It always seems like the Tea Party-Republicans are banking on our inability to pay attention and our ability to forget. Less than a year ago we had a mid-term election inwhich they promised to bring changes to local, state and federal government. They promised to cut government spending, reduce the size of government, lower taxes, create jobs, and make government more responsible and accountable to the American people. They told us that keeping the Bush tax cuts in place, reducing the size of entitlements, and implementing lucrative tax breaks for corporations would reduce unemployment and put the United States on the path to economic recovery. And we allowed them to put these policies into law (in large measure because 90 percent of us were coerced, confused, or both.) As a matter of fact, we allowed them to implement these policies and more: Obliterating collective bargaining for public workers, destroying public and private unions, salary cuts and lay-offs of public employees, corporate protection from personal law suits, and cuts in funding for education are some of the policies the Tea Party-Republicans were allowed to make into law. Yet, here we are today, after they received everything they requested. And we are being told that the dismal state of our nation’s economy, which their policies designed, is the fault of someone else.
Are you surprise? I am not! In my judgment, this is simply the latest repeat performance of an unfortunate recurring drama: Once again I am reading Peanuts (the comic strip). Once again Lucy told Charlie Brown to run and kick the football. Once again Charlie Brown reluctantly follows her instructions. And once again Lucy lures him into this trick which leaves him flat on his butt.
The Tea Party-Republican presidential candidates are now the characters in the comic strip. They are holding the football, and they are asking us to trust them ― once again!
“Run and kick the football, America! We will not move it,” they’re telling us.
It would really be nice if this time we remember that although they are holding the football, they are doing so on our court. Let give someone else a chance to hold the football. Twelve years of trusting the Tea Party-Republicans to do the right thing, only to be disappointed every time, is enough. Heck! It’s too much!
By
James A. Porter
