The Monumental Hypocrisy of the Republican Party

[swag]

A post from Economist's View wherein former Reagan/Bush1 advisor Bruce Bartlett blasts his former party and wherein Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf makes the case for the rapid destruction of the Republican party.

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/07/the-monumental-hypocrisy-of-the-republican-party.html

Mr Bartlett: The Republicans don’t have any credibility whatsoever. They squandered whatever they had when they enacted a massive UNFUNDED expansion of Medicare in 2003. Yet they had the nerve to complain about Obama’s health plan, WHICH WAS FULLY PAID FOR according to the Congressional Budget Office. The word “chutzpah” is insufficient to describe how utterly indefensible the Republican position is, intellectually.

Furthermore, Republicans have a completely indefensible position on taxes. In their view, deficits cannot arise from tax cuts. No matter how much taxes are cut, no matter how low revenues go as a share of GDP, tax cuts are never a cause of deficits; they result ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY from spending—and never from spending put in place by Republicans, such as Medicare Part D, TARP, two unfunded wars, bridges to nowhere, etc—but ONLY from Democratic efforts to stimulate growth, help the unemployed, provide health insurance for those without it, etc.

The monumental hypocrisy of the Republican Party is something amazing to behold. And their dimwitted accomplices in the tea-party movement are not much better. They know that Republicans, far more than Democrats, are responsible for our fiscal mess, but they won’t say so. And they adamantly refuse to put on the table any meaningful programme that would actually reduce spending. Judging by polls, most of them seem to think that all we have to do is cut foreign aid, which represents well less than 1% of the budget.

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[The Magistrate]

1. Sound Analysis By Both Commentators, Sir

[babylonsister]

2. Rec'd.nt

[pretzel4gore]

3. but this trucker knew it 40 years ago!

'extremism in defense of liberty is no vice' (liberty= corporate profits, extremism= taxpayer bailouts of wallstrut, defense = $13 trillion dollars, vice= clean air, water, good public health)

[unblock]

4. their worldview is not built on logic. it is based on religious-type faith

they toss out a few standard tenets of their "philosophy", such as freedom, small government, fiscal responsibility, and so on, and pick one or two of them to apply to whatever the situation is, regardless of the logic of the situation.

that's because it's not about logic for them, it's about faith, loyalty to party and philosophy, and so on.

i recently had a conversation with an ultra-conservative actual friend of the bushes who acknowledged that republicans were responsible for 5/6th of the national debt and that shrub promised smaller government but massively expanded it instead.

so i asked her why is she still a republican and she said she'd rather vote for the people who promise her what she wants over the people who don't even offer it. i asked, even if she knows they're lying? she said yes, because at least she can still have hope.


that's faith at work. logic would say that if both parties will expand government, then it's not a voting issue and you should move on to deciding on the basis of something else. but like i said, they don't think on the basis of logic.

they think of it like they think about religion. the lord moves in mysterious ways, god has a plan, and so on.

[lakers4life24]

5. The only thing Republicans do well is Pillaging the US Treasury

and the American People.

It will be a great day when the Republican party is finally IRRELEVANT.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

7. They effectively use wedge issues to keep us divided...

...and while we're busy at each other's throats and whining, they are STEALING!!

Everyone should read "The Wrecking Crew," by Tom Frank and "The Shock Doctrine," Naomi Wolf...

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

6. Enthusiastic Kick and Recommended!! Pass on to your Republican family and friends...

:kick::kick: