BS: Mass. Senatorial race

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 02:05 AM

I should rephrase this. It should read...

So yes, in such a scenario, taxes would go up a lot less for those paying for it if everyone was paying for it than if only the people in the state of Maryland were paying for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 02:18 AM

"none of the bills so far offered is comprehensive health care reform. But if they were, you would oppose them even more strenuously than you are the various bills that you keep referencing,"

Wrong again. YOU do not speak for what I would or would not support.

Oh, yeah? Am I wrong? You wouldn't oppose single payer not for profit or a very tightly regulated insurance industry?


"And I have to say that your doing it here in this thread is particularly obscene considering that you are doing it in sight of a mother whose child died because she didn't have access to health care. Really, you should be very ashamed of yourself. "

And when the bill passes, and children still die, will YOU be very ashamed that you supported a bill that lowers the level of care while increasing the cost?

This would be funny if it weren't so stupid. 45,000 people in the US die each year because they don't have access to health care.   No other developed country in the world has 45 million of people dying each year because they don't have of access to health care. Only the US has this problem. None of the bills being considered is going to reduce the quality of care for children or anyone else. The number of people dying for lack of adequate medical care will be drastically reduced.

However, it wasn't your stance on this issue that I was saying you should be ashamed of. It was your trivializing the deaths of 45,000 people each year by comparing providing them with health care to "lemonade fountains and rock candy mountains". And I stand by what I said about that. You should be very, very ashamed.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 02:20 AM

I disagree, LH. Some people are just plain selfish, and that's all they care about.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 02:30 AM

And Carol, cut out the crap accusing folks here of wanting people to die. No one on the forum wants that and it does not strengthen your argument.

I didn't say anyone wants people to die. People like you and beardedbruce don't care one way or another whether those without insurance die or not (which is bad enough). But neither of you would bother to lift a finger to prevent those without insurance from dying, either. That was my point. And I am entirely correct in saying that. You just couldn't give a shit. You're too focused on yourselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 08:07 AM

Go, girl!

Although I do think that some of the wannabee ubermensch here would actively like the inferior peoples exterminated (or enslaved).

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: DougR
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 11:47 AM

Right, Carol C., anyone who does not agree with your POV is heartless, selfish, etc. etc. That's horse pucky of the first order and your tirades does nothing to advance your POV. (other than the likes of Richard Bridge evidently).

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: MMario
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 11:52 AM

Massachusetts instituted universal health care; and since they have, heath care costs have skyrocketed; health care services have closed in droves, and there is LESS health care available to the general public then prior to the "universal" health care passed. But now everyone is equally entitled to what doesn't exist.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 12:00 PM

MMario

CarolC and her ilk are NOT interested in any facts- THEY want the world to be as they state it should be, for their own benefit.

And they do not care to EVER look at the unintended consequences, no matter how obvious, of what THEY think the rest of us need and should pay for.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 12:06 PM

Well, not realizing just how desperate alot of folks are in this country or the fact that we have a higher percentage of kids going to bed hungry at night and living in poverty is no defense for being acsued of being selfish and cruel... Especially when one spends alot of time here and has these things brought to their attention...

There is no excuse for the vast disparity of wealth in this country... None... And it is absolutely heartless and cruel to deny our own citizens basic needs...

But the right-wing has come up with all kinds of smoke and mirrors and absolute bullshit diversions to protect the heartless and cruel among us with so they can sleep at night... There is no reason on earth why the upper 5% should have 80% of the wealth... What is equally immoral is that that 5% cleverly brainwashes so many folks to vote against their own best interests...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 01:18 PM

They must be doing it badly, MMario. Hawaii has universal health care and the premiums there are tied with North Dakota for the lowest in the country, the Medicare costs per person are the lowest in the country, life expectancy in Hawaii is longer than anywhere else in the country, and while it has the highest incidence of breast cancer in the country, it has the lowest death rate in the country from that disease.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 01:20 PM

CarolC and her ilk are NOT interested in any facts- THEY want the world to be as they state it should be, for their own benefit.

