Comments on Jim McDermott Responds

Congressman McDermott,

How will the president pay for an additional 92,000 soldiers?

How will the president balance the budget and pay for a trillion dollar war?

Congressman McDermott,

What do you make of the president's new tax plan around health insurance?

Congressman McDermott,

What do you believe the house democratic leadership is willing to do to bring this war to a conclusion?

What is the most appropriate way to use US military force in the world after a departure from Iraq?

As a long time proponent of universal health care, what do you feel about the president's proposals? What would be your alternative plan?

Why were the D's so polite to a man who is destroying our country? I'd rather have you there booing him than avoiding the pomp. Seems like cowardice to me.

Are the Democrats going to support the renewal of the No Child Left Behind Act? After working in the public schools, all I saw it do was stress out teachers to get good test scores. It didn't help the students at all.

While the president's plan for providing tax cuts appears to be great news for those who make enough money to afford extraordinarily expensive private health plans... it appears to be very bad news for anyone who is still lucky enough to still get employer sponsored healthcare or who do not make enough money to afford health insurance in the first place. After all, you don't get the tax break if you can't afford the insurance in the first place.

How would you propose solving the healthcare crisis in America or at least stop it from becoming worse?

President Bush said "we will continue to speak out for the cause of freedom in places like Cuba, Belarus, and Burma -- and continue to awaken the conscience of the world to save the people of Darfur." Do you believe that the role of the United States should extend beyond just talking about the genocide in Sudan?

Congressman McDermott:

I heard nothing tonight about transportation. I've also heard nothing from the Democrats about our crumbling transportation infrastructure. Why is transportation not a priority for the federal government, particularly when much of the infrastructure they've built in the past (ie Interstate Highways, highways of national significance, etc) are in very bad shape?

@6, seconded. I work with drop outs, and a bout 70% of them are there solely because they were lowering school test scores.

! DANGER: boozy exaggeration! !

I agree that No Child Left Behind is worthless. It does nothing for children and just makes it harder for teachers like myself to make useful and fun lessons for our classes. Could we please dump it or turn to teachers for a positive alternative?

I agree that No Child Left Behind is worthless. It does nothing for children and just makes it harder for teachers like myself to make useful and fun lessons for our classes. Could we please dump it or turn to teachers for a positive alternative?

Congressman McDermott:

Tonight I heard nothing tonight about the suspension of habeas corpus, secret prisons, warrantless domestic spying, or executively-authorized torture. This is no surprise. I don't know how to weave this into a question about the State of the Union speech, but I want to bring it up while I have your ear. I appreciate what the Democratic party has done in recent days, but they (you) seem to have completely ignored these issues. WTF?!

see also: Democratic Priorities

Thanks, everyone, for the questions. Congressman McDermott has an early hearing tomorrow and has to run now, so Q&A is hereby closed (as of 8:23 pm).

Sorry.

I've sent all of your pre-8:23 pm questions to McDermott, so if he provides more answers later I'll add them to the post.

It seems that all the leaders in the middle east are asking Bush to approach the current problems in that region with political, as opposed to military solutions. Do you think that politics can fix the current problem? How come our political representatives in this country show their feelings with clapping or not clapping? Do you think he even cares? Do you think he will *change his course* when the anti-surge resolution is passed? Why not impeach him?

Hey, I just wanted to thank you guys for this coverage - my college held a "SOTU Discussion & Analysis" event with ... wait for it ... chocolate chip cookies. And milk. Glad to see *someone* was having fun.

Jim -

You're an honest guy, will the Democrats *really* attempt to stop the President from sending more troops to Iraq or simply make a symbolic protest they can reference when the 2008 election rolls around?

Personally I think the Democrats are still too scared of being tagged with "not supporting the troops" and the possibility of an even bigger disaster in Iraq completely destroying the Republicans in 2008 is too tempting.

If the Congressman can get any more questions tomorrow, here's mine:

What about Impeachment? Why is the President not being held accountable? Did you read the Resolution for Impeachment presented by a segment of the ALA this week at their midwinter conference? Why the hesitance to make this happen in Congress? thanks!!!

