Let The Looting Begin!

The GOP House Republicans have released their Pledge to America, mimicking the Contract with America in 1994. From a rhetorical point of view, it is good political propaganda. From a policy point of view, it is ruinous to both our national well-being and future. The preamble to the Pledge is an amalgem of Tea Party sloganeering about the oppression of the government and the words of the Declaration of Independence and a commitment to the "original intent" of the Constitution. There are some fantastic flourishes like the elevation of the 10th Amendment as a fundamental principle and a nod to states' rights. There is absolutely no self-reflection or historical recognition of how we got to the present place in time. The Pledge is long on lamenting the national debt, the deficit and the chronic joblessness in the country, but very short on any concrete solutions to anything other than a rigorous pledge to allocated all resources necessary to our men and women in uniform, even though Senate Republicans blocked the first Defense Appropriations Bill in 48 years.

The House Republicans pledge to greater transparency in their operations, a smaller, more accoountable government,fiscal responsibility, and of course Lower Taxes and protecting life except those who are actually living. Eric Ericksson over at Red State, a conservative website, even pronounced the ideas in the Pledge as "drek."

Republicans will permanently stop all "job-killing taxes" in the name of families keeping their hard-earned money and small businesses will have the stability to invest in creating new jobs. Note to reader: Senate Republicans are still blocking the small business bill in the Senate which would lower small business taxes and allow for greater credit to small businesses. Republicans are running on the issue that if the Bush tax-cuts expire as mandated by law, then there will be Obama tax hikes for everyone. They maintain their support for tax cuts for the very wealthy. And they pledge to repeal the entire Healthcare Bill and substitute their own--which was proposed during the healthcare debate and would only extend insurance to 3 million additional Americans and create a deeper deficit.

The Republicans say they will end all bailouts permanently, canceling TARP and reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They will cut Congress' budget, impose a hiring freeze on non-security federal employees, and review every current government program to eliminate wasteful and duplicative programs. They also plan to read the Constitution before every bill to see whether it's constitutional.

Of course,Republicans will provide additional resources and authority and support to the military, including full funding to missile defense. Not only that but they will not "import terrorists to America" and keep Gitmo open because terrorists should not be tried in our courts and put in our prisons. It should be noted that the conviction rates for terrorists in our criminal courts far outweigh convictions in so-called military commissions. Oh and yes, they will put more resources to protect our borders from illegal immigrants.

To give assurances to business (here only small businessesare mentioned in the text), there will prevent all tax increases and new regulations so as to protect investors. And they will stop all stimulus spending and return what remains to the treasury. This is all in the name of being pro-family. The government budget would be brought to pre-stimulus levels and a hard cap would be put in discretionary spending. They would privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Their language on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is murky at best--ensuring them for today's senior and future generations. However, they insist on reviewing them regularly and preventing the expansion of unfunded liabilities. This is a sugar-coated way of incporating some of The Blueprint for the Future language ,which would have privatized Social Security for future generations.

A large part of the Pledge is on repealing the entire Healthcare Reform. Most of what they write about it is false but it sounds so friendly by strengthening your relationship with your doctor. In other words, all the rhetoric used against Healthcare Reform in the Tea Party town meetings last year is here , dressed up in politicalese. But no death panels. I guess they thought that was going too far. They also repeat the myth that 16,500 new IRS auditors will be needed to collect new taxes from the healthcare reform. It also goes on to maintain that Medicare savings but cracking down on fraud is actually a cut in benefits. We have been down this road before. Perhaps, this was written in support of the GOP candidate for Florida Governor, who was forced to pay the largest fine in American history because of Medicare fraud.

The clause for fully funding Missile Defense is because of the threat posed to the United States by Iranian ballistic missiles.

Now one has to give credit to the authors, who have lobbies for AIG, Enron, Pfizer and other coporations, for avoiding direct mention of the tremendous economic benefits corporations will receive from this Pledge. Also, President Obama is right when the GOP is banking on the American people having amnesia how this mess got started. And the GOP bet may be right. Remember all Republicans beginning with Reagan have promised smaller government and all Republican Presidents have vastly expanded Federal Government. George W. Bush went a couple of steps further--expand the executive branch larger than FDR and privatize it also. So you always must keep expanding defense spending for instance because half a trillion dollars goes to private companies. So it's the one solid profit center in the federal government.

As to concerns about the national debt. Ezra Klein at the Washington Post has already laid out the problems with the Pledge. The tax-cuts for the rich already represent another $3.9 trillion in additional debt and repeal of the Healthcare Reform will add several trillion more to the debt. And let's add their Defense increases with the fully funded Missile Defense and tag on another $2 trillion. Any serious attempt at a reduction in the national debt would have to come from virtually gutting the social safety net and all government services. That is why Republicans candidates this year are openly campaigning on privatizing social security, calling it a Ponzi scheme.

As I have explained over several posts, Social Security with its .09% administrative overhead is probably the most successful social benefit program in the world and is in fine shape. But the real game is to get Social Security funds into Wall Street, where the trading fees will add billions more to the trading firms and permanently preclude any return to the government run system.

As I wrote on the Blueprint for America, the GOP ideal of America is for it to be an Aircraft Carrier with no governmental benefits for any of its citizens. Remember when we called the Soviet Union "a Third World Country with nuclear weapons". That's the ideal but with an oligarchic class owning the rest of the country. You, dear citizen and patriot (we always have to throw that it in), will be able to worship your God freely and educate your child that ancient kids played with dinosaurs.

The Pledge quotes the current Governor of Virginia, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Thomas Jefferson (Boy has he been used this year) and JFK. The favorite JFK quote is about the horrible effects of a high tax rate on the country's development. He was commenting on the 91% rate under Ike. The GOP argument, which has been refuted time and time again, is that cutting taxes increases government revenues. There is an objective point where this isn't true, and we past that almost ten years ago.

So with all this pledge to fiscal responsibility, if you tally up the numbers,the Pledge to America guarantees that if fully implemented that the GOP promises you to equal the exact debt of $11 trillion left by George W. Bush. In effect, despite all the trickle-down, small government baloney, the GOP promises you they will double the current national debt with their plan. But they have said it openly and I fear people will buy this stuff. It's so nice to have this new thinking applied in a Depression. And given their pledges, no American except the defense industry, the health insurance business, Wall Street traders will receive a single benefit. But it's only if you teased out what is really said that this becomes evident.

As Ronald Reagan said,"I didn't leave the party, the Party left me". This goes for me with Republicans. I do agree with the Pledge that America is an idea. That's why I voted for Barack Obama to preserve that idea. We came just a hair's breadth from seeing it disappear with the last crowd. Apparently, Republicans didn't learn anything. Andrew Bacevitch wrote that he came to the conclusion midway in the Cold War that America would win. He said it was because the Soviet Union was ideological, America was pragmatic. What we saw in the Bush-Cheney years was pure ideology and it continues with the Tan Man, and Newt's little friend Cantor.

Save the Pledge because I believe it will be the National Platform of the Republicans in 2012.

Parallel to this Pledge, is Rep. Issa's long laundry list of investigations he wants to conduct in the Obama Administration, which are divided into all areas of government policy. Despite pledges to cut Congress' budget, Issa has already planned on hiring several dozen lawyers to conduct these investigations.

As Bernie Sanders said, the Republicans plan to roll back everything positive that the Obama Administration has done.