How dumb do Republicans think we are?
On Thursday, the Republican Party took a page from their 1994 revolution by unveiling their “Pledge to America,” exposing a clear sense of desperation for the party stung by two elections, and now, the Tea Party.
In their opening statement, they refer to our duly elected government officials as “self-appointed elites.” Somebody needs to remind Republicans that it was their failed policies throughout the George W. Bush presidency that led to the Democratic “mega majorities” in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The Republicans blame the current administration and Congress for “rising joblessness.” Unfortunately for them, Americans know better than to believe such hogwash. When Obama was sworn into office, over 700,000 jobs were being lost per month. As a direct result of the policies adopted by his administration, the past eight months have seen nothing except job gains in the private sector.
They blame the Democrats for “a polarizing political environment,” yet it is the Republican Party that has initiated the strategy to block every single bill Congress submits from even being debated. The Republicans have filibustered more bills in the past two years than the total number of filibusters in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s combined.
The Republicans are responsible for the miscommunication surrounding the health care bill. It was their own members of Congress telling people that this bill included “death panels” that would come kill your grandmother.
They paint the sitting president as the Joker, a Nazi, a socialist, a fascist and a communist, essentially “tying their hands” in the public’s eye, which prevents them from even thinking about negotiations with the Democrats without violent backlash from those who truly control their party – Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, Sarah Palin, etc.
The Republican Party blames Democrats for “crushing debt,” yet it was their own policies that turned the 2000 budget surplus of $230 billion into a $407 Billion deficit.
The 2009 budget, the last constructed by the Bush Administration, did not include the costs of the 2001 and 2006 tax cuts (totaling $2.5 trillion over 10 years), did not include the cost of Medicare Part D (totaling $727.3 billion over 10 years), nor did it include the costs of the Iraq or Afghanistan Wars (totaling $1.09 trillion to date, not to mention countless lives lost worldwide), which are the main factors behind today’s crushing $1.26 trillion deficit.
Where were the “fiscal conservatives” when Bush authorized all these spending projects? Where will they be if Republicans take power again in 2011?
This document also includes pure hypocrisy by stating they pledge to “promote greater liberty” and “wider opportunity,” while stating in the same breath that they pledge to “honor families and traditional marriages.”
