Silver Adept (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silveradept) wrote2010-09-24 01:32 am
silveradept) wrote2010-09-24 01:32 am
Special Comment: Confirmation the GOP still hates QUILTBAG, and also still think you're an easy mark
The Republicans are back in the crosshairs for this particular Special Comment, and there are plenty of good reasons why. So let's get to the tape and see just why there's increasingly little that they're relevant on or that should be considered, when coming from them.
The Montana Republican Party still thinks that being lesbian or gay should be illegal, twelve years strong now, and after several decisions and attitude shifts. Perhaps that attitude is more prevalent that we think, considering Senate Republicans and at least two Democrats decided keeping the ability to exclude gays and lesbians from the military was more important than funding the military, blocking even the possibility of the defense authorization bill coming up for a vote. If I were the President, I would be sorely tempted to say, "Okay. If that's your decision, you've just raised the bar from 60 votes to 66. Any defense authorization bill that comes to me has the repeal provisions in it or I veto it. Override it if you can. And while you guys work that out, I'll order stop-loss on the policy, and then hammer every Republican there is and ask them why they hate the military so much." Dante Shepard provides the way out of this kind of stupidity for the rest of us. And some encouragement for us all, from an animator at Pixar, culminating in advice from Uncle Sam on how to go about your lives, citizens. Even when it was going into place, apparently the president that signed it said that he understood it would be fairly lax in enforcement instead of the weapon that it has been for seventeen years to make sure that conservatives can stop their military from having to stay integrated. As for the reasons given by the Republicans on why they voted to not bring the bill up for debate, regarding the germane-ness of amendments, or that they wanted a full debate on it, or that it wasn't sufficient deferent to the military's survey, I'll let Ms. Maddow handle why they're all bullshit.
Well, or they were trying to block a path that would allow undocumented immigrants who took on military service to achieve citizenship, so the people who were excellent at what they did, saved lives, and kept things safer for the military troops can be honorably rewarded for their service.
Having declared their intentions with the vote, the Republicans then released the Pledge to America, a first step plan detailing what they intend to do should they achieve a majority in either house of government. The full and complete document is available from the Republican Party's website in PDF form. (One wishes they would put out HTML versions with proper CSS styling, instead, but that's a petty thing.) Those with history on their side have decided it's a retread of the Contract with America of 1994, and it's a good thing for the GOP to come out with in advance of the conventional assumption that the Republicans will, in fact, take control of one or both houses of government. It gives everyone two months to properly read it, debate it on the news cycles, and then forget about it with enough time to vote for those 15-second ads, the ones that actually determine the outcome of elections, to be properly seeded and rooted in the likely voting populace. Whether they then govern according to this document will be a matter of fact-checking, promise-rating, and the meida/blog cross-pollination that is what passes for the Fourth Estate these days.
The forty-one page document makes its first statement on page two, after the title, by including a picture of the Statue of Liberty. Liberty has been the Tea Party/Libertarian wing's major mantra, along with Freedom, so they waste no time acknowledging who's responsible for putting them in the position they are today. (Or, I'm just reading a lot into symbols, always a dangerous thing to do.) So let's read along and see what The Plan is.
The introduction paints for a picture of a government gone scarily wrong, an electorate incensed, at a point where the consent of the governed has been withdrawn from "an unchecked executive, a compliant legislature, and an overreaching judiciary [that] have combined to thwart the will of the people and overturn their votes and their values, striking down longstanding laws and institutions and scorning the deepest beliefs of the American people.
An arrogant and out-of-touch government of self-appointed elites makes decisions, issues mandates, and enacts laws without accepting or requesting the input of the many." You know that civics and government education that everyone's supposed to have gotten in required schooling? Are your antennae telling you that Something Ain't Right Here? Perhaps that the republican, representative form of government that the Constitution created produces this very situation by design? Well, excepting for the adjectives describing each branch. The fact that the executive is turning to more creative solutions to do stuff does not mean they're unchecked, in fact, it may mean the opposition is checking them unreasonably. That's not a compliant legislature by any means, and the judiciary's role is such that it's really hard for them to over-reach into anything. Seriously, though, we vote in elections to put elites in office and vest them with the power to appoint other people to help them do their work. We don't require popular referenda on all legislations and rulemaking actions, so they don't have to consult us about their decisions and wait for us to respond, and theoretically, we're electing them to use their brains and make smart decisions. So they're supposed to do all those things the Republicans say they're doing. Our options are redress of grievances and votes to toss out the bastards if they did a bad job at the time of the next election. It's by design that we're here, not by accident.
