Not Politics As Usual

Speaker Boehner revealed that the Republicans picked this very irresponsible fight over the debt ceiling when he replied to President Obama’s prime time speech on the subject. In an effort to try to portray Mr. Obama as being inconsistent and unwilling to compromise Mr. Boehner said that Mr. Obama’s original position was that the debt ceiling must be raised clean, without any conditions. What Mr. Boehner did not say is that the debt ceiling was raised clean eighteen times under Ronald Regan and seven times under George W. Bush. The reason why the debt ceiling was routinely raised without any strings attached is that the debt ceiling is merely an authorization to pay the debts incurred when Congress authorized the expenditures. In other words, these are current debts that must be paid. The debt ceiling has absolutely nothing to do with any future debts that may be incurred as a result of congress authorizing future expenditures.

The Republicans disingenuously analogize the national debt with household debt. Mr. Boehner did this when he said we must live within our means. It was a false analogy because he was talking about decreasing our future spending rather than debts that have already been incurred. If you default on all your debts the banks will foreclose on your house and your car will be repossessed. If you default on debts other than your house and or your car your credit rating will be downgraded and the interest you pay on your mortgage, your car loan, your credit card debt and all other debts will increase. In which case your monthly payments on all of those loans will increase. That is the reality and that is the proper analogy.

Frankly I think Mr. Obama should have stuck to his original position and insisted on a bill raising the debt ceiling with no conditions. The time to argue about spending is when the spending is being authorized or denied rather than after the money has already been spent. Mr. Obama, however, gave in to the Republicans by dropping his original demand and by addressing the question of how to decrease the federal deficit. He offered four trillion dollars in spending cuts but insisted that there be an increase in revenue as well. The Republicans predictably rejected this proposal because closing the tax loopholes to increase revenue would mean that corporations reporting almost obscene profits, hedge fund managers who pay capital gains taxes rather than income taxes, and the wealthiest people in our nation would have to share some of the burden by paying their fair share of the taxes. But the Republican intransigence does not end there. They are even rejecting Harry Reid’s proposal to cut two trillion in spending with no increase in revenue.

So why did the republicans create this phony issue? Why are they so eager to run our economy off of a cliff? The answer has two components, the first of which is revealed in statements made by Carl Rove and other Republicans who have said that the Republican Party should make it impossible for any Democratic President to govern. That is one of the major reasons why the Republicans have used the filibuster a record number of times in the senate to block bills that would increase employment, and it is why they have picked this fight over the debt ceiling. The second reason why they have picked this fight is because they want to destroy all entitlement programs, including programs such as Medicare and Social Security which people have been paying into throughout most of their adult lives. The Republicans are obviously more than willing to cause another great depression in order to accomplish those goals! When a group of people, certainly a minority in this case, intentionally set out to harm our nation and overthrow a duly elected government it is called treason. Not in my worst nightmare have I imagined myself accusing a politician, let along a political party, of being traitors, but no party in modern history has had a significant number of its members threaten our country in this manner before. The only defense for what the Republicans are doing is insanity and that defense also makes them unfit to govern.

What they are doing on the state level is every bit as bad. The Republican Governors and legislators are preparing to steal the elections of 2012 by passing restrictive voter registration laws that disenfranchise citizens who are likely to vote for Democrats. In Wisconsin the Republicans are feeling a real urgency to disenfranchise such voters because of the recall elections. The Republicans in Wisconsin are requiring picture identification in order to register to vote, and they are making it almost impossible to get picture identification by severely restricting the source of such identification to the Department of Motor vehicles which has closed many its offices and has very limited hours in which its remaining offices are open. The effort to disenfranchise people who are likely to vote for Democrats, however, is not restricted to Wisconsin. There is a concerted effort on the part of Republicans to make it far more difficult to vote in a large number of states, including but not limited to Tennessee, Colorado, South Carolina, Kansas, and Florida. This is something we cannot allow. The requirement for picture identification and proof of citizenship will disenfranchise the elderly who do not drive as well as college students and the poor. The saying that when one person’s rights are trampled the rights of all people are in danger could not be truer in this instance.

In a democracy ballets replace bullets. If you take away the ballets all you are left with are the bullets. Before you get your panties in a wad over this statement let me say I am not advocating violence. What I am saying is that these unconscionable restrictions on voter registration are a direct threat to our democracy. We are better than this! We must not let the aspiring despots do this. We must remember that George W. Bush was able to steal a Presidential election by disenfranchising people likely to vote for Democrats in Florida. This is not politics as usual. This is an assault on our democratic form of government, and, believe me, I would be saying the same thing if the Democratic Party was using such tactics.

What we now have is not the Republican Party of our fathers. The Republicans are a party that has gone berserk. They are a party that is more than willing to undermine our democracy and destroy our economy for political gain. We must punish them for this. We must purge our political system and cast the offenders into political infamy until the Republican Party is convinced that it must reform itself and act responsibly again. As the battle over the ceiling and the cynical efforts to disenfranchise lawful citizens illustrate we cannot afford to suffer such irresponsible and destructive behavior!

Make no mistake about it the threat posed to this country by the Republican Party is real. The oligopoly the Republicans champion is concentrating the wealth of this nation into fewer and fewer hands while everyone else is getting poorer, and the assault on our right to vote is a grave threat to very concept of majority rule. This is your fight. You hold the ultimate power in your hands. You must make a stand before it is too late to undo the damage. Contact any Republicans you have elected and let them know you have had enough. Reject the Republican bullshit and force our government to focus on moving our economy in the right direction again. Vote for Democrats in 2012 and demand that they set the proper priorities. We need jobs, damn it! We need more people working and paying taxes. If we accomplish that the deficit will take care of itself.