It can hardly be disputed that throughout Barack Obama’s tenure as President, repugicans have not made one concession or presented one piece of legislation to benefit the people, and they have blocked every single attempt by the President and Democrats to help Americans with jobs and sustaining social programs. Despite that Democrats have not asked for, or won, any concessions from the repugican cabal to help the people, a repugican Senator accused Democrats of being greedy for not paying a ransom for repugicans to do the jobs they were sent to Washington to do; fund the government and pay the nation’s debts.
The other day, Kentucky Senator and teabag hero Rand Paul accused President Obama and Senate Democrats of not negotiating to open the government or raise the debt limit because they were “getting greedy about this whole thing.” Paul was referring to Democratic demands that repugicans pass a clean continuing resolution to open the government and raise the debt limit unconditionally. It was a typical wingnut ploy to project on Democrats and the President what repugicans are doing in holding the government and borrowing limit hostage in their war to control the government.
The truth is that Senate Democrats already conceded to repugican demands and gave them their austerity budget for fiscal 2014, including keeping sequestration level spending cuts in place for the sole purpose of keeping the government open. It was insufficient for greedy repugicans who demand that Democrats concede more and they are keeping the government shuttered and threatening a credit default unless the President gives them more power over government and wealth from the American people. At issue for repugicans accusing Democrats of being greedy is Paul Ryan’s demand that Democrats “compromise” and cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in exchange for repugicans raising the debt limit, but not funding the government. Ryan is also demanding that the President give repugicans the right to allow christian employers to withhold contraception from their employees because greed for power is part and parcel of the repugican mindset.
According to the Washington Post, in a private meeting with House repugicans Ryan was livid and railed against a repugican Senate proposal to fund the government through March at sequester levels and raise the debt ceiling through January. Ryan said the “House could not accept either a debt-limit bill or a government-funding measure that would delay the next fight until the new year” because repugicans are desperate to beat the January 1st deadline to stop the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. The repugicans at the meeting said Ryan needed leverage to delay the ACA, add a “conscience clause” to stop contraception coverage, extract entitlement cuts, and tax cuts for the rich in exchange for opening the government and raising the debt limit before the first of the year. All Democrats have asked for is that House repugicans do their job and fund the government with the Senate’s austerity budget and raise the debt limit to pay for their two wars, tax cuts for the rich, and subsidies for the oil, religious, and agricultural industries.
One wonders where Rand Paul finds greed in Democratic demands that repugicans do their jobs, when repugicans will crash the economy and keep the government closed unless their greed for power is satisfied by enacting the Romney-Ryan platform that cost them the 2012 general election. If one takes stock of the repugican demands since the start of the 113th Congress, and particularly over the past three weeks, they would understand the depth and true meaning of abject greed inherent in an assault to strip everything the people’s tax dollars pay for. Just the repugican demands to do their Constitutional duty and pay the bills they incurred is stunning in its blatant robbery of the American people.
The repugicans first offer to raise the debt limit included eliminating Planned Parenthood funding, privatizing Medicare, defunding the Affordable Care Act, eliminating insurance coverage for birth control, slash food stamps, eliminating EPA authority, eliminate social service block grants, means-testing Social Security, restricting the child tax credit for families, and trillions of dollars in other budget cuts affecting all Americans. It does not take a quantum physicist to figure out that every repugican demand is predicated on taking as much as possible from the American people and it is the definition of sheer greed for power and wealth to give the rich tax cuts according to the Ryan budget. Add to those demands the House repugican votes to eliminate overtime pay, healthcare for poor women and children, food stamps, and now a concerted effort to slash Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid under the guise of deficit reduction. As an aside, Americans are still waiting for one Democrat, any Democrat including President Obama, to tell the American people that under no circumstance does Social Security take or add one penny to the nation’s deficit, but there is the very real possibility that Democrats will give away elderly Americans’ retirement to the greedy repugicans to prevent a credit default.
Rand Paul was absolutely correct that there is rampant greed in Congress, but it is all on the repugican side because Democrats, up to now, have been terrified to tell greedy repugicans they have taken enough from the American people in their inordinate desire for wealth and power to rule America. To be fair to the beleaguered repugicans, their greed is not solely for the desire for and pursuit of wealth to keep for themselves, but for the ruling power to take everything from the American people. Since they won control of the House in 2010, repugicans have attempted to rob the people of social programs, education, women’s reproductive rights, food and healthcare, housing assistance for the poor, unemployment benefits, sick leave, overtime pay, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and jobs with their manufactured debt ceiling crisis in 2011 and the resulting sequestration cuts they are desperate to keep in place for nine more years.
What is telling about repugicans is that despite their pathetic disapproval numbers from Americans sick-to-death of being economically raped and deprived of programs paid for with their tax dollars, the repugican cabal is clamoring for more and they are willing to keep the government shut down and cause a credit default to extract more from the people. It is long-past time for Democrats to be greedy to preserve what little wealth the American people have left and save America’s vanishing representative democracy because in their inordinate desire for power, greedy repugicans will take that from Americans; if it even still exists.
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