Seriously, this is getting embarrassing.
Brown clarifies remarks on controversial budget
… In a reference to the ongoing budget process, Brown, who was keynote speaker at the [Newburyport] chamber’s annual meeting, intimated to the crowd he would vote for the Wisconsin Republican’s budget proposal, even though he didn’t expect it to pass. “The leaders will bring forward (Ryan’s) budget, and I will vote for it, and it will fail,” Brown told local business leaders gathered at Black Swan Country Club in Georgetown for the chamber’s annual meeting…. But Brown staffers, wary of political fallout from his comments, were quick to follow up on his remarks, clarifying that the senator has yet to decide how he will vote on the matter. They said Brown meant to say he would vote “on” the bill, but not necessarily “for” it.
Ah, I see. “On” the bill. Perhaps he meant to say that he would vote “present,” thus not taking a position either for or against Paul Ryan’s Medicare Destruction Act of 2011, since he apparently can’t make up his mind. Or maybe he meant to say that he would vote against it despite having previously said that he would vote “for” it, which would seem consistent with what he told Jim Braude a couple of days ago, though he didn’t actually say he would vote “no,” just that he couldn’t “support” it.
Well, count me among the hopelessly confused as to how Scott Brown feels about privatizing Medicare. I still don’t know how he plans to vote on the Ryan budget when it comes up in the Senate – and it is indeed coming up, though Senator Brown and most other Republicans no doubt wish it weren’t.
Maybe it’s time Scott Brown figured out that we in Massachusetts – conservatives, liberals, middle-of-the-roaders, everyone – expect our elected officials to be leaders. We don’t want our electeds standing around with their fingers constantly up in the air checking which way the wind is blowing before taking a stand on something. That’s why Mitt Romney is so staggeringly unpopular in this state, even (especially?) among Republicans. If Brownie doesn’t want to join Mitt in the penalty box, he’d better man up and take a stand on something. Anything, really.
Nah, go with something like this:
Animated version:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
The First Edition?
Song title should be “I Just Dropped On “
I am sure you are all smart enough to have understood Brown’s original point, which was about the political back-and-forth negotiations that are going on. When he said “I will vote for it” he meant, obviously, that he’s going to vote with the Republicans who are metaphorically negotiating for a car with a car dealer. He knows they’re low-balling, but he’s not going to screw up the game by agreeing with the car dealer that their offer is too low. Well, he pretty much did come out and do that in the quote, which I think he didn’t expect to be blasted around in the media. The funny thing is, the way the media is focusing on him saying “I will vote for it”, it strengthens the Republican’s hand. They should be telling the story straight if they want to break up the pack and undermine their hand.
Rachel Maddow was unethically manipulative on MSNBC last night when she isolated that one line as though he was saying he supports it as the perfect final law. She’s useless as a news anchor, I will never believe anything she says because I know how manipulative she is with the story.
Yeah, that’s kinda the point.
There is so much wrong with the Ryan bill that even Republicans should be voting against it. The problems just start with the damage done to Medicare for those under 55. Here is a scathing review of what Ryan’s budget would do – http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/04/americas_budget
This is a blatant give away to the wealthy and very wealthy, drastically cutting their taxes while cutting benefits many earned over a lifetime. This goes beyond making the Bush tax cuts permanent. It eliminates taxes on capital gains and the estate tax!
The funny thing is as he is correct in saying that it won’t pass the Senate, what is the cost to him in voting no and citing a few things he disagrees with? I hope the Democrats find a way to teach people exactly what is in this budget. I remember years ago, in the Bush administration, that Kerry’s statement on the budget included a line that was something like budgets define values and that that budget did not represent American values. The Ryan budget does define values, but not ones that most Americans would agree with. The Koch brothers likely would agree with them.
“The funny thing is as he is correct in saying that it won’t pass the Senate, what is the cost to him in voting no and citing a few things he disagrees with?”
That would be seen as treachery. We knew we were electing a Republican to be on the Republican team. I know people like to think we were enamored with his looks, but we would have elected an ugly dude too, as long as he was going to be on the Republican team, and not going to be another liberal feminist namby pamby.
It’s fine for him to say what is wrong with it, but he should make sure he knows what team he’s on there.
for wanting what is in that budget.
– Having everyone under 55 need an addition estimated $180,000 in retirement savings
– Facilitating another shift of the percent of America’s wealth to be held by the wealthiest people – at a point where the top 1% already have 40% of the country’s wealth.
The problem is that he wants it both ways – he wants people like you to be able to say that he supports the Republican values. But then, why is his team screaming unfair – because an ad – using his quote says he will vote for the bill – asks him NOT to do so.
Do you seriously believe the Ryan budget is a good or fair way to fix the economy?
Why do you think Brown in twisting in the wind on this? Could it be that he and his team know that the majority of MA voters, especially if they knew the details, would be very against this?
