A Dismal Field

I have to admit that I did not watch the debate of Republican presidential candidates. This is unusual for me. I grew up in a household where we watched both political conventions and any debates that were televised. We also paid close attention to what the competing candidates said during the campaigns. That, however, was back in the days when most Republicans were honest conservatives who had this strange notion that getting elected meant that they had a responsibility to help govern this great nation even when their party was in the minority. Those days are long gone. The Republican Party of today puts their party first and their country second. Republican politicians of today totally embrace the idea that winning elections is all that matters, and they are more than willing to harm the economy of this nation in order to accomplish that goal. I know that is a harsh statement, but let us look at the evidence:

From the very first day that President Obama was elected the Republicans have set out to create congressional gridlock in order to prevent the Democrats from passing any legislation regardless of how badly the country needs that legislation. The Republican leader in the senate, Mitch McConnell, has actually stated that the first priority of the Republican Party is to make President Obama a one-term president. Mr. McConnell actually brags about the Republicans using the filibuster to keep the senate from accomplishing anything. “It now takes sixty votes to pass anything,” McConnell says. Because of the filibuster and the threat of the filibuster the senate could not even consider the bills the Democrats managed to pass through the House of Representatives to create jobs, and President Obama could not get his appointments to vital government agencies or cabinet posts confirmed. Since 2008 the Republicans have even opposed measures they have traditionally supported; measures such as the government investing in bridges and roads, tax incentives to help start up businesses, and incentives for small businesses to hire more people. The Republicans are even opposing tax cuts for the middle class. The reason why the Republicans favored those measures in the past is because those measures worked. The work done on our roads and bridges during the great depression and Republican President Dwight Eisenhower’s massive road building program in the nineteen-fifties greatly improved the safety and efficiency of transportation, and it gave thousands of people meaningful jobs. Yet here we have the Republican Party disingenuously calling such projects failed policy!

The Republicans have become even more irresponsible since gaining control of the House of Representatives. They recently demonstrated that they do not care about our transportation system by refusing to pass a budget for the Federal Aviation Administration unless the unions in that industry are busted. They have also demonstrated that they do not care about our economy by refusing to approve the federal budget unless the government greatly reduced its spending during a recession. They even went so far as to threaten the economy of this nation and the world by holding the debt-ceiling hostage to their outrageous demands, which included extending Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. The Republicans have and still are greatly exaggerating the dangers of the deficit, and they are lying about what it will take to reduce the deficit. The most important thing we must do to reduce the deficit is to increase the number of people who are employed and are thereby paying taxes.

If you ask the Republicans to name a single job producing bill they have passed or even proposed since taking control of the House they will tell you they have prevented the Democrats from raising taxes on the job producers, meaning corporations that are reporting record profits and are not hiring anyone and wealthy individuals who are paying a lower percentage of their income in taxes than their secretaries are paying. The Republicans will also insist that they have helped to save jobs by preventing the Democrats from enforcing “job killing” regulations, meaning the regulations that are designed to prevent the irresponsible behavior that caused the crash of 2007 and the regulations that protect our air, our food, and our water. If enriching the rich and deregulating everything creates jobs why did we actually lose jobs during the administration of George W. Bush? Where are those jobs?

All that the Republican Party and its presidential candidates are willing to offer us is the same old trickle theory of economics that has failed time and again. The policies the Republicans advocate are the same policies they followed before the crash in 1929, and they are the same policies George Bush followed before the crash of 2007. The Republicans think we are foolish enough to believe that all we have to do is give huge tax breaks to the rich and let the giant corporations, the Wall Street speculators, the banks and the insurance companies do anything they want regardless of how harmful or exploitive their actions might be. The Republicans want us to believe that if we deregulate everything and continue to enrich the rich the job fairy will sprinkle us with magical prosperity dust and bless us all!

As you may have gathered I am not buying that Republican fairy tale. The reason why I did not watch the debates is because none of the Republican candidates have the intellect and/or the courage to offer anything but the same old crap that got us into this mess in the first place. Just take a look at who is running for their nomination.

Rich Perry: I won’t say, “this dog don’t hunt.” What I will say is that all he brings back are skunks. He calls Social Security a fraudulent ponzi scheme. He is in favor of the Ryan plan that would turn Medicare into a private voucher program. He even said that the progressive income tax is unconstitutional. These and other extreme right wing opinions are stated in his book “Fed Up.” That book was published a year ago, and any attempt to back away from those positions now will not be truthful.

Mitt Romney: He wants to run on his experience as a businessman, but his business was that of a professional job killer. He bought up companies, laid-off many of its employees, and then sold those companies or the assets of those companies for a huge profit. He also claims he is not a professional politician. If by that he means he is not very good at getting elected I will agree with him. If he means that he has not spent years trying to get elected to public office he is not telling the truth. He failed in his effort to win Edward Kennedy’s senate seat, and he did not run for another term as governor of Massachusetts because it was obvious that he could not win the election. He also failed at his first attempt to win the nomination as the Republican candidate for President.

Perry and Romney are the front-runners but the speculation about other politicians entering the race makes it clear that many Republicans are not real happy with any of the people who have declared their candidacy.

Sarah Palin: There is always a lot of speculation about her running, and there are Republicans who are foolish enough to vote for her. The problem is that she has been spraying like a dog for four years now, and she still has not been able to claim enough territory to be a viable national candidate.

Chris Christy: The Republicans have been touting him for all they are worth, but the New Jersey bully is even losing his luster in New Jersey. His austerity program has really hurt the middle class and is not very popular. This is particularly true of his efforts to bust the public employee unions. Apparently the voters like cops, firemen, and teachers.

Jon Huntsman: He might be the one candidate who could appeal to a broader audience. He is an old fashioned conservative who tries to be reasonable. He is highly critical of the Republicans in congress for holding the debt-ceiling hostage. He even thinks that scientific facts are more important than the blind faith that makes religious fanatics reject those facts. It is no wonder that he cannot gain any traction in the Republican Party. His economic policies are seriously flawed, but he is at least someone I respect.

Other Candidates: They are not worth mentioning unless there is a drastic change in the polls. I only mentioned Huntsman because his low standing in the polls during a year when all the Republican candidates are dismal is a clear indication of just how intellectually bankrupt the Republican Party has become.

Since I started writing this post the Republicans have started objecting to President Obama’s job bill. As expected they are saying we cannot afford it. They are also saying that closing the tax loopholes corporations exploit and raising taxes on the rich is not acceptable. There is absolutely no doubt that they will kill the bill, and the employment situation will become worse. The Republicans are obviously counting on low information voters expressing their frustration by simply voting against all incumbents, including President Obama, in 2912. That strategy worked during the mid term elections, but will it work now? As frustrated as I am with the idiocy of low information voters, I am still optimistic enough to think that what the Republicans are doing will bite them this time around.