Government rant

I just received this Obama Administration email from David Plouffe (Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama). Here are the opening lines:

Good afternoon --
Most Americans are concerned that all we'll see from Congress this year is inaction. Count me as one of those Americans.
But the fact is we need Congress. President Obama is doing everything in his power to move our economy forward. Not surprisingly though, the proposals with the biggest impact require legislation.
So at this make-or-break moment for the middle class, the President has called on Congress to move forward with a concrete plan that creates jobs and helps restore middle class security.

Huh??? Ok legislative process is slow and cumbersome because of having to satisfy so many interests. So definitely agree with "concern ... inaction" in Congress "this year." Notice how that first paragraph is book-ended with "Americans" capitalized and plural - see how much that says about the appeal of this message?

But look at the following paragraph. It presumes that we were trying to work without Congress ("but we need [it]"), which, in fact, is precisely what Obama has tried to do. In fact, he said in his January speech making the HHS mandate public, that he was, in very similar words, "tired of waiting for Congress" and that "we needed to do this faster" than Congress could or would.

And "Obama is doing everything in his power" - in fact, he's overstepping. And then "not surprisingly" - because it's in the Constitution - we "require legislation" to "move our economy forward."

Plouffe, on behalf of the Obama administration, appeals to the middle class, then, creating an atmosphere of urgency - a critical window of incredible opportunity, but how hesitating is the language that follows? "to move forward" and "create jobs" (but not fill them) and "help restore" but not restore. Perhaps it's being realistic, but so much of politics is about cloud-surfing idealism at this stage in the game...

Along the same lines, after detailing the President's checklist of the next economic recovery legislation he is pushing, Plouffe closes with the following:

That's it. It's straightforward and entirely within Congress's power to pass and send to the President for his signature.

It's a further appeal to the American people that Congress is so ineffective that the President must hold their hands and spoon-feed them ideas for new laws, and based on what we have seen, it's even more than that - it's a threat to "pass this or else" - and the "or else" is that Obama will once again push his Executive branch over the edge and press an agency to do his dirty work in the regulatory sphere so that the public will come back and beg Congress to give in. Seriously.

This whole game (honestly what so much of politics is) stands in the starkest contrast to everything that I'm studying about philosophy and its applications and ramifications for both personal and state ethics and understanding the values that should motivate personal as well as political action and policy.

Come on, America, wake back up and let's do things right, because there is such a thing as right; there must be.


Love the Immaculata!
Mariam cogita, Mariam invoca