Only widespread reform will change the game
Do the libertarians running our Congress really believe they have a mandate? They have passed Paul Ryan’s budget repeatedly. They are now using the sequester fiasco to drastically cut our most basic social programs and our safety nets.
Well, yes, they have a mandate, but it is not from the great majority of the American public. They take their orders from someone else. Who owns Congress? Who dictates members’ votes? Why do Republicans continue to sabotage our recovery and undermine our cherished social programs?
Thanks to the Roberts Supreme Court, large corporations and the super rich have been given the right to use their money to buy politicians and write legislation that allows banking and Wall Street to play the games they love to play. These games inevitably lead to recessions, but that is the price we must pay when we allow banks, Wall Street and libertarian tea partiers to establish the rules of the game.
Republicans were sure the attack-ad strategy, used successfully in 2010, would lead to another landslide in 2012. They had been undercutting President Obama for four years. But the stimulus, although blunted, was slowly creating more jobs. Moreover, most voters were finally seeing through the blatant obstructionism. Obama won handily, but the public’s wish to “throw the bums out of Congress” failed. The Republicans still wound up with a 33-seat majority in the House. Ryan could still claim to have a mandate.
http://www.roanoke.com/opinion/commentary/2016642-12/only-widespread-reform-will-change-the-game.html
