This amazing piece from my good friends at AlterNet echoes a problem that’s running long and deep in the American body politic in recent weeks. In a heartbreaking move, the GOP blocked efforts by Congressional Democrats to extend jobless benefits to unemployed and struggling Americans in the Senate, whining that because the measure isn’t paid for by cuts somewhere else or new revenue that they simply can’t stand by and watch the national debt increase because of this.
Now while normally I applaud that kind of fiscal prudence, I, like most Americans, have my priorities in order, and those priorities involve not punishing main street while rewarding the right side of the aisle in the Senate. Republicans think that this is a good move for them, and shows that they’re standing up against reckless spending in Congress, and the media has been reporting it as something like that – giving Republicans some leeway because they’re trying to avoid a bloating federal deficit, but the media is summarily (as are the Republicans) ignoring the fact that the money for the unemployment extension would increase the federal deficit by something like less than one percent.
That’s right – so what this boils down to is that the Republican party doesn’t think that a lifeline to the millions of unemployed Americans is worth that less the one percent of the federal debt. They don’t think your mortgage payments are worth it, they don’t think your groceries or your rent are worth it, they don’t think your childrens’ tuition is worth it, and they don’t think your car payments or medical bills are worth it. They don’t think we’re worth it – and that’s what we need to remember when we head to the polls in November. Not the Tea Party pomp and fluff, the fact that when push came to shove and America looked to Congress to make sure our priorities were in order: people before wars, people before wall street, people before corporate tax breaks, the Republicans stood in the way and just decided that not only were the American people not that important, they simply weren’t worth it.
So over at Alternet, there’s an excellent dissertation of why the GOP isn’t universally despised for its effort, and part of it has to do with the media and part of it has to do with the semi-noble desire to keep the federal debt down (although if there’s anything you would want our government to spend money on, it’s the well being of the American people) but that’s worth a read as well. In the interim though, remember that these are the priorities for the Republicans and the Tea Party fanatics, and the well being of the American people, the well being of you and I, simply aren’t on that priority list.
[ Republicans Just Screwed Over Millions of Jobless Americans — Why Aren’t They Universally Despised? ]
Source: AlterNet
[...] more tidbit that has to do very much with my last piece on the matter: There was also [...]
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Comment by CLARENCE SWINNEY — August 4, 2010 @ 5:32 pm