You have to hand it to Republicans, they know how to practice togetherness. Â Not one independent voice among them. Tweedle-Dee, Tweedle-Dum, and Tweedle-Dee-Dum--the Boehner, McConnell-Cantor corporate rap trio -" lead their faithful lackeys in their continuing assault on government for the American people. It's nothing new. Ever since President Obama took office, Republicans have turned their backs on the people whom they were elected to represent and have instead refused to participate in governing. President Carter called their behavior "irresponsible" in an interview with NPR's Diane Rehm on Tuesday, November 30th. Along with raw sewage and flesh-eating microbes, Republicans are right up there with the most toxic elements in public life. Never before in my lifetime -" and I'm a senior citizen -" have I seen an entire political party work single-mindedly to bring down the country in order to bring down the President.
Congressional Republicans have become the most destructive force in American life. Their efforts to create more economic disaster to gain political advantage in the 2012 election displays disrespect for the Presidency and contempt for the American people, for democracy and for our Constitution. As if their actions hadn't revealed their seditious strategy right out front, corporate rapper McConnell proclaimed the Republicans' agenda baldly: "The single more important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president," he said in an interview with the National Journal's Major Garrett on October 29, 2010. Â Note: not a single word about the good of the country or the American people. Now McConnell has sent his ultimatum letter to Senator Harry Reid basically saying, "It's our way or the highway." In the ultimate display of arrogance and hypocrisy, the Boehner/McConnell/Cantor trio refused to extend unemployment benefits for the 2 million Americans whose benefits expired midnight December 1st unless the millionaires and billionaires got their tax cuts. For the past two years, this gang of naysayers has voiced support for only one thing -- tax cuts for the super rich. In case you don't remember, these are the Bush tax cuts that raided the U.S. Treasury, squandering the budget surplus left by President Clinton and creating the largest redistribution of wealth from the middle class to millionaires in the nation's history. No matter that extending these tax cuts will add $700 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years. Well, you know, the country can afford a deficit that goes to "feeding" millionaires but not an $18 billion (the cost of extending unemployment benefits to the long-term unemployed) deficit that goes to put food on the tables of people who've lost their jobs. Recall Rhett Butler's line to Scarlet O'Hara in GONE WITH THE WIND: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
It's all so simple really -" not all deficits are equal. Although the "party of No" proclaims cutting the deficit is the single most important thing that Congress must do, this deficit addition that will be created by extending the millionaire tax cuts doesn't count. Under a Democratic President, Republicans are for reducing the deficit; under a Republican President, they're for racking it up. And rack it up, they did, creating the largest deficit in the history of all previous administrations put together. But that was THEN, you know, under the Bush/Cheney team of good ol' corporate boys.
If the Tea Partiers, or anybody else who voted the new crop of Republicans in office, believes Republican propaganda about working for the American people, they should pay close attention to what Republicans have voted against during these past two years. Then decide what people Republicans are working to help. Â Here's just a partial list of what Republicans have blocked, stalled and tried to kill altogether:
- Â Â Â Â Â Â No to regulating the big banks and investment houses, the very institutions whose fraudulent manipulations brought the country to the brink of another Great Depression.
- Â Â Â Â Â Â No to equal pay for women.
- Â Â Â Â Â Â No to requiring oil companies to fully pay for oil spill damage.
- Â Â Â Â Â Â No to increasing bank loans to small businesses.
- Â Â Â Â Â Â No to the health reform bill, which will reduce the deficit by $143 billion over the first 10 years and by $2 trillion in the second 10 years.
- Â Â Â Â Â Â No to expanding health coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans.
- Â Â Â Â Â Â No to eliminating pre-existing conditions as insurers' pretext for dropping coverage.
- Â Â Â Â Â Â No to closing the Medicare prescription "donut hole."
- Â Â Â Â Â Â No to giving seniors in the gap a 50-percent discount on brand-name drugs in 2011.
- Â Â Â Â Â Â No to allowing children to remain on their parents' health insurance policies until age 26.
- Â Â Â Â Â Â No to eliminating co-payments for preventive health under Medicare.
- Â Â Â Â Â Â No to prohibiting health insurers from placing lifetime caps on coverage.
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