A few weeks ago, the Republicans unveiled their 2014 agenda, and it was... nothing.
I kid you not. Here is how it was reported in Politico::
"Last Thursday, a group of House Republicans filed into Majority Leader Eric Cantor's Capitol office suite and received a blank piece of paper labeled 'Agenda 2014.' ... A Republican aide .... said ... 'The problem is we don't know where we are headed...'"
Many people saw the absence of an agenda as a problem. I think that it understates the problem. My concern is that the Republicans don't know where to go, not that they don't know how to get there.
- a bill to allow the states to nullify any federal law (didn't we settle that in 1865?);
- a bill to require every high school student to read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (mandatory libertarian indoctrination -- oh, the irony...);
- a bill to prohibit lap dancing and jello wrestling (which contained fascinating definitions of the terms "nudity" and "sexual device");
- a bill establishing a state religion (not Islam, that's for sure); and
- a bill authorizing restaurants, hotels, hair salons and other businesses to deny service to gay customers.
But more importantly, you just can't do nothing about nothing. You're always doing nothing about something. When the Republicans say that they have no agenda for 2014, then in effect, they're saying this:
- "We're going to do nothing about the 20 million Americans who can't find full-time work."
So it may seem that the Republicans are doing nothing about nothing. But they're actually doing nothing about everything. Whatever the problems we face, their infantile solution is always the same: close your eyes, and it will go away. Close your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears, and repeat "La-la-la-la-la-la-la."
Will that work? No. All of these problems have solutions, but none of them is going to solve itself.
That's our job.