Boehner’s Bumper-Sticker Politics

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/boehners_bumper-sticker_politics_20100824/

Boehner’s Bumper-Sticker Politics
Posted on Aug 24, 2010
By Ruth Marcus


There are times when I flirt with the notion that the country would be better off with divided government.

If Republicans took control, say, of the House, there would be pressure on both parties to behave more responsibly. The GOP would be pushed to stop carping and posturing, and start governing. Democrats would have political cover to make hard choices on entitlement spending, taxes and the like. As every politician knows, bipartisan cliff-jumping is a safer sport than going solo.

That’s the theory. Then there’s John Boehner.

The man who would be speaker outlined his agenda Tuesday in a speech to the City Club of Cleveland: economic policy reduced to, literally, five easy tweets. The Ohio Republican offered up a depressing blend of tired ideas, tired-er one-liners (“We’ve tried 19 months of government-as-community organizer”) and cheap attacks. The cheapest: calling for the firing of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and economic adviser Larry Summers.

Boehner said recently that House Republicans would spend August listening to voters before announcing an agenda. Judging from Boehner’s speech, they mostly listened to pollsters, whose big idea apparently was to say “job-killing” as often as possible.

Twelve times, actually. As in “job-killing tax hikes,” “job-killing bills,” “job-killing agenda,” “job-killing federal regulations.” This is bumper-sticker politics, not a real economic plan. I’ve been skeptical that Democrats would get much political traction with their argument that the Republican agenda is just George W. Bush recycled, but speeches like Boehner’s make me rethink.

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Democrats—and the country—would benefit from a responsible opposition party. I’m still looking for evidence of one.