January 10, 2011 - 10:57 am
It was ten months ago that on a strict party line vote, the Democrats passed a new health care law, which is constitutionally suspect, unrealistically priced, harmful to employment, creating a medical oligarchy, and is increasingly unpopular with the public. Yet these wild-eyed “Tea Party” types are hellbent on repealing it, without first writing their own giant health care fix.
Show us you’re serious, Republicans.
No, no one gave you authority to determine the terms of the debate. If Republicans (or Wiccans or Lancastrians or whatever group you want to disparage) generally believe that doing nothing is better than doing something you happen to like, they can make that argument without incurring any obligation to propose something better than doing nothing. You, however, are obliged to make the positive case that what you want to do is better than doing nothing. If you can’t do that persuasively, your expostulation that your opponents haven’t done it either is entirely irrelevant.