Credit where Credit is Due

You have to give republican presidential candidates credit for one thing. They are persistent. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, every republican candidate for the presidential nomination has proposed more tax cuts. One must wonder if any of the candidates ever read the financial pages. It is obvious that they do not follow opinion polls since all of their tax cuts favor additional tax cuts for the top 2%. Virtually every opinion poll has shown that over 60% of Americans feel that the top 2% does not pay a fair share of taxes at present. One might surmise that the need to encourage votes would result in a candidate, at least one candidate heeding the suggestions of the majority. There must be something in the water on the campaign trail that results in each and every prospective nominee pushing this issue. Yet, while they all have specific tax cut plans, none of the candidates have come close to defining how they might solve the problem of lost revenue that will result from their proposed cuts. I suppose some of them still believe that tax cuts will result in revenue growth (and some apparently still believe Saddam still posses WMDs)in spite of ten years of contradictory evidence. Moving on, they all are jumping on the social issue bandwagon. It appears the regular republican litmus test is abortion, gay marriage, same sex relationships, and all of those horrible things that, in their bigoted minds, are “destroying” the country. While these issues have failed to produce electoral results, the clown car crew continue to bring it up again. Finally, they persist in claiming government does not work. Government is broken, they claim. America is on the wrong track is their universal claim. Historically they may be correct to some extent. When republicans govern, government does not work very well. Katrina is a good example of the way government by republicans can fail to work. The Iraq war, which in the words of republicans justifying this venture, was to last only four to six weeks, but ten years later, after the troops have been finally removed from Iraq, there are candidates who, if elected, would deploy American soldiers to Iraq again. That is as good an example of broken governing one might want. Finally, there’s that wrong track. Only a republican could term a track that has resulted more homeless, more child hunger, more poverty, and stagnant income for 98% of Americans to be the right track. As long as the top 2% of Americans continue to enjoy massive increases in wealth as well as massive income disparity that will be the track chosen by republican candidates for president. If the voters are dumb enough to vote for them, the voters deserve the results of their ignorance. Persistence in the face of failure is not very credible. Wishing for different results from failed policies of the past will make the results any different.