UNCHANGED SINCE COLONIAL DAYS

MANY thanks to Howie Klein for this brilliant piece which appeared Saturday in his outstanding blog Down With Tyranny! (http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/)

Saturday, May 15, 2010
You Say You Want A Revolution? Conservatives Haven't Changed Since Colonial Days
Blanche Lincoln & Samuel Seabury, conservatives with ideas antithetical to American values

When reviewing-- at great length and over the course of several months-- Mike Lux's spectacular book, The Progressive Revolution: How The Best In America Came To Be, we often pointed out how conservatives were inevitably on the wrong side of history, starting with their opposition to the Declaration of Independence, to the American Revolution itself-- and did they ever hate the tea partiers-- and, of course, to the Constitution which granted suffrage to non-landowners and to "common" people. At the time of the American Revolution, almost half a million conservatives remained loyal to the British crown and many fought on the side of the Brits against the founding of a new independent republic. That was about 20% of the population at the time. After the war, over 60,000 white conservatives-- including many of the wealthiest landowners like the DeLancy, DePester Walton and Cruger families of the Hudson Valley and the Penn, Allen, Chew, and Shippen families of Pennsylvania-- left America for Britain or other British territories, like Canada and the Bahamas. Many of the richest southern conservatives took their slaves and fled to the West Indies. In his spectacular book, Conservatism in Early American History, Leonard Woods Larabee identified the traits that predicted anti-American attitudes among conservatives. It's still worth looking at those traits today when examining anti-American attitudes among today's conservatives. Needless to say, the top traits were greed and selfishness, the root motivators among most conservatives down through the ages.

In his book Threshold Thom Hartmann emphasizes that "[d]uring the Revolutionary War, virtually every person of great wealth left the United States... As the Constitution was being framed, one of the biggest issues was the debate over the best ways to keep in check the power of wealth." Unfortunately, corporate shills like Alexander Hamilton (think of him as the representative of Wall Street, a kind of combination of John McCain, Chuck Schumer and Joe Lieberman), Tench Coxe and Samuel Seabury and reactionary southerners-- yep; back then too-- worked hard, and effectively, to thwart that strain of revolutionary thought. Which is why, for example, we wound up with a Senate (modeled on the House of Lords), with slavery, with no voting rights for women and no guarantees of the individual liberties that were later addressed-- also to the hysterical opposition of conservatives-- by the Bill of Rights.

Today this same strain of conservatism completely dominates one political party, the Republicans, and had immense power inside the Democratic party (though the corporately-financed DLC and Blue Dog Caucus). Yesterday Bill Halter debated one of the most conservative-- and, as though it were a corollary, corrupt-- members of the Senate, Blanche Lincoln. He argued for giving the middle class a hand. She advocated for low estate tax rates for the few dozen families in Arkansas-- all her political contributors-- with estates worth over $10,000,000.

Tuesday Arkansas voters will decide between the middle class-oriented Halter and the sleazy corporate shill Lincoln. It should surprise no one that the Democratic Party Establishment, stinking in nearly as much corruption as the Republiucan Party Establishment, backs Lincoln. Wherever there's a contested primary Tuesday, the DCCC, the DSCC and the Democratic insider establishment is backing the more conservative candidate and the one most likely to suck up to Big Money corporate interests. In the U.K. last week, voters gave no party a mandate. The "winners," The Conservatives, walked off with an unimpressive 36% of the vote. 64% of the electorate rejected them. But the Labour Party, like the U.S. Democratic Party, has, in many cases, become too putrid and too beholden to corporate interests to bother with.

Aside from Arkansas, there are a number of crucial races pitting conservatives against non-conservatives. Pennsylvania Democrats will decide between a Republican calling himself a Democrat for convenience sake, Arlen Specter, and an actual Democrat, Joe Sestak. And in Kentucky, Democrats get to choose between Dan Mongiardo, an anti-Choice, anti-gay, anti-healthcare conservative tool, and Attorney General Jack Conway, who, like Halter, stands for solidly middle class values and aspirations. All three races are too close to call, although momentum is clearly against the three conservatives. You know which ones Blue America are backing, right?

EVERY REPUBLICAN MUST GO!