And then, the pledge.
So, how will we go about accomplishing this grand vision?
First, as an aside to whomever formatted this - you read better if your topics are grouped together by reasonable subjects in your introduction. Putting something like "repeal the government takeover of health care!" next to "stop wasteful government spending" makes it hard for you to be understood. Honestly. Glad that you fixed it once you go to the table of contents.
Plank One: Create Jobs
Assumptions:
Obama wants to raise taxes by $3.3 trillion dollars, the cost of the middle-class tax cuts that he has already said he does not want to expire. The only way that would happen is if someone deadlocked on a bill and never managed to get one to his desk for a signature, or insisted that the extra $700 billion in tax breaks for the rich came with it.
Taxes on small business will also be raised. Wait, those same small businesses with the insane amounts of income? The ones that qualify by employing less than 25 employees but that still make large amounts of money? Those small businesses?.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac triggered and are the only people to blame for the housing crisis and the economic meltdown by giving mortgage loans to people who wouldn't be able to pay them back. Because there are no other institutions that deliberately prey on people with poor credit and extend them, say, credit cards or payday loans at interest rates and fees that sane people would consider usury and loan-sharking. They had nothing at all to do with toxic mortgages, derivatives, and deceptive ratings.
The Plan:
Cut spending. At least pre-stimulus, no, wait, pre-TARP levels immediately. Anything not currently spent in stimulus or TARP is immediately cut away. Then, cap the ability of discretionary spending to grow. (Thus, we can hamper your social programs without having to cut into defense programs). We'll institute a hiring freeze for the government and privatize the two government-sponsored mortgage enterprises (probably dooming them to failure, with the weight they have on their balance sheets, so we don't have to worry about anyone who doesn't deserve it having aspirations of home ownership). And we'll do this all...
...while cutting taxes. First, the gimmes that were the Bush tax cuts set to expire, including the ones for the wealthiest Americans. Then, small and "small" businesses get a 20 percent tax cut on their business income. Because if we don't collect income, we can't spend it, says the party that debt-financed two land wars in Asia in this decade. Government will have to shrink, starved of resources.
Require Congressional approval of any regulation with a potential impact of $100 million USD or more, supposedly getting rid of the red tape that hampers businesses and prevents them from doing stuff because they're scared of the regulators. I hope you guys like voting. Lots. Because you're going to be doing a lot of it with that kind of threshold. And I thought you were trying to reduce the role of government in people's lives. By requiring regulations come up for votes, you're going to delay a whole lot of things and extend your sessions just to make sure you get everything done. Unless you plan on rubber-stamping the recommendations of the experts you like an unilaterally opposing the ones you don't, at which point it's not red tape, but government intransigence that gets in the way. It's not going to make the people any less pissed off that things aren't getting done.
Plank Two: Repeal the "government takeover of health care" and replace it with something that functions and has the benefits of the "government takeover of health care" but isn't run by the government.
Assumptions:
Government Takeover of Health Care. Pretty big one there, demonstrably not true, considering single payer was spiked at the outset and even the insurance exchanges require people to get a policy with a private company before the high-risk government-funded pools come into being. New regulations and mandates do not a takeover create. Stop lying.
The bill does not actually lower costs for the average American. Depending on whose figures you look at, but more substantially, say how much you think the raise will be. At least one figuring said "Yeah, it'll cost about $300 more per person in government spending, but that will mean 31 million more people get covered. Sounds like a good trade to me."
Employers will lay people off rather than accede to new mandates and demands regarding health insurance. Similarly, Americans will not be able to keep the coverage they have, and millions of people on Medicare will be forced off by government cuts. More like: "Employers will be forced to choose between providing health care for their employees and hiring new employees, and many Americans will not be able to keep the coverage they have, because the insurance companies that they must go through will jerk them around in their quest for more profit." They've already shown that they're going to find whatever way they can to get around mandates or to make costs prohibitive for those people they have to cover under those mandates. As for Medicare, well, sure there are going to be people put off the rolls if there isn't enough funding for the program. And if discretionary spending gets cut hard, there probably won't be enough for the program.
