Democrats and the Art of Doing Nothing

Democrats have raised doing nothing to its highest form of art. If one steps back and simply looks - with a nonpartisan eye - at what they haven't done and the elegance with which they have not done it; it's amazing. And now Democrats proclaim that doing nothing has won them a US House seat in New York.

Poor Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI)! He thought the way to get ahead was to work on budgets that would realistically resolve our debt crisis with the least possible pain to the economy. Apparently it doesn't work that way, but he still gets the blame. 

Congressman Paul Ryan

We all know that entitlements have to be reformed. In fact, while Democrats were leisurely doing as little as possible, they did take the time to criticize Republicans for not taking on entitlements because the entitlement programs are such a large part of the budget. In fact the Democrats, when they could be bothered, ridiculed the earlier GOP budget reform plans as "not serious" because social security, medicare and medicaid were not the focus of those new budget plans.

Let us take a moment and recall the 2010 budget when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the White House. That budget was a masterpiece of the current Democrat strategy. It was flawless; it angered almost no one and allowed Democrats to continue spending money like a Kennedy while not a one of them had to commit to a vote. That's right; there was no vote because there was no budget. Yes, yes, I know the law requires a budget, but when the media holds you harmless for doing nothing, why buck the trend?


And so Paul Ryan stepped forward and bravely offered up a budget proposal that dealt with the various pieces of run-away spending, offered minimum pain, and pushed the budget back toward where it needed to be. Now Congressman Ryan's plan is being blamed for a long-time Republican House District electing a Democrat in a special election.

You see the Republican nominee, Jane Corwin, endorsed Ryan's budget proposal but lost the race to Democrat Kathy Hochul who followed the lead of the national Democrats and offered up no plans regarding a budget or entitlements. Hochul won with 47% to Corwin's 43%, with the Democrats attacking Corwin for her stand in favor of the Ryan budget.

I should also mention there was self-proclaimed TEA Party candidate Jack Davis, who had previously run as a Democrat three times, in the race. Davis netted about nine percent of the vote. Some may say that Davis took votes from the Republican, Corwin, because he represented himself as a TEA Party candidate. I disagree and believe Davis may have taken more votes from the Democrat candidate Hochul.

If Medicare was the issue, then Hochul and Davis had identical positions. Davis also followed the Democrats' playbook and failed to address Medicare. In fact, based on his website, he had a stroke of genius and didn't address any issues at all! Davis lists his heroes - all conveniently dead, I might add - but for issues he simply has, "In the coming weeks Jack Davis will be releasing a series of white papers on the issues that affect western New York."

There were no white papers on the website and no links to them either. Perhaps they were in a hermetically sealed envelope placed in a #2 mayonnaise jar under Funk and Wagnalls' porch. If you don't understand this reference, please ask your parents. If they don't know, thank your lucky stars because if they did know you might not be here. You might also thank them for not personally following the Democrats' strategy while you're at it.

Seriously, we all know - even President Obama has at least said so - that the current course on entitlements is unsustainable. So while voters in New York's 26th Congressional District do a nearly flawless ostrich imitation, the rest of us will attempt to confront our future with open eyes and be adults.