Does GOP even have principles?
Is it really raining scandals in Washington? How is it that when four people are killed in Benghazi, it is a scandal but 4,500 of America’s finest killed in the Bush-Cheney neo-con war in Iraq, a war started on lies, that is just fine, no problem?
In 2011 the House Republicans cut $150 million from security for our embassies; in 2012 they cut $300 million more. Did those cuts have anything to do with four Americans being killed? Is that not a scandal? How is Fast and Furious not a scandal when the Bush administration starts it, but it is a scandal when Obama stops it? When the IRS spends $50 million to party, that is a scandal. For the IRS to investigate groups asking for tax-exempt status, that is their job. They should investigate them all.
In a recent hearing Sen. Baucus revealed that in 1959, the Eisenhower administration, the IRS illegally changed the wording of the law on 501(c)4 groups from “exclusively” to “primarily,” thus all 501(c)4 groups that have any political action, all the Tea Party groups complaining to Congress, do not qualify for tax-exempt status. The only scandal would be if they are not all denied.
If there is a scandal in Washington it is that the House Oversight committee under Republican Darrel Issa, which is supposed to investigate government wrongdoing, has been used as a political smear machine to defeat Obama.
When that failed, it is being used to promote a continual string of supposed scandals to try to distract the American people and discredit the Democrats. Isn’t the fact that Republican House Speaker Boehner only has the House working less than half the time a scandal? How many taxpayers get to work half time for full pay? Isn’t spending 50 million tax dollars to vote 38 times to kill the health-care law a scandal? That’s 38 wasted votes on repealling health care and not one vote on a jobs bill that could create jobs like the bypass here in Kalispell. A jobs bill that could rebuild our crumbling bridges.
Since 2010 the Republican House has passed zero legislation to help the economy. Republicans in the Senate have used the filibuster to block all legislation in the Senate plus all presidential appointments. The goal being to make sure Obama was a one-term president.
The Republicans were not interested in rebuilding the economy and putting people back to work they only cared about getting back in power so they could cut more taxes for the rich, and cut more programs for people that work for a living. Now what is their excuse?
The real scandal in Washington is that almost five years after the financial crash, not one Wall Street robber baron has gone to jail or even been charged. Despite total obstructionism by Republicans the economy is slowly improving. Seven million new jobs, the stock market at an all-time high, and the deficit going down. What would the economy be like if there had been even a small amount of cooperation on the part of Republicans to do what is right for America.
Tom Shaughnessy is a resident of Kalispell.