Given the chance, Democrats will thumb their nose at the Executive Order and gleefully fund all the abortions they can with taxpayer money, because they're godless, soulless Democrats with no respect for the sanctity of life. Even Bart Stupak, who basically held up the health care bill until he got the anti-abortion Executive Order? And all the social conservatives in the Democratic Party? I don't think that you're going to get a unified front in favor of using government health expenditures to fund, directly or indirectly, the performance of abortions.
The Plan:
Repeal the entire health care bill that was passed. All the things that have gone into effect will at least be temporarily no longer there. But we're going to replace the things that you like, so don't kill us.
Begin replacing the plan by enacting liability caps that are apparently causing waste through defensive medicine. Now, what does it say about the Republican Party when their first instinct is to say, "We have to limit the amount of damages a doctor can be sued for" in a plan that's supposed to be about making care affordable and available to all? Priorities are a bit messed up, GOP.
Continue by allowing Americans to purchase insurance from private companies across state lines, and expand Health Savings Accounts...so that those people that have money they can put away toward health expenses will be able to use them for more types of health expenses. Those of you who don't have the money to put into an HSA, because you don't have any spare money? You're SOL. Too bad for you.
Reinstitute the rules that the Democrats put in place in their bill - pre-existing conditions are not disqualifiers, nor is getting sick while covered, and we'll take off the annual and lifetime caps. It's already been done. Why repeal and replace that part of it? Why not just...not repeal it? Unless there's some sort of cootie contagion that happens when you leave a Democratic part of a bill in place...
And, as a steak for our rabid anti-abortion wing, Codify the Hyde Amendment that forbids federal governemnt funds going to any organization that performs abortion services and prevents any money for insurance subsidies going to any plan that actually covers abortion. Because women should be subordinated to fetuses, including ones that were inflicted upon them by violence. Because they can't reverse the Roe decision yet and actually make it illegal, they'll just prevent anyone who's poor and needs subsidies to pay for the supposedly affordable insurance product from being able to obtain an expensive but legal medical procedure. These are also the party that are concerned that white people will soon lose their racial majority in the country. Considering there are a lot of minorities that are also poor, I wonder if they're going to jettison the parts of the party that are making noise about being overrun by immigrants and minorities instead of good White Folk. For the answer to that, we're going to skip ahead in the document and come back.
Plank Three (Four): Secure the Borders and Defend The People
Assumptions:
America is at war. With terrorists, with Islam, or with the Middle East, we're not telling, but we're definitely at war. Veterans and soldiers deserve our unquestioning support, as do the people making the decisions to send them into combat. Veterans and soldiers do deserve our support for doing what they do, the people who send them into battle, direct them, and are charged with keeping them on the right side of things like the Geneva Conventions do not. They should be questioned relentlessly to ensure they have pure and virtuous motives for putting soldiers in harm's way, and they have credible evidence to back up the assertions they make about how many troops and where.
Team America should always be World Police, with appropriate expletive-laden theme song and easy justification that What We Do Is Right, because we're always right.
The Plan:
Troop funding bills are solely about troop funding and nothing else. No pork, no other spending, no social experimentation. I'll be fragged if they can pull that off, because it means they will have to refrain from attaching pork and other spending to the normally bulletproof defense bill.
Guantanamo stays open. Also, military trials for all accused enemy combatants, and you can forget about any sort of rights being extended to them that criminals have as a matter of law. The torture will continue until morale improves and the predetermined conclusions are validated by statements extracted under duress.
Missile defense programs will be fully funded, because someone will launch on us if we don't. Like, say...
Iran: If the sanctions don't work, expect missiles. But we're going to at least try to enforce the sanctions first. How big is the fig leaf of sanctions noncompliance going to be when they decide it's time to open up the Third Land War in Asia?
We like SB 1070, and think that the Border Patrol should be able to work with no oversight or interference from anyone else. We're also planning on making it extra-tough for you to get a visa to travel here if you look like you might be a terrorist. Guilty until proven innocent if you look like the current fear target. Make sure you have all your identification with you, and heaven help you if it looks even the slightest bit fake. Otherwise you might find yourself deported despite being a citizen or having a legal visa to stay here.
So that's the plan to preserve the white majority, I guess - make it damn near impossible for any undesirable minority to enter the country and deport enough of them to make sure their birth rate stays underneath that of white women.
Plank Four (Three): Restore Trust in the Government
Assumptions:
Government is working through backroom deals, compromises, and bargains struck in secret meetings away from the C-SPAN cameras. (And?) These things are either entirely novel to or used in an unprecedented manner by the Obama administration. BZZZZZZT. So very close, but that last statement makes it a lie. Both sides have definitely been using backroom deals, compromises, and bargains struck in secret meetings to get the job done. Or to stop the job from getting done. For more on this, let's move on...
