How many more excuses are we going to make for the Republicans in Congress? We all know the Dems can't get anything passed because they don't vote in packs like Republicans. They are weak because they have independent minds and differences in opinion, while the "superior" Republicans are strong because they vote as their told. Most of us have heard that the President wants to hold a Health Care Summit with both parties in an effort to hash out some differences, listen to "new" ideas that the Republicans say were left out, and most importantly, to show the American People that this Congress has one last chance to try to work together for the PEOPLE as they were elected to do.

Now we have seen one crazy year that started with the most vile onslaught of negative attacks against the Obama Administration that began with gun control that Obama never talked about or acted on. They depicted the brand new President as Hitler, the Joker, Stalin, Mao, etc. All of this before any policies could have had a chance to be enacted. This led to some serious and very unnecessary animosity between the two parties and of course the Dems were completely fed up and broken after 8 years of Bush and his insane policies that resulted in the worst economic disaster of our lifetimes. The more the right amped up their rhetoric, obstructed process with record filibusters, and forcing Dems to vote along party lines like Repugs just to get ANYTHING passed the more our political process has slipped into total dysfunctionality. This has been the most immature and maddening political environment this country has seen in ages. Maybe since the Civil War. The Dems acted in a passive aggressive manner by shutting out Republicans after the last two Health Bill Proposals received ZERO votes from the GOP. Why do the Republicans feel they should get to participate in something they ALL voted NO against in the last two cases?

With record filibusters and NO votes the Republican Congress has been dubbed the Party of NO! They have been accused of Obstructionism. Here is their chance to come to the table and offer their ideas in a constructive, non-political atmosphere and what do they do? They write a letter to Obama stating that they will boycott the Health Summit if we don't completely start the Heath Reform process from scratch. After a year of working on this legislation that has incorporated several Republican backed ideas, they want us all to start over? The Republicans wanted interstate competition, DONE! They wanted to can the Public Option, DONE! They wanted several concessions and compromises that have been included yet they still voted NO! This is clear obstructionism. They simply don't want Health Care Reform of any kind and all of their game playing cannot be considered as anything else. Too many coincidences here to claim otherwise!

John Boehner, Republican minority leader, said:

"The problem with the Democrats' health care bills is not that the American people don't understand them; the American people do understand them, and they don't like them. The best way to start on real, bipartisan reform would be to scrap those bills and focus on the kind of step-by-step improvements that will lower health care costs and expand access."

Most of the people that oppose reform still believe the bill is designed to kill your grandma and it is a government ploy to take over health care. Now where did they get that idea? The American people are so confused about the actual legislation and this is mostly the Dems fault for not explaining it to us clearly and of course the irresponsibly shameless lie machine the Republicans created to mislead us. The evidence is clear when listening to the interviews of those opposed to reform.

How many more excuses can you make for the Republican Congress? They are NOT trying to work for the people, but for their insurance company masters. They have a chance to appear as if they are doing their job, but the excuses are already brewing. If they boycott the Health Summit they will have proven to be Obstructionists and I hope the American people can recognize that all the insults, baseless accusations, fantasy grade lies, party line voting NO, boycotting a bipartisan meeting designed specifically for the Republicans to offer all these ideas they claim to have, etc. is not good for the American people. It is not good for the country. It's easy to get mad at the party in power, but the Republican Congress has power and chooses to use it in a very unconstructive or even deconstructive way. If you want to say the Dems can't govern to soothe your political pride, then you're hopeless. Our Congress and political system is being held hostage by all this childish game playing and we can't fix the problem if we deny what it really is. I hope the American people vote everyone out of Congress. I would be delighted to see 100% new faces with new rules, like eliminating lobbyists. I'd go as far as to welcome a new 50/50 split, but all the old blood must GO! All the old games must go. We need a clean slate and the beauty of our system is that a clean slate is possible if the people will it.