Republican Failures should Decide the Mid-terms
Elections have consequences. If Democrats lose the Senate in November, they will only have themselves to blame. Sure, Republicans will tell lies about Democratic incumbents, that’s a given. The game plan is also to smear incumbents and candidates as President Obama clones. But that will work only if the Democrats let the Republicans get away with it.
In a North Carolina debate recently, Thom Tillis accused Sen. Kay Hagen of being an Obama lap dog, so to speak. He said she had voted along with the Obama agenda, and would continue to do so if re-elected.
Look below the Orange squiggle to see how she and other Democratic candidates should respond to Republican attempts to link them to President Obama while ignoring the real issues..
She should say:
Actually, sir, I did not vote so much for the President as I voted against the Republican alternatives. If the Republican wins this or other closely contested Senate races, I can predict exactly how you and your colleagues will vote. You will vote for the same failed Republican agenda that your party has supported for the last forty years.
Here are some specific issues that we Democrats and you Republicans completely disagree about, and why it would be a disaster for the vast majority of Americans financially and politically if Republicans gain control of the Senate. Not that you care about the vast majority of Americans, your constituency consists of Wall Street bankers, disreputable for-profit corporations specializing in health insurance fraud, real estate fraud, government contracting fraud, income tax fraud, and the outsourcing of American jobs overseas.
Republicans are famous for saying that government is not the answer, that government only creates problems and doesn’t solve them. That’s true, when Republicans control the reins of power. Republicans incompetence and venality inevitably creates a disaster, like the financial meltdown, the housing bust, and unleashing two disastrous and incompetently waged wars begun under false pretenses. What we see in the Middle East region today is the alarming aftereffects in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan of failed Republican policies.
When Democrats control the government, Republicans create gridlock. They don’t care that the American people suffer the consequences of their inaction and willful sabotage.
If the Republicans obtain control of the Senate, government gridlock will go into overtime.
Attorney General Eric Holder has resigned pending the nomination and confirmation of his replacement. However with the Republicans purposely grid locking Congress, the country won’t have a top law enforcement official in this time of myriad dangers, that is, unless President Obama nominates former Bush administration AG Alberto Gonzalez.
And good luck with the Ebola crisis America. We have no Surgeon General thanks to the obstruction of the NRA. It seems Obama’s nominee believes guns kill people, therefor, he can’t take the job..
If you thought Republicans over reached by attempting to repeal the Affordable Care Act almost fifty times, just wait and see what happens if they retake the Senate.
Here are some more specific examples of Republican “values.”
As Republican candidate for the Senate in Georgia, David Perdue who was briefly CEO of North Carolina business Pillowtex and several other businesses, outsourced thousands of jobs overseas, and said he was “proud of it” and that he “spent most of my career doing that.”
Eventually, the company laid off 7,650 workers in the U.S. and Canada. That included 4,800 jobs in North Carolina, at that time, the largest single layoff in state history.
Republicans believe several toxic principles which creates harm to the country. When implemented through Republican sponsored laws, or when through filibusters and other parliamentary gimmicks, they use those principles to deny Democrats and independent lawmakers the opportunity to pass reasonable and helpful laws, the country and the citizens are damaged.
Ronald Reagan famously stated, “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” Today many Republican elected officials tout the same falsehood, and they believe, like Mitch McConnell admitted recently, his belief that government doesn’t and shouldn’t create jobs. Only private enterprise.
This from an individual who has held government jobs since 1964. That’s fifty, yes 50 years.
According to Wikipedia,
McConnell interned for Senator John Sherman Cooper (R-Ky.) in 1964.
McConnell's experience with Cooper inspired him to eventually run for the Senate.
McConnell was then an assistant to Senator Marlow Cook (R-Ky.)
He was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General under President Gerald R. Ford.
In 1977, McConnell was elected the Jefferson County Judge/Executive, the former top political office in Jefferson County, Kentucky. He was re-elected in 1981.
In 1984 McConnell ran against Democratic incumbent Walter Dee Huddleston and won in a close election, with a victory margin of less than 1%.
McConnell ran for reelection in 1990, 1996, 2002 and 2008 and won with various margins of victory. He basically has never held a private sector job as an adult. Then he has the gall to campaign against Alison L. Grimes with the statement that it’s not his job as a Senator to create jobs in Kentucky, which supports the Republican talking point that government can’t create jobs and “government is the problem.”
Government has done pretty well by him.
More toxic Republican principles from
“Why Republicans Are Wrong - SE Connecticut”
www.seconnecticut.com/vetorepublicans.html
The Republican enthusiasm for austerity has cost hundreds of thousand of public sector jobs over the last six years and reduced the creation of private sector jobs, such as would be created with a Transportation Infrastructure Repair and Expansion bill that would repair and build highways and bridges, and create a modern rail system .
