We’re Not Going There!

The Republican Party’s drift to the right, to a world without a social conscience where enemies real and imagined, foreign and domestic abound may have finally awakened a sleeping electorate. The Republicans have been getting away with the big lies for so long that they may have started believing those lies. My brother takes the lies personally. “They think I’m a fool,” he shouts. “I’m not a fool! The voters are not fools. They will wake up, and when they do there will be hell to pay!”

The Republicans promised to create jobs, but here is what they are really doing:

1. They held the budget and tax breaks for the middle class hostage so they could enrich the rich. Contrary to the lies they tell us this does not create jobs.

2. They have attacked the reproductive rights of women and tried to defund Planned Parenthood. This does not create jobs.

3. They have tried to defund the Environments Protection Agency. This does not create jobs.

4. The have tried to repeal the health care reform act, which they call Obama care. This actually costs jobs.

5. The have refused to extend unemployment benefits. This decreases demand for goods and services and costs jobs.

6. Now they want to turn Medicare into a voucher program to further enrich the insurance companies. What the hell does that have to do with jobs?

7. They have attacked unions and collective bargaining, much to the detriment of the men and women of this nation.

This is only a partial list of the things they are trying to do that actually makes our economic situation worse. Of the things on my list the two that have the voters up in arms are the Ryan plan to privatize Medicare and the attacks on collective bargaining. The voters are finally saying: “Hell no! We’re not going to let you take us there! We’re not going to let you privatize Social Security either!”

The Republicans have ignored the polls before and gotten away with it. Now they are threatening to cause us to default on our debts if their demands are not met; they are doing this by not raising the debt ceiling. In other words, they are willing to cause a world wide depression in order to dismantle Medicare so that the rich can get another huge tax cut. President Obama has already stated that he will veto the Ryan plan in the unlikely event that it actually gets through the Senate. Mr. Boehner talks about compromise but he also says that an increase of taxes on the rich and a bill that does not include drastic cuts in government services is a non-starter. There can be no compromise. Any bill that meets Mr. Boener’s demands is another case of the Democrats caving, and another step closer to a world without a social conscience. President Obama and Harry Reid must stand firm. They must stand eyeball to eyeball with the Republicans and call their bluff!

If the Republicans refuse to raise the debt ceiling it will cost their masters, Wall Street and the large corporations, billions of dollars. Furthermore, the voters will be furious about the Republicans causing a great depression in an attempt to dismantle very popular programs for the sake of the rich. This is the worse case scenario for the Republican Party. It could literally cause its political death! It should cause its political death!