At the health care summit last week, nearly every Republican senator and congressman made clear their disapproval of using a process known as reconciliation to pass health care reform. Reconciliation is a process that is used for budgetary reasons in order to circumvent a filibuster and achieve a straight up-or-down vote. It helps needed budgetary bills move through Congress in a timelier manner. It has become somewhat of a hot-button issue due to the possible repercussions. Democrats fear using reconciliation would divide the House and the Senate or, in other words, Republicans would continue to vote no on every last thing Obama proposes. So really, there would be no repercussions.

The health care bill does, in fact, account for a large portion of the economy and would have a significant impact on the budget. Republicans actually back me up on this. By the Republicans persistent efforts, they have declared over and over again that health care accounts for a large part of the economy. At the health care summit last week, Lamar Alexander defiantly said that health care makes up roughly 17 percent of the economy and that we should not change it all at once. With that line of thought, reconciliation actually should be used in this case, right?

Republicans are very familiar with reconciliation. Of the 21 times reconciliation has been used, 15 of those were for legislation that Republicans favored. During the George W. Bush administration’s time in office, reconciliation was used three times for tax cuts — even when the Congressional Budget Office was clear about what the devastating effects would be. In 2001, the tax cuts were predicted to reduce surpluses by $1.35 billion over the following 10 years. The famous 2003 “Bush tax cuts” for the rich were projected to increase the national deficit by nearly $340 billion over the 10 subsequent years. The 2006 tax cuts were predicted to increase the deficit by only $70 billion in just a few years.

The last cut and its effects have come and gone already, so you can forget about that one. Where were fiscal conservatives on those, by the way? You know, those same conservatives that argue the health care bill will turn America into a Third World country.

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There have been plenty of complaints about the health care debate not being transparent enough, and that President Obama and the Democrats have not included the Republicans enough in piecing together legislation for a health care bill.

There have been accusations that the president has not kept his word. For example, Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz tried calling the president out in a question at the Republican retreat a couple weeks ago.

“When you stood up before the American people multiple times and said you would broadcast the health care debates on C-SPAN, you didn’t,” Chaffetz said. “And I was disappointed, and I think a lot of Americans were disappointed.”

Fair enough. Although the majority of the congressional hearings and committee meetings dealing with health care were, in fact, televised on C-SPAN. I guess the question for critics of this sort is how do you logistically make sure that every meeting is televised? Should every single hearing be televised? What about unofficial talks before actual meetings? Conversations? Opinions? I am as big a supporter of transparency as anyone, but it undeniably gets a little messy.

But now, perhaps in response to the criticism, the White House has invited congressional leaders of both parties to a summit to discuss health care with the hope of moving forward and making health care reform a reality. And yes, it will be televised in its entirety.

Unbelievably, almost immediately Republicans criticized the gesture. The talking points were heard far and wide, migrating from Fox News and the EIB Network directly into Republican leaders’ mouths. “It’s a trap,” they said, typically followed by “I don’ t know what to expect.” There are also fears the president is trying to “intimidate” the Republicans and Americans into a “government takeover of health care.”

From what we know about the debate, it is hardly a trap. By the time it takes place, Republicans will have had nearly three weeks to prepare. The Democrats’ updated bill will be posted online before the gathering, challenging the Republicans to put forward legislation of their own. Both parties were allowed to choose additional participants and staff members specializing in health care policy. In other words, if Republicans are caught by surprise or feel trapped, it will be their own fault.

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Randal Serr

President Obama gave his State of the Union address last week — a speech that has been called both inspiring and tough, as well as rhetorical and lacking content. I thought the speech was good and I heard a lot of what I wanted to hear. What I thought was more impressive, however, was when the President took questions from House Republicans at a retreat in Baltimore two days later.

The State of the Union has received and continues to receive a lot of analysis and criticism. The question and answer session deserves a lot more attention than it is getting. Watching the retreat was an educational experience. It was much more candid and stimulating than the State of the Union. Both Republican representatives and the president were addressing concerns they had with each other and talking about them.

You could sense the tension discussing certain issues, but they were addressed respectfully and forcefully. Not only that, but the whole thing was transparent since it was broadcast live on C-SPAN. That is how politics should be, rather than the over-the-top accusations and boxing each other in we are used to hearing from talking heads like Beck and Olbermann.