"I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends...that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them." - Adlai E. Stevenson, speaking many decades ago -

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Republicans lied during the 1930s, '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, and '00s, and they are still lying today. Rachel Maddow did a superb job last night of exposing Republican lies and hypocrisy on her MSNBC TV show. She illustrated 21 separate cases where Republicans, when they were in the majority, had passed bills via reconciliation. She pointed out how Republican Senators now decrying the use of reconciliation, notably John McCain, Lamar Alexander, Orrin Hatch, and Charles Grassley, had each supported the action and she outlined their votes. She also cited examples of them being in support of certain provisions of the new health care reform bill until the Pr4esident came out in support of the same provision, at which point these Republicans all took an opposing stance. She showed how Republicans not only lie, but also contradict themselves. They are obsessed with playing politics, not shaping policy beneficial to all of us. They are engaged in obstruction, not good governance. For these reasons, they do not deserve to gain or maintain public office!

Independent voters, this post is directed primarily at you. Over the past few days you got a very good look at what conservative Republicans are like, and why they should not be elected or re-elected to Congress this fall. The fact of the matter is that they do not care about average people who are struggling in the terrible economy that THEY created under the Geoirge W. Bush administration and which still plagues us today. The proof you got just this week was how ultra-conservative Kentucky Republican Senator Jim Bunning single-handedly filibustered and held up a bill which would have extended unemployment benefits to 200,000 people whose unemployment had run out. His action also caused the layoff of 2,000 other federal workers, and it was totally unnecessary and irresponsibly cold-hearted. Millionaire Bunning, like most of his conservative Republican counterparts, obviously understands nothing about how pressed millions of his fellow citizens are at this time, nor, apparently, do they care. Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl even went so far as to suggest those on unemployment are merely sitting on their fat asses collecting checks and enjoying themselves. He is evidently unaware that unemployment amounts to only about half of what a normal paycheck would bring in, or that with loss of job often comes loss of health insurance too. It was a stunningly revealing and typically cold-hearted remark from conservative Republicans who care nothing about about average people just like YOU! Independents: if you are rightfully upset with the state of this country today, don't be fooled by the continual barrage of conservative Republican lies. Don't blame the progressives and Democrats for the slow rate of economic recovery - they've been sabotaged and obstructed by corporatist, conservative Republicans from the very start. THEY didn't ruin this economy; corporatist, conservative Republicans did. THEY have been working since January 20, 2009 to create jobs and extend unemployment benefits to those whose jobs have been lost; conservative Republicans have opposed them and stonewalled every step of the way. THEY have pushed for universal medical coverage and regulations on greedy insurance companies; conservative Republicans have fought them on this, too, and told wild lies designed to protect the insurance companies and defeat health care reform since day one.

So do not make the horrible mistake this fall of electing more of these lying, obstructionist Republicans to Congress. These Republicans are uncompromising and are not looking out for your best interests at all. If they were, they wouldn't vote as a bloc against health care coverage for all. They wouldn't vote as a bloc against plans which put people to work. And remember: it's not just their leaders stonewalling and voting against your needs as they do: it's ALL of them. So, come November, remember this and know beyond any doubt that EVERY REPUBLICAN MUST GO! Remember most of all: Every single obstructionist








conservative Republican you elect to office gets a salary of $174,000 that YOU are paying for! All the more reason not to elect or re-elect any Republicans this fall! EVERY REPUBLICAN MUST GO!

SEND CONGRESS YOUR INVOICE TODAY!

As I watched last Wednesday's State of the Union address by President Obama, I was struck by the body language of the Republican congressional delegation. It is said that actions speak louder than words, and the actions of these conservative Republicans, though they were perfectly silent, roared louder than an auditorium full of shouting, fanatical Tea Party members.

There sat stuffy Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, looking bored and completely out of it. I also saw a stern-faced Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, a sullen-looking Senator John McCain of Arizona, and a pensive Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia. All appeared restless and unhappy to be there. They remained silently and listlessly seated whenever Democrats rose to cheer and applaud the President's words, and most of these Republicans applauded only once, and then very timidly, tepidly, and briefly when tax cuts for small business were mentioned. And these same Republicans - all of whom opposed even the President's Economic Stimulus Plan of early last year, which provided work for some of our unemployed and prevented our sinking into another Great Depression - sat as lifeless as wax figures from Madame Tussaud's when the President mentioned taxing the biggest Wall Street banks which caused the downturn to begin with. When the President suggested taking that money to give to smaller commercial banks for purposes of lending to small businesseses for further job creation, there were only cold, emotionless stares from the Republicans. But the behavior and facial expression which summed up the current conservative Republican attitude best was that of Representative John Boehner of Ohio. His steady, sneering, and hateful glare toward the President spoke volumes.

These Republicans behave like rotten, spoiled little children who haven't gotten their way and will not cooperate with anyone in the least as a result.

It has become obvious that they are united in a policy of total opposition to everything - ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING - this President or his party proposes. They are convinced that stalling his agenda, and making both he and the entire federal government ineffectual, will cause his defeat in 2012 and will result in their regaining total control of the White House and Congress, just like they had under the first six years of George W. Bush's regime. That's all they care about. Achieving political advantage and regaining total control.

The Republicans don't care about the unemployed. They don't care about ever-rising health insurance and pharmaceutical costs, or that 1 in every 6.5 citizens has no health care coverage. They don't care about the poor. They don't care about the struggles of the shrinking middle class; that the rich are getting richer and are leaving everyone else far behind. They don't care that the tax system they put into place has the middle class subsidizing both the poor AND the rich. All the Republicans care about is their return to total power. What a thoroughly disgusting, myopic, and self-centered party.

It got me to thinking: these congressional conservative Republicans are wasting our time AND money. We pay each of our Representatives and Senators a hefty $174,000 per year, plus they have the best health care and retirement benefits in the entire world! But are we getting our money's worth from these Republicans? Have YOU ever been paid $174,000 per year for doing nothing but sitting, pouting, complaining, and producing nothing of value for YOUR institution? I didn't think so. Why should THEY enjoy such cushy treatment?

Consider this: Republicans never submitted a real economic stimulus plan of their own. They never submitted a health care reform package of their own. They never submitted an infrastructure-renewal plan of their own, either. What are they good for, anyway? All they keep repeating, like a mantra, is "lower corporate taxes, keep the Bush tax cuts [for the wealthy] in place, and regulate business less. "But those are the policies which caused our terrible recession! Face it, folks: the Republicans have nothing to offer this country, and they, the supposed fiscally-responsible party, are WASTING OUR TIME AND MONEY!


I think it is time that WE, their EMPLOYERS, start holding congressional Republicans and blue-dog Democrats accountable. I propose that each and every one of us taxpayers INVOICE UNPRODUCTIVE AND OBSTRUCTIONIST CONGRESSPERSONS! That's right: send your least-liked Representative and/or Senator a BILL for the money of yours they have wasted! Hit them with an "OBSTRUCTION FEE" if applicable; a "SPECIAL INTEREST FEE" for voting for the best interests of lobbyists or concentrated capital instead of voting for YOUR best interests; a "MISINFORMATION FEE" for lying to the media, and for lying about and distorting the positions or bills sponsored by progressives; a "BROKEN PROMISES FEE" for lying to the voters, saying they'll vote one way and then actually doing the opposite; and a "GRANDSTANDING FEE" for making dramatic and exaggerated statements like "death panels" or "throwing grandma under the bus" for the sole purpose of getting media attention and photo opportunities. JUST MAKE CERTAIN THE INVOICE'S TOTAL IS EXACTLY $174,000 TO MATCH THEIR SALARY, AND BE SURE TO NOTE THAT THEY SHOULD MAKE THEIR CHECK PAYABLE TO YOU, THE TAXPAYER WHOSE MONEY THEY HAVE WASTED!

I'm serious about this, folks: invoice templates can be downloaded for free. I encourage all of you to send a bill to every waste-of-time-and-money Congressperson who needs one. Doing so will definitely get their attention; at the very least, you'll feel a lot better after you've sent it.

SEND CONGRESS YOUR INVOICE TODAY!

