Many Americans were thoroughly disgusted by the actions of the Republicans in United States House of Representatives this week. In light of the SCOTUS decision to uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the House Republicans resorted to desperate theater, a Greek tragedy really, to try and hog media limelight from the Supreme Court. They tried to erode the reputation of an executive branch official and act as a judiciary of sorts by trampling on the very constitution they claim to protect.
In an unprecedented overreaching of the enumerated powers of the legislative branch, the House Republican leadership showed complete disrespect for the constitution to grab some airtime on the day that President Obama’s re-election was all but secured with the upholding of the healthcare legislation. The Republicans, so apt for making up words that have no real meaning for public consumption such as “Obamacare,” can now chew on a new word of my own creation. “Patheticism.”
Republicans have had a golden opportunity since taking over the House of Representatives in the 2010 mid-term election to shape national legislation. Instead, they invested all of their political capital in attempting to obstruct everything the Democrats offer. They provided no vision or leadership of their own and invoke the names Regan and Roosevelt (Theodore), but provide no contrast for the American people to choose from except a few dogmatic statements about the price of Freedom and the infallibility of the Constitution.
They have no problem spending money when it comes to using the costly platform of the House or Senate Floor to stage what amount to senseless and childish gamesmanship. They publicly criticized TARP only to see the auto industry rebound. They played games with decades of precedent and held up an innocuous debt ceiling vote that resulted in the U.S. credit being downgraded. They have continued to complain about high unemployment as the number steadily goes down, and they blamed the healthcare bill for all of our economic evils even though the Republican Party is opposing the legislation with two outright lies. Firstly, calling it the largest tax increase in history when it is not even close to it, and scaring people by telling them Medicaid will be canceled, when this is a stretch at best.
I am not saying the Democrats have all of the answers. The fact is that government is too big and the Democrats spend too much money, our money. They also hurt small business and unfortunately burden the middle class just as much as Republicans do. However, at least they put things out there and try.
Republicans criticize the direction of the economic recovery from a recession started under a Republican President who grew the size of government by 18 percent in the last year of his presidency alone. A President who developed three costly actions with the notion it would get pinned on the next guy! Two $10 billion a month wars paid for with emergency funding, two tax rebates which reduced federal revenues without cutting expenses in the budget to match, and handing out a Medicare Prescription Plan without providing a funding source pay for it.
Recently Republicans have criticized Obama’s budgets as a spending travesty while failing to mention his budgets are large in
