Take Republicans at Their Word

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What Are You (We) Going to Do About It? 

It’s Very Simple. 

Take Republicans at Their Word.

by Denis Smith

“What Are You Going to Do About It”? – Thomas Nast, Harper’s Weekly, 1871

According to some recent polling, Americans, concerned about rising energy and consumer prices, are expected to give control to Republicans for at least one house of Congress, most likely the House of Representatives. Yet other polls show that the Democrats are on the rebound, with many House and Senate races still too close to call.

How appolling is this? Pun.

Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post framed the ambiguous forecasting this way:

Will an issue such as abortion motivate voters who usually skip midterms, turbocharging Democratic turnout? Will unease about the economy tip the scales toward change, boosting the GOP across the board?

The fact that we don’t know is unnerving...

But while the result of the midterms might be in doubt, all of us should have no doubt about what will happen if Republicans regain control of one or both houses of Congress.

In their own words, Republicans have told us what to expect if they are victorious on November 8. We should have learned to trust them by now in looking at what they’ve said as a predictor of what they will do. Some examples:

Social Security and Medicare. The two most popular government programs may be subject to attempts to sunset them as a way to wreak havoc on the debt ceiling. How ironic that the mastermind of the sunset plan is Florida Senator Rick Scott, who famously took the Fifth Amendment 75 times in a case involving the biggest Medicare fraud in American history that occurred during his tenure as CEO at healthcare giant Columbia/HCA.

Tax Cuts for Corporations. The GOP has promised to make permanent corporate tax levels enacted five years earlier in the first months of the Trump administration, reverting to their modus operandi of starving other programs to pay for such largesse. But to be a Republican means that you are a walking contradiction, driven to revert to past bad behavior by favoring corporations and high-income taxpayers at the expense of everyone else, including seniors. The Post’s Jeff Stein painted this picture of what to expect in a Republican victory.

Many economists say the GOP’s plans to expand the tax cuts flies against their promises to fight inflation and reduce the federal deficit, which have emerged as central themes of their 2022 midterm campaign rhetoric.

Defund the IRS. Republicans plan to curtail plans for increased spending at the IRS to replace 1970s systems and increase customer service levels to avoid future backlogs on processing tax returns. Some of the new funding would go toward hiring additional auditors to “crack down on high-income and corporate tax evaders who cost the American people hundreds of billions of dollars each year.”

At least 50,000 IRS staff are expected to retire soon, but the GOP has spread wild claims that staffing levels will increase by 87,000 when in fact the funding will be needed to replace retiring staff, invest in new technology, and add more robust auditing for tax cheats, both individual and corporate.

Defund Ukraine. From the looks of it, the defense of democracy may be waning in the Republican congressional caucus. In the last month, House Leader Kevin McCarty has warned about not giving a “blank check” in the future for more aid to Ukraine, as have other Republicans who want more money to build a wall on the southern border. Never mind that any pullback from support for Ukraine will seriously undermine NATO, something that Donald Trump wanted to do all along by his desire back in 2018 to withdraw American membership from the North Atlantic Alliance. “These guys don’t get it. It’s a lot bigger than Ukraine – it’s Eastern Europe. It’s NATO. It’s real, serious, serious consequential outcomes,” said Joe Biden about GOP plans to cut support for Ukraine.

Help Big Pharma. At Your Expense. In the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act, you will be shocked, shocked to learn that Republicans want to help pharmaceutical companies at the expense of consumers. The Ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee has vowed to roll back caps on drug costs allowed in the IRA “because those drug provisions are so dangerous, by discouraging investment in life-saving cures.” The legislation allows Medicare to negotiate its costs for the most expensive drugs and cap out-of-pocket costs for seniors at $2,000 per year.

Investigations Ad Nauseum. Remember Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi? In an interview on Fox News a full year before the 2016 presidential election, House Leader Kevin McCarthy opined that “... everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi Special Committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”

You can bet your bottom dollar that if Republicans take control of Congress, we won’t have to wait long to discover probes into the Departments of Justice for alleged prosecutorial activism, Homeland Security for border issues, and for the current president for having the same surname as Hunter Biden. You can also bet that all active congressional probes related to the January 6 insurrection will be stopped as quickly as you can say stop the steal, with the effect of absolving possible criminal behavior on the part of some members of Congress and White House staff who may have aided and abetted the aborted coup in some fashion.

And we also need to be reminded that if the Republicans take control of the House of Representatives, the likely new chairman of the Judiciary Committee will be Jim Jordan, the less than urbane resident of Urbana who helped to give us Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi a decade ago. His clownish antics back then may prove to be his dress rehearsal for wielding a gavel to create more chaos and circus-like behavior in what was in another era referred to as the people’s house. 

In order to drive home the strong probability of chaos in the new Congress, consider Jordan’s new 1,000 page report, where he alleges that both the FBI and the Justice Department have been politicized. Hmm, he must have never heard of William Barr. At any rate, the “report” is filled with air, containing hundreds of pages of letters, signature pages, and only 46 pages of narrative. As is typical with Jordan, there is nothing but hot air and bluster as he wrestles in incessant witch hunts.

And last but not least:

Impeachment. Revenge. Payback. Impeachment will be on the table if the Republicans win in November. Ask Ted Cruz. Ask Marjorie Taylor Greene. For that matter, just ask the lunatic fringe that is now in control of the Republican Party. And the reason for a new impeachment? No, not for a president pressuring the Ukrainian leader to help him with collecting dirt on a political opponent, not for violation of the Emolument Clause in charging the Secret Service more than $1,600 per night for lodging in his properties, and certainly not for being central to a conspiracy for overthrowing a democratic (small d) election that led to the January 6 coup attempt at the nation’s Capitol. And the charges? Details. Details. They’ll fabricate something later because after all, the subject is revenge. Payback. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” Ted Cruz said in September.

For once, Lyin’ Ted, as Trump christened him, was being straightforward.

So if you know all of this now, what are you going to do about it? In 1871, the great cartoonist Thomas Nast posed that same question.

When it comes to the Republicans’ upcoming agenda, we should believe Ted Cruz. And Kevin McCarthy. And all the rest of an anti-democracy, anti-government, election denying lunatic cult that once was identified as a responsible, conservative political party.

But perhaps the scariest part is that what has been detailed here merely represents the short list of Republican objectives in January if they win. After all, that’s what the GOP (Great Obstructionist Party), with no plan for providing principled governance yet having a detailed plan for obstruction and mayhem, is all about.

Yes, that is the GIP.

No, that’s not a typo. The GOP is also becoming known as the GIP, the Great Insurrectionist Party. When you threaten to cut Medicare and Social Security and take funds from Ukraine, a democratic country fighting for its life against an authoritarian onslaught, the result is that we’ve been GIPped.

And never forget that the leader of the rape of Ukraine is a former KGB agent who was defended by Donald Trump in 2018 at a meeting in Helsinki against allegations by 17 American intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. "No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant", the late Senator John McCain said at the time about Trump’s performance in defending a brutal dictator who murders journalists and jails those who dare to object to his tyranny.

In the end, if you now know about this agenda that the GOP is expected to unleash but you go ahead and vote for any Republican who denies the validity of elections and supports the authoritarianism personified by Donald Trump, you are guilty of aiding and abetting the dissolution of our democracy.

Election Day is at hand. What are you – and what are we – going to do about it? From the looks and sounds of it, we are running out of time.

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From the Ohio Capital Journal: 

Denis Smith is a retired school administrator and served as a consultant in the Ohio Department of Education's charter school office. He has additional experience working in marketing communications with a publisher and in association management as an executive with a national professional society. Mr. Smith is a member of the board of Public Education Partners.

I would add that 53 years ago Denis became the very first principal for a wet-behind-the-ears teacher named Terrell Shaw. It's been great to reconnect with Denis during the last decade or so and to enjoy his writing. The essay that arrived in my digital inbox today lays out pretty clearly the pain we are in for if the MAGA party manages to take one or both houses of Congress. He has graciously given me permission to share his writing here.