And they do not care to EVER look at the unintended consequences, no matter how obvious, of what THEY think the rest of us need and should pay for.

beardedbruce, see my previous post. The facts show that MMario's example does not in any way predict the outcome of the current health care reform initiative.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 01:22 PM

Right, Carol C., anyone who does not agree with your POV is heartless, selfish, etc. etc. That's horse pucky of the first order and your tirades does nothing to advance your POV. (other than the likes of Richard Bridge evidently).

DougR, I don't think my posts are hurting my side of the issue one bit. This is because people can see for themselves how you and beardedbruce have been trivializing the deaths of many thousands of people, right here in this thread. It's all right there for everyone to see.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Bupkes
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 01:54 PM

Whatever Health Insurance Reform comes from all this, it's got to be just the start, and at least we'll have established that (almost) everyone gets covered one way or another, and they can't exclude preexisting conditions, nor cancel your insurance when you get sick.

But we have to learn to demand what every other advanced country seems to have agreed on: Health care can be universal, of higher quality than we have here, and it can cost at least HALF of what we currently pay, and certainly shouldn't be costing more! If you lived in Germany or France or England or Japan, you'd pay something like $400/year/individual or $800/year/family. How they do it should be studied and emulated, not just ignored. I'll send you links to back up any of this if you send me a private message.

Social Insurance, the concept, is very broad. You don't buy Police Insurance so you have the right to call a cop when you're in trouble; you don't buy Air Traffic Control Insurance so that you can get on a plane that's guided by a professional tracker; you buy Fire Insurance and hope you don't have your house burn down so that your premiums pay for the unlucky ones whose houses catch fire. We send our money to New Orleans or Haiti to help people who suffer huge catastrophes. Why is someone getting breast cancer less of a catastrophe than having a hurricane strike or an earthquake? Corporations with limited liability form so that investors can pool their resources and not suffer personal bankruptcy if the business goes down. That's all social insurance, and even Friedrich Hayek, the conservative economist, saw no reason we shouldn't have it as broadly as possible. Even Margaret Thatcher didn't try to repeal England's social medicine.

So, vote for Coakley just to preserve the 60-Senate-vote majority; no Republican can be trusted to even begin to foster social insurance now. And if she loses, the Democrats should still use every trick in the book to ram Health Reform through as it is, as a start, and we must work like hell to start getting more for ourselves, improving it, as soon as we can.

If Health Reform fails now, your insurance rates will just escalate to monstrous unaffordability soon anyway, and we'll be screaming for Medicare for All perhaps sooner than we think!

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: DougR
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 02:01 PM

MarioM: suppose the rush to the polls to vote in Mass. could be the result of the disappointment of people with the state run health care program there? Perhaps the end result of the election might offer a clue.

CarlC: seems to me you should move to Hawaii.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 02:06 PM

She can't afford to. The costs of housing and the taxes are too high for her.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 02:08 PM

The high turnout in Mass. will probably elect the Democrat.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: pdq
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 02:13 PM

... Martha Coakley on Terrorist in Afghanistan: "…They're gone. They're not there anymore."

Tell that to the NATO forces (including US troops) who are fighting there.

"You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn't work in the emergency room."

Coakley said this even though the Catholic Church encourages health care workers to act according their religious beliefs or conscience.

Ms. Coakley is seen as mean, inarticulate and ill-informed (being polite here). As a candidate she ain't very good.

This race looks a bit like Janet Reno v. Bruce Jenner.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 02:21 PM

CarlC: seems to me you should move to Hawaii.

This is precisely the kind of trivialization of other people's problems and other people's deaths that I am talking about, DougR. This is the "let them eat cake" approach to problem solving. You are mocking people who don't have access to health care when you cavalierly suggest that they move somewhere else in order to solve their problems. You really don't give a shit about anyone but yourself, and you prove it every single time you make a stupid, puerile, contemptible, condescending, suggestion like that one. You should be ashamed of yourself, too. Very ashamed.

