Look Back, Rewind, Reverse, and Otherwise Refuse to Change Direction
by Errington C. Thompson, MD
You’d be excused if you thought this was 2010 or 2011 or even 2012.
One party is simply replaying its greatest hits. It doesn’t seem to matter whether those hits brought them any political gain or not. As you remember, Lois Lerner is the former IRS official at the center of the Republican-led IRS investigation.
Congressional Contempt
Remember, according to the “investigation,” the IRS was targeting tea party groups. This initially caused outrage, but soon, with a little investigative reporting, it became clear the IRS had paid special attention not just to tea party groups but also to liberal groups with words like “progressive” in their title—groups on both sides that were applying for tax-exempt status.
The IRS was actually following the law, since political groups shouldn’t be given tax-exempt status; but such a minor little fact, or law, didn’t stop the outrage from the Right. Now, a year later, the House has voted to hold Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress for pleading the Fifth Amendment (protection against self-incrimination).
Let’s remember that no court in the history of the United States has upheld a contempt of Congress citation when someone employs their constitutional right not to incriminate themselves. Yet the Republicans just voted contempt. Why? They “believe” that Lois Lerner is holding the key to a White House-backed conspiracy that helped President Obama win—or “steal”—a second term.
Benghazi
Yes, Benghazi. Republicans are dredging up Benghazi once again. John Boehner just appointed a special select committee to be made up of seven Republicans and five Democrats to investigate Benghazi, again. (Democrats, however, might not appoint anyone to their five seats.)
Now, it is important for me to say that Benghazi was a tragedy in which four Americans died, including Ambassador Stevens. We’ve had seven investigations into the Benghazi tragedy. It is clear we did not have adequate security, and equally clear that the Secretary of State had asked for additional funds to improve security at diplomatic missions—funding the Republican House refused to provide. Nevertheless, once the fighting started, we did not have adequate military assets in the area to intervene. These are facts.
It is also been discovered that the talking points provided to Ambassador Susan Rice before she went on the Sunday morning talk shows were changed. Not by the White House: there’s no evidence that the White House was involved. They were changed by the intelligence community that provided them—in part for political reasons, and in part to place in context the uprisings, unrest, and al Qaeda activity throughout North Africa and the Middle East.
All this information is already known, which leads one to wonder why Republicans want to open yet another investigation. After all, the last time they “investigated” Benghazi, the same Republicans ended up with egg on their collective face, when they ballyhooed a book by an “eyewitness” security agent who turned out not to be an agent and not to have been an eyewitness. As their old hero Ronald Reagan would have said, “There they go again.”
Tax Cuts, Too
Just for the sake of completeness, I should point out that congressional Republicans are, once again, trying to push through a $310 billion tax cut. Like the last budget and the budget before that, none of these tax cuts are paid for. Furthermore, the chance of any these tax cuts getting through the Senate are somewhere between slim and none.
There is more and more evidence that giving tax cuts to the rich just makes the rich richer. As for all the beneficial effects that conservatives tout—and have touted for 34 years—not one of them has ever appeared. None.
What’s the Matter with Kansas?
We were told that tax cuts would trickle down. They didn’t. The bottom 50% of working Americans from 2002-2007 saw stagnant wages. Employment grew at 0.9% annually, the worst, lowest rate of expansion since War World II. Kansas, a deeply red state, drank the tax cut Kool-Aid and are now paying the price.
With a Republican governor and complete control of the legislature, Kansas handed out the biggest tax cut in the history of the state. Once again there were promises of increased revenues that would flow back to the rich, who would of course inject that money back into the economy through investments, which would generate more economic activity and increase the tax revenue for the state.
Well, the pipe dream ran into reality once again. State revenue is down 45% from last year. According to Kansas’s nonpartisan Legislative Research Department, Kansas will lose $803 million in revenue this year. Moody’s has downgraded the state’s bonds.
Reality Bites Back
When are conservatives going to wake up and understand that tax cuts aren’t the answer to every problem? Not very soon, apparently; next-door Missouri’s legislature just overrode the Democratic governor’s veto of almost identical tax-cut legislation, despite ample evidence that Kansas’s economy is in worse shape than every other state surrounding it: Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Colorado, as well as the rest of the region.
It’s past time for Congress to give up their ideological idiocy and begin fighting for the average American worker. These Americans are not the superrich. They are the working poor and the middle class. They are the single parents, and families surviving only because of SNAP funds and Medicaid (if they’re lucky enough to live in non-Republican states). They are the college graduates with degrees and debts, but no jobs. They are laid-off baby-boomers who can’t find work at age 55 or 60, but who are still too young for Social Security and Medicare. They are our neighbors, families, and friends—what the founding fathers called “We, the People.”
These are the Americans that we need to help. These Americans are eager for opportunities, for jobs, for a raise. America—these Americans—need a return not to the phony investigations of yesterday, but to the prosperity of yesteryear.
