it is like to visit a first-grade class and realize that every fourth or fifth young boy in that class may be dead or in jail within 15 years? And they are your constituents and you are helpless to change it?' For some reason, I do not know why, maybe because I visit a lot of schools, that got through. I mean, that personalized it. That made it real, not just statistics, but real people."
But the trajectory of our political discourse over the last decade and a half has meant that taking on poverty has gone from a moral imperative and shared national objective to an afterthought -- or no thought at all.
The question is, is there anything that can be done to help Boehner make the connection between the policies he supports and the effect those policies have on the kids who bring him to tears?
Newt Gingrich failed to follow through on the moral imperative he identified in his first speech as speaker, trading in his moral vision and replacing it 15 months later with an announcement that the Republican agenda could be reduced to six words: "Earn more, keep more, do more."
Will Boehner's take be "Earn more, keep more, cut more"? Or is there a chance he will surprise us? Maybe it's because it's close enough to Christmas that I still believe in miracles, but wouldn't it be great if the John Boehner who takes the gavel on Wednesday is the one who weeps at the thought of kids denied a shot at the American Dream?
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Nancy Pelosi Ousted as House Speaker, John Boehner Waits in Wings ...
But what really amazes me is how brazenly he can lie while he appeals to people emotions, talking about the "American Dream" even as he is denying it to so many others. In order to lie so shamelessly, he must have struggled far harder earlier to strangle his conscience.
The Age Of Forgetfulness or The Habit of Writing to See Yourself In Print....
I am surprised to see that you feel that we have been heading down the right road before now. Have you forgotten that both the Republicans and Democrats have managed to steer us down a path of increased regulation, more spending, a plethora of entitlements and earmarks and of course an overwhelming debt-all at the expense of the American people.
More recently we have had a congress controlled by the Democrats and it seems they have spent more money than a well kept divorced woman with credit cards on Black Friday. So why would you think it could get any worse with a new group.....
Warm regards,
Michael Winters
F&F
Have another sip of that Kool Ade.
Didn't you learn anything about your friends, neighbors and co-workers (if you have any) from the midterrms?
For example, there were many Democrats disillusioned that the health care reform didn't go far enough but yet you're lumping their disatisfaction as some how 'being in your camp.'
Did you not learn anything from that fated time in 2008 when George Bush and Hank Paulsen walked up to the microphone to tell us they had crashed the world's economy and that if we didn't hand over 750 billion dollars, with no questioned asked, by the end of the weekend, the world as we know it would be lost?
That wasn't some fluke. It was the direct result of TOO MUCH Republican anti-regulation success. Continue that line of mal-economics and you will usher in the next Great Depression.
R/ PRONESE
My compliments, Bravo! Very powerful words!
Oh but Pottersville Republicans would privatize the schools AND the police AND the prisons. That way, all that non-productive riffraff can be dealt with in a more economical fashion-----i.e., put to work in large labor camps producing consumer goods real cheap. I mean really cheap. Only way we can compete with the Chinese!
Hell we are already there in my state. We incarcerate something like 20% of our population down here in Louisiana. Our state prison is larger than most towns and has its own zip code for cryin' out loud. It's becoming a tourist mecca, holding one of the largest and most lucrative rodeos and craft- fairs in the country and now sports a full-time museum. It's developed and markets its own breed of horse, the Angola Police Horse, and holds one of the largest herd of cattle in the state. Don't get me started...
But.... who will stop him??
Middle America government reform is a new paradigm in American politics.
Middle America:
Middle America is the foundation, vessel, protector, and defender of America. Middle America is the fundamental source of all American liberty, freedom, and equality. Middle America made America, defends America, and preserves all liberties, freedoms, and equality.
There are no democrats or republicans, liberals or conservatives, red or blue. There is only middle America and two significant extreme fringes, the radical desperate poor and the radical wealthy elite.
Middle America’s two radical fringe are a curse and a blessing. Cauldrons of wealthy elite and desperate poor spur imagination, creativity, initiative, and progress. These same cauldrons produce tyranny, exploitation, liability, and burden.
Middle America must govern both desperate poor and wealthy elite radical extremes for simple survival and progress. The extreme desperate poor will always require social programs, social security, medicare, unemployment compensation, and etc. The extreme wealthy elite will always require taxation, regulation, and oversight.
Tending two radical extremes is the fate of middle America. The payoff is liberty, freedom, and equality for more Americans. The dangers of the radical extreme influences include eight elephants: war, immigration, ecology, recession, foreclosure, joblessness, tax, and debt.
Citizen is coach to team democracy. Coach is responsible for success. It’s your call, coach.
http://middleamericareformparty.wordpress.com/about/