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid both abuse the rules to prevent open amendment periods, rush bills through before they've been read, and otherwise circumvent the proper order and procedure of their respective bodies. Zo, guys, how's that perpetual filibuster thing going for you? Still feeling like you're playing entirely within the rules and using them in their normal procedural fashion? And the bit where you shut down the committee meetings? Dirty pool is being played on both sides, people. If you're going to claim the other side is the only one doing it, you've lost your credibility.
The Plan:
Three-day waiting period for the text of each bill before a vote in the House. Another Democratic idea being appropriated by the GOP. We assume they mean the finalized, after all amendments are passed or failed language, although it is not explicit in the document. Additionally, Bills will be considered one at a time, on one topic at a time, with all non-germane amendments or other bills to be packaged excised immediately. And if they actually followed both of these things every time, I'll make a Jaegermonster eat his hat. Possibly after creating him with sufficient penalty shots of Jaegermeister and imagination. Obama promised at least one, if not both, of these, and it went by the wayside pretty soon afterward. I don't think the GOP will do any better.
Require each bill cite its Constitutional authority before it can be passed That one might bite them in the ass fairly significantly if they can't find "promote the general welfare" with two hands and a map in the preamble and use that or something like it. Someone's going to come up with a catch-all on one side or another, and then everyone will do it lazily, much like how the Interstate Commerce Clause is supposedly used now. There's always a way, and I expect both sides to be able to find it in short order.
Let people from both sides of the aisle propose spending cuts and amendments. How...generous.
Miscellaneous:
Drill, baby, drill. None of that sissy green anything, nor cap and trade for us. The planet was created here for us to use up and pollute as fast as we can, so that we can enjoy our cars and cheap energy and then be raptured up to heaven when Jesus returns in glory.
Unions should be broken. We oppose any legislation that makes it easier for people to get unionized. After all, unions support Democrats and hate business. Why would we let them build their base or give them more people that will continue to vote for them?
But our winner for sheer chutzpah, for we always save the best of the worst for last...
We will fight efforts to use a national crisis for political gain.
Aaaah-hah-ha-hah-hah-aha-hah-hah-hah-hahahaha! Oh, that's a knee-slapper. Like hell you'll do that, you liars. Precedent says everyone jumps on a crisis to score political points, regardless of who's in power. The last few crises you were in charge of, Republicans, you went straight for political gain. Remember Mayor 9/11? Or the entire bullshit about the Park 51 community center? Astroturf groups anywhere on the matter of affordable health care? The Cheney organization called Keep America Safe? Yeah.
If you're going to lie, at least try to make it something that's not obviously disprovable.
The Republican Party, the party that would hold up an entire department's authorization just so they can keep discriminating against gay people, as well as liars of the bald-faced variety, and thus, the Worst People in the World.
The Montana Republican Party still thinks that being lesbian or gay should be illegal, twelve years strong now, and after several decisions and attitude shifts. Perhaps that attitude is more prevalent that we think, considering Senate Republicans and at least two Democrats decided keeping the ability to exclude gays and lesbians from the military was more important than funding the military, blocking even the possibility of the defense authorization bill coming up for a vote. If I were the President, I would be sorely tempted to say, "Okay. If that's your decision, you've just raised the bar from 60 votes to 66. Any defense authorization bill that comes to me has the repeal provisions in it or I veto it. Override it if you can. And while you guys work that out, I'll order stop-loss on the policy, and then hammer every Republican there is and ask them why they hate the military so much." Dante Shepard provides the way out of this kind of stupidity for the rest of us. And some encouragement for us all, from an animator at Pixar, culminating in advice from Uncle Sam on how to go about your lives, citizens. Even when it was going into place, apparently the president that signed it said that he understood it would be fairly lax in enforcement instead of the weapon that it has been for seventeen years to make sure that conservatives can stop their military from having to stay integrated. As for the reasons given by the Republicans on why they voted to not bring the bill up for debate, regarding the germane-ness of amendments, or that they wanted a full debate on it, or that it wasn't sufficient deferent to the military's survey, I'll let Ms. Maddow handle why they're all bullshit.
Scrolling before you on the screen right now—these are all amendments that Republicans have attached to defense authorization bills just in the past few years: banning Internet gambling, opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve to oil drilling, allowing concealed weapons to be carried across state lines, increasing fines for broadcasting indecent material on television—oh, the humanity—toughening up campaign finance regulations. All of these things have been attached by Republicans to defense authorization bills in the past.Either Republicans are admitting to a metric shit-ton of hypocrisy on the things they've been doing all this time to obstruct, or blocking this vote really was about telling America that Republicans think that the right to keep gay people out of the military is more important than funding that same military to do all the work Republicans say is vital to the national interest, here and abroad. In either case, Republicans should be screwed on their re-election chances. That is, if anyone were paying attention in the electorate. Instead, I expect them to be more persuaded by nonsense suggesting the Marine Corps might be disbanded in an upcoming review that includes allegations that the military's good order and discipline will be subordinated to the concerns of "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and even transgender radicals."
Do any of them sound like they have anything at all to do with funding the U.S. military? No, they do not.... Senator Reid's office confirming to us today that his insistence was that Democrats get their amendments through, and then they would consider Republican amendments.
This whole argument that Republicans weren't being allowed to amend the bill—it's not true. It is made up. The technical term for that is malarkey....The language in the bill that Republicans filibustered today is not actually a repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The language would allow the military to sign off on a repeal if their existing current ongoing study of it so indicated.
When Bill Clinton instituted this policy in the early 1990s, Congress wrote it into law. What this amendment does is say, if the military studies it and decides they can get rid of the policy safely, this would take the law off the books, essentially, at the military‘s instruction.
Well, or they were trying to block a path that would allow undocumented immigrants who took on military service to achieve citizenship, so the people who were excellent at what they did, saved lives, and kept things safer for the military troops can be honorably rewarded for their service.
Having declared their intentions with the vote, the Republicans then released the Pledge to America, a first step plan detailing what they intend to do should they achieve a majority in either house of government. The full and complete document is available from the Republican Party's website in PDF form. (One wishes they would put out HTML versions with proper CSS styling, instead, but that's a petty thing.) Those with history on their side have decided it's a retread of the Contract with America of 1994, and it's a good thing for the GOP to come out with in advance of the conventional assumption that the Republicans will, in fact, take control of one or both houses of government. It gives everyone two months to properly read it, debate it on the news cycles, and then forget about it with enough time to vote for those 15-second ads, the ones that actually determine the outcome of elections, to be properly seeded and rooted in the likely voting populace. Whether they then govern according to this document will be a matter of fact-checking, promise-rating, and the meida/blog cross-pollination that is what passes for the Fourth Estate these days.
The forty-one page document makes its first statement on page two, after the title, by including a picture of the Statue of Liberty. Liberty has been the Tea Party/Libertarian wing's major mantra, along with Freedom, so they waste no time acknowledging who's responsible for putting them in the position they are today. (Or, I'm just reading a lot into symbols, always a dangerous thing to do.) So let's read along and see what The Plan is.
The introduction paints for a picture of a government gone scarily wrong, an electorate incensed, at a point where the consent of the governed has been withdrawn from "an unchecked executive, a compliant legislature, and an overreaching judiciary [that] have combined to thwart the will of the people and overturn their votes and their values, striking down longstanding laws and institutions and scorning the deepest beliefs of the American people.
An arrogant and out-of-touch government of self-appointed elites makes decisions, issues mandates, and enacts laws without accepting or requesting the input of the many." You know that civics and government education that everyone's supposed to have gotten in required schooling? Are your antennae telling you that Something Ain't Right Here? Perhaps that the republican, representative form of government that the Constitution created produces this very situation by design? Well, excepting for the adjectives describing each branch. The fact that the executive is turning to more creative solutions to do stuff does not mean they're unchecked, in fact, it may mean the opposition is checking them unreasonably. That's not a compliant legislature by any means, and the judiciary's role is such that it's really hard for them to over-reach into anything. Seriously, though, we vote in elections to put elites in office and vest them with the power to appoint other people to help them do their work. We don't require popular referenda on all legislations and rulemaking actions, so they don't have to consult us about their decisions and wait for us to respond, and theoretically, we're electing them to use their brains and make smart decisions. So they're supposed to do all those things the Republicans say they're doing. Our options are redress of grievances and votes to toss out the bastards if they did a bad job at the time of the next election. It's by design that we're here, not by accident.
And then, the pledge.
