The GOP's unhealthy obsessions

“The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them…all that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up in the lee of things…all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all evil visibly personified, made practically assailable in Moby Dick” – Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Obsessions are unhealthy. When Ahab’s obsession ran its course, the Pequod sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Ahab and every member of the ship’s crew, except Ishmael, drowned.  That was certainly not how Ahab saw his obsession resolving itself but obsessions seldom do.

Republicans in the US House of Representatives, including Cynthia Lummis, have stalked the Affordable Care Act since it was enacted. They’ve been obsessed as a crazed suitor and they’ve created an obsession among their base.

Not to be overly dramatic, but their obsession could be seen as a form of “domestic terrorism,” which, by definition includes actions intended “to intimidate or coerce a civilian population and to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.”

Terrorism involves threats of harm to innocent people in an attempt to get your way over a matter with which your victims have little or any influence. The kind of terrorism with which we are more generally accustomed involves death and bodily injury. This is different. Lummis and her House colleagues have used the threats to seriously harm the economy, put people out of work, reduce the value of their savings, and refuse to pay the nation’s legitimate debts in exchange for getting what they have not been able to get through the democratic process.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a commonly used psychiatric diagnostic system in the US, defines obsession. "Obsessions are persistent ideas, thoughts, impulses, or images that are experienced as intrusive and inappropriate and that cause marked anxiety or distress...the content of the obsession is alien, not within his or her own control, and not the kind of thought that he or she would expect to have." Terrorism is a tool for satisfying extreme obsessions.

The GOP is diagnosable. They’ve voted 40 times to repeal Obamacare knowing those votes aren’t even symbolic. Their Obamacare obsession includes continual invasive urges, resulting in significant fear, distress, or discomfort. Yet, as with the target of most obsessions, repealing Obamacare is not within their control. Thus, they resort to holding the nation hostage to achieve a result otherwise unattainable by them.

One fellow Republican called them “lemmings with suicide vests.”

Psychiatrists recognize the damage caused when obsessions are not controlled. One of the recommended strategies is to focus on your greater mission. Those who understand the pathology believe if you're able to care about your most important mission you'll find yourself more firmly anchored, upright, and balanced when a wave of obsessive thoughts threatens to carry you away.

Perhaps if these politicians could focus on what is right for the nation rather than what is right for their party?

Professionals urge obsessed folks to accomplish tasks that help put your obsession behind; turn to something you've been neglecting, e.g. your job as a congressman.

Finally the seriously obsessed are advised to listen to what others say. If friends express concern over your obsession, they're probably right. Be open to these messages. Your base isn’t always your best friend. You’ve expended a lot of energy convincing them your obsession is their problem. If you’re going to recover, you’ll have to come clean.

I know what House Republicans are going through. My 3-year-old grandson recently lost his favorite toy, Captain Hook. He became obsessed with locating it. We searched to no avail. We didn’t lose it, had no control over where it was…but he was obsessed with finding Captain Hook. So, Grandpa explained to him that sometimes you don’t get what you want. He was good with that and went on to something else.

But then he’s a three-year-old, not a Republican member of Congress.

If Congress has its way, the poor will always be with us

In 2003, Governor Dave Freudenthal appointed me Director of Wyoming’s Department of Family Services. During a press conference announcing the appointment, Wyoming Public Radio news director Bob Beck asked, “What happened to all the people Wyoming removed from the welfare roles?”

Following President Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform, Wyoming reduced the roles of the old “Aid for Families With Dependent Children” program by 90%, winning awards and accolades for this “accomplishment.” Beck wanted to know what happened to these folks.

I didn’t know but promised I’d make a point of finding out. I did. They went to work.

Welfare reform put strict limits on the time a person could receive benefits and also created work requirements. If you weren’t disabled, you had to find a job. Welfare reform promised taxpayers lower welfare roles. It promised welfare recipients the support they needed to find work, feed their families, and find childcare.

The first promise was kept. Families were dispatched from AFDC into the workplace. Welfare reform did little more than create a forced labor supply for employers who wouldn’t pay livable wages. Disproportionately high rates of Wyoming people not only got jobs, often more than one, working for low wages with no benefits.

Food stamps and Medicaid became a subsidy to low wage-paying employers. Right-wingers like Congressman Stephen Fincher of Tennessee quoted the Bible in support of cutting aid for poor workers, “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” That sort of scriptural libel reflects a meanness of spirit rejected everywhere in the Bible. It also conveniently ignores the reality of the world Congress, including our Congressman Cynthia Lummis, created for low income working families.

Lummis first supported a Farm Bill drastically cutting nutrition aid to low-income families saying, “This bill,” Lummis said, “was crafted to save billions for our country and establish long overdue reform to the 1996 welfare and nutrition programs.” The reform she refers to is the reneging on the promise to the poor that if they worked fulltime, they’d at least be able to feed their families. That bill would have cut 20 billion dollars from food aid. It failed mostly because Democrats felt it was too drastic and many Republicans felt it was not drastic enough.