And tell me this, DougR... where did the money come from that paid for your health care while you were working? In at least two of your jobs, I know it came from the taxpayers. So you've been sucking at the taxpayers' teat (as JtS put it) for a very long time. It's the taxpayers who paid for your health care while you were working, the taxpayers who paid into the Social Security and Medicare funds for you while you were working, and the taxpayers who are providing you with those things now. You have been the beneficiary of the very thing you are trying to deny others. That proves that you only care about yourself, and it shows that you are a freeloader, just like beardedbruce.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 03:54 PM

If you live in Massachusetts now is the time to keep Martha Coakley from "sucking at the taxpayer's teat.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: DougR
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 04:38 PM

And what two jobs did I have where my health care insurance was paid for by the tax payers, Carol C.? News to me.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 04:49 PM

You didn't bother to reply to MY comment at 9:14 PM last night, Doug. I have no idea if you bothered to read it.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: DougR
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 05:15 PM

Bill D.: I read that post, but didn't consider it warranted a reply. The Rassmussen Poll released today showed that 38% of respondents wanted the current bill being considered to pass. 56% did not. You evidently have little faith in polls. So be it. I assure you, if you are not aware of it, the politicians sure do.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 05:41 PM

I see... you just repeated what you said before, referencing what people think of the **current** bill. I'm sure the politicians do read the polls...since many of them work overtime to manipulate the polls, I'm not surprised.

You still ignore the point I made. **THe polls DID show that people don't like the 'current' bill because they wanted the original bill with the public option!**

Ah, well...perhaps others who read this thread will see it.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Greg F.
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 06:18 PM

Carol, Douggie-boy doesn't really give a shit about himself, either.

If he did, he wouldn't continue to prate and to preach and to vote against his own interests. He can't even be bothered to educate himself for his own benefit.

His lips may be moving, but Rush is doing the talking; he can't even be bothered to think for himself.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 06:25 PM

It would I have thought been obvious that they who support a proper health service in the USA care not only for themselves but also for others.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 06:53 PM

Carol C: to find the kind of health care insurance you are looking for, you are going to have to move to a country that provides it.

That'd be virtually any country outside the United States that isn't on the breadline. "Only in America"...

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: John P
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 07:10 PM

DougR, Beardedbruce:

I ask again: What's your alternative to universal health care?

"Move" or "get a job" are not viable solutions and indicate a serious lack of connection with reality, so please don't say those things again. What do you, as individuals, intend to do about the millions of people who don't have affordable health care in this country? Do you really not care about your fellow citizens to the point where you are willing to sentence them to death for getting sick?

Do you really believe it is the job of businesses to supply health care to employees? If so, why? As the manager of a small business, I can assure you that health insurance is the biggest single thing eating into our profitability. From a purely pro-business standpoint, I would expect the Republican party to in support of getting American businesses out of the health care business. Why should I spend my time at work staying tuned into the vagaries of insurance companies' policies and trying to figure out how to keep the business going while paying their obscenely large yearly price increases?

You keep saying the current bill is not a good one. No argument there -- the bill has been gutted by the Republicans, who still refuse to vote for it. But it's a start, and can get fixed up later.

Tell us your alternative plan if you're going to tear down the only other plan in town.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 07:20 PM

"Tell us your alternative plan if you're going to tear down the only other plan in town.

I think that has to count as a rhetorical question - one where you can be pretty certain it won't get an answer.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 07:42 PM

For the record, should the House ping-pong the Senate's bill and gvote on it without changes it goes to Obama's desk and become law...

BTW, for anyone who is parroting this right-wing argument that people in Mass are voting agasint one party rule: That is rediculous... While I give the Repub credit for framin' their lie this way the reality is what we have is "minority rule" with 40 Senators over-riding the interstes of 60... That is what is pissin' more folks off than anything but most voters haven't had it frqamed that way to them so they just say what ahs been hammered into them by the right, which BTW, now either owns much of the media or can afford to run anti-Dem ads 24/7 becuase they have unlimited corporate money...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 09:22 PM

"so they just say what ahs been hammered into them by the right, which BTW, now either owns much of the media or can afford to run anti-Dem ads 24/7 becuase they have unlimited corporate money...
"


Since the actual figures from the last election show that Obama got more corporate money than McCann, I guiess that means it is the LEFT that has control of the voters' minds.

Sorry to interupt your daydream with facts, Bobert.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 09:33 PM

See what I meant?

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Sawzaw
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 09:38 PM

DNC rolls Coakley under da bus:

Washington is already blaming the Coakley camp for today's loss so, naturally, the Coakley camp is hitting back.

