The Upside Down World of Republican Politics
3 min read
In the White House Rose Garden yesterday, President Joe Biden read from a twelve-page pamphlet labeled by its author Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) as the “12 Point Plan to Rescue America.” The Republican party’s most fervent dreams are in it, getting rid of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Just as the GOP has spent 46 years scheming and planning to take away a woman’s right to choose, they have spent 57 years trying to take away what they have long defined as entitlements. Biden—reading from the plan’s pamphlet,
“I won’t read through all of it, but it says, “All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If [it] is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again. Translated: If you don’t vote to keep it, you don’t get it.
Now, what do you think they’re going to do when the House Budget Committee started talking about the cost of Medicare and Social Security and why we can’t afford it?”
For 46 years, since the Roe decision in 1973, the GOP has advocated and promised that their goal was to make abortion a states’ rights issue. Recently, Sen. Graham (R-SC) let the handmaid out of the bag. Graham wants a nationwide abortion ban. He denied and changed his past statements despite backing states’ rights earlier. Initially, Graham said abortion was a state-by-state right, [I’ve] been “consistent” in believing that abortion should be left to individual states, said Graham. Mr. Graham has a new definition of consistency because he now advocates a nationwide ban,
“I don’t care what California does on most things. I care here. I am not going to sit on the sidelines in Washington, DC, and tell the pro-life community, ‘Washington is closed for business.’ I do not believe federalism requires me to sit on the sidelines and require a baby at 30 weeks, 28 weeks be dismembered. I will not do that,” Graham said.
Along with the revelation that he does not care for the nearly 40 million residents of California, Graham’s rank hypocrisy was on full display. The upside-down world of Republicans that allows them to cut 2 trillion dollars’ worth of taxes for the rich and then vote against the American Rescue Plan for Americans recovering from the health and financial ravages of Covid is striking. The hypocrisy of the majority of the GOP voting against the Infrastructure Bill and the Inflation Reduction Act and then running on it in their districts is psychotic.
The President also mentioned the reworked and failed Contract for America, first proposed by former House leader Newt Gingrich and now revived by House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy calling it Commitment to America. What sounded more like a “chicken in every pot” speech, the rollout of the plan was long on rhetoric and short on ideas. Stories about Democrats wanting abortion until birth, death panels for the elderly, and baby blood-drinking liberals have become Republican truths. I am never surprised that the Democrats can read from Republican dogma and find plenty to criticize and fix while Republicans have to fantasize.
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