REPUBLICANS are LOSERS at FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
by Larry S. Rolirad
President Reagan proposed giving the extremely wealthy tax breaks during the 1980 presidential election. His opponent, GHW Bush, said Reagan was a lunatic and called his economic plan "VooDoo Economics". Hummm. Then, after Reagan won the republican nomination, GHW Bush was selected as the vice presidential nominee.
As soon as Reagan became president he gave the extremely wealthy huge tax cuts and guess where all of the money to make up for those tax cuts came from? The answer, the poor and middle classes. As a result of Reagan's tax breaks for the extremely rich, every state in the country had budget shortfalls. So what did they do to make up for the lost money that went to the rich? They all raised every fee, state tax, and license in their states. As just one example, the price of car license tags went from 12 bucks to a whopping 62 bucks in the state of Texas. That is a whopping 517 percent increase! Everything from state and city sales taxes and professional fees, to hunting and fishing license licenses went up drastically. To a wealthy person a fifty dollar increase for a car license tag is nothing, but to a poor or middle class family it is a dramatic increase. And fifty dollars in the eighties is like 150 dollars today. Reagan put a huge burden on average families but that didn't stop the republican party from calling themselves the "Family Values" party. Can you say "Hypocrisy"?
When GHW Bush became president in 1989, he continued the very economic model he condemned. He called Reagan's economic plan "VooDoo Economics" but then he did the same damned thing. And when GW Bush became president the first thing he did was give the extremely wealthy another gigantic tax cut. The republican's economic plans went from "VooDoo Economics" under Reagan, to "DooDoo Economics" under GW Bush. Because of the attacks against the poor and middle classes by the republicans, GW Bush's popularity rating was at a low of 40% and falling. That was in August 2001. Then a "republican miracle" happened, the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Bush's popularity skyrocketed from 40% to 90% overnight, without Bush doing anything to deserve such a spike. And in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the republican party milked the disaster and its victims for everything they could. They shoved one stealth bill filled with republican pork after another into their appropriations bills additional burdens on Americans.
Republicans spent hundreds of billions on their war and on "Homeland Security" but not one dime of the money they spent helped make any American safer. Just the opposite was true. Look at what happened to the victims of Louisiana and Mississippi. Mary Landrieu, the democratic US Senator from Louisiana, tried for two years to get money from the federal government to strengthen the levies which protected New Orleans. But republicans who controlled congress refused to help the people of New Orleans because they wanted to spend hundreds of billions on their war by giving no-bid government contracts to corrupt corporations like Halliburton. Not only didn't the republican party refuse to help the people of the United States during a natural disaster, but GW Bush actually appointed a person with zero qualifications to be in charge of FEMA, a government agency whose task is to prevent national calamities and then to minimize the number of victims if a tragedy struck. President Bush appointed a man who showed horses for a living to protect us and to keep us safe. A damned horseman for god's sake! The act of appointing an unqualified horse man demonstrated that Bush didn't give a damn about the safety of Americans.
Reagan's tax cuts for the extremely wealthy was the biggest distribution of wealth in the history of the world, from the poor and middle classes, to the extremely rich. And what did the extremely wealthy do with all of those trillions of dollars? They horded it, that's what. They didn't build new factories or hire new people. They sent their manufacturing plants oversees and used slave labor. And they also consolidated companies and fired millions of workers. Company mergers reached an all time high under republican presidents. If you remember, which republicans won't, unemployment under Reagan was at an all time high except during the Great Depression.
Ronald Reagan never once proposed a balanced budget in his eight years as president. But that didn't stop republicans from putting the blame on federal spending on the democrats. Republicans conveniently forget that it is the president who is to blame for national deficits and debt, after all, the "president" has to sign every appropriations bill. And if the president doesn't think the appropriations bill is good for the country he can easily veto it. But neither Reagan, Bush-duh-First, or Bush-duh-Second ever vetoed an appropriations bill. So much for the line "The buck stops here". The "buck" (responsibility) never stops at the desk of a republican "leader". It is obvious that republicans are not capable of accepting responsibility or being accountable for their actions.
Speaking of never proposing a balanced budget...neither Bush-duh-First, or Bush-duh-Second proposed a balanced budget in their combined nine years as presidents. So much for republicans who claim that their party is the party of fiscal responsiblity and accountability. What a crock that is.
Republicans also conveniently forget that it was President Clinton who was the only president in the last 25 years to propose a balanced budget and it was President Clinton who succeeded in balancing the budget. Twice, Clinton refused to sign an appropriations bill and closed down the government until republicans, who controlled congress at the time, removed a ton of their pork.
Republicans ALWAYS blame democrats for everything that is wrong with our country and our government. But for the last five years our government has been under the total control of the republican party. The executive, legislative, and judicial branches have all be under republican control. So why do we have record deficits? Why are we experiencing record debts? Why are we at war against a country which never posed a threat to us? Why is unemployment rising? Why is our infrastructure crumbling? Why is corporate corruption growing? Why is our environment being raped by corporations? Why are pollution levels going up all across America? Why are poverty levels sky high? Why are there a record number of uninsured Americans. Why is there a record number of underemployed workers? Why are two wage earners necessary to keep a family afloat? Why is the tax burden on the poor and middle classes never been higher? Why is the price of gas at an all time high, and still rising? Why is there more government intrusion into people's lives than at any other time in history? Why are more and more jobs being sent oversees to slave wage countries? Why are our southern borders completely open allowing 6000 illegal aliens to invade our country every day? Why isn't the Bush administration doing nothing to stop the flow of these invaders, many of whom could be terrorists? Why isn't the Bush administration using our troops to protect our border, rather than have them half way around the world fighting in a country which never posed any threat to the United States? And why is there more division in our country since the Civil War? What happened to GW Bush's claim "I am a uniter, not a divider". Just what happened to the republican promise of "Utopia" if only they controlled all three branches of government??? Please republicans, stop striving to make America a utopian country, you are destroying it.
Why are republicans allowing their leaders destroy our country? Do they all just listen to the Rush Limbaughs in their party? Can't they think on their own? Apparently not. To the average republican, the interests of their political party is more important than the best interests of America and Americans.
Copyright 2005, Larry S. Rolirad, All Rights Reserved
