5 reasons why the American people can't stand the Republican party
February 28, 2013
The Republican party often has people scratching their heads and
it's not just "liberals" who are doing it. With The Republican party
splitting into multiple factions, the once proud political party has
been thrown into disarray Here are five reasons why the American people
can't stand the Grand Old Party. 1. Bush wastes money and American lives-
After the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001, everyone throughout the country felt a variety of emotions. Some were upset, others scared or just plain angry. There isn't a right or wrong answer in how people felt because what happened was so horrific. It's natural to want revenge and that is how George W. Bush and the Republican party were able to get the country into a huge mess while lining their own pockets. Preying on the fear that came with the attacks on 9/11, the Bush administration decided to wage war, but with the wrong country. With his father, George H.W Bush, unable to capture Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s, George W. Bush wanted to finish the job that his father couldn't.
Knowing that Iraq was run by an evil dictator, had plenty of oil and could be a goldmine for companies to rebuild, Bush used the fear that overcame the United States to wage war with a country that had nothing to do with the attacks on that September day. Saddam Hussein was captured less than a year into the invasion of Iraq, but nearly a decade later the United States was still there.
The reason given to the American people for the invasion was that Iraq possessed "weapons of mass destruction," but later Americans were told that Iraq didn't have these weapons and that the United States had received "bad intelligence." Many believe that there were never any weapons in Iraq and that it was an excuse to invade the country. Many companies, such as Dick Cheney's Halliburton, made billions rebuilding in Iraq while others ran off to the bank as well. According to a 2007 report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the war in Iraq would cost $1.9 trillion dollars, or about $6,300 for each U.S citizen. Mix that with the thousands of courageous soldiers who lost their lives or became injured and you have a mess that every American should be mad about.
2. GOP Depression-
Today's economic climate is a scary one. Though the unemployment rate has dropped to 7.9%, there is still only one job opening for every four Americans looking for work. As Ronald Reagan dropped the top tax rate from 70% to 28% during his eight years in office and deregulated big business and the financial sector, the United States was placed on a path of economic destruction. President Clinton stabilized the economy enough that he was able to hand a surplus to George W. Bush in 2001, but all the reckless actions by Wall Street drove the United States to the brink until a taxpayer bailout of the banks was needed in 2008. They say history repeats itself and that is true in this case.
When the economy took a hard down turn in the 1980s and in 2008, if was because the same economic policies were repeated that caused the Stock Market to crash in 1929. The Great Depression was caused by deregulation and bad tax policies, put in place by three consecutive Republican presidents. Starting with Warren Harding in 1921, through Calvin Coolidge and then Herbert Hoover, the United States fell into an economic depression. It took President Franklin D. Roosevelt, his New Deal and World War 2 to help get the United States back on track. Roosevelt had to deal with Republican opposition in congress and a new war, but after years in office, was able to get the job done.
3. Medicare Part D-
Republicans today seem to hate anything that the government does until they need it. Conservatives scream about programs like Social Security and unemployment benefits, but once they enter retirement or lose their jobs, they're quick to hold on to government assistance. Republicans want to privatize programs like Social Security and Medicare by taking them out of the government and putting them into greedy hands on Wall Street. While conservatives are opposed to these programs now, you don't need to go back too far to find Republicans supporting parts of programs like Medicare.
George Bush signed into law the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (Medicare Part D) which went into effect on January 1, 2006. The program was supposed to subsidize the costs of prescription drugs for those who receive Medicare, but it was never paid for. In the long run, Medicare Part D raised prices, cost taxpayers billions of dollars and while the cost of Medicare Part D has been projected to be less than originally thought, much of the declining cost is due to President Obama's new health care law that was passed in 2010.
4. Sexual Morality?-
The Republican party pounds their chest as the voice of morality, clutching their Bible, fighting back against the LGBT community and abortion and love to bring up that President Clinton cheated on his wife. If people make certain claims, they should learn to look in the mirror first. Former Republican Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich has been married three times and has a dark history of infidelity. While Gingrich was one of the leading voices against President Clinton in the 1990s, he was actually cheating on his own wife. In fact, while his wife was in remission with cancer, Gingrich served her divorce papers.