Senate Democrats did the poor no favors when they agreed to cuts of $4.5 billion. The well being of as many as five million people are at stake. The Health Impact Project, a Washington research group, said the cuts would not only affect the ability of low-income households to feed their children, but would also increase poverty.

In the hyper-partisan House of Representatives, the GOP came up with a solution. They removed any mention of nutrition programs and passed, on a near straight party line vote, a bill that would make certain agribusiness subsidies continued even if food stamps didn’t. Lummis voted for that strategy.

Now we learn the Bible-quoting-Congressman Fincher received three and a half million dollars in agricultural subsidies. Lummis Livestock, of which our Congressman owns a large interest, received $47,093 in farm subsidies between 1996 and 2002.

The average monthly benefit paid to Lummis’ constituents who are working yet unable to make enough to feed her family is $133.41. A monthly average of Lummis’ subsidy exceeds 400% that amount. Still she insists it’s poor families dooming the federal budget.

This isn’t about rational, balanced approaches to solving the nation’s fiscal problems. This is opportunism. Some politicians have long targeted these programs. Whether it’s the Wyoming legislature trying to impose drug tests on welfare recipients and reject Medicaid expansion for the uninsured, or Lummis and her Washington colleagues’ efforts to reduce nutrition programs and replace Medicare with vouchers, they are using legitimate concerns over the national debt to make political statements about their disdain for the poor.

Mr. Fincher and Ms. Lummis should be made aware of another Bible verse. Deuteronomy 15:11, “You shall open your hand to the needy and the poor.” God wasn’t talking about the back of your hand.

Congressional dysfunction starts at home

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds twelve of every 100 voters approve the job Congress does. What are those twelve smoking? The question is relevant. While there’s no polling on the question, the number of Americans using marijuana would signal that drug dealers most likely have higher job approval ratings than members of Congress.

Wouldn’t you like to know what those twelve percent think Congress is doing right? Perhaps they’re the same folks who attend NASCAR races hoping to see fiery wrecks or the fans going to hockey games for the fistfights. They’d probably enjoy watching snake-handlers and playing Russian roulette.

While the National Security Agency is collecting personal information on Americans, they should identify these people. Anyone willing to admit they believe Congress is doing a good job is a security risk. We have a “need-to-know” who these people talk to on their cellphones, what they watch on TV, websites they visit, and comic books they read.

A disproportionate number of those twelve-per centers are most probably Wyoming voters. How else can you explain the fawning responses when a member of our Congressional delegation appears on a local radio talk show or holds a so-called “town hall” meeting? Listening to their groupies, you’d think that neither Senators Enzi or Barrasso, nor Congressman Lummis play no role whatsoever in congressional dysfunction. You might conclude they are the solution to the problems all those other politicians have created.

Only 12% of the voters think Congress does its job. Sixty-percent believe all the rascals should be thrown out and replaced. But last year, John Barrasso was reelected with 76% of the vote, virtually an identical percent given Senator Mike Enzi when he last ran for reelection in 2008. US Representative Cynthia Lummis received almost 70% of the vote in 2012. There’s a rationality gap.

What is it the vast majority don’t like about Congress that these our congressmen different from their colleagues? Nothing. Voters claim to dislike the partisanship and gridlock. Wyoming’s congressional delegation can be counted on by their party to support the gridlock whether stopping a vote on legislation or blocking the confirmation of an appointee.

While in Wyoming Senator Barrasso says things like, “People need to work together, find areas of common ground, things we agree with." Back on the banks of the Potomac, he prides himself in being a part of his party’s efforts to block and blame.

Remember how angry voters were when Congress shut down the government rather than reach a compromise? Though a fellow Republican called it the “dumbest idea I’ve ever heard,” Enzi joined other Republicans in threatening another shutdown if Democrats don’t agree to repeal Obamacare, virtually assuring the nation’s economy will again be put at-risk because of the Republicans’ obsessive vitriol over healthcare reform.

Voters claim to be concerned about the relationship between congress and campaign contributors. Whether you’re the 12% who think favorably of congress or the 70% who voted for Lummis, you should check out maplight.org, a website correlating the amounts and dates of campaign contributions with whether a congressman votes as the contributor wishes.

There you’ll find a list of opportunities for Lummis to take money one day and vote as the contributor asked the next. HR 2454, for example, was introduced in the 111^th Congress to create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, and reduce climate change. On June 25, 2009, Alpha Natural Resources, one of America’s largest coal producers who opposed HR 2454, wrote two checks to the Lummis campaign for a total of $4,999, an odd figure suggestive of a need for further examination. On June 26th, Lummis voted as Alpha asked.

To be fair, there are times Lummis voted contrary to the desire of a contributor. Those votes are relatively few.

Voters set standards for other congressmen we won’t impose on our own. Do you really believe Congress is doing a poor job? Are you genuinely unhappy with the direction the country is headed? If so, the cleanup begins at home.