- We pledge to honor the Constitution as constructed by its framers and honor the original intent of those precepts that have been consistently ignored – particularly the Tenth Amendment, which grants that all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
- We pledge to advance policies that promote greater liberty, wider opportunity, a robust defense, and national economic prosperity.
- We pledge to honor families, traditional marriage, life, and the private and faith-based organizations that form the core of our American values. .
- We pledge to make government more transparent in its actions, careful in its stewardship, and honest in its dealings.
- We pledge to uphold the purpose and promise of a better America, knowing that to whom much is given, much is expected and that the blessings of our liberty buoy the hopes of mankind.
Tenthers, step up, take a bow! You've been vindicated by the national Republican Party.
So, less regulation, less protection, more military spending, and tax cuts for the richest people and corporations. Although, I suppose they could mean marriage for all, a better safety net, diplomatic solutions instead of land wars, and providing direct spending to the people who need money the most and will use it as well as upgrading our infrastructure to provide jobs and economic activity. We'll see later on.
Meaning they'll be for family planning, including contraception, women sold for bride prices depending on how good a deal the family can make for their daughters and sons, against the death penalty, and will make sure to give Wall Street and their favored churches everything they want while missing the point that private and faith-based organizations are not at the core of American values, at least according to the Constitution.
Good. I expect your plan for a budget that will pay down the debt, includes all potential spending, and also maintains a standard of living for the poorest Americans that is acceptable. You might want to start with that single-payer medical system you rejected out of hand last year.
I will also expect your agenda on how to end the present discrimination against several minorities, to convince those with much to give what is expected of them in taxes, instead of sheltering it away, and to work ceaselessly toward turning America the Reality into the rosy picture that you have of it as your own expectation, the shining city on a hill that you want it to be.
So, how will we go about accomplishing this grand vision?
First, as an aside to whomever formatted this - you read better if your topics are grouped together by reasonable subjects in your introduction. Putting something like "repeal the government takeover of health care!" next to "stop wasteful government spending" makes it hard for you to be understood. Honestly. Glad that you fixed it once you go to the table of contents.
Plank One: Create Jobs
Assumptions:
Obama wants to raise taxes by $3.3 trillion dollars, the cost of the middle-class tax cuts that he has already said he does not want to expire. The only way that would happen is if someone deadlocked on a bill and never managed to get one to his desk for a signature, or insisted that the extra $700 billion in tax breaks for the rich came with it.
Taxes on small business will also be raised. Wait, those same small businesses with the insane amounts of income? The ones that qualify by employing less than 25 employees but that still make large amounts of money? Those small businesses?.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac triggered and are the only people to blame for the housing crisis and the economic meltdown by giving mortgage loans to people who wouldn't be able to pay them back. Because there are no other institutions that deliberately prey on people with poor credit and extend them, say, credit cards or payday loans at interest rates and fees that sane people would consider usury and loan-sharking. They had nothing at all to do with toxic mortgages, derivatives, and deceptive ratings.
The Plan:
Cut spending. At least pre-stimulus, no, wait, pre-TARP levels immediately. Anything not currently spent in stimulus or TARP is immediately cut away. Then, cap the ability of discretionary spending to grow. (Thus, we can hamper your social programs without having to cut into defense programs). We'll institute a hiring freeze for the government and privatize the two government-sponsored mortgage enterprises (probably dooming them to failure, with the weight they have on their balance sheets, so we don't have to worry about anyone who doesn't deserve it having aspirations of home ownership). And we'll do this all...
...while cutting taxes. First, the gimmes that were the Bush tax cuts set to expire, including the ones for the wealthiest Americans. Then, small and "small" businesses get a 20 percent tax cut on their business income. Because if we don't collect income, we can't spend it, says the party that debt-financed two land wars in Asia in this decade. Government will have to shrink, starved of resources.
Require Congressional approval of any regulation with a potential impact of $100 million USD or more, supposedly getting rid of the red tape that hampers businesses and prevents them from doing stuff because they're scared of the regulators. I hope you guys like voting. Lots. Because you're going to be doing a lot of it with that kind of threshold. And I thought you were trying to reduce the role of government in people's lives. By requiring regulations come up for votes, you're going to delay a whole lot of things and extend your sessions just to make sure you get everything done. Unless you plan on rubber-stamping the recommendations of the experts you like an unilaterally opposing the ones you don't, at which point it's not red tape, but government intransigence that gets in the way. It's not going to make the people any less pissed off that things aren't getting done.
