When the 2010 midterm elections came around, there was tension was in the air. Democrats, Republicans, Tea Partiers, Progressives and Independents were all disappointed and extremely frightened by America's future prospect. Unemployment wouldn't budge from a stubborn 9.8%, the stimulus passed by President Obama seemed lackluster and diluted to a point where it had little to no effect except to keep us stagnant, and the Democrats in congress seemed to have no real direction or vision with the exception of Health Care Reform and Wall ST. regulation.
This lack of leadership led to a huge victory for the minority that is right wing conservatives who capitalized on the country's fears, anger, and resentment. By appealing to angry voters that wanted some sort of change to the less than effective policies passed by Democrats in the house, Tea Party members and Republicans were able to gain control of the house, picking up a total of 63 seats. This was the largest loss of seats by any political party in the house since 1938.
The cause for this? The voters wanted change. They wanted a party in the house that would propose a jobs bill, make government smaller, lower taxes, and free up business give it the leeway needed to hire and expand. The expectations of the incoming Tea Party members was nothing less than high from their supporters who saw them as a staunch opponent to the progressive president who to them was nothing more than a 'socialist' looking to control and regulate business.
All sounds good and happy. If you were to fill in the blanks without knowing what happens next, you would imagine President Obama would have backpedaled a bit, gave some concessions, allowed more conservative ideas into his policies, and eventually a jobs bill which both sides would have supported would have been proposed, passed, signed, and executed.
Wait, this didn't happen? Oh yeah, what happened next was by far the most dysfunctional, incoherent, and downright destructive thing to ever happen to Congress. Tea Partiers wouldn't budge an inch, wouldn't allow themselves to agree on a single thing Obama proposed, and even signed a pledge to Norquist's American's for Tax Reform that said that they wouldn't under any circumstance raise taxes by even a penny.
Wiggle room non-existent? We know. This led to the most chaotic year and a half in our Congress this country has ever seen. This led to the horrible and ineffective debt 'deal' (deal, if that's what you want to call it) where there was a puny $2 trillion in spending cuts and absolutely no new tax revenues, not even from the top 1% of this country.
And where are these spending cuts coming from? The average American's pocket for education, health care, and infrastructure. Where isn't it coming from? Corporations, the wealthy, hedge fund managers, financiers, the banks, you name it. They actually have been defended by House Republicans through their vetoing of legislation which would ensure the closing of tax loopholes. They even forced Obama to extend the Bush tax cuts which any economist will tell you has had no effect on the economy what so ever except to deplete the government's treasury and enrich the rich even further.
So what have Republican house leaders been doing? There certainly hasn't been 1 jobs bill proposed. They have been busy doing other things, like right-wing social engineering. They have taken the time out of their days not to fight for your economic livelihood like you elected them to do; they've been looking to control your social lives through government interference and regulation. Ironic? The party of 'smaller government' loves smaller government; unless it's in the metaphoric bedroom. They have been working on repealing gun safety legislation, enforcing and enhancing strict regulations on abortion, fighting against unions (you know, the groups that fight for your job), limiting a woman's reproductive rights and even nonsense birther legislation.
None of this has anything to do with the unemployment rate in this country. Not one of these bills will help any of us what so ever. The only thing these bills do is to further an ideological and morally righteous standpoint in which they want to impose on all of us. So let's take a look at the bills house Republicans have been working on over the past year and a half, and let's see how many of them actually help you get a job in today's tough economy...
Source:
30 Pieces Of Legislation That Republicans Are Using To Destroy America
Women’s Reproductive Rights vdf
o Rep. George Lavender, R-Texarkana, has proposed a bill (House Bill 2988) that would prevent any abortion except in cases of rape, incest or the life of the mother.
o In Georgia, a bill (SB 209) sponsored by Sen. Barry Loudermilk, R-Cassville, would close all abortion clinics in the state and require abortions to be performed in hospitals
o South Dakota wants to require “spiritual” counseling (House Bill 1217) at religious centers before allowing an abortion to take place
o The Texas State House of Representatives has passed the Sonogram Bill (HB 15), a measure requiring women to get a sonogram before ending a pregnancy, forcing even victims of rape to have an ultrasound probe inserted into their uteruses at least 24 hours before the procedure.
o Georgia State Representative Bobby Franklin has introduced a bill that would not only make abortion illegal but would make miscarriages illegal.
o South Dakota flirted with a law to make the murder of an abortion doctor legal as self-defense
o When South Dakota was forced to drop the idea of murdering abortion doctors, Nebraska and Iowa picked up the idea
o Indiana (House Bill 1210) wants to force doctors to lie to women about abortion causing breast cancer despite medical evidence to the contrary in order to discourage women from having abortions
o Arguing that it is “morally wrong to take the tax dollars of millions of pro-life Americans and use them to fund organizations that provide and promote abortions,” Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind, introduced a bill (HR 217) in the U.S. House of Representatives to strip Planned Parenthood of federal funding, despite the many other services Planned Parenthood provides to both men and women, including contraception and STD testing
o Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” (HR 3) that would limit the rape exemption for abortion to “forcible rape” which would have defined many rapes, for example, statutory rape of a minor, as non-forcible and therefore not covered by federal assistance
o Representative Joe Pitts (R-PA) introduced a bill (HR 358) would allow states to deny insurance coverage for birth control meaning hospitals could deny abortion procedures and transport to a facility that would provide a woman with an abortion even if failure to provide an abortion would mean the death of the woman
Marriage Equality/Anti-Gay Agenda
To demonstrate how serious the GOP is about depriving a segment of Americans of their constitutional rights, conservative activist Alan Caruba called Obama’s DOMA decision an act of “societal suicide” in a column titled, “America’s Gay White House.” So the equality guaranteed by the Constitution is societal suicide?
o The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives wants to defend DOMA (the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act) in court despite the unconstitutionality of the law according to the DOJ’s own review. As Nancy Pelosi has asked John Boehner, how much will that cost?
