REPUBLICANS NOT BEING CRITICIZED FOR NOT DOING THEIR BEST FOR THE COUNTRY

 

     …Democratic Senators such as Joe Manchin, (D- W. Vir)  are doing the GOP’s job

 

Democrats are now forced to having the kinds of arguments among themselves, that used to take place between the two parties.

 

It is ridiculous that the Democrats are getting blamed for struggling to do big and important things, while Republicans are being given a free pass for behaving like asses.

This isn’t the way our government is supposed to work. Yes, the Democratic Party controls the White House and has the slimmest of majorities in the Senate and the House. But that doesn’t remove Republicans from their duty to try to do their job. It doesn’t give any of our elected representatives the right to simply ignore the work they were elected to do.  The GOP should be called out for putting politics ahead of the nation’s well-being.

The latest vote by GOP senators to block debate, not passage mind you, but merely the debate of watered-down legislation.  Legislation that would guarantee basic voting rights, is just the latest example of not doing their job. Securing universal access to the ballot box used to be a bipartisan cause. In blocking the bill, Republicans are “hurting their own constituents,” as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has noted. But apparently that doesn’t matter.

The voter-suppression laws passed by GOP-controlled state legislatures across the country are crafted to give an advantage to Republican candidates. The proposed Freedom to Vote Act, already watered down in a vain quest for Republican support, which isn’t happening.  It would have somewhat leveled the playing field. Yet even the few GOP senators who occasionally show a glimmer of conscience, such as Mitt Romney (Utah), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine), they of course, voted the party line.  It was all against allowing the Senate to even debate the bill.

The many Republicans who helped pass the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, they were giants such as Everett Dirksen of Illinois, Margaret Chase Smith of Maine and Jacob Javits of New York.  Today, they would be weeping if they would witness what has happened to their party.

Similarly, the Republicans have blocked all attempts to establish a proper bipartisan blue-ribbon panel to fully investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.  Pelosi had no option but to create a House select committee, whose important work Republicans now dismiss as being a “partisan Democratic committee.”

The reality is that we have become immune to such behavior. The public has now come to expect it, at all levels of government. It’s as if representing the needs and aspirations of the American people were nothing but a blood sport.  It is now as if all that matters is which political party wins and which loses.  If many voters are angry or disenchanted, who can blame them?

It important to understand that this is not a “both sides” situation. Republicans and Democrats are not equally to blame, though the GOP would like you to believe otherwise. You don’t have to support everything the Democrats are trying to accomplish to recognize that one party is at least trying to govern.  While the other party seeks only to sabotage whatever the Democrats do, even if it hurts their constituents.

Forty years of trickle-down economic orthodoxy produced growth and innovation, but it also created shocking levels of inequality.  Working-class and middle-class incomes stagnated, while the rich became richer beyond their wildest dreams. The nation’s infrastructure was allowed to go unsupported and to turn to rust. We also failed to invest adequately in our future, and we are paying dearly for it.

President Biden and the Democrats are today, trying to begin addressing these problems, whose existence and urgency many Republicans do recognize. Indeed, 19 GOP senators out of 50 did ultimately vote for the $1.2 trillion “hard infrastructure” bill that awaits approval by the House.  But Republicans are forcing Democrats to conceive and pass a larger “human infrastructure” package on their own.  All of this while under sniper fire from the GOP.

So Democrats are having the kinds of arguments among themselves that used to take between the two parties, what new programs to start; how long those programs should last; how much to spend and how to pay for it all. Instead of participating in these important debates, Republicans are threatening to trigger a financial disaster by refusing to raise the federal debt ceiling. They have already tried this supremely irresponsible maneuver once, and they threaten to do it again in December.

And you just watch: When Democrats eventually do pass the spending packages and Biden signs them into law, Republicans will be quick to take credit for all the measures that are popular with the folks back home.  They have already been doing that for months.

And on top of that, why are Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) blocking needed initiatives?  But at least, they are finally engaged in the process.

The much bigger problem is that one of our two major parties called the GOP is doing nothing but throwing rocks and worse from the sidelines.

It is totally disgusting, and it could eventually end our nation’s democracy.

Copyright G. Ater 2021