Plank Two: Repeal the "government takeover of health care" and replace it with something that functions and has the benefits of the "government takeover of health care" but isn't run by the government.
Assumptions:
Government Takeover of Health Care. Pretty big one there, demonstrably not true, considering single payer was spiked at the outset and even the insurance exchanges require people to get a policy with a private company before the high-risk government-funded pools come into being. New regulations and mandates do not a takeover create. Stop lying.
The bill does not actually lower costs for the average American. Depending on whose figures you look at, but more substantially, say how much you think the raise will be. At least one figuring said "Yeah, it'll cost about $300 more per person in government spending, but that will mean 31 million more people get covered. Sounds like a good trade to me."
Employers will lay people off rather than accede to new mandates and demands regarding health insurance. Similarly, Americans will not be able to keep the coverage they have, and millions of people on Medicare will be forced off by government cuts. More like: "Employers will be forced to choose between providing health care for their employees and hiring new employees, and many Americans will not be able to keep the coverage they have, because the insurance companies that they must go through will jerk them around in their quest for more profit." They've already shown that they're going to find whatever way they can to get around mandates or to make costs prohibitive for those people they have to cover under those mandates. As for Medicare, well, sure there are going to be people put off the rolls if there isn't enough funding for the program. And if discretionary spending gets cut hard, there probably won't be enough for the program.
Given the chance, Democrats will thumb their nose at the Executive Order and gleefully fund all the abortions they can with taxpayer money, because they're godless, soulless Democrats with no respect for the sanctity of life. Even Bart Stupak, who basically held up the health care bill until he got the anti-abortion Executive Order? And all the social conservatives in the Democratic Party? I don't think that you're going to get a unified front in favor of using government health expenditures to fund, directly or indirectly, the performance of abortions.
The Plan:
Repeal the entire health care bill that was passed. All the things that have gone into effect will at least be temporarily no longer there. But we're going to replace the things that you like, so don't kill us.
Begin replacing the plan by enacting liability caps that are apparently causing waste through defensive medicine. Now, what does it say about the Republican Party when their first instinct is to say, "We have to limit the amount of damages a doctor can be sued for" in a plan that's supposed to be about making care affordable and available to all? Priorities are a bit messed up, GOP.
Continue by allowing Americans to purchase insurance from private companies across state lines, and expand Health Savings Accounts...so that those people that have money they can put away toward health expenses will be able to use them for more types of health expenses. Those of you who don't have the money to put into an HSA, because you don't have any spare money? You're SOL. Too bad for you.
Reinstitute the rules that the Democrats put in place in their bill - pre-existing conditions are not disqualifiers, nor is getting sick while covered, and we'll take off the annual and lifetime caps. It's already been done. Why repeal and replace that part of it? Why not just...not repeal it? Unless there's some sort of cootie contagion that happens when you leave a Democratic part of a bill in place...
And, as a steak for our rabid anti-abortion wing, Codify the Hyde Amendment that forbids federal governemnt funds going to any organization that performs abortion services and prevents any money for insurance subsidies going to any plan that actually covers abortion. Because women should be subordinated to fetuses, including ones that were inflicted upon them by violence. Because they can't reverse the Roe decision yet and actually make it illegal, they'll just prevent anyone who's poor and needs subsidies to pay for the supposedly affordable insurance product from being able to obtain an expensive but legal medical procedure. These are also the party that are concerned that white people will soon lose their racial majority in the country. Considering there are a lot of minorities that are also poor, I wonder if they're going to jettison the parts of the party that are making noise about being overrun by immigrants and minorities instead of good White Folk. For the answer to that, we're going to skip ahead in the document and come back.
Plank Three (Four): Secure the Borders and Defend The People
Assumptions:
America is at war. With terrorists, with Islam, or with the Middle East, we're not telling, but we're definitely at war. Veterans and soldiers deserve our unquestioning support, as do the people making the decisions to send them into combat. Veterans and soldiers do deserve our support for doing what they do, the people who send them into battle, direct them, and are charged with keeping them on the right side of things like the Geneva Conventions do not. They should be questioned relentlessly to ensure they have pure and virtuous motives for putting soldiers in harm's way, and they have credible evidence to back up the assertions they make about how many troops and where.
Team America should always be World Police, with appropriate expletive-laden theme song and easy justification that What We Do Is Right, because we're always right.
The Plan:
Troop funding bills are solely about troop funding and nothing else. No pork, no other spending, no social experimentation. I'll be fragged if they can pull that off, because it means they will have to refrain from attaching pork and other spending to the normally bulletproof defense bill.