THE 100,000 FOOT VIEW ON HEALTH CARE (Part II)

"Everyone should have health insurance? I say everyone should have health CARE...I'm not selling insurance!"
- U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D, OH) -

"The truth is that the notion of beneficial competition in the insurance industry is all wrong in the first place. Insurers mainly compete by engaging in 'risk reduction' - that is, the most successful companies are those that do the best job of denying coverage to those who need it most."
- Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman -


Fabulous blog posts on the subject of national health care continue. Burr Deming's masterful "Fair and Unbalanced" site (http://www.fairandunbalanced.com/) featured a June 25 post called "Bully For Health Care" which gave us a clever parable exposing the hypocritical folly of the Insurance Corporations and their stooges, the Congressional Republicans, clearly showing in parable form how those two allies fear real competition in health care. Mycue23, in his June 24 post "The $60 Billion Solution" at his always thoughtful and impassioned "Random Thoughts" blog, (http://hamsandwich66@blogspot.com/) dissected and destroyed the major Republican arguments against a Public Option. And KeninNY over at "Down With Tyranny!" (http://www.downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/) featured a number of outstanding pieces over the past week attacking the anti-Public Option position. A visit to the abovementioned sites would be well worth the trip, and there are many others. Today, I offer my own humble two-cents-worth; part II of my 100,000 foot view on health care, and a proposed solution for the problem of our increasingly expensive and ever more exclusive private health "care" system.

Congressional Republicans, and most of their Corporate Insurance puppetmasters, want no part of government involvement in health care. They don't care that Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA are government-run systems which seem to be providing care for their respective recipients reasonably well and reasonably efficiently, and are all government-administered. They believe the private insurance industry is doing just fine at covering medical costs for the American people, and should have no non-private competition at all. Senator John McCain (R, AZ) has stated that if taxpayers were given a (woefully) little extra money in tax credits, they could start "Health Savings Accounts" for the purchase of private health insurance. He hypothesizes that insurance companies would scramble to compete for the great influx of insurance business these accounts would create, and that would lower health care costs. I say that is complete nonsense. For one thing, insurance companies are out for one thing, and one thing only: PROFIT, and as much of that as they can possibly get their greedy little hands on. They don't care in the least about the quality of health care, or who receives coverage and who doesn't. They just want MONEY---INCOME---at as least an expense as they can get it. To achieve that goal, they stop at nothing to exclude those whom they believe would pose too great a financial risk to cover, and even discontinue covering those on their rolls if that proves monetarily advantageous. For the insurance industry can and does employ a nasty little tactic called RECISSION. Just this week, I learned of the case of a woman being booted off her insurance policy immediately after a double mastectomy and before her prolonged chemotherapy sessions were to begin. Why? Because of a mere technicality the insurance company used against her. It seems the poor woman had once been treated for a completely unrelated condition, plantar's warts, and had forgotten to include this information when she signed up for the policy. They cut off support for her expensive chemo treatments on the preposterous grounds that she had withheld information on a preexisting condition! Outrageous, to be sure, but it can and does happen to people constantly, and it illustrates perfectly the cut-throat, uncaring, and greedy nature of that overly profit conscious industry. If you are a diabetic, or have had cancer or a heart attack, you may as well forget about getting health insurance on your own. It simply won't happen; you are considered too great a risk, even though you need good health care even more than a similar individual without your history. The ONLY way you will become insured is to become grandfathered in through a work or spouse's insurance plan. These examples prove Paul Krugman's quote at the top of the page. Another flaw in the McCain position is that, under his idea, health care would not by any means be universal. Insurance companies would still be able to cherry-pick whom they would cover, just as they do today. There would be no outside pressure to keep costs down as well. So McCain's plan, as well as those of other Congressional Republicans, is a lot of malarkey which wouldn't change a thing. Yet they press on, irrationally, with their opposition to a Public Option. Senator Charles Grassley (R, IA), even went so far this week as to say that any Congressional proposal for a Public Option would be a deal-breaker. I say McCain, Grassley, and all other Republicans and Democrats who take up this anti-Public Option, pro-private insurance status quo position should resign their seats at once and get off the public payroll permanently! For their advocacy is clearly not for the well being of the American people they are being paid to represent and look after, but rather for the protection of profit for an already overabundantly profitable industry which enriches a scant few to the detriment of a great many.

