This past week, the GOP released their "Pledge to America." The text outlines their legislative priorities for 2010 and presumably beyond, which include repealing healthcare, cutting spending, and "restoring the Constitution" to government in America. All of these issues I find hilarious, for one overarching reason and a plethora of individual issues with the plans themselves.
First and foremost, it is vital to keep in mind that Republicans are an incredibly angry bunch right now. This anger allows them to bandy about silly tag words like "the Constitution" and "fiscal irresponsibility" as if absurd notions such as "common sense" provide a sound means for government, the elderly and military are immune from spending cuts, and the Constitution requires no interpretation whatsoever. And while this is true, I see a far greater issue with the platform: its reflection of a lack of desire to actually do anything.
By no stretch of the imagination do I consider myself a party hack. I find the Democrats in Congress to be morally spineless and completely and totally unable to stand up for the moral issues that, to me, made the party appealing in the first place. But I do see one fundamental difference in the way the Republican and Democratic parties are organized. The Democrats have stood for a broad series of concepts, namely equality of opportunity and under the law, educational reform and consolidation, environmental awareness, and consumer protection to varying degrees throughout history. This makes them (in my mind, unfortunately) far less likely to pursue vindictive legislative policies once made the dominant party and makes it far harder for them to get work done, as they are not united around a series of legislative objectives but broader conceptual approaches to issues. However, this allows them to actually get things done.
On the other hand, the Republicans run on a series of points, as they have done since the Contract with America. These legislative objectives allow the party to behave in a far more cohesive manner. However, it also provides them with what I see as an immense electoral scam that can cover their inaction within the legislature. Let's take Roe v. Wade into consideration. Candidates such as the much-beloved Christine O'Donnell of Delaware love to campaign on platforms that will restrict abortion even in cases of rape or incest. Lord knows this will never happen. What it essentially comes down to is that there is an acknowledged social implication to restricting abortion too heavily, and while you can make it as difficult as possible to get an abortion to puff up your legislative resume, no one will ever be able to restrict it entirely at a federal level. No one can ever build up the political capital sufficient to overturn Roe except for in hard-right states. So why has it not just been accepted as something far more controversial, the Civil Rights Act, was in the 1960s? There wasn't a set block of people that opposed the Civil Rights Act. Contrast this to Roe, whose detractors are primarily Catholics and evangelicals that can be easily mobilized during elections. What happens when you overturn Roe? All of a sudden Catholics and evangelicals might be a little more interested in Democratic policies like social welfare instead of Republican small government strategies. At best they don't have a hugely compelling reason like abortion that drives them to the polls in droves as it did in 2002 and 2004, and at worst, they start thinking about voting Democratic. It is an attempt at consolidating an electoral bloc, and nothing more. To elected officials, the costs far outweigh the benefits.
I view the "Pledge to America" in the same way as I view Republican tactics with Roe, though I at least admire the genius of Republican tactics with Roe in a way I cannot with the "Pledge to America," as they are sacrificing their commitment to hugely important issues like deficit reduction at the altar of electoral politics. The plan calls for cuts to discretionary spending across the board. Let's break this down here. In the FY2009 budget, defense, interest payments on debt, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, TARP, and miscellaneous non-discretionary spending constituted 88% of the national budget. This leaves 12% of the budget that the Republicans are interested in cutting. Break this down a little further, and taking into account Republican desires to keep Bush-era tax cuts alive, and I don't see much debt reduction here. It's a charade meant to draw out fiscally conservative voters. No one is advocating meaningful plans for making cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or other entitlement programs geared toward our elderly, who are, harsh as it is to say it, the least productive segment of our population. They shit their Depends every time someone says anything about adjusting the way in which or to whom Social Security payments are disbursed and politicians really love catering to that. While I hated many of Bush's policies, I at least admire him for having the moral fortitude to push for more controversial things like revamping Social Security. If only John Boehner was worried about more than his disgusting orange tan we might be getting somewhere and dare I say it, I would consider voting Republican.
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