The fact is that the real cost would be NEAR ZERO in voting no on it, because the race will be between a Democrat and Brown – and no matter how angry Republicans would be on this they will vote for him. I am willing to predict that will be exactly what he will do, because otherwise he loses too many independents.
What difference does it make what’s in the Ryan budget? Zzzzz. It’s what’s in the actual budget that gets passed that matters.
your party is proposing to be the budget. We should care because it is the Republican goal to win the Senate, the Presidency and retain the House – and this is what they are prescribing for the country.
Why does it make a difference if Brown thinks this is ok? The control of the Senate could come down to his seat. Moderate Independents need to know that he is or is not willing to accept this radical right plan.
that people are way more involved in number crunching and politics than they are. We do pay attention to character and loyalty drama, but we know the numbers are just numbers being bandied about and aren’t important. Whoever heard of Ryan, anyhow? We are going to get Obama’s budget, not Ryan’s. Ryan’s is just a negotiating ploy, and it reflects Ryan’s ideas, not Brown’s and not Boehner’s and not “the Republicans.” Sure, Ryan is the pitcher on the mound at the moment, and I guess the manager is responsible for leaving him in there, but sometimes managers do that. And when they do, the team supporting him, they back him up, they don’t undercut him and say they’d have pitched different. That’s baseball. He’s not the team, he is on the team.
in politics, I have a natural interest in the numbers and the proposals.
Here, the GIST of the difference is REAL and should become a national issue. The Republicans way to handle a deficit problem in the budget is to essentially TAKE money out of Medicare, that was accumulated by payroll taxes that start on the first dollar earned and AT THE SAME TIME eliminate capital gains and estate taxes and reduce the MORE PROGRESSIVE income tax.
Net effect – a MAJOR gain for the wealthy, a LOSS for the middle class and poor and a loss of financial security for many people under 55 when they retire.
These are not “just numbers”, they affect people’s futures – and I think it will move more people than you think.
I agree that loyalty and character are more easily understood, but in today’s world even they take a back seat to celebrity and star power. I actually do not see Brown as having unusually stellar character, although it is impressive that he survived an awful childhood. Had he worked to defend programs that were like the ones that helped him escape from the poverty of his childhood, instead of voting against the summer jobs program last year, maybe failing to open a door for a modern day equivalent, I would be impressed that he had empathy even though he was now more powerful.
. . . have you noticed that the Smirk of Janesville’s Thirty Year Plan does not actually tamper with Medicare till a third of the period has elapsed?
As a national budget for a particular fiscal year, the NEXT fiscal year, the thing is a tasteless joke, and your antagonist Professor Cuteless is quight whight to to treat it with contempt.
Happy days.
to deliver his ‘plan,’ and therefore it reflects the national Republican party’s values. He’s not some lone wolf throwing out a budget plan, no matter how much you want to pretend that he is to deflect responsibility or culpability for the bat-shit crazy direction the national GOP wants to send this country in.
“the race will be between a Democrat and Brown – and no matter how angry Republicans would be on this they will vote for him.”
Tell that to Chet Baker or whatever his name was. That isn’t to say we want a mindless tea party drone, but we want a Republican.
I assume and hope that a large portion of the Independents will vote for the Democrat. But, he will likely not lose Republican leaning independents because he votes against the Ryan plan, because no MA Democrat would even consider voting for it.
just like they did for Baker. Not because of any one vote, but if they perceive that he’s more concerned about pleasing independents than Republicans. Baker was more concerned about pleasing Independents, and he got what he wished for.
Brown campaigned as a political moderate and a critic of partisanship, and he promised “the people” that his was going to be “the people’s seat.”
Maybe some folks — such as yourself — expected extreme partisanship from him, but that wasn’t what he was promising. Do you think a majority of Massachusetts residents approve of anything close to the Ryan Medicare plan, even if it’s just an opening gambit in a car deal negotation?
riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
1 out of 12 people we send to DC is a woman, and she was the first one elected in god knows how long.
You, sir, have no credibility.
on the Ryan budget. http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=AE0FFD9A-2F57-4C4C-8C47-314BF84F1BE4
Why?
The cost of being a “yes” while running in Massachusetts is too high. I wonder if his reason for getting this oped out is to stop the SEIU ad and to say “no” before Kerry’s event today designed to blast the Ryan plan.
As to his focus on JOBS while in the Senate, why does he skip the open hearings of the ONLY committee assignment that he has that has anything to do with jobs – the small business committee. I watched several hearings, and he never seems to be there. You can play find Scott Brown? – http://sbc.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=Hearings
It just seems like a low blow to be making him pay a price for a little bit of forthrightness, casting him as flip-flopping instead of admiring him for a little independent sideline reporting, and I think helps seal his victory by making it “beleaguered Scotty” versus all the little nipping ferrets using him for political theater.
There is no forthrightness here – none. He is not even speaking of the issues involved. His comments have had no content beyond possibly voting no and possibly voting yes.
And you ask Democrats to not call it flip flopping?? That is pretty rich as your party intentionally misinformed the country that Kerry voting for a version of the troop funding paid for by rolling back the tax cuts for the top 1% which Bush said he would veto, and then for a version that added it to the debt was flip flopping. Yet, when the Junior Senator is waffling like crazy on ONE bill, we are being mean saying he is flip flopping and instead want us to “admire” his independence?
The fact is that he is far from beleaguered, he is a media “pet” Here is one case:
The Boston Globe interviewed him about three months into his Senate term. Here is the transcript, where he is pretty unimpressive – http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/05/09/transcript_from_the_interview_with_scott_brown –
Yet here is the article and video – note that they have lovingly edited out nearly the whole interview merging segments using photos of Brown – http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/05/09/a_star_from_day_one_brown_settles_in
We’re supposed to “give him credit” for changing course practically every other day on something as large and exceptionally important as MEDICARE?!
What this really shows is Brown has absolutely, positively no principals. No amount of Republican trolling on BMG forums is going to change that; the facts are the facts. Brown would be much better off actually standing for something — anything — on principal, and should he ultimately lose in this upcoming reelection (which I think is becoming increasingly more likely by the day), his Willard-like House of Pancakes routine will be remembered as his undoing.
.
The Ryan bill has been out since the beginning of April. The basic concepts, that it would destroy Medicare as we know it for everyone under 55 and that it would give enormous tax breaks to the wealthy at the same time are known. There is no excuse that ANY legislator not have a strong position one way or the other. The House has already voted on it and every MA Congressperson voted “NO” – as did all Democrats.
Senator Kerry has said it is reckless and dangerous and would break the government’s social compact with America. Many comments since April – one form yesterday here – http://www.tauntongazette.com/news/business_news/x1796494589/Sen-John-Kerry-talks-budget-infrastructure-policy-at-economic-meeting-in-Taunton#ixzz1N0P7cmOZ No indecision there.
The Ryan budget leads to a very different future. It leads to a far less secure middle class, while the wealthiest pay less taxes. The problem Brown has is that many in the Republican party have made that budget a litmus test for Republicans. There is a serious problem when a conservative Republican like Gingrich, in a moment of truth, said it was right wing social engineering. Susan Collins had the guts to say she is against it.
In reality this should also be a litmus test of whether Brown really is independent. If he votes for this, he either is not really independent or his position here is to the right of Gingrich’s.
His frequent course changes on Medicare show that he hasn’t thought at all carefully about one of the bigger items in the budget. Somehow he thinks he can get away with improvising.
And while he is making up positions on serious issues, he shows an excessive regard for how he is perceived. We’ve elected a male version of a beauty queen to be our Senator.
“which I think he didn’t expect to be blasted around in the media”
I think you’re exactly right. He’s well into the job, but he still doesn’t really know what it is. Perhaps his staff doesn’t, either. They are floundering.
It is hard to believe that in two weeks:
1) The morning after OBL was killied, he told Glen Johnson coyly that he would be going to Afghanistan, but couldn’t explain until his news release. After the news release that he asked to do his two weeks training in Afghanistan got flack, he blamed the story on “someone dropping a dime”. (The Atlantic Wire called him on being that “someone” )
2) He goes everywhere showing off saying he had briefings and saw photos of a dead OBL – as if they were related — then had to admit they were not real.
3) He attacked the LWV for putting out an attack on his vote against allowing the EPA to regulate greenhouse gasses. The ad which would have been better if it it were specifically speaking of voting against the EPA working to mitigate climate change, but it was true in terms of his vote. Here. the smart move would have been to wait until others suggested it was over the top – which they did. The LWV might possibly have helped him by innoculating him against the real justified criticism of that vote.
4) In the fashion of Newt Gingrich, his team is calling misleading and untrue a union ad mentions his comment on the Ryan budget and asks that he NOT vote for it.
Brown has gotten so much puff coverage from the Boston media. I wonder if their constant covering up his less than coherent Senate speeches or questioning why if he really “read all the bills”, he never seemed cable of speaking of them in much detail for the last year and a half, while helping his poll numbers, has resulted in his lazy assumption that this is good enough.
expects puff coverage.
Given that elections are won and lost these days by the public’s perceptions of the character of the candidates, it is useful to connect Mr. Brown’s actions to his personality. Low-information voters may not understand why vouchers are not replacement for Medicare, but they understand vanity quite well.
can see the vanity or are they still snowed by the barn coat and truck?
but without efforts to appeal to low-information voters specifically Democrats tend to run ineffective wonk campaigns of the type Dukakis ran against Bush I.
I think Dukakis is a good guy and I love wonks but it’s emotion not rationality that sells.