Conservatives (especially Republicans) are also trying to scare us away from a Public Option with exaggerated or even untrue horror stories of inefficiencies of public health care, long delays in receiving treatment, inability to chose your own doctor, etc., etc., etc. They threw all these terror tales out before to defeat the 1994 Clinton plan, and they are as false now as they were then. A liberal friend of mine forwarded me a May 25 conservative National Review piece this past week. It was a scare story written by John C. Goodman a fierce opponent of public health care and founder, president, and CEO of the conservative Dallas-based think tank National Center for Policy Analysis. Mr. Goodman has been named by the Wall Street Journal and other such pro-free market publications as "the father of health savings plans." It is easy to see which side of the bread slice he puts his butter on. His contention was that public plans in other countries are poor systems which have long, potentially deadly, delays in treatment. Another related report told the scare story of a 17 week delay for surgeries under the Canadian system. As I have stated in my prior post, my Canadian acquaintances have all told me that treatment delays are the exceptions rather than the rule, and that nearly all delays come in the areas of cosmetic, elective, or non-life-threatening procedures. As these people have actually experienced treatment under their Canadian system, I place far more credence in their testimony than I do in an article written by an anti-government involvement, pro-free market partisan with a pro-business agenda. Aside from those allegations, preventing unnecesary bureaucratic delays can and should be a cornerstore for ANY American Public Option plan. Delays do NOT have to be an automatic feature of such a system, provided that system is set up and administered properly! After all, common "wisdom" once held that the Italian train system would always run late, and that Mussolini would never get them to run on time. Yet he did. We, too, can defy the detractors with a properly administered government health care plan. YES WE CAN, YES WE MUST, and YES WE WILL!!!

The time has come for we in the United States to cut to the chase on this nagging problem of health care. Taking the 100,000 foot view, we are beset by problems of unequal coverage and ever-rising expense. Health care, just like water and electricity, is something everyone alive needs and uses. It is a commodity in that regard. It is required for life and must be considered a basic human right, not a privilege that only a select number can afford or will be allowed to have. Therefore, I propose that HEALTH CARE BE DECLARED A PUBLIC UTILITY, WITH PRIVATE INVOLVEMENT AND OPERATION, AND EVEN PROFIT, BUT BE PLACED UNDER A STRICT, YET NEGOTIABLE, FORM OF GOVERNMENT REGULATION. As with electric or water utilities, the control of and administration of this health care utility could be done at a district, state, or regional level, with rates and policies set by a regulatory board to whom private and public clinics, hospitals, and administrators could petition and have input with on a regular basis. There you go, conservatives and Republicans: no total ownership by the government; private participation and profit, but this time by actual providers of real health care to all the population, not just by an unnecessary, cumbersome, and expensive group of greedy middlemen known as insurance companies. Gone forever would be excessively high executive salaries of piggish insurance company boards, exclusionary and recission policies, and ever-demanding hordes of stockholders constantly pressing for ever-higher profit.

Utilities come into being, of course, because the people or government feel that, left to its own devices, an entity may act contrary to the public good. If we ever saw a case of such an entity, it would surely be providers of health insurance!

Health care utilities could be funded by a combination of income taxes and/or member/user fees as well as through direct federal back-up subsidy. Existing holders of health insurance company stock could be given health care vouchers equal to the value of their stock at the time the utility came into being, and would receive virtually free health care until the value of those vouchers was used up. In cases of death, the vouchers could be willed to relatives or significant others. Such a system would eventually provide universal and equal coverage. Nobody complains much about the electricity or water they receive from a utility rather than from a greedy, profiteering, self-interested private entity, and those engaged in providing the product or service are able to prosper, albeit not in the overblown manner health insurance companies do today. The public's health needs would be met in a universal and responsible manner. There is truly benefit in this plan for everybody. I believe it is an idea worth serious consideration!

Keep in mind, this is the 100,000 foot view on a health care solution. As we get closer to the actual ground-level of everyday individual life, a huge number of details would need to be addressed and worked out. Yet this is an important starting point for a departure that MUST be made; a departure from the existing unbalanced and unfair mess we have which is draining business and consumer alike dry, for the benefit of a relatively tiny few. For the health "care" system we currently employ enriches a very scant number, at the detriment of a great many. That system must come to an end.

If you like this idea of Health Care Utilities, write your Governor, Representative, and Senators about it. If you have a better idea to provide health care universally and reduce costs, by all means submit it to them! But DO let your government officials know that, in no uncertain terms, you will no longer stand for this unfair, costly, exclusionary private system we currently have! Let them know you want ACTION and CHANGE, and do so TODAY! And again TOMORROW! And again NEXT WEEK, and REPEATEDLY, until affordable health care truly becomes an unquestioned and automatic right and reality for us ALL!

A FAILED, BANKRUPT, AND DANGEROUS PHILOSOPHY

"The expenses of government, having for their object the interest of all, should be borne by everyone, and the more a man enjoys the advantages of society, the more he ought to hold himself honored in contributing to those expenses."
- Anne Robert Jacques Turgot -

"I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. -

"Taxes, after all, are dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt -

"The payment of taxes gives a right to protection."
- James M. Wayne

It seems that almost everyone dreads paying taxes. As each April 15 nears, blood pressures rise, sweat starts to flow, the sound of grumbling can be heard, and people all across the country pray for a refund or that they won't have to send money into the government. Conservative Republicans love to capitalize on this to selfishly advance their own anti-government, anti-tax agenda. It's pathetic how these people always want to appeal to the public's baser instincts just so they can gain, maintain, or regain power. Republicans love to manipulate people into thinking only of themselves rather than for the benefit of everyone as a whole.

Don't get me wrong: I am not an advocate of high taxation or resorting to taxation as a means to force economic equality across the board. But, like the wise and thoughtful persons quoted above, I understand the necessity of both government AND taxes. As evidenced by their behavior over most of the past 30 years, "the conservative era," it is obvious that most Republicans do not.

As shown throughout the Reagan years, and again through the disastrous George W. Bush era, and even in the current economic stimulus discussions, Republicans seem to think that the only way to create economic growth is by cutting taxes on big business and wealthy individuals. The thought is that these entities will then take that freed capital and invest in new business to produce new jobs and higher wages for their workers. But we have already seen what a fallacy that belief is. Giant oil corporations have been recipients of huge subsidies and tax breaks for years, and they have failed to build even one new domestic refinery in more than 30 years. Giant corporations and wealthy individuals have NOT taken their huge tax breaks and invested in new industry or raised wages here, even though worker productivity has risen steadily over the past decade. Instead, these capital-rich groups have exported jobs and invested in plants outside of our borders. The net effect, of course, has been to vastly increase their wealth and holdings while decreasing those of working America. We have also seen the devastation caused by Republican-led deregulation and smaller government efforts. Our mortgage and banking industries have all but collapsed, energy speculators have raped us, and our products are growing increasingly unsafe and our environment is getting increasingly more polluted. This is not good; it is bad. This is not progress; it is regression. This is not right: it is morally and operationally wrong.

Those who complain loudest about taxes usually fall in the upper income brackets. Most of them are Republicans. Paradoxically, some of them pay NO taxes, having managed to loophole themselves out of taxation altogether. Many others cheat whenever and wherever possible. Yet they do not hesitate to avail themselves of tax-supported highways, police, fire, or defense for their own benefit or security, or demand the most of these. The rest pay a higher percentage of their income than do those in much lower income groups. However, when all the dust has settled, they still have a much higher amount of money left over for investment, creature comforts, luxuries, or just fun than do the poor or middle class, who now end up unable to afford even basic necessities, let alone make inestments, or purchase luxuries or have fun money. In fact, many of the latter groups have now even lost their homes or cannot even afford medicine or health insurance.

We constantly hear John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham, John Boehner, Jeff Sessions, Jim DeMint, Mike Pence, John Cornyn, and all the rest of those congressional Republicans pushing for even more tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. But these Republicans are completely out of touch with the current pain and struggle of the great majority of the country, the people who DO pay taxes and have little if any money left over afterward in comparison. These Republicans have refused to support a stimulus plan that will put more money in the hands of the poor and middle class. They have chosen to be uncooperative and obstructionist. They prefer to stand resolute, pouting and shouting in support of an abstract principle of smaller government or less taxation, rather than to act on behalf of what their constituents really desperately need. As such, since they are not really representing the best interests of the majority of their constituents, they should be thrown out of office next time they are up for election. We have abundant proof that their belief in deregulation and "trickle down economics" is incorrect and actually harmful to the country, save for all but a few piggish filthy rich. These Republicans, and all who follow them, should be removed from the public payroll since what they advocate is a failed, bankrupt, and dangerous philosophy.