Starting a brawl in the stands
Republicans are threatening to defund the government and significantly damage the economy if Democrats do not capitulate to their demands to delay the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for a year. They demand this, they say, because the program is a “train wreck” that has numerous start-up glitches and will harm the American people. They want to entirely abolish the program, but they will settle of a one-year delay (to be followed yearly with repeated one-year delays). The ACA is so horrendous, they claim, it must be killed using extortion over government funding and raising the debt ceiling.
Let’s contrast the ACA with the Iraq War “roll out.” The Bush administration said the Iraqis had Weapons of Mass Destruction. They did not. They said we would be greeted as liberators. We were not. They said we could pay for the entire deployment with Iraqi oil receipts. We could not. Further, the Iraq War was killing thousands of American troops, wounding tens of thousands, and costing several trillion dollars. How was that for a “train wreck” of a roll out?
How many times did the Democrats threaten to shut down the government or default on American’s debts to stop the war? The answer is zero. Bush had won the 2004 election running on continuing the war and that was that. Democrats railed against the war, voted against it, but never stooped to extortion to get their way.
The Tea Party faction of the Republican Party is a blight on American and will cause significant harm to us all. They can do this because they have the backing of self-centered, self-righteous, self-serving constituents who should know better, but apparently do not.
If any minority can use political extortion to get its way, every Continuing Resolution to fund the government, and every vote to raise the debt ceiling for bills we have already incurred, will result in an actual economic train wreck, or perpetual government by extortion.
After every sports contest we insist both sides line up and shake hands because that is who we are as a people. The Tea Party instead demands they be allowed to invalidate the results because they don’t like them, and to start a political brawl in the stands to protest what they could not win on the field. That is who they are.
Jay Lacklen
Columbus
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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