As Republicans continue to attack President Obama over the lousy economy they, themselves, created, it becomes painfully obvious that they have no compassion, no ideas, no shame and no clue. They keep serving up the same failed theories and rhetoric that got us into this mess.
In their minds, the economy would recover if only the Democrats would provide more tax cuts for the wealthy. At the same time, Republicans are attempting to stonewall any attempts at regulating Wall Street or reforming the runaway health insurance industry. In their view, the free market and deregulation are cure-alls for anything that ails our economy.
But before anyone wants to sign onto their Reagan-inspired trickle-down economic theories, lets look at what this kind of thinking has brought us over the last 30 years of Republican leadership:
1 – More than 14 million Americans are currently unemployed, and Federal Reserve Chairmen Ben Bernanke blames the continuing high level of unemployment on the too-big-to-fail banks for failing to make loans to small businesses, the engine that drives our economy.
2 – 49 million Americans, including 17 million children, currently lack adequate, consistent access to food.
3 – The VA estimates that 131,000 veterans are homeless on any given night and 18 veterans commit suicide every single day.
4 – Nearly 47 million Americans lack health insurance. Of those, nearly 45,000, including 2,266 veterans, die each year for lack of access to health care.
5 In what used to be a sight seen only in third world nations, thousands of American citizens have stood in line for free health care because they lack insurance. More than 8,000 stood in line to receive health care in Los Angeles alone. Many were turned away. 1,000 recently stood in line for free health care in New Orleans and there are similar free clinics scheduled in Little Rock, Kansas City and other U.S. cities.
These are not the kind of problems that will be solved by more tax cuts for the wealthy or further deregulation of our greedy, ship-the-jobs-off-shore industries. They require substantial commitments of tax dollars, along with fresh ideas and political will, neither of which are currently available from the Republican Party.