Time to bring it

A letter I wrote to the local paper recently:

Now that Scott Brown has won the vacant Senate seat from Massachusetts,
we'll really see what our federal government is all about.

So-called independent voters have already started calling for more
"bipartisanship", by which most seem to mean that the Democrats should
let the Republicans write legislation for them and pass the result.

Ever since President Obama's inauguration, the Republicans, the party
of "I've got mine," have done nothing but oppose. Bipartisanship takes
parties willing to compromise. The Democrats have bent over backward
to produce legislation that might possibly appeal to the Republican
minority, and to what end? Republicans are never going to vote for
anything that might anger their corporate sponsors, so any attempt at
bipartisanship was a wasted effort to begin with.

What can we expect from the Republicans? More of nothing: no proposals,
no legislation, no attempt at actual governance. As has been proven
again and again, Republicans are simply out of ideas.

What should the Democrats do? Pass legislation that helps people, starting
with health care reform. Clean up the huge mess the Bush administration
left behind. Make the Republicans stand up for whatever it is they believe
in. I, for one, would be interested in whether the Republicans stand for
anything (except, of course, tax cuts -- the solution to every problem).

The Democrats have a huge majority for a reason: Republicans proved
incapable of governing. People want the change Democrats promised to
bring. It's time to bring it.