Dr. Chris Hunt's recent commentary in the Record did more than just give his take on the Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts. Hunt really got fired up. He quoted George Washington. He launched a sweeping, thundering, hyperbolic attack on all things Obama, complete with historical references.
Samples include: "Our President and Congress have ... ignored ... the wisdom of our founding fathers," "strayed from our founding principles," and have launched "attacks on our health-care system that needs reform but not overhaul" (whatever that means).
With great alarm, he proclaimed, "our government has become the threat to democracy that our founding fathers warned us about."
Gee whiz. You'd think the Democratic Congress had broken into the National Archives, stolen the Constitution and burned it in the Capitol Rotunda. Or that Obama had declared himself dictator. Or that the federal government had come in and taken over Frye Regional.
While a Republican has won a U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts for the first time since the 1970s, Dr. Hunt ignores the fact that just over a year ago, a Democrat won North Carolina in a presidential election for the first time since the 1970s. The reasons for these extraordinary events are complicated, but do have one big common denominator: As even Bill O'Reilly pointed out to Sarah Palin on Fox News, no president could have brought unemployment under 10 percent last year because the economy stinks.
It has nothing to do with George Washington.
And Dr. Hunt says we were irresponsible? Well, we passed a $787 billion stimulus package that cut taxes on the middle class, developed infrastructure, funded alternative fuels and — according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office — created or saved about 2 million jobs by the end of 2009.
Even conservative economists argued for a $400 billion stimulus, and liberal economists called for $1.5 trillion or more. Obama actually chose a fairly moderate approach, given an economy on the verge of collapse.
The Democrats' health-care plan is also a moderate approach that would reduce the deficit by $1 trillion over 20 years (again CBO figures). The government doesn't take over health care or require single payer.
Instead, it keeps our private health insurance system intact and requires everyone to get health insurance. It provides subsidies to help folks who can't afford it on their own and an insurance exchange where we have more power to shop, as part of a large group, for the best plan.
It works to eliminate the inefficiencies experts have identified in Medicare, cutting $500 billion from the Medicare budget over 10 years (CBO).
But Republicans and Dr. Hunt have played on the frustrations and fears of Americans with demagoguery about the deficit, death panels and socialized medicine.
An effective democracy is based on honest debate between competing philosophies, with arguments based on reason and facts. That's a founding principle Republicans need to learn.
Dan Green is a Hickory resident and former chairman of the Catawba County Democratic Party.
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