HarryG's BLOG

The Truth About The Republican Party

The Truth About The Republican Party

This is long, but I hope well worth the read:

I just finished watching Michael Steele, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, avoid directly answering questions on The Today Show about his having to apologize for calling Rush Limbaugh what he really is – a radio show performer who draws an audience by making outrageous and inflammatory statements. (Good old Rush long ago established his level of credibility when taking a very tough anti-drug stance on the air while he himself was hooked on prescription drugs, i.e. a drug addict. Quite the hypocrite! Seems to be a trait of Republicans, like La’s Senator Vitter who campaigned on family values and Christian virtues, all the while frequenting whores in N.O. and Washington…and he is still our Senator!) I guess it is obvious how much power Rush wields in the Republican Party these days. He is their new leader. Steele was forced to apologize the next day! The Republican Party well deserves to have its approval level of 26 % among Americans these days. They are a circus.

La Governor Piyush “Bobby” Jindal is trying to recover from his disastrous national TV response speech following President Obama’s speech. He has one huge problem. The Republican Party has nothing left to offer. The Bush/Cheney/Rove Imperial Presidency showed what happens when the Republican Party has its way – national catastrophe! The eight years of Republican rule, controlling Congress for six of the eight years as well as the White House, reveals where Republican policies carry the nation. Bush inherited a surplus, which he turned into a trillion $$ annual deficit if you include the costs of his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which their administration didn’t include in the official budget), raising our national debt from 5 trillion when he took office to over 10 trillion before he left office. So much for Republicans being “the party of fiscal responsibility” as opposed to those “money-wasting, tax-and-spend liberal Democrats” they warn us about all the time. (Next time a Republican tells you how the Republican Party stands for fiscal responsibility, go ahead and laugh in his/her face!)

During these past eight Republican years, we got what Republicans say they stand for – little to no government interference, i.e. regulation and oversight, of Big Business. They let the free market work. And work it did. It speculated wildly by combining banking, insurance, and mortgages into one package to be sold and re-sold, making huge profits for the financial institutions and especially their executives. I read somewhere that of the hundreds and hundreds of billions $$$ created during the last Bush term 80 % of it all went to the top 2 % of Americans – the rich elite got fabulously wealthier. How much trickled down to you? Due to unbridled arrogance, greed, and corruption, these financial
executives created a tremendous deficit in the financial markets – some say in the range of 40 to 50 trillion $$$ worth of bad debt/losses. The housing bubble burst first, followed by Wall Street financial firms failing, credit markets collapsing, banks closings, Stock Market decline (like a stone!) ... recession, now depression. Millions of Americans lost billions of $$ -- their life savings, their retirement funds, etc. Do you think that top 2 % of Americans are worried about being able to stay in their houses, buy a new car, send their kids to college? No, they are insulated from the financial hell they wrought.

Now as I recall, before leaving office, Bush demanded and got a billion $$ bailout of Wall Street. The Republican Party went along. Therefore, to get history straight, Bush started the nation down the path of government investing in banking institutions, i.e. nationalization of banking or socialism in America. Bush of the Republican Party. Now that President Obama and the Democrats are having to try with more bailouts to save the country’s economy from the disaster created by Bush and The Republican Party, why is it that all Republicans vote NO, claiming it is socialism and on the road to nationalization of banks and Big Business in America?? Are they THAT forgetful of what Bush did? Can’t they see what hypocrites they are being? They are circus clowns! Or maybe it is because the Bush bailout went to financial institutions so their executives could give out billions in executive bonuses, do million-dollar office remodels, take expensive trips, etc, whereas President Obama wants to fund fixing America’s roads and bridges, stop home foreclosures, extend unemployment benefits, and help lower and middle class Americans. There is nothing there for those rich Republicans; why not all vote NO?

The only way the Republican Party can regain any semblance of credibility would be to totally repudiate Bush/Cheney/Rove’s years of power, to state that they had gone totally astray and were not anything at all what the Republican Party wanted. Otherwise, what the Republicans have to offer is what the nation just got through enduring for the past eight years…and who in their right mind would want a return of that! When they put forth their plans for America in opposition to Obama’s plans, simply ask do you want a return to the Bush years and the economic and war disasters they brought.

One final comment. Rush Limbaugh is totally honest when he says he wants Obama’s efforts to save America’s economy to fail. Of course he does. That is the only way the Republican Party has any hopes of returning itself to power in America. Besides, good old Rush with his multi-million $$$ salary won’t suffer any if the economy totally collapses bringing back the Great Depression days to America. Neither will the true Republicans, those wealthy, elite 2 % who control the Republican Party. The Republican Party has always been for Big Business and for wealthy people. If you cannot do well if Obama’s efforts fail, then what are you doing as part of the Republican circus?

The Republican Party is bankrupt of workable ideas for governing America. Its policies have been tried under Bush/Cheney/Rove and proved to be a national calamity. The true wonder is why do 26 % of Americans still approve of them?

Cheers!

Harry

Published 2008: "Poetic Musings of an Old, Fat Man". A collection of my poetry. Lulu Press.