The list of Republicans who have engaged in sexual affairs is endless. Former Republican mayor of Waterbury, Connecticut, Philip Giordano, is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing two underage girls. Republican congressman and anti-gay activist, Robert Bauman was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar while Republican legislator, Richard Gardner, admitted to molesting his two daughters. This doesn't mean that Democrats haven't done anything like this in the past, they have, but there's an old saying - "those who live in glass houses, shouldn't throw stones."
5. Unions aren't the problem!-
Just the word "union" seems to have a negative connotation these days. Conservatives point their finger at unions for every fiscal issue that the country has closing their eyes to the fact that unions are fighting for the middle class. Whether you're a member of a union of not, you must understand what a union is there for. Unions are a collective voice for workers to make sure that their rights are protected. These rights are not limited to, but include safe working conditions, fair pay, health care and other benefits. As executive pay has risen to an all-time high, wages for workers remain stagnant and are at an all-time low. Unions are put together to make sure that those at the top don't hold back the average middle class worker, but Republicans have tried to destroy the voice of the middle class for decades.
From the time Ronald Reagan fired the Air Traffic Controllers on August 5, 1981 to Republicans trying to push for "right-to-work" laws across the country, the voice of the middle class is starting to become silent. Republicans claim union workers are "lazy" and "greedy," but that is not the case. Are there workers who take advantage of the benefits of being in a union? Of course there are, every system has issues, but the majority are grateful and work hard. If Republicans want to truly be patriotic they should start supporting the middle class, not just the wealthy.
The "No Budget, No Vacation" bill would hold lawmakers accountable for their pledge to reconcile the vastly different House and Senate budgets by Dec. 13, which was one of the key components of last month's deal to end the 16-day shutdown of the federal government. Since then, members of the Budget Conference Committee, led by the House and Senate budget chairs, have twice convened publicly, but there's been little indication that they're headed for a breakthrough.
Democrats will thus attach a vote on Slaughter's resolution to a procedural motion known as "the previous question" on Wednesday. The maneuver is one of the few ways in which the minority in the House can attempt to take control of the floor briefly away from the majority, but it's unlikely to succeed because it would need Republican votes.
Democrats are hopeful, however, that the vote will be tricky for Republicans amid reports that House GOP leaders are done legislating for the remainder of the year and have distributed a blank agenda for 2014 to their members. In a press release, Slaughter cites such articles and points out that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) reportedly joked in a private meeting with Republicans that the House shouldn’t even remain in session in December.
"This Republican House has redefined the term unproductive by setting records for futility with its glacial legislative pace and then shutting down the government when they don’t get their way," Slaughter said. "Now, after this dismal record, the Majority is planning to go on a vacation before fulfilling our most basic role to fund the government. It is time to stop governing crisis–to-crisis and finally give the American people and American businesses the certainty that comes with passing a federal budget. No budget, no vacation."
Slaughter voiced similar frustration over the lack of legislative action in the House on Tuesday when a second vote series was canceled. "Oh did we work too hard today?" she quipped, according to BuzzFeed's Kate Nocera.
As The Huffington Post reported earlier this year, the 113th Congress is on track to be the least productive in modern history, a tough record to beat given the 112th Congress was already the least productive since the 1940s. Boehner has called such reports "total nonsense," and said the American public would like to see Congress repeal laws rather than simply pass them.
But the House GOP has been scrutinized for stalling on comprehensive immigration reform and failing to pass spending bills at the levels set by Republican appropriators.
In terms of a budget agreement, Boehner and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the House Budget Chair, have ruled out any budget deal that includes new tax increases. Democrats have maintained that the federal budget cuts known as sequestration must be replaced with a combination of tax revenues and targeted spending cuts, setting up a possible stalemate ahead of the mid-December deadline.
Boehner nonetheless expressed optimism Tuesday that both sides could agree on a spending level for 2014, a day after top Republican appropriators warned against keeping sequestration in place in a letter to Ryan and Senate Budget Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.).
"It’s important that we do appropriations bills here to fund the government," he said at a press conference. "The idea that we should operate under what are called continuing resolutions is a poor way to do business."
Read the 'No Budget, No Vacation' bill below:
Resolution: No Budget, No Vacation