The slugs are in charge and the leaders of the good for nothing, do nothing Republican Party will do anything they can to obstruct President Obama's determination to change our national course at home and abroad. In the face of numbing job losses - 650,000 more in February - and the unemployment rate climbing to 8.1 percent, the Republicans are squealing about federal spending.

The party that squandered the huge surpluses Bill Clinton bequeathed, drained the Treasury for tax cuts (most benefiting the most wealthy), increased discretionary spending at a pace exceeding Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, passed the prescription drug program for older Americans (the largest unfunded entitlement in history), and put the cost of two wars on the national Visa card is now lecturing us about spending restraint.

The Republican mythology about spending and big government collapses under even casual scrutiny. Just consider our recent two term presidents. Under St. Ronald Reagan government spending increased 69%. George W. Bush proved more frugal than Reagan and on his watch federal spending only increased 68%.

Under Bill Clinton, government spending increased 32%, less than half of the drunken sailor spending days of Reagan and Bush. As a percentage of the whole economy, federal spending during the Clinton years dropped from 21.45% to 18.5%. George W. Bush drove up spending as a share of the national economy from 18.5% to 22%.

Obama - facing far more difficult economic challenges that Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush ever did - forecasts significant spending increases for the next two years, but he's shooting for a 22% share of the economy by the end of his first term, just what he inherited.

When we hear the radical Republicans sanctimoniously talking about spending and fiscal responsibility, a blunt reminder of their recent history exposes their transparently disingenuous arguments.

This is the time for government to spend. At this point, only government is ready to address the problems flowing from the failures and corruptions the unregulated, private sector heaped on the economy. Socialism didn't get us in the fix, unbridled capitalism did.

The uber hypocrisy dominates GOP rhetoric and would be laughable except for the fact that the rancid Republicans in the Senate still have enough votes to block progressive initiatives. Obama is showing admirable cool in not calling out these pitiful Neanderthals, who like Rush Limbaugh, the titular leader of their shrinking party, truly hope the president will fail and the horrible economy he inherited totally collapses..

Then they can all crow, "See, we told you. Socialism is a failure. Big government is the reason for growing poverty." The Republican strategy for dealing with the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression is to retread Herbert Hoover's flat tire and try to jump-start the economy with tax cuts and reduced government spending. That won't work and they know it. Their reasons are vile.

They see the middle class as the base of the Democratic Party and the Republicans, now the party of wealth and social royalty, will do nothing to help and comfort working and unemployed Americans.

Extending and increasing unemployment benefits, providing health insurance for those out of work, more student loans and funds for public education, investments in public resources and renewable energy sources and a government committed to watching and regulating the financial industry that fueled the economic free fall are all initiatives that strike at the heart of the corporate and special interests the Republicans have protected and nourished so successfully over the last 30 years.

The Republican Party of the 21th Century has no interest in doing anything to stop the wage inequality that chips away at the middle class. The economic "recovery" during George W. Bush's terms saw median incomes actually decline as wealth shifted to the top one percent.

Wage earning Americans are inordinately burdened with the responsibility of paying for Bush's debt while people living off investments and hedge fund managers saw their tax obligations significantly reduced. Does any sane person believe the Republicans want to upset that gravy train and change the tax codes?

If Republicans had their way, they would eliminate unions and restore despotism in the workplace, embracing the mentality that, "Hey buddy, you're lucky to have a job. If you complain you're outta here." Republicans want nothing whatsoever to do with safety and health in the workplace. The Democrats do.

We have the most expensive and inefficient health care system on earth and the Republicans are fighting to preserve the status quo. The drug companies and insurance companies profit mightily from the failed system and dump their campaign money into Republican coffers. The GOP wants to preserve Bush's privatization of many Medicare programs and Republican lawmakers still insist the government cannot negotiate prices with drug companies. How's that for a sound business practice?

The Republicans scoff at green energy and government incentives to develop and use renewable energy. They remain wed to the oil and coal companies and prefer continued dependence on imported oil and the absurd notion popularized by the intellectually challenged Sarah Palin that all we have to do to become energy independent is to "drill, drill, and drill."

The Republicans will do nothing to foster immigration reform and the problems will only get worse. The GOP will demand more walls on the Mexican border as long as they don't infringe on the property of wealthy Texas campaign contributors.

The Republicans continue to grovel before the religious right and are committed to using gay marriage, abortion, birth control and stem cell research as wedge issues. Charles Darwin is the only vestige of the 19th century the 21th century Republicans don't like. The extreme Republican right ( is there any other kind?) and their soul mates on the radio and TV shout shows love to claim the preservation of freedom as their reason for existence, their primary public purpose. Anything the government does other than spending for the military, providing corporate welfare and cutting taxes, they bellow, threatens freedom and liberty.

When we learned that George W. Bush's assaults on fundamental rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution were more vile and pervasive than previously known, we heard not a peep from these self-proclaimed defenders of freedom and liberty.

The Obama administration released memos crafted by Bush's White House Office of Legal Counsel that essentially approved the president's authority to toss out the Constitution and act as a military dictator.

The memos written by John Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, concluded that during war time, the president is freed from any constraints in the Bill of Rights and able to do anything on his own authority under the claim of self defense.

Murder, kidnapping, torture - you name it - are all okay as long as the president claims he's acting in the name of counterterrorism. The president can authorize any searches he chooses and people can be held without charges.

"First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully," Yoo claimed.

Of course, you don't want people to know how their rights are being trampled upon and how totalitarianism and authoritarianism are gripping a nation and government built on the principles of restraint and checks and balances.

This is where the Republican Party is really "jumping the shark." Can you image what "Mr. Conservative," Barry Goldwater would say about a presidency based on Stalin's model? Like Eisenhower before him, Goldwater, the Republican standard bearer in 1964, would find himself unwelcome in this party reduced to supporting such wholesale sacrifices of freedoms.

So, how's it working for the Grand Obstructionist Party? A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows the number of Americans who view the Republican Party positively is at an all- time low, while Obama's rating is at an all-time high. Democratic Party positive numbers are approaching its high.

New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow understands what's happening with the public rejection, writing, "Why? Because the Republicans have dissolved into a querulous lot of nags and naysayers without a voice, a direction or a clue, and we are not amused."

We need a viable, innovative Republican Party to offer real alternatives instead of the partisan rot they have put forward so far. The party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller and Barry Goldwater is now the playground for Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity (Bill O'Reilly without the brains and charm) and Congressional leaders who seek to destroy a young presidency.

Even the Republicans deserve better.
_______
BILL GALLAGEHR

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/20666

The repukelican policys dont work