What the FUCK is the bullshit healthcare reform thing? What I thought I heard - and I am waiting for someone who showers more often than I do to correct me - was a poposal to make healthcare bennies TAXABLE INCOME! Now, the majority of my peers here likely lack all insurance altogether and the low end of the proposition appears to involve tax credits for persons who work at such SHIT JOBS THEY GET NO GODDAMN INSURANCE. Maybe it's just me, but I have yet to meet a person who works an uninsured job who gives two dried coprolites about TAX CREDITS FOR A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT THEY ARE DENIED. Furthermore, WTF? If I'm right, taxing insurance as income is, in my view, on a par with an OXYGEN TAX! ARRRGH!

I could be utterly mistaken in my interpretation, but for god's sake, universal health care is what we need, and that proposal is so far from it it, well, it RILES ME UP.

yeah jim -- what do you think about the librarian's resolution?

I'm glad someone watched the whole thing - I ended up seeing about ten minutes of it - man, Speaker Pelosi was nicer to Bush than I thought she should have been - but heard a bit on the way to a King County Dems meeting in Kent.

Lots of lies from the Reds Liar-in-Chief, surprised so many applauded them. Only heard part of Webb's response, but it started really well, and talked about the Elephant in the room that Bushie danced around.

I was actually really shocked that George talked about earmarks at all, although I suppose he could have just been blowing smoke up our asses. He's such a dick.

As far as the insurance thing goes I had the same reaction all of you had. However, then my Canadian husband spoke up and said, "Universal Health-Care doesn't happen overnight. Before Canadians had Universal Health-Care they had subsidized health-care for quite awhile. You have to let the companies get used-to and learn how to get their money out of the government before switching over to the Nationalized plan." Now, being economically retarded myself I don't quite understand it all but I guess that makes sense...the part about it not happening over night.

hey jim, and da stranger - this is slightly mushy of me, but it is just so fantastic that you took the time to make this sort of conversation happen over the slog. it's great to see congress-folk trying to communicate with their voters like this.

so thanks.

HUGE kudos to the Stranger and the Congressman for this. This is an excellent useage of bandwidth! We need to begin feeling our representatives are willing to respond, as well as "listen." Was someone saying you needed to be a lobbyist to get a Congressman to pay attention? Not so with J. McD.

Now if anyone could just figure out how to penetrate the silo that the Sound Transit boardmembers are hunkered down in . . . a little interactivity would do a world of good with that lot.

But Bush isn't interested in subsidizing health care, he's interested in subsidizing the health care INSURANCE INDUSTRY. The vast majority of US health care dollars to go guys in suits, not guys in doctor's or nurse's uniforms, and that's the way Bush likes it.

If you want to stop the war, non binding is not the answer. Impeachment is.

Why are you not pursuing an impeachment?
I can only assume that the abrogation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is condoned by the Democrats as well as the Republicans.
What are you planning to do to us that requires the powers you have complicitously arrogated?

The smokescreens of minimum wage and health care reform cannot hide the destruction of a nation's soul.

McDermott: We need to do more. We should be investing in our future. This President never funded it fully in any budget. We are going to look carefully at it—fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on... shame on... THE FOOL WON'T BE FOOLED AGAIN!

There, fixed that for you, Jim ;P

@25: This is a vague complaint, but I'm bothered by the fact that we focus so much on whether or not people can afford health insurance. What people need is health care. It just so happens that health insurance is the most common way of paying for health care around here, but the important part is the care, not the insurance. I don't give a hoot whether someone has health insurance as long as he has access to health care.

I suppose the focus on insurance just helps reinforce the idea that if we're going to pool our money to average the impact of health care expenses we should continue to pay private businesses to be the middlemen rather than doing it ourselves via our government.

As I said Fnarf, I'm economically retarded and didn't really understand much of what he said about the health-care. I just know that it pissed me off initially as well, however my husband seemed to think it wasn't as bad as I did. As far as I'm concerned any program BushCo or any other politician comes up with that is anything less than making health-care a RIGHT and not a privilege is not enough. Yet, I'm also realistic enough to know that this cannot happen overnight. I mean, how big of an industry is health-care? It's gotta be huge with 300 million people.