Are these Republicans sounding like Democrats, or simply like decent human beings not blinded by hateful ideological rhetoric?
…Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, a centrist Republican who faces a tough reelection in 2012, has balked at the House Republican plan to cut $390 million in the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).
“Programs like LIHEAP that people need, there are other things we can cut before we cut things for people who need it the most,” Brown said.
Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.), another candidate for reelection in 2012, has long supported nutrition programs for low-income women and children.
He is skeptical of a House proposal to cut $747 million from the supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children.
“That would appear to me to be unwise,” Lugar said.
These guys are what pass for moderates in the modern Republican Party, but it’s still somewhat surprising that they oppose children starving and old people freezing to death. That is so off-message.
Aren’t they both already facing primary challenges anyway? In that case, might as well return to the human race.
If not, expect them to return to the reservation soon, issuing “clarifications”.
Primary challenges from the right. That’s not a motive to sound reasonable.
Only if they realize they can’t beat someone by going further right, that their only hope is to try to find a reasonable “center.”
Scott Brown came to the senate intending (or pretending) to be the vote that kills health care reform. He also held out (correct me if I’m wrong) on his votes during the lame duck session until there was a tax deal. I believe he also helped to kill unemployment extension prior to the mid-terms.
f*ck him, I don’t trust him.
I don’t know why he thinks the federal government has any constitutional right to keep his constituents from freezing to death. That’s bullshit heresy.
He’s a RINO, that one; he just ended any hope of moving up in the ranks. He’ll be primaried by his own party from now on until they get him.
Massachusetts responsibly spays and neuters it’s republicans.
you know, this is pathetic that we’re shocked they don’t want poor people to freeze or children to get nutrition.
More specifically, it’s shocking that they are so isolated in these views.
Scott Brown is running scared. He has to worry about strong Democratic opposition more than Tea Party opposition.
And Lugar might be signaling his retirement.
Yeah. This.
Always politics with these guys, never principle. Figure out what their angle is and act accordingly. In this case, I think McConnell gave these guys a little room to make sure the President pays politically for his cuts, whether they happen or not. If it doesn’t stick, they’ll both come back on the reservation.
I think Lugar is authentic.
Brown is triangulating.
And politicians find that too much principle doesn’t get you re-elected. The complaint about politicians without principle rings hollow when voters punish politicians with principle and reward those without.
And there is always the question of which principle are you talking about. “Principle” is such a vague word.
Former British PM and war criminal Tony Blair used to say over and over again,
I don’t agree with Blair on much but on that he’s right.
That is a bromide that leaves the term “principle” pretty much undefined.
“Going to war constantly” is a principle. One that Tony Blair seems to have been comfortable with.
Hence, I referred to Blair as a war criminal and I certainly don’t agree with the casual and reckless rationale for war that Blair did.
But overall, I view politics as the art of the possible. You can have core principles but at the same time, at some point, in a diverse democracy one will have to compromise and cut deals. I just wish Dems were more effective at negotiating from strength instead of being a self-gelding machine of ineptitude as the party often has.
Once again “core principles” says nothing. It matters very much what those principles are. And attacks on politicians about their lack of principles never specify what principles the critic thinks those politicians should have. That’s why the quote is a bromide. It lacks any specificity of moral judgment.
THIS. A thousand times. We complain that politicians lie but when one of them tells the hard truths like taxes have to go up or “….they cling to guns and religion….”, they get punished for it.
This isn’t terribly surprising. Lugar, even though he’s a conservative, is still at his core a fairly decent human being for the most part. Dietary issues for low income women and children has been one of his pet issues for a while, and add to that the fact that he has a basic understanding of how farm subsidies ACTUALLY work and that he represents INDIANA, and he knows that support for low income food programs is actually a net benefit to Indiana voters all around – people get to eat and farmers get a backdoor extra subsidy to produce milk, cheese, grains, and other things that fall under the umbrella covered by the Federal program. That’s a win-win social program that Republicans actually used to kind of like before the Reagan-wing decided that “no government is good government” was the best mantra for elections.
Brown is likewise upset that a subsidy that his voters depend on is getting axed. LIHEAP help pays for heat for elderly people – in MA that’s a necessity, not a luxury. LIHEAP is another win-win social program – people get their houses heated, and power companies get paid for the power they’re generating. Again, the kind of thing old-school Republicans used to at least understand and tolerate if not openly advocate for. They didn’t need to openly advocate – they just needed to not block it when it came time to get a cloture vote.
There are more important programs than LIHEAP. Programs that Scott would vote against in a second.