Brady "town hall" meeting in Montgomery on 8/27/2009

Kevin Brady’s political rally in Montgomery Thursday morning highlighted a fact of our political system when he stated “We focus on the people who elected us.” And he has and he did and he will continue to do so. Thus saith the first commandment of Politics 101.

Why do I think it was a political rally rather than a town hall meeting? When Wally Wilkerson greets everyone at the door, when the introduction is a twenty minute melodramatic monologue of what is wrong with the proposed legislation, when six of the thirteen “questions” from the floor are cheerleading comments rather than questions, and when phrases like “bloodless coup”, “he should be impeached”, “this is socialized medicine”, and booing of unpopular questions exist, either it’s a political rally or my definition of a town hall meeting is wrong. But I did learn some interesting “facts” at this dog and pony show.

I learned that of the eleven counties in Mr. Brady’s congressional districts, nine are Democratic (gee Kevin, where are they?), two are Republican and that the Democratic counties agree with him. I learned that illegal immigration is a major impediment to universal health care and that we need more competition between insurance companies that can be achieved by allowing people to get coverage out of state but that’s not done because of state bureaucracy and the federal government (but not Kevin’s fault!). I learned that Medicare is going broke and the way to fix it is to pay doctors and hospitals more money. I learned that George Bush did a good job, but most importantly, I learned that the reason the problems were not solved over the last eight years when Republicans were in charge was because of Democrats and if Republicans are put back in charge they’ll fix it. I learned that Kevin Brady is a politician with ready excuses for doing nothing to solve critical problems. Businesses fire people for that. Montgomery County Republicans elect them.

Kevin Brady and most of his constituency have no desire to participate in formulation of a health plan. The message of the party of NO is “just say no” because they want to defeat any health plan proposed by any Democrat. That leaves the rest of us in Montgomery County with no voice in the crucial health care debate when Congress returns in September. Congressional Democrats need to forget Republicans like Brady and develop a budget positive or neutral health care plan that covers what we can afford while giving priority to children and working families. Pass it, implement it, and run on it in 2010. They need to focus on the people who elected them.