America For Purchase

War – a state of hostility, conflict, or antagonism; a struggle or competition between opposing forces or for a particular end.

It is more than evident; it is extremely obvious; Republicans have demonstrated what cowards they are in the midst of the greatest war since the 1930’s.  While record high unemployment continues, Wall Street was collapsing; Americans dying from lack of excessively costly health insurance, Republicans stood and continue to stand against helping hardworking, taxpaying U.S. Citizens as they obstructed every single effort to assist the populous during this time of war.

The Republican Party created the crisis Americans face today during the past 9 years of greed and record setting spending with 2 military wars, prescription drug plans and never once opposing spending or establishing plans to pay for their irresponsible spending and which they deliberately chose to pass all costs and debt onto Americans for future generations.  The sea of red ink flowing in Washington was years in the making.  As President Bill Clinton was leaving office in January 2001, the Congressional Budget Office estimated then that the government would run an average annual surplus of more than $800 billion a year from 2009 to 2012. Today, the government is expected to run a $1.2 trillion annual deficit in those years.The cowardice is demonstrated by Republicans who take NO responsibility for the fiasco they created for Americans; instead they seem to think the American people are stupid so they blast President Obama for creating huge deficits.  The reality is Republicans and President George W Bush’s failed fiscal policies and their big-spending agenda created most of this crisis.  Even before President Obama took office, the Congressional Budget Office announced a projected fiscal deficit of $1.2 trillion.

Remember these are the same Republican Congressional Representatives who took a huge budget surplus and turned it into the highest record setting deficits in U.S. history.

Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, and an author of a widely cited study on the dangers of the current deficits, describes the situation like so: “Bush behaved incredibly irresponsibly for eight years.”

[See chart and analysis from Center on Budget and Policy Priorities]

“I’ll give President Bush the gold, the silver and the bronze for winning the three largest deficits in this nation’s history before this one,” said Sen. Kent Conrad, North Dakota Democrat. “But this goes in its own category — this is truly Olympian.”

Just two policies dating from the Bush Administration 1) tax cuts and 2) the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, accounted for over $500 billion of the deficit in 2009 and $7.1 trillion in 2009 through 2019.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated Prescription Drug Plan alone would add to the deficit by as much as $534 billion over its first decade, spanning the years between 2004 and 2013..

“As far as I am concerned, any Republican who voted for the Medicare drug benefit has no right to criticize anything the Democrats have done in terms of adding to the national debt,” said Bruce Bartlett, an official in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. See Republican Deficit Hypocrisy.

“The national debt belongs to both parties. But at least the Democrats don’t go on Fox News day after day proclaiming how fiscally conservative they are, and organize tea parties to rant about deficits, without ever putting forward any plan for reducing them.

It astonishes me that a party enacting anything like the drug benefit would have the chutzpah to view itself as fiscally responsible in any sense of the term. As far as I am concerned, any Republican who voted for the Medicare drug benefit has no right to criticize anything the Democrats have done in terms of adding to the national debt.”

The Republican Party had their chance to help America with its balance sheet and they blew it!  During the Bush and Republican years there was a total elimination of any kind of pay-for responsibility.  They NEVER said NO to a single spending bill, never!

Six years ago, “it was standard practice not to pay for things,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. “We were concerned about it, because it certainly added to the deficit, no question.”

Media Matters writes in recent months, media figures have advanced a litany of false and dubious claims regarding deficits and public debt. In addition to promoting the false narrative that portrays Republicans as responsible budget stewards and Democrats as fiscally reckless, these claims advance the argument that the administration should cut spending and focus on balancing the budget in the short term, a position rejected by numerous economists who advocate for continued stimulus spending:

• Myth: Obama is to blame for the 2009 deficit
• Myth: Health care reform is too expensive, given the deficit
• Myth: Wars, tax cuts don’t count toward current deficit and debt projections
• Myth: Deficit reduction would help to create jobs

Health care reform would have saved Americans billions in deficit spending however Republicans, the Party of No, support the high cost of health insurance companies and their ability to deny coverage and kick people from health insurance policies when they have a pre-existing condition.

The estimate by the CBO is the House health care reform bill would result in deficit reductions of $109 billion through 2019 and in the subsequent decade. Republicans voted NO.

The cost estimate by the CBO also projected both the Senate; House health bills would yield “a net reduction in federal deficits of $132 billion” over 10 years. Republicans voted NO.

Another cowardice act is that Senate Republicans continue to use the filibuster to limit and often derail Democrats’ initiatives, which paralyzes the Senate and makes it nearly impossible to accomplish even the most routine matters for the American people.  They have filibustered military funding, health care reform, legislation to create jobs, global warming legislation; and a bill to overhaul financial regulation. In a time of war, Republicans are doing everything they can to help American families fail and to reward Wall Street and Corporations with victory.

Republicans who “say’ they are fiscally conservative are lying to the American people.  The war Republicans created and subsequent cowardice to help American families demonstrates not only their hypocrisy but the dishonesty which has become the ‘platform’ of the GOP.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll suggested that by a 2-to-1 margin, Americans blame Republicans over Democrats for the financial crisis that has swept across the country, even before Obama became President.

Tags American deficit David Vitter Dick Cheney Dishonest Republicans economic crisis Eric Cantor Financial crisis George W Bush GOP failure GOP Filibuster health care reform John Boehner John Cornyn John Kyl John McCain Kay Hutchison Michael Steele Mitch McConnell news politics Party of No Pete Sessions Republican Debt republican tax cuts Republicans US deficits

Filed under: Republicans