Republicans reading this, here is your candidate for
2012—Barack Obama. No need to decide
whether to vote for an alleged moderate in Mitt Romney or somebody a little
more feisty in Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich.
Pres. Obama has done more for your party than even GW Bush was able to
accomplish in his eight years, mostly because Obama is willing to offer up cuts
in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid— and I’m not even sure for what
advantage other than to gain your favor in the voting booth in 2012.
Like many Democrats, I’ve been mystified by the seeming
incompetence and/or weakness of this Administration as bad negotiators. Pres.
Obama seemingly negotiates with fun-house mirrors—how else to explain that he
could have raised the debt ceiling himself without any cuts three weeks ago per
Sen. McConnell’s offer, or that just last week, House Speaker John Boehner
offered up a plan that had the modest inclusion of a 15% increase in revenue
coupled with an 85% cut in spending. Never mind all that, Obama and the others
went all in—100% cuts; no increase in revenues.
Now, some of the Tea Party folk will applaud all this; in
fact, roughly half of their caucus voted for this latest deal, which goes to
show just how whacked of a plan it is. But the rest of us—those who want our
kids to breath clean air; drink clean water; have their food inspected for
contamination; go for a walk in a national or state park, without having to
look at drill rigs; attend quality public schools where the student-teacher
ratio is less than 50 to 1, which is likely to be the case in Cleveland this
upcoming year; enough well-equipped and adequately trained police and fire
fighters to ensure our safety; and roads that aren’t beaten to pieces by the
hundreds of trucks that each prospective drill site will require—we want
something more.
We don’t want our Democratic President following Bush
policies on extradition to secret prisons in other countries, warrant-less
wire-tapping, endless detentions for American citizens (Pvt. Manning has been
held for over a year without being charged with a crime), and the reckless
continued cuts in government spending when the economy is already vulnerable.
Again, we want something more.
Well, the bad news for the Tea Party and the like-minded is
that your taxes will go up, and they will go up disproportionately. The sales tax is destined to increase and
the wealthy will have succeeded yet again in shifting the tax burden downward,
to us.
And to those of you are now so distraught over the budget
deficit, where were you during Reagan years when the size of government
tripled? Or during the GW Bush years when government doubled in size? Heck, even as recently as November of 2010, only 4% of those polled expressed any concern at all for the deficit.
But now we’re willing to knock out the knees of a wobbly economy, and place more
of the burden on the bent backs of the poor, aged and infirm — those who always
bear the brunt of these master plans schemed up by Republicans and, now we see,
even by some Democrats.
of the burden on the bent backs of the poor, aged and infirm — those who always
bear the brunt of these master plans schemed up by Republicans and, now we see,
even by some Democrats.
*this piece was first published in The Akron Beacon Journal and though it was prompted by events of late last summer, it's still relevant in the frustration many liberals feel w/ the current Administration
