A major problem with the electorate is that there are just too many people out there who believe that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan won’t do what they say they will do once they’re in office. It is one of the worst attributes that some voters possess: they actually discount what they see and hear. They think that this man Romney can’t be what he seems to be; that he can’t mean what he actually says in his plans because he flip-flops on almost every issue; that in the end most people just aren’t unfair, detached, untruthful, mean-spirited or other than middle-of-the-road in their beliefs.
But the truth is that there are politicians who actually do what they say they will because their sponsors demand it. Romney said he will cut many taxes on the “job creators” (multi-millionaires like him). He will cut the top income tax rates, the estate tax, the corporate tax, the tax on dividends and the tax on overseas businesses who try to repatriate their profits, but he will never say how to pay for all that lost income. Ryan says we must change Medicare. They will, but not for the better because their aim is to diminish that program until it either goes away or ends up with state governments. They say that Social Security is not going to be solvent in a few years and that they must change it. They will, and younger adults will be left with their money being filtered through the banks and Wall Street firms (with extra fees) as they try to live in retirement off their individual accounts; at a later age, by the way. They want another war because war brings new productiveness, sacrifice, and sometimes austerity, as well as prosperity for some who can capitalize on its exigencies. They will repeal the many good things that Obamacare instituted and women, children and seniors will suffer the most from their losses.
If Mitt Romney had his way, he might move back to the center of the political spectrum (as he has already attempted to do). But a Romney presidency will be reduced to doing the bidding of the Radical Right, the Tea Party types who now control the GOP. They already have proposed the most egregious legislation on many issues that matter to them just waiting for him to win. Let’s take a look.
1. H.R.6518 - State Nutrition Assistance Flexibility Act of 2012
To replace certain Federal nutrition programs with a block grant to the States
2. H.R.358 - Protect Life Act
To amend the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to modify special rules relating to coverage of abortion services under such Act. Amends the new health care law so that no federal money could be applied to health insurance plans that cover elective abortions, even if the abortion coverage is paid for entirely with private funds. It also states that a federal agency can not force a health care provider that accepts Medicare or Medicaid to provide abortion services, even in cases when the mother's life is endangered.
3. H.R.2 - Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act
To repeal the so-called job-killing health care law and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. Passed the House on Feb 1, 2011
4. H.R.212 - Sanctity of Human Life Act
To provide that human life shall be deemed to begin with fertilization
5. H.R.6173 - PRO-LIFE Act
To amend the General Education Provisions Act to prohibit Federal education funding for elementary schools and secondary schools that provide on-campus access to abortion providers
6. H.R.822 - National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011
To amend title 18, United States Code, to provide a national standard in accordance with which nonresidents of a State may carry concealed firearms in the State
7. H.R.25 - Fair Tax Act
To promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national sales tax to be administered primarily by the States
8. S.3445 - Domestic Energy and Jobs Act
A bill to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline, to provide for the development of a plan to increase oil and gas exploration, development, and production under oil and gas leases of Federal land, and for other purposes
9. H.R.1135 - Welfare Reform Act of 2011
To provide information on total spending on means-tested welfare programs, to provide additional work requirements, and to provide an overall spending limit on means-tested welfare programs
10. H.R.5 - Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act of 2011
To improve patient access to health care services and provide improved medical care by reducing the excessive burden the liability system places on the health care delivery system; provisions regulating lawsuits for health care liability claims
From tort reform, to health care repeal, to limiting welfare programs, to energy excesses, to preventing choice as to abortion or telling us when life begins, but touting gun-carrying everywhere; the Radical Republicans are geared up for a legislative tsunami if and when they take charge of the White House, the Congress and the already pretty much in-their-hands Judiciary.
For those who think that most of this will not take place, be warned that some of this legislation has already passed the House, but not the Senate. If both houses contain a majority of Republicans, and Romney is elected, everyone can be assured that much of this legislation will be passed by both houses and sent on to a President Romney who will inevitably sign the bills into law. It’s a very good bet that the first to be passed will be Eric Cantor’s bill on repealing Obamacare. Follow that with the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and you have two attacks on the middle class that will be felt from Maine to California. It’s only a matter of time.
