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| Steaming hot noodles |
We owe it to the American people to say what we're for, not just what we're against.
He was talking about Republicans and their then forty votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act; his point was that if they had ideas to make it better, to save money, or whatever, they should tell us what they'd do differently. But the truth is, he could have been talking about any bill, idea, plan, or pipe dream.
We see this all the time, the things everyone's against: the Dems are opposed to ABC if the Rs are for it, and the Rs are totally against XYZ if that's what the Dems support. And what makes thing worse? The American people probably have different priorities than the people we elect do - and we agree on them.
It's true: polls have long shown there's agreement on what needs fixing, even if there are dozens of ideas on how to fix what ails us. And with people on both sides of the aisle unhappy with each other and with their own parties, with extraordinarily thin majorities in both chambers, and with folks even arguing about what unity means, how on earth is anything going to get done?
I've been doing some noodling around on this for a while now. To me, the first step is to figure out what's important to us - to the majority of us, not just the loudest yellers. All we know for sure is, what matters most to the politicians (i.e., staying in office while amplifying the voices of the yellers) doesn't seem to jive with what most of us want for ourselves, our families, our neighbors, or even for perfect strangers.
