As a trend watcher, especially as it bears to American politics, I wish to propose what I see under development in national public policy. The big issue which has Congress both at loggerheads and in deadlock is national health insurance. There has been much huffing and puffing and posturing but here is what I see going on. Congress is on notice that with over 90% declaring that they are very please with the insurance they have, that this issue is radioactive and a raw nerve with the electorate so we are seeing a balancing act.

            On the one hand they have to appear as to be working on resolving this matter because it was a cornerstone of the Obama platform as well as the Democrat Congress. But their problem is that they have been warned that this spells big trouble for them. So on the one hand, they have to appear to be actually working diligently on it while on the other hand, they can’t really produce something that will anger the voters more than they already are.

            So what to do is their question and quandary. The answer or more precisely, their means of appearing to both placate their supporters on the far left while at the same time not antagonizing the rest of the nation anymore than they already have, will be to continue to bluster and dither about with the purpose of looking busy and at the same time invoking all the rhetoric of someone who is sincere and hard working, while actually stalling for time. Their hope is that the issue will go away and be forgotten or that another issue will arise to distract attention away from it and at some future date if it continues to be front page news a press conference will be called to announce that no matter what they come up with they can’t agree on anything so the situation is hopelessly deadlocked. So all will look as if they worked hard on it but it remained out of reach. This puts the liberals in the safe position of, “Well, we tried our best but the nasty conservatives sabotaged us at every turn” while the conservatives will claim victory.

            All the talk about change shows that as the adage goes, “The more things change the more they stay the same”. As if we really expected anything different than that.