As Jim has already noted at Campaign Spot, Politico has a leaked memo the campaign is circulating, faulting unpopular Obama policies and a belated response from the DNC for the race's sudden competitiveness. Here are the talking points:

National Dems Failed to Aid Coakley Until Too Late

— Coakley campaign provided national Democrats with all poll results since early December

— Coakley campaign noted concerns about "apathy" and failure of national Democrats to contribute early in December. Coakley campaign noted fundraising concerns throughout December and requested national Democratic help.

— DNC and other Dem organizations did not engage until the week before the election, much too late to aid Coakley operation

And it gets uglier. A senior Democratic party official, responding to the leaked memo, returns fire, blaming the Coakley campaign for perpetrating "political malpractice" and allowing "one of the worst debacle[s] in American political history to happen on their watch"

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Sawzaw
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 09:40 PM

9:13 p.m. -- Coakley has conceded in a call to Scott Brown, according to a Brown aide.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: DougR
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 09:59 PM

John P: The current bill has been gutted by the Republicans? What planet do you live on? The Republicans have had NO voice, pro or con on the current bill. Get a life. As to companies being expected to provide health care, when and where did I say that? Companies offer health care to attract the best employees and keep them. If a company cannot afford to offer health care to their employees they run the risk of losing good employees to companies that do! That's free enterprise!

Tell me, John P., where in the Constitution of the United States, does it say that the government should be required to provide health care to it's citizens? I don't think it's in there anyplace. Governments of other countries do provide health care, but we are not other countries, and I repeat ...IF anyone on this forum prefers services offered by other countries to it's citizens not provided in the U.S., they have the option of moving to those countries. Good luck to those who do!

I've watched the voting returns from the election in Mass. tonight and have spent time on Fox News Network, where there is celebration, and MSNBC and CNN where reporters have very long disappointed faces. On Fox, Frank Lunt, the pollster, had a group from the state many who voted for the Democrat and some who voted for the Republican. One of those, when asked why, as a Democrat, why he voted for the Republican said, "because I believer neither party should have a "super" majority in the congress. The Democrats under Obama have had it, and have totally screwed up. The Republicans had it and THEY screwed up. The elections in New Jersey, Virginia, and now (of all states) Teddy Kennedy's home state, should teach the Democrats a lesson. Super majorities by EITHER party is not in the best interest of the country.

I do not, however, delude myself that the Democrats will learn anything from the drubbing they have taken in all three elections. They will continue to try cram liberal legislation down the throats of the American electorate and they will shoot themselves solidly in their foot(s). They cannot accept that the majority of Americans are either in the center, or center right.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 09:59 PM

Pelosi and Reed better pass the Senate bill now, or forever hold their piece.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: DougR
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 10:19 PM

And if they do, Rig, they are going to be in deep doo-doo. I think they would both like to hang on to their jobs next November. Pulling that shenanigan wouldn't, I believe, go down well with the majority of Americans, liberal or conservative.

Amos: Real Politics, huh. Well I took a look at their website. Seems Sean Trenke on that site, while predicting a Democrat win prior to the election wrote the following: "So, at the end of the day, you can still place me pretty firmly in the 'Will be stunned' if Brown wins category. That said, I wouldn't be bowled over if the race was much closer than it should be, perhaps in the 54% - 45% range.

Sounds like a real neutral polling group to me, right?

I wonder if Mr. Sean Trenke has recovered from his stunning yet or if it might take a day or two?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 10:23 PM

It's passed both houses and is in the compromise phase now. They are perfectly within their rights to see this to the end. And they'd better do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 10:28 PM

But they can't change anything or it will go before the Senate for another vote.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Sawzaw
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 10:38 PM

"for anyone who is parroting this right-wing argument that people in Mass are voting agasint one party rule: That is rediculous... While I give the Repub credit for framin' their lie this way"

Washington Post: January 19, 2010

"But we think Tuesday's election offers a different lesson. Of course voters are inclined to blame the incumbent party for the troubled economy, and there's not much Mr. Obama can do about that in the short term. But voters also are nervous about one-party rule, especially when it tends toward arrogance or taking them, the voters, for granted. When state Democrats rewrite and then re-rewrite their special election law in the space of five years to suit their party interests, people notice. When the federal tax code is stretched in the health-care bill to give advantages to union workers that non-union workers won't share, people notice that, too."

