Through the 1990’s, up until 2008, I was a Republican. I wasn’t making much money, and wanted to keep as much of it as possible. I believed in lower government spending and lower taxes. And because I believed that the Republicans believed in these things too, I was willing to compromise my social beliefs in personal liberty. I counted on the Supreme Court to protect the rights of minorities and those seeking safe abortions.
[I] finally realized that Republicans do not mean what they say about cutting government spending. What Republicans really care about is power.
The way that power is wielded in government is by spending and allocating money: tax money. Their power is increased by spending it on the programs they and their friends and donors favor. Their power is increased by funneling money to their friends and donors. So why would they ever willingly vote to decrease spending, i.e. their own power?
And their power is increased by giving tax breaks. Giving tax breaks to themselves, their friends and their donors. Never mind the contradiction that while decreasing the amount of money the government takes in, they should be cutting spending. In fact, what they do is increase the deficit, all while decrying deficit spending and calling for fiscal responsibility that supposedly only they can provide… giving us another reason to elect them and give them power. They create the crisis and claim that only they can save us from it.
The crisis that even I could not ignore was the market drop of 2008. The collapse caused by the selling of derivatives based on overvalued real estate was allowed to happen on Wall Street because of poor fiscal oversight and deregulation. You cannot know the political party of the investment bank executives who invented these doomed schemes. We can guess, but we don’t know. We do know the party that was in power during the 8 years while it happened.
And if we have the courage to remember, we can recall the party that was in charge when the bailouts and stimulus packages were proposed. We can recall that it was the Republican candidate, not Barack Obama, that wanted to make such a spectacle of supporting the bailouts that he suspended his campaign to rush back to Washington just so he could cast his vote in favor of them.
Now the Republicans and the Tea Partiers would have you believe that it was the Democrats alone that gave your tax monies to the big banks. They say this while complaining at the same time that “Obama’s stimulus” hasn’t worked. They point the fact that not all of the money was spent; conveniently forgetting for a moment that less spending is something they supposedly favor. They would have you believe that if only we had elected Republicans, the bailouts wouldn’t have happened. It is not only not true, to believe it would be to ignore verifiable history. What I do believe is that if we had elected Republicans in 2008, not only would all of the stimulus money have been spent, it would have all been given to banks and financial institutions under the guise of propping up a too-big-to-fail system and to free up lending.
While Republicans complain that Obama has not caused the economy to recover quickly enough, they hope you do not recall that it was the Republicans that opposed everything that President Obama tried to do. While they complain that not enough has been done, they ask you to elect them; not only to block everything the President hopes to do in the next two years, but to actively repeal what he did in the last two. They plan jam the gears of government, all the while blaming the Democrat in the White House in hopes that voters will return them to power in 2012. Country be damned, regaining their power is the top priority of the Republicans…
We are all frustrated with the state of the country right now. But know this as you head to the polls this November: a vote for Republicans is not a vote or progress. It is a vote for stagnation at best; at regression. A Republican majority in the House and Senate, at this time, is not healthy for America. Do not listen to the Republicans when they tell you who caused America’s current problems. Trust your own memory. And if you still hope for change, vote for a Democratic majority. Vote to keep moving forward.
Editor’s note: The above is a “Facebook” posting forwarded by a reader.
