Monday, December 28, 2009

Senate to America: Waaaah, work is hard

After struggling to kinda, sorta, almost pass health care reform this year on top of all the hard work they did greasing the skids for Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke to give everyone's money to Wall Street, moderate Senate Democrats have a message to those who want them to take action on climate change: boo hoo, addressing large, complex problems is hard, we don't wanna, you can't make us.
Bruised by the health care debate and worried about what 2010 will bring, moderate Senate Democrats are urging the White House to give up now on any effort to pass a cap-and-trade bill next year.

“I am communicating that in every way I know how,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of at least a half-dozen Democrats who've told the White House or their own leaders that it's time to jettison the centerpiece of their party's plan to curb global warming.
...
“We need to deal with the phenomena of global warming, but I think it’s very difficult in the kind of economic circumstances we have right now,” said Indiana Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, who called passage of any economywide cap and trade “unlikely.
...
“I’d just as soon see that set aside until we work through the economy,” said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.).
...
“Climate change in an election year has very poor prospects,” added Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.).
Awww, it'd be hard work and Republicans would call you liberal hippie pussies. Well, guess what? It's hard work precisely because the problem is so large and you've spent decades not doing a fucking thing about it. Plus, you're going to get called liberal hippie pussies even if you nuke Tehran, so get used to it and man up. And not or nothing, but you all talk a big game about doin' stuff for the economy and makin' jobs a priority, but what exactly have you done? If it's such a large priority why are you dicking around and not solving it? The Senate can't do more than one thing at a time?

Can I break something to you? Your jobs? They're about voting on complex shit that has large ramifications to the country and world at large. I'm sorry if that's some great mental burden, but it's what you signed up for. I don't recall anyone standing around saying "Boy, we just gotta force this Ben Nelson fella to run for office" and then voting him in against his will. You don't want to vote on complex important shit that does a lot, costs a lot, and will be used to attack you politically? Well then, might I suggest you figure out what your life's work is and get to it, because being a senator sure as shit isn't it.

Sorry you're expected to do stuff and vote on things. But then again, did you run for office so you could have a nice big nameplate that had the title "Senator" on it or did you actually run to, you know, do something? Sorry, that was a stupid question. I'm sorry this legislation nonsense is getting in the way of you all being Senators. Maybe the next government we create will have some sort of workaround for that. Until then though, could you just maybe try to address more than one issue a year? For us?

No comments: