PARTY OF “NO”

We keep hearing that the Republican Party is the party of “no” and that they have no ideas.  That’s a truly dangerous assertion.  They have ideas and policies, all right, and we have seen their disastrous consequences in action. 

Republican ideas and policies are very well-known: 

• deregulating Wall Street
• privatizing Social Security 
• eliminating Medicare
• oil solutions for our energy crisis
• eliminating regulations on health insurance companies 
• pre-emptive and preventive wars
• anti-science policies
• climate-change denial
• tax cuts for the mega wealthy so that “prosperity will trickle-down” to the rest of us

They’re being tagged the party of “no” because they aren’t offering up their standard fare to the American people right now — they’re laying low with their failed ideas, and just saying “no” instead.  The party of “no” has no motivation to try to run in the mid-term elections on their old, failed ideas when “just say no” seems to be working so well for them.   

The Republican Party hasn’t changed or replaced any of their stale ideas and policies for the new century.  If you listen you will still hear the same old anti-government rhetoric.  In this new century, with worldwide pandemics and international terrorism, these people think American doesn’t need a strong federal government.

Yee haw, America’s still livin’ in the old west.  Yes sir, just strap on that six-shooter and take care of them pandemic bugs all by yer self.  Yep, don’t need no damn gov’ment.  No pandemic bug gonna mess with this here sidearm of mine.  Jes’ reload folks.

When Wall Street has brought the world economy to the brink of disaster, the Republican idea of lower corporate and banking regulations are still at the heart of their ideological philosophy.  Unregulated markets will solve all the problems with our economy, they would still have us believe. 

And, with an outsized national debt, the party that claims to be the party of fiscal responsibility still thinks we need to give tax breaks to the uber-wealthy — you know, the Paris Hilton tax cuts.  I guess that they think that all those tax cuts to the upper 1 – 2 percent that W. pushed through the Senate (in Reconciliation, yet!) really worked out so well and brought our economy to new heights — remember?  Oh and those tax cuts did sooo much for our national debt that they now seem to care so much about.

We’ve seen those standard, ideological Republican ideas in action.  They are the very ideas that led us to the very pickle our nation is in today, and we don’t want to go backward.  No thank you.