In states controlled by Republican administrations, budget cuts cost thousands of jobs in education, higher government employee health care costs, and higher unemployment.
According to some experts, as many as 17,000 people may die before their time if they live in one of those Republican states that refused to expand Medicaid.
Republicans refuse to raise the Federal minimum wage, and some Republicans want to abolish the minimum wage altogether. On the bright side, American workers making $2 an hour will finally be competitive with workers in China.
Republican sponsored financial deregulation crashed the US economy as well as the global economy. Thanks to the repeal of the depression era Glass-Steagal act, the Royal Bank of Scotland and the nation of Iceland both declared bankruptcy. Europe is still suffering the aftereffects of the global financial crisis.
Republicans want to repeal the Estate Tax, which affects only the top 1% of wealthy Americans like the Walmart heirs, worth about 150 billion collectively. .
The Republican Bush administration rolled back environmental regulations under false and cynically labeled laws like the Clear Skies Act.
Republicans advocate cuts to Medicare, Head Start, Food Stamps and Medicaid.
Of course, that’s fair because these cuts will also apply to wealthy Republicans who will have to suffer the inevitable consequences of reduced government services as much their low income neighbors and sick fellow citizens.
The Bush administration, and Paul Ryan today, advocate the privatization of Social Security, which would only benefit Wall Street. Had Social Security been privatized as Bush wanted, the result would have been a disaster to many American’s financial security during the Wall Street meltdown. If Republicans hold political power in Washington, more financial meltdowns will occur in the future.
Republicans shut down the government, again, which resulted in a down grade to the US credit rating. The shutdown cost $20 billion up front and will cost more down the road in higher borrowing costs.
The Obama administration removed bankers as profiteering middle men from the student loan program, potentially saving hundreds of millions of dollars. Republicans want to restore those parasitic bankers to the loan program, where they can collect millions of taxpayers dollars while not contributing anything to lower costs or the efficiency of the program.
Democrats support tax breaks for the middle class, while Republicans support tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.
Republican administrations have generated huge deficits, see Presidents Reagan, Bush and Bush, while Democratic administrations have reduced deficits and moved toward a balanced budget, see Presidents Clinton and Obama.
Republican governors and Legislatures have cut billions from education funding, laid off tens of thousands of teachers, increased the number of students in class rooms, and given the money to profitable corporations as tax cuts. They continue to sabotage public education in an attempt to privatize schools for the benefit of corporate interests.
As a result, county and city governments have had to raise property and sales taxes in order to ameliorate the damage to their local school budgets.
The Republicans blame President Obama for the increase in Food Stamp participation, conveniently forgetting to remind the voters that the rise is due to the failed policies of the Bush administration.
While standing in front of back drops with the word “jobs” plastered all over it and endlessly repeating the words “jobs, jobs, jobs,” Republicans have filibustered every Senate jobs bill in order to sabotage the economy, and then they blame Democrats.
Republicans undermine the Constitutional principle of the Separation of Church and State. They use religious bigotry to win elections and create antipathy among Americans of differing races, income levels, genders and orientations.
The Bush administration created a massive and nearly universal spying apparatus that has the ability to read every Americans emails and listen to every phone call.
Republicans are waging a war on women on practically every front. They oppose equal pay for women and voted against the Lily Ledbetter Act. Republican governors and legislatures vote to restrict or ban abortions and legislate invasive medical procedures like sonar grams, which is actually government mandated rape. They sponsor “Person hood” laws, which would restrict contraception and inevitably lead to more abortions!
Republican controlled state houses are waging a massive attack on voting rights through an effort to restrict and suppress the ability of likely Democrats to cast their votes. Minorities, the elderly, working class, students and younger voters are targeted. They require IDs to vote which are essentially a poll tax since they cost money and besides, they are difficult to obtain.
In some states, Republicans have gerrymandered Congressional districts in such a way that while Democratic candidates receive more votes overall, the Republicans end up controlling the congressional delegations by a large margin.
Republican policies sabotage the Post Office and Amtrack.
And finally,
Republicans oppose any sort of sensible regulation of firearms, leading to thousands of needless deaths and a climate of fear.
There is plenty more where this came from but this is enough to start and it’s time to begin to pin all of these failed Republican policies on their candidates. These are important reasons to vote against Republicans and their flawed vision for America. Democratic candidates need to ignore the Republicans attacks on their alleged relationship with President Obama and point out to the voters the toxic policies of the Republican Party.
Jim McMeans
Danielsville, GA
Sources
Why Republicans Are Wrong - SE Connecticut
www.seconnecticut.com/vetorepublicans.html
What Republicans want to do if they win the Senate. Vox Media
Updated by Ezra Klein on September 30, 2014, 11:06 a.m. ET @ezraklein
And off the top of my head.