Wrong
A review of Republican priorities, strategies, goals, and policies shows them to be wrong on almost every count:
- Trickle-down economics has been shown to be a dismal failure by the dramatically increasing income and poverty gap, yet the GOP persists in pushing this policy.
- Social Security and Medicare have proven to be both successful and popular, yet the GOP continues to push for their eradication.
- Obamacare, by the same token, is starting to work despite the concerted efforts of the GOP to undermine this much-needed boost for the underinsured.
- Jobs are a top priority in the rhetoric of both major parties, but the GOP stops with the rhetoric and has failed to initiate any effective jobs programs. Moreover, it has actively worked against such programs with budget and entitlement cuts.
- Wall Street’s undermining of our economy is worthy of legal action, yet the GOP has persists in pushing for little or no banking oversight and trying to pin the blame elsewhere, especially social programs and such.
- Taxation is a necessary evil that all but the most militant libertarians accept. It is necessary because we cannot work as a nation without the various levels of government to codify and unify our practices, to provide police and fire protection, to provide disaster relief, and other functions too numerous to mention. Yet even in the depths of recession that cry out for increased taxes, the GOP has steadfastly opposed increasing taxes, even on the wealthy.
- The Sequester is an artificial reduction of spending across the board that was necessitated by GOP intransigence on issues like taxation. Neither party wants it, but the GOP has forced the issue with their anti-tax obsession. It has harmed our economy unnecessarily.
- Government shutdown is a reality created and sponsored by the GOP, first under Gingrich in the 90’s, and again under Boehner and company in 2013. Both times this happened, the economy suffered along with all but the wealthiest people, and both times the GOP suffered a tremendous hit in popularity.
- Debt ceiling politics are also a GOP tactic whereby the minority party attempts to extract concessions from the majority through economic blackmail. Despite the fact that Congress has authorized spending by passing various bills, the GOP has attempted to renege on their promises and brought us to the edge of major depression numerous times by threatening to not increase the debt ceiling. This, despite the fact that raising the ceiling in times of recession is the only way out of that recession.
- Unemployment is definitely a problem, but arbitrarily cutting it off for the long-term unemployed, as the GOP did at the end of 2013, is nothing short of stupid. Such action can only reduce the buying power of people, and it is buying power of the non-wealthy that supports our economy. The unemployed have too little, do not wish to be there and they want to work. If there is a significant portion of our unemployed population that “milks the system,” no one has been able to document it.
- Minimum wage increases have remained far below the level of inflation. The minimum wage in the late 60’s translated to today’s dollars would amount to between $15 and $20 per hour. As it is, most states maintain a minimum wage around $7.50, which means that even full-time employees often need public assistance (food stamps, Medicaid, etc.) to get by. The GOP, however, has opposed increasing the minimum wage and some even recommend removing it altogether. This approach is defended by arguing that employers will not hire, but history shows that to be untrue. Such a policy can only increase the wage gap and increase social unrest.
- Defense spending is certainly a necessity, and supplying our troops with what they need to do their job is unarguable. However, the GOP not only wants to rob Peter (the social programs) to pay Paul (the military), but they want to add billions to the military budget beyond what even the Pentagon has requested. During the Iraq war, the GOP went beyond the presumed (and misleading) “tax and spend” policies of liberals to spend without taxing. No wonder we are under a recession.
- The Iraq War was a massive mistake, built on a foundation of lies about weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda. It cost us nearly a trillion dollars in treasure, over 4000 of our soldiers’ lives and untold numbers of families disrupted by death and wounds. The GOP leadership promised – and utterly failed to deliver – cheap oil and Middle East stability as the result. Yet even today most Republican leaders still try to maintain that it was the “right thing to do.”
- Guantanamo is a cancer on the soul of America, but GOP resistance to allowing the detainees there to be imprisoned and tried on our soil has forced this unconstitutional detainment to persist.
- Veterans assistance is a laudable and morally necessary goal, but GOP budget cutting has reduced the ability of the Office of Veterans Affairs to support VA hospitals and the treatment of returning warriors – wounded or otherwise.
- Science and technology carry the dangers posed by anything “new,” but they also represent the only way for us to continue to survive in an overcrowded world and to make a future for ourselves. The GOP has tried to stifle many initiatives here, such as solar power, wind power and stem-cell genetic research, while supporting dangerous practices such as increased drilling for oil in fragile ecologies, fracking, waste dumping and expanding nuclear power. In short, they seem to support continuing the use of existing technology regardless of danger, while inhibiting the newer technologies offering a promise of improved lifestyle and conditions.
- Climate change is evident, and human action is now universally recognized as a major – if not sole – contributing factor; universally, that is, except among a majority of GOP “leaders” and their minions who, it would seem, prefer to charge into environmental armageddon rather than address this critical issue in an intelligent way.
- Evolution has proven to be an accurate portrayal of the biological world, yet many Republicans – including some of their leaders – persist in arguing that the campfire stories of how the world was created as reported in the Bible are literally true, including a timeline that sets the earth’s age at about 6000 years. When this is taught to our children, it can only inhibit creative and independent thought.
- Public education is the cornerstone for our future, yet the GOP has persisted in cutting educational funding, pushing for private schools (which can only increase the gap between the haves and have-nots), reducing funding for school lunches, and pushing for revisionist portrayals of history and science. This has already begun to cripple our competitive edge with regard to other nations.
- Immigration has long been an important adjunct to our history, as only a tiny minority of us can claim to be “native Americans.” The GOP, however, has focused on immigration from Hispanic countries as especially problematic, and Republicans have pushed for deportation (of 12 million people??), building a wall along the Mexican border, and other asinine “solutions.” While undocumented immigrants pose a problem, it is a problem that is treatable without extreme and impossible-to-implement measures.
- Women’s issues, including health care, equal pay, sexual harassment, violence and respect, have all been given short shrift or actively opposed by GOP policies. For example, the GOP opposed the Lily Ledbetter Equal Pay Act and the Violence Against Women Act. Evidently, women are still second-class citizens in the eyes of the GOP and they are not worthy of equal consideration. GOP efforts to appeal to women voters are all form and no substance. It is incomprehensible that the GOP still retains significant numbers of women in its ranks.
- Abortion has been a major obsession for the GOP, and their efforts to make it impossible to obtain legally have been herculean. The only possible result of their efforts is to push it underground into back alleys with coat-hangers. Even the Pope has stressed the need for help and understanding over condemnation in this matter.
- Marriage equality is now acceptable to a majority of Americans, as if equality should even be subject to majority opinion. Yet the GOP continues to oppose it in a manner similar to their opposition to desegregation in the 60’s and women’s suffrage in the 10’s and 20’s. Whether one agrees with or likes equality for same-sex couples, denying them the same rights as the rest of us on the basis of whom they love is unconstitutional. There is no question that the GOP is on the wrong side of history here.
- Gun safety has long been a major issue, and has stimulated renewed vigor in the wake of Newtown. The GOP has consistently bowed to the NRA and its more extreme gun-rights offshoots to oppose restrictions on guns and even expand their presence. Note that we require people who wish to drive a vehicle to pass tests, to pay a license fee, and be registered. We also restrict the type of vehicles (eg: tanks and such) they may drive. Why we don’t treat guns – which are far more dangerous – in a similar fashion makes no sense at all.
- The right to bargain collectively for fairness in pay and treatment has been established at great cost in effort and blood by various unions, both labor and service. The GOP has consistently opposed collective bargaining, arguing that the unions are corrupt and unnecessary. While corruption is an occasional problem, the necessity of unions is especially clear in the face of GOP efforts to undermine their hard-fought gains. Is it any wonder that most unionists do not vote Republican?
- Voter suppression has long been a Republican tactic in order to stifle the votes of minorities and others likely to vote against them. Current tactics include reduction of advanced voting days and hours, reduction of polling places so as to create long lines at the remaining ones, stringent and unnecessary voter ID laws, and the like. The GOP argument that voter fraud is a widespread problem is simply not borne out by the facts; it is in fact one of the least-committed “crimes” in our nation. In the 2012 election, every documented instance of voter fraud turns out to have been committed by Republicans trying to increase their vote or decrease the Democratic tally.
- The filibuster has been so abused by the GOP minority in the Senate that the Democratic leadership was forced to resort to rules changes just so that legislation and appointments could be voted on. The filibuster, which is not even provided for in the Constitution, was used exactly once during the Johnson presidency in the 60’s, but was used over 400 times by the GOP minority in just the past three years. That is about once a day for the days that the Senate was in session.
- Obstruction of anything proposed or anyone nominated by the President is the hallmark of the GOP. Rather than constructively work on policies designed to help people, they instead focus on obstructing Obama’s attempts to improve our situation. GOP leaders have repeatedly revealed that their top priority is for Obama (and, by implication, the country) to fail. Racism is not the only reason for this obstruction, but it is an important factor and reveals a dark underside to the GOP. While they also opposed a lot of what Bill Clinton wanted, they did not do so with the same determination, universality and hatred that they’ve shown our current President. For example, consider that the Massachusetts health care law signed by then-Governor Romney raised few hackles, while the almost identical law signed by Obama has been systematically condemned at every turn by the GOP. Positive stories about enrolling in “Obamacare” are ignored, while negative ones are pounced on even after they are shown to be bogus or misinformed. As for racism, some of it exists apart from the GOP, but it is safe to say that the vast majority of racists vote Republican, and they do so because that party enables and even reflects their racism.
Most of the GOP ideology goes back to a compulsive and narrow-minded obsession with the debt and deficit. Consider this: If you are hurting or in debt financially, it does help to restrict your spending, but this will not solve your problem. You still need food, clothing, shelter, safety, health, and transportation. And if you have no reserves, cutting spending only creates more destitution. The best way out of your difficulty is to improve your situation by getting a better job or qualifying for higher pay. This can be done mainly by investing in education and training. In other words, it takes money to make money. In this situation, you would need outside – i.e. government or employer – help, since your resources are nonexistent. (The GOP believes we as a nation need to take what little we have and stick it under the mattress in the hopes that it will magically multiply.) When we apply this to the national economy, we see that supporting the lower classes with safety nets like food stamps and unemployment enhances their buying power, and we see that maintaining unemployment benefits during a recession allows people to improve their lot and to purchase necessities, while removing the necessity of providing at least some government assistance. Most of all we see that using the leverage of government spending on things like infrastructure enhances job opportunities and enables us to recover faster from recession. The “penny-wise and pound-foolish” approach of the GOP hurts our economy, our people and our social stability. The plethora of their penny-pinching efforts only makes things worse, not better.
Simply put, Republican policies are wrong. Their efforts to enhance the privileged and wealthy at the expense of everyone else unfortunately have been too successful, but even life-long conservatives are beginning to question the extremes to which the Party has gone in recent years.