Saturday, December 4, 2010

What hath we wrought?

I was under the distinct impression that we voters threw out a lot of congressmen because they wouldn't listen to their constituents. We were not happy with the way things were going. We were concerned about the current economy, jobs and taxes, national debt and security. We elected more Republicans in order to accomplish this. However, we apparently screwed up by not voting out the current Republicans in Congress. They apparently thought our votes signaled them that we just wanted them to obstruct anything Obama wanted. Like Uncle Mitch said, “My priority is to prevent Obama from getting a second term”.
This week they voted against tax cuts for everyone except those with incomes over 250K. Insisting on giving the rich tax cuts, thus increasing the debt by $700B. They continue to insist that the wealthy are the job providers. That is only partially true. Demand for goods and services is what drives the economy. To think that giving someone a tax break will cause them to start hiring is ludicrous. They didn't get rich by being dumb. They won't hire until there is a demand for more of their product, or they hope to market a new product. In the Senate, the Repubs even voted against extending Bush's tax cuts to everyone except those with taxable income above one million. Under most definitions, those wouldn't be considered small businesses.
The Repubs also voted against continuing unemployment payments which is the humane thing to do and which which is a bigger stimulus to the economy than anything else we could do (including tax cuts), because those unemployed, will immediately spend that money paying for goods and services necessary to prevent starvation or keep the roof over their heads. Now doesn't that kinda sound like part of the demand for goods and services that the rich need to hire, or prevent from further firings? These aren't the people that are permanently on welfare and the unemployment checks are not big enough for those people to just sit back and not bother looking for a job. The Repubs said they wouldn't approve it unless there was a cut somewhere else to pay for it. Duh, What about the $700B? It was more important to give the rich (like themselves) a tax break than to give it to workers who have lost their job (mainly through no fault of their own). They believe they can exploit a weak president into caving in to all their demands and strengthen the party. They could care less about the millions of Americans that are hurting. They are so obsessed with the bugaboo of socialism that they want no part of a civilized society.
In addition, the current Republicans are refusing to act on the extending Reagan's SALT treaty thus putting our national security in jeopardy. Every day they delay approving this treaty increases the possibility of Russian nukes falling into the hands of people that would do us harm. Remember-- we need to “trust, but verify”. Their delays for purely political purposes is tantamount to treason.
Unless they stop their inane obstructionist policies, and put country back in front of party, I think the Republican party will cease to exist after a couple more election cycles. Hopefully the whole country won't go belly up first. We no longer have to worry about Obama destroying our country. The Repubs are going to beat him to it.
The current Republican party is no longer my party.

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