My take on the GOP Platform

[angrychair]

I know this is a little long but I thought I did a decent job on it. I wrote it on my blog and since I am not sure what the rules are about shameless plugging or linking to your own blog I didn't want to do that but I did want to share it with my friends here at DU:

The first section talks about unemployment and how they would make the situation better. Obama took over an economy that had been hemorrhaging an average of 700,000 jobs a month since 2008. It was 8.3% the month Obama took office and reached 10% eight months later. As of Aug of 2012, the country has had job growth, every month, since Oct of 2010. So, in the Republican platform for job growth, they propose reducing and simplifying the tax code to stimulate private industry to hire people. They also purpose to reduce regulations to stimulate job growth.
Now, here is the flaw in that line of thinking. The Bush tax cuts have current tax rates lower than they were during the Clinton administration. It has been that way for almost 10 years. During this period of lower tax rates, we have lost jobs, not gained them. Many large corporations pay their CEOs more than they pay in taxes. Corporate profits, after taxes, have risen to historically high levels. Looking from Obama back through Bush I, Obama has done a better than average job of tempering regulations and taxes as compared to pass presidents. There is no evidence to support the contention that Obama’s tax and regulatory policies have had any negative impact on our economy. What about the massive Obama spending spree that has left the country trillions of dollars in debt? It just didn’t happen. Remember, Congress controls federal spending, not the President.

The next big piece of their platform is social issues. The very first and therefore the most important social issue for Republicans is “traditional marriage”. Republicans state that when a child is not cared for as part of a married couple family, that child will go on to become a social reject, unemployed, a criminal and an unwed mother. Oh, then they add a single short sentence recognizing the hard work of single parents…apparently single parents of criminals and sluts. More importantly, they don’t mean just any kind of family, these wonderful benefits children experience only come from a marriage of one man and one woman. My favorite line is the one that says “Furthermore, the future of marriage affects freedom”. So since it affects our “freedom” – no specific example of how given— they want to institute it as a Constitutional mandate that the only recognized marriage is between one man and one woman. Their other big point in this section is the repeal of the PPACA, also known as Obamacare, even though the CBO states that repealing it will cost us more money than continuing with its implementation and that it will allow 35-40 million currently uninsured Americans to get insurance.

Lastly, we have the section on “American Exceptionalism” which primarily addresses it in the context of military power and vague and inept foreign policy positions. This section exposes the narrow lens with which the Republican Party views the concept of “Exceptionalism”: that “American Exceptionalism” is derived from the projection of power rather than through the “Exceptionalism” of our ideals.
First, it speaks to the “hallowing” of our armed forces through sequestration (automatic budget cuts triggered due to a failure of a budget to be passed by Congress). The Platform states: “Yet the current President supported sequestration, signed it into law, and has threatened to veto Republican efforts to prevent it”. This statement defies logic. First, it insinuates this was Obama’s idea and that he is trying to prevent the Republicans from doing anything to fix his evil deed.
The President did not create The Budget Control Act. A bill must originate in the House or the Senate and once it is agreed on and passed by both parts of Congress it then goes to the President to sign. Republicans not only voted for it, they insisted on it, as a condition to increase the debt ceiling. For all their posturing and politicking, they own the legislation they have decried within their own Party platform.
These so-called “devastating” cuts amount $30 billion dollars next year, or 4% of the proposed 2012-2013 defense budget and $48 billion in cuts each year for the next 10 years, also estimated to be about 2-4% of cuts from each year’s respective defense budget. A 4% cut is far from “hallow force” as this section is labeled. If Congressional Republicans want to repeal the Budget Control Act than it is within their power to do so, Congress is the branch of government with Constitutional authority over the purse-strings. Me thinks they doth protest too much!
The next low point in this section is the one titled “Nuclear Forces and Missile defense Imperiled” which is absurd at best and clinically disturbed at worst. It talks of how Obama has “…systematically undermined America’s missile defense…” by not going forward with missile defense batteries in Poland and Czech Republic. It later alludes to old Cold War thinking and the heart of their misgivings about missile defense batteries being cancelled; It is also one of the more disturbing assertions of this document, “A strong and effective strategic arsenal is still necessary as a deterrent against competitors like Russia or China” Who the hell is running things in the Republican Party? Is it 1980 again? Russia is not our enemy. The Cold War was put to rest over 20 years ago. Are these idiots trying to pick a fight where one doesn’t exist? As far as China is concerned, the United States is China’s most important trading partner. China’s financial success is dependent on a strong and prosperous America. A conventional or nuclear conflict with the United States is the last thing China would ever want. Such policy positions display a seriously flawed understanding of foreign policy and global economics.
Lastly, let us look at the international treaties that Republicans, as a policy position, disagree with due to some obtuse position that reads “…shall reject agreements whose long-range impact on the American family is ominous or unclear.” These treaties are the following: “…the U.N. Convention on Women’s Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty”. Not sure what is “ominous or unclear” about rights for women, children and people with disabilities or a treaty to control international trading in arms but Republicans, as a Party, have serious policy position issues that have called into question their objectiveness and competency to hold leadership positions in our federal government.

All told, Republicans have enshrined a set of policy positions in its 2012 Republican Platform entitled “We Believe in America”, that confirms for the rest of us their twisted perspective of an America that we don’t actually live in. Their focus on Obama as the root of all of America’s economic problems is sorely misplaced, when, by all impartial evaluation, he has done more good than harm. That the Republican Party is a “family values” Party, as long as you have the right kind of family. The GOP has confirmed that they have entrenched Cold War throw-backs with foreign policy positions that haven’t been relevant since 1990.

These positions will only lead to bitter and unfruitful outcomes and are counter too many of the economic and social advancements we have made over the last 50 years. We are a better nation than this document would want us to believe and very soon we will all get the chance to prove it. Vote.

[Auntie Bush]

1. I'll bookmark and read later. I'm sure it's well thought out with reliable info. Thanks & Welcome