Birthers/Anti-Obama Legislation
o In Tennessee, state Sen. Mae Beavers has introduced SB 1091, a bill that would require presidential candidates to present a “long-form” birth certificate in order to be on the ballot in that state. Nearly a dozen states have had similar anti-Obama legislation aimed at making President Obama a one-term president, including – unsurprisingly – Arizona – as well as Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Connecticut, Indiana, Nebraska, Tennessee, Montana, and Maine. Mae Beavers admits she has no idea what a “long-form” birth certificate even is. She “hasn’t looked into it yet.” Keep in mind, all these proposals will cost the taxpayers money at a time when the GOP claims we’re too poor to even educate our children.
Unions and Collective Bargaining/War on Middle Class
This is more than an attack on unions, teachers, the public sector and collective bargaining and it is far from being the budget/deficit issue Republicans claim.It is, as Noam Chomsky writes, an attack on democracy itself.
o In Georgia a new bill (HB 385) would raise taxes on things like Girl Scout Cookies, groceries and gasoline but would lower tax rates on corporate income, from 6 percent this year to just 4 percent in 2014
o Republicans voted to end a program “that helped low-income families weatherize their homes and permanently reduce their energy bills”
o A Tea Party-led movement is afoot to attack collective bargaining and public sector pay as responsible for our nation’s economic woes even though the problem is clearly Wall Street. Fights are going on in several Republican-controlled states:
§ Ohio
§ Iowa
§ Indiana
§ Michigan
§ Florida
§ Pennsylvania
Immigration
o Texas Department of Agriculture sets up border vigilante website to promote and support (sometimes violent) vigilantism
o In Texas, more than 60 anti-immigration bills have been filed this legislative session including requiring birth certificates to enroll in public schools and allowing police officers to act as immigration agents
Child Labor Laws
o Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said that Congressional laws banning child labor are forbidden by the US Constitution despite the fact that the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court in 1941 (United States v. Darby Lumber). (A similar movement is underway in Missouri where State Sen. Jane Cunningham (R) has introduced a bill [S.B. 222] to minimize child labor laws)
Islamophobia
o Islamophobia has become institutionalized in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives as Rep. Peter King (R – N.Y.), is begins his McCarthy-esque “investigation of radical Islam”
Environment/Health
o Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives kills climate committee, the Select Committee on Global Warming
o Oppose energy saving light bulbs citing the evils of government interference. In a case of Republican cannibalism, Republican lawmakers want to repeal a 2007 U.S. law (signed by President George W. Bush) which phases out the old incandescent light bulbs in favor of alternative energy-saving bulbs (that use 25%-30% less energy than standard incandescent). With typical ignorance of the facts, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) blames the Obama Administration
o Senator Rand Paul blames the administration and the Department of Energy for the fact that his toilet doesn’t work, telling Energy Department official Kathleen Hogan that it’s her fault (the EPA says if we replaced our old toilets we “could save nearly 2 billion gallons per day across the country—that’s nearly 11 gallons per toilet in your home every day”
o Republicans in the House (House CR or continuing resolution) voted to cut $1.6 billion from the National Institutes of Health or NIH (5% below the president’s 2011 request and $638 million, or 2%, below current levels), which would do untold damage to cancer research and probably result in cuts to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s research, and cause job losses.
o The Republicans launch a stealth attack on endangered species, showing they love animals at least as much as the middle class.
o The House Judiciary Committee is looking at the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act (H.R. 10), a bill that would undermine the public protections most crucial to our health, safety, environment and economy
Education
o In Frederick County, Maryland, the Board of County Commissioners voted to end the county’s contribution to Head Start, cutting funding for the program by more than 50 percent. Two of the Republican officials justified their decision by arguing that women should be married and staying at home with their kids, which would make the program unnecessary.
o House Republicans voted to cut Pell Grants, that help middle class kids go to college, by 25%
o Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval has proposed to cut teacher pay by 12 percent to 20 percent
o Saying that the country is broke and we need to tighten our belts, Senate Republicans vote to cut the Head Start budget by $2 billion, or nearly a quarter of President Obama’s $8.2 billion 2011 budget request (the program’s current funding is $7.2 billion) but voted to continue $4 billion worth of subsidies to Big Oil (Exxon, etc). Exxon’s profits went up 53% in the last quarter of 2010. The Head Start funding cut will have the following effects:
§ 218,000 children from low income families will lose Head Start/Early Head Start services;
§ 16,000 Head Start/Early Head Start classrooms will close;
§ 55,000 Head Start/Early Head Start teachers and staff will lose their jobs;
§ 150,000 low-income families and their children will lose assistance in paying for child care.
Can you spy with your little eye how many of these bills had anything to do with jobs except their own jobs next election cycle in their hardline conservative districts? 0. Zero. 0. and Zero. We want jobs, and we want it now. We can't weaken unions, they not only help ensure the economic stability of their own members, but those around them. It's a proven fact that in states that have unions, private workers and union members are on average paid a much better wage than in states that ban unions and collective bargaining.
So there you have it. The assault on democracy begins with your individual freedom to get an abortion, get a good education, collective bargaining at your job, be an American Muslim, be an American immigrant, be gay, be a non-white president, or even the right to breathe clean air. But hey, you can still keep your guns, maybe even bring them to a bar!
-Protest for Democracy
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