GOP complained about defunding police, but are willing to defund the government
The Republicans are at their stupid game again. They are using the threat of defunding the government to try to scuttle Joe Biden’s plan to start bringing the United States part of the way into the sphere of affluent civilized nations. Those are countries, such as those in the European Union, in which in which super-profitable corporations and the ultra-rich pay a decent share of taxes and the people enjoy the support of a relatively robust social safety net.
Not here. We live in country in which the .01 percent have the lion’s share of the wealth, pay almost no taxes, and the social safety net is so porous you could drive an MI-Abrams tank through one of its holes. The GOP wants to keep it that way. Their main tool, a favorite wrench they throw in the machinery to stop any movement toward more fairness and a better life for the majority, is to bring the government to the brink of a shutdown (or to shut it down) and allow the United States to default on its financial obligations.
They have used this sort of blackmail before for various reasons. This time the objective is two-fold: to deny Biden the resources for a set of proposed provisions like paid family leave and childcare for the other 99 percent, measures which are generally popular, and to apply a brake to the ongoing recovery as it starts to sputter a little.
Who cares if you make a joke of the concept of “the full faith and credit” of the United States? Not if it means torpedoing new priorities under which the interests of the majority are important while simultaneously delivering a political body blow to an administration that might have the temerity to usher in such monstrosities as progressive taxation and some parts of a welfare state. I say parts because Biden’s plan is so not radical that the biggest piece—universal free health care which every other country that can afford it has had for a long time—is not included.
We saw with the fight of Obamacare that the GOP wants no part of that. The “Christian” party would rather people die for lack of money than step outside their so-called conservative credo. Never mind that Republicans like to deride it as “socialized medicine” as if it were a Stalinist plan instead of a system that exists in such capitalist nations as the UK and Canada. The GOP can talk all it wants about its conservative “philosophy,” but that’s not why they hate socialized medicine. Socialized medicine would save lives but cut into profits. That, for Republicans, is a non-starter.
Republican social policy has been a scandal for a long time, and this is no different. Reuters reported:
In a high-stakes standoff over the U.S. debt ceiling, congressional Republicans believe they see a chance to scale back President Joe Biden’s sweeping domestic agenda while boosting their odds of retaking Congress in 2022.
Defaulting on the national debt would mean a major shock to the U.S. and world economies and a blow to U.S. credibility. But shingles doesn’t care and neither do the Republicans and their grim reaper Mitch McConnel.
Regarding raising the debt ceiling to avert a disaster amid a global pandemic and its economic aftershocks, Reuters reports:
Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell has made it clear that his caucus, which holds half the chamber’s 100 seats, will block it, seeking to frame the vote as a referendum on a $3.5 trillion Biden domestic spending package the House and Senate will take up in coming weeks.
The stakes are high. Failing to fund federal agencies past Sept. 30 could trigger the third partial government shutdown in a decade and a failure to suspend the debt ceiling by mid-October brings the risk of a historic default that could shake financial markets and even spark a recession.
Republicans have raised hypocrisy to high art. They rant and rave about Democrats wanting to defund the police to fight brutality—a position virtually no Democrat in Congress supports—yet they want to defund the whole government to prevent any prospect of social progress. They are, moreover, not even consistent in their hypocrisy. They are selling monoclonal anti-body therapies for Covid and discouraging vaccines that are much more effective and a lot cheaper. Not content with responsibility, to a great extent, with our Covid-19 cataclysms, now they want inflict some fresh wounds against justice, economic recovery, and national pride.