Understandably, we like to listen to those that we agree with politically. People are not going to stop watching and listening to their side’s political talk shows and that’s just the way it is. But you cannot tell me Fox News is the only station that “tells you how it really is” any more than I can tell you MSNBC is purely objective and unbiased.

We tend to get so obsessed with ideology that we let it turn into demagoguery. In other words, we end up making arguments that are completely unsubstantiated or backed up by any facts just because that is what is being ingrained in us every day. If we insist on watching these people, we need to acknowledge that some of what we are watching and listening to only serves to make us into unblinking ideologues.

I do not mean to undermine the importance of the president’s State of the Union address. It is an important event that Americans should be more concerned about than the season premiere of Lost. At the same time, the session most people missed or do not even know about was both intellectually challenging and healthy. What I am saying is these sort of meetings need to happen more frequently, because they open the door for honest discussion and debate.

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Call everyone! Teddy gave his seat up to a Republican! It’s sad to see there will actually have to be discussion again on the senate floor about issues like health care. I wonder how such a thing could happen. After all, the Democratic nominee, Martha Coakley, was ahead by large margins only a few weeks ago. Now she’s going back home with nothing but a “better-luck-next-time” and the reputation of being the first Democratic nominee to lose a senate seat for Massachusetts in the past three decades.

Now you might blame bad campaigning or whatever else, but in the end, is there a hidden message in this little turn of events? I don’t think it’ll be quite as challenging for the Senate to understand the hint, but hopefully they’ll get it: We don’t like the changes that are happening. The White House claims that the misdoings of their agenda has been merely “bad communication” to the American people. You’re right, Obama, because we would have never voted for you if we knew you were going to try and fundamentally alter American society within a year’s time.

Obama and his crony gang that is running both the Senate and House are sitting in office as the embodiment of an attitude of entitlement and welfare that has developed in America. I’m all for helping others out, but the attitude that government should provide all is nothing more than a virus that will corrode the bedrock of our founding. So perhaps the guilty party includes you and me. Thankfully, we seem to be waking up slowly and realizing we want change, but not at the price Obama is quoting us.

Whatever implications this has on party reactions and preparations for the 2010 election year is still hard to say. Democrats may take measures to reach out more to the people and work to address the job crisis in their states instead of pushing solely on the health care issue. Or perhaps they’ll just remain out of touch with their constituencies long enough for a changing of the guard. Who knows? For now, it’s just nice to see that in even the heartiest camps of liberal delusion, common sense still holds sway. Welcome to Washington, Senator Brown!

Jess Jones is a conservative political columnist for Rhombus. We welcome him back from his eight-year vacation.

Barack Obama ran his successful 2008 presidential campaign based largely on the catchphrases “hope” and “change.” For every person that clung to these words and took them to heart, there was somebody else that would mock them, brushing them off as nothing more than campaign tools to win over the mindless. As cliché as it has become, these slogans continue to be the brunt of jokes in the world of politicos and cable talk shows. But a recent Pew Research Center poll shows that “hope” and “change” may be more than just empty phrases used by the first black president.

The results of the poll show that African-Americans are surprisingly optimistic about progress in the country, even in a time when the unemployment rate for blacks is 15.6 percent, much higher than the total U.S. unemployment rate of 9.7 percent. Yet the Pew poll makes clear that African-Americans are significantly more upbeat than they were just two years ago. In a poll of nearly 3,000 people, when blacks were asked if they are better off than they were five years ago, 39 percent said yes in November of 2009 as opposed to just 20 percent in 2008. When asked if the future will be better for blacks, 53 percent responded yes while just 44 percent responded yes two years earlier.

About 76 percent of blacks also feel that blacks and whites get along either “very well” or “pretty well” compared to 69% in 2007. The poll also shows that a majority of blacks, roughly 53 percent, now believe blacks who fail to get ahead have their own actions to blame rather than discrimination, compared to about 34 percent who said so in 1994. Whether or not that is substantively true, the election of Barack Obama is credited for this large uptick in positive attitudes.

Attitudes of whites are notable as well. While 55 percent say the election has made no difference in improving race relations, 32 percent actually say President Obama’s election has improved race relations. One out of  three is a pretty substantial portion of the Caucasian population.

These results do not tell the whole story of course. Aside from the unemployment rate, there is more to consider when examining the current situation. Unfortunately, according to statistics, the standard-of-living gap between blacks and whites hasn’t narrowed. Likewise, African-Americans have suffered the consequences of the recession in the areas of health and education as well.

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