So, if you are one who believes that electing Romney is the way to go because his views will moderate, you will be taking the risk of a lifetime. The change that will come to this society with the ascendancy of this man and this Party is nothing short of revolutionary because that is their aim, their target, their mission. They believe in a society and government that is built on individual initiative and responsibility, but unlike most of us, they also believe that the “fittest” or the strongest should govern. That leads to a concept of power that is antithetical to a society governed by representatives of the people who are to reflect the will of that people. In spite of the name of their Party, and their emphasis on states being closer to the people, and their slogans about individual liberty, they are not immune from forcing their views and ideology on the people from the vantage point of the central government whenever they get that chance.
One example is all that legislation about “protecting life”. Their anti-abortion tenets take away choice, life-saving of the mother, and freedom from interference in our private lives by the national government. They throw out some of their principles in order to protect that one belief. They even allow the Constitution’s prohibition of non-establishment of a religion to be breached by churches that hold the strongest anti-abortion views when those churches receive federal funds for their institutions, but assert “religious liberty” when the government requires them to carry out certain health insurance requirements. Another example is their pro-active stance on military intervention in other countries. They force upon all of us a view that the military must be showered with our tax money to support the strongest military forces in the world. This ends up giving our money to support ineffective weapons, unneeded weapon systems, contractor abuses, and support of bases spread throughout the world, some of which could be closed without affecting national security.
The primary flaw in their argument for smaller government, and less intrusive central government, hinges on the fact that they are willing to spend enormous amounts of money to maintain a majority in the Congress and to win the Presidency. Why is that? How come they want so much to control the national government if it is such a source of economic and social problems? Well, it just might be that they want to control every aspect of our lives that it is possible to control so that their concept of society, morality, religion, and capitalism can be manipulated through that government. Is that why they hate Liberalism so much? Because liberals are known to be more open, more choice- oriented, more apt to support people in need, and certainly more progressive in attitudes toward most aspects of life? They vehemently oppose liberal attitudes toward community responsibility for the betterment of life and living.
Let us not get too philosophical. Let’s stay in the pragmatic mode. Romney and Ryan are not running simply to make the economy better. That is a crock. That would happen eventually anyway, building on the stimulus measures put in place by the Obama administration. They are not running to broaden and lead the middle class and the working class to greater prosperity. Their attitude toward health reform and “entitlements” alone denies that. They can’t be running to improve America’s reputation in the world. After all, they oppose the involvement of the UN in almost all of our concerns. Their bellicosity bespeaks a different agenda: to prove our exceptionalism.
So why are they running? To change the direction of America. To enhance the business community in general. To keep their donors intact. To get rid of the concept of a “welfare State.” To end “entitlements.” To assert the primacy of the conservative approach to society and to government. To foster states rights and primacy over that of the federal government. To return control of the Presidency to the white race. To keep women “in their place” by rolling back years of progress toward equal pay, contraceptive health care, re-definitions of rape that favor the perpetrators, and by removing funds from agencies like Planned Parenthood. To lead us all down the primrose path to believing that Republicans don’t overspend when every Republican administration for the last few decades has shown a deficit and has increased the size of government. To convince us that Republicans should hold power from now until eternity.
Maybe that portion of the electorate mentioned at the beginning will believe what they see and hear when their children have no Head Start, their children’s education falls farther and farther behind that of other developed countries; when getting a Pell grant for college is impossible, when college is entirely unaffordable except at a very few schools of higher learning. Maybe they will awaken when they realize that abortion has become illegal, and cannot be performed even to save a mother’s life. Perhaps waking up will take the fact that grandma can get no support for a nursing home and she has to move in with the grandchildren, or that seniors are having to work until they drop because of the lack of health care and a social security system that is out of reach because of the increase in the age eligibility. Maybe it will come home to some when their children have children with disabilities and they can’t find affordable help for those children because of program cuts and inadequate, understaffed state Programs that used to be funded by something known as Medicaid.
Beware of ostrich syndrome. Take your head out of the sand and realize before its too late that they mean what they say. They are going to do all this, and more, to YOU!