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 11:10 PM

I don't understand why health care has not been made public and universal in the USA many years ago. Why some people insist on being gouged by big insurance and drug companies, or why so many seem to lack empathy for their less fortunate fellow citizens is beyond me. Such a shame that in an otherwise prosperous land when a poor country like Cuba does so much better!

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: mousethief
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 11:25 PM

America's health insurance "system" is the shame of the industrialized world. And the lies the Repuglicans told to shoot down this bill really should make their God very pissed at them (e.g. "Stephen Hawking would be dead if he had been under NH.").

No, there's nothing in the Constitution that says the Federal Government has to supply health care. But there are a lot of things not in the constitution that we still do. It's not meant to be legislation, only to define the roles of the branches and protect our meagre freedoms (which are under systematic attack by a succession of Repuglican administrations but that's a tale for another day).

That there should be people in this country who die from treatable and preventable illness is an outrage. "Why should I pay for your health care?" Because it's the right thing to do. I don't just think so. The entirety of the civilized world thinks so.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: John P
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 11:31 PM

Doug,
What's your alternative to universal health care? As I said before, saying "move" is not an answer that makes any sense, or deals with the millions of people who don't have access to medical care.

What are you doing with your Social Security checks that the Constitution doesn't say you can have?

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: DougR
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 12:11 AM

I cash 'em John P., just like every other qualified recipient. Social Security is earned, not a gift.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: mousethief
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 12:17 AM

When you've withdrawn as much out of Social Security as you've put into it, taking into account inflation, do you promise to die?

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 12:28 AM

DougR, you have said here in the Mudcat that you were the manager of a community theater and that you worked for the National Endowment for the Arts. Were you not telling the truth when you said those things?

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: kendall
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 06:05 AM

Two things. The dems lost that seat. Not unusual in a mid term election.

Doug, I'll tell you where it says the government should provide health care...the 9th amendment says that our rights are not limited by the bill of rights. We have many unwritten rights.
It also says, ..to provide for the general welfare.. To me that means protection from invaders INCLUDING DISEASE! I see no difference.
It's pretty plain that both the military and the insurance companies and the health care industry are making billions on our vulnerability and it is BARBARIC. I am totally disgusted by the lies the right wing has been spreading about the National health care system in the UK. Scare mongers have convinced the non thinkers that the fat cats are a bulwark against invaders. A pox on all those lying bastards.

Hell, I know some fairly intelligent people who are buffaloed by their lies!

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: John P
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 09:50 AM

Doug,
What's your alternative plan for providing health care to all the Americans who are now dying because they don't have it?

Come up with a workable plan, get on board with fixing the problem, or admit you share responsibility for a system that kills tens of thousands people every year.

Put up or shut up. Take responsibility for your actions. If you are a Christian, act like one. Be an adult.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Greg F.
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 09:52 AM

Don't hold your breath, John.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Ron Davies
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 09:55 AM

So it appears I underestimated the depth of discontent with health-care reform--and possibly the slowness of the economic recovery-- in Massachusetts.   What's interesting is that the Democratic loss happened there--the very state that has already experienced a health-care overhaul. And "Romney-care" was thought to be at least in part a model for the whole US.

And Rig, like a broken clock, you're right at least sometimes--(and all you got wrong this time was the wrong word). This is one of those times. The Democrats have to accept the Senate bill as is "or forever hold their piece (sic)".

They have to stop playing the blame game on Massachusetts, hold their noses, and pass the Senate bill--and hope to fix some of the problems with other legislation down the line.

They have to pass something--or the Republicans will be able to make hay on a vast scale by talking about how huge Democratic majorities could not even get a health bill of any kind through.   And the Republicans are salivating at this prospect.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass. Senatorial race
From: Greg F.
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 10:09 AM

What's REALLY interesting about the Mass. result is that the enlightened citizens of the Commonwealth, being dissatisfied with a situation brought about largely by Republicans in Congress (Gov. Romney was a disaster, too) figured that they could improve the situation by - wait for it - electing a Republican to Congress.

We have successfully raised up a nation of morons.