Guantanamo stays open. Also, military trials for all accused enemy combatants, and you can forget about any sort of rights being extended to them that criminals have as a matter of law. The torture will continue until morale improves and the predetermined conclusions are validated by statements extracted under duress.
Missile defense programs will be fully funded, because someone will launch on us if we don't. Like, say...
Iran: If the sanctions don't work, expect missiles. But we're going to at least try to enforce the sanctions first. How big is the fig leaf of sanctions noncompliance going to be when they decide it's time to open up the Third Land War in Asia?
We like SB 1070, and think that the Border Patrol should be able to work with no oversight or interference from anyone else. We're also planning on making it extra-tough for you to get a visa to travel here if you look like you might be a terrorist. Guilty until proven innocent if you look like the current fear target. Make sure you have all your identification with you, and heaven help you if it looks even the slightest bit fake. Otherwise you might find yourself deported despite being a citizen or having a legal visa to stay here.
So that's the plan to preserve the white majority, I guess - make it damn near impossible for any undesirable minority to enter the country and deport enough of them to make sure their birth rate stays underneath that of white women.
Plank Four (Three): Restore Trust in the Government
Assumptions:
Government is working through backroom deals, compromises, and bargains struck in secret meetings away from the C-SPAN cameras. (And?) These things are either entirely novel to or used in an unprecedented manner by the Obama administration. BZZZZZZT. So very close, but that last statement makes it a lie. Both sides have definitely been using backroom deals, compromises, and bargains struck in secret meetings to get the job done. Or to stop the job from getting done. For more on this, let's move on...
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid both abuse the rules to prevent open amendment periods, rush bills through before they've been read, and otherwise circumvent the proper order and procedure of their respective bodies. Zo, guys, how's that perpetual filibuster thing going for you? Still feeling like you're playing entirely within the rules and using them in their normal procedural fashion? And the bit where you shut down the committee meetings? Dirty pool is being played on both sides, people. If you're going to claim the other side is the only one doing it, you've lost your credibility.
The Plan:
Three-day waiting period for the text of each bill before a vote in the House. Another Democratic idea being appropriated by the GOP. We assume they mean the finalized, after all amendments are passed or failed language, although it is not explicit in the document. Additionally, Bills will be considered one at a time, on one topic at a time, with all non-germane amendments or other bills to be packaged excised immediately. And if they actually followed both of these things every time, I'll make a Jaegermonster eat his hat. Possibly after creating him with sufficient penalty shots of Jaegermeister and imagination. Obama promised at least one, if not both, of these, and it went by the wayside pretty soon afterward. I don't think the GOP will do any better.
Require each bill cite its Constitutional authority before it can be passed That one might bite them in the ass fairly significantly if they can't find "promote the general welfare" with two hands and a map in the preamble and use that or something like it. Someone's going to come up with a catch-all on one side or another, and then everyone will do it lazily, much like how the Interstate Commerce Clause is supposedly used now. There's always a way, and I expect both sides to be able to find it in short order.
Let people from both sides of the aisle propose spending cuts and amendments. How...generous.
Miscellaneous:
Drill, baby, drill. None of that sissy green anything, nor cap and trade for us. The planet was created here for us to use up and pollute as fast as we can, so that we can enjoy our cars and cheap energy and then be raptured up to heaven when Jesus returns in glory.
Unions should be broken. We oppose any legislation that makes it easier for people to get unionized. After all, unions support Democrats and hate business. Why would we let them build their base or give them more people that will continue to vote for them?
But our winner for sheer chutzpah, for we always save the best of the worst for last...
We will fight efforts to use a national crisis for political gain.
Aaaah-hah-ha-hah-hah-aha-hah-hah-hah-hahahaha! Oh, that's a knee-slapper. Like hell you'll do that, you liars. Precedent says everyone jumps on a crisis to score political points, regardless of who's in power. The last few crises you were in charge of, Republicans, you went straight for political gain. Remember Mayor 9/11? Or the entire bullshit about the Park 51 community center? Astroturf groups anywhere on the matter of affordable health care? The Cheney organization called Keep America Safe? Yeah.
If you're going to lie, at least try to make it something that's not obviously disprovable.
The Republican Party, the party that would hold up an entire department's authorization just so they can keep discriminating against gay people, as well as liars of the bald-faced variety, and thus, the Worst People in the World.