The Problem with Teathugs and the Shutdown
Posted by Steve | Filed under politics
The Super Right-Wing arm of the Republicans, the Tea Party (or Teathugs, as I like to call them), are slowly eating the brains of normally moderate and smart Republicans. The party that gave us Lincoln, among others, has decided to embrace the Teathugs and given up on its will to govern in a way that sees all Americans as…well, American. Rather than work along with the Democratic Party and the Democratic President, they have chosen to do everything in their power to prevent anything the Dems see as benefitting the U.S.A. It’s not that they are blocking only Democrat ideas, but even formerly Republican ideas.
“The President Is Not OUR President”
I can’t help but believe that the Teathugs are not just the super right-wing portion of their collective, but also the most racist. As soon as Senator Obama became the President, this “grassroots” organization manifested itself to complain and block anything offered by his administration. They immediately claimed he was not a “true” American. First they said he was not American, which was disproved time and again. Then they said he did not have “American” values. They even brought up his religion and said he was not “Christian” enough, even though whatever religion a president believes in has no actual reason in preventing his taking office. I even heard black teathugs say he wasn’t “black” enough. Teathugs hate that a black president sits in the White House – plain and simple. They will say they hate his fiscal policy, but you have to wonder where they were under President Bush’s watch.
How far would these Republicans go against President Obama’s administration? Senator McConnell, the Republican minority leader of the Senate, said “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president” – instead of saying something like “providing strong leadership for the American people”. The Republicans also like to throw in little racist comments or words in their speeches or interviews, and then claim they are not racist at all. They have used terms such as “shucking and jiving”, “nigger rigging”, and even posted or shared images showing the First Family as monkeys.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)
President Obama was elected on his idea to fix health care in America. The main push in his life for that was the cancer his mom lived and died with, and their battle dealing with and paying for her healthcare. It affected him so strongly; he made it a priority in his political life. The Teathugs don’t see this, however. They think his reason for working on healthcare is to either control people through medical means or kill them off via “death panels”. [This “death panel” idea came out of language in the bill that helps provide people with a way to communicate with their doctors on issues related to end-of-life care. The Teathugs falsely claimed a bureaucratic panel would be created to pick and choose who would live or die. This was the 2009 “Lie of the Year” named by PolitiFact.]
A large portion of the Democratic Party have always been for single-payer healthcare, healthcare supplied by the government to all Americans and paid for by all Americans, but this idea has always been shot down by Republicans due to its socialist lean. Rather than go this route, the President took a Republican-created healthcare system from Massachusetts, and modeled the ACA after this plan – complete with individual mandates which helps spread the cost of the insurance among the population to increase its affordability. When this system as promoted by the administration, there were many Democrats who felt this was too conservative a system for them to get behind. Realizing this capitulation was needed for any change to get done, the Democrats rallied around it and got it passed and signed by the President. There was plenty of debate time, and many amendments by the Republicans were included in the bill, but even so it had to be voted on by the majority of Democrats. The Republicans said they wanted to support it, but it was not right-wing enough for them.
This zeal for the hatred of the law was flamed and pushed by the Teathug group of members. The revulsion of the ACA by the Teathugs was so great it had to be ruled on by the Supreme Court. They validated its constitutionality, but allowed states to opt out of creating the exchanges and not having to accept additional Medicare. Rather than rally around benefits that could actually help struggling Americans, and reduce the deficit, Teathugs have decided the ACA is akin to humping the Devil.
This hatred never went away, which led to…
The 2013 Shutdown
At midnight on 09/30/13, the government shut down. Rather than pass a clean (meaning no political attachments) continuing resolution for two months, the Teathug-dominated Republicans first added a ACA defunding amendment to the bill. When that was tabled by the Senate, they changed it to a delay for a year of the ACA. Again, it was tabled by the Senate. The reason for this is after a hard-fought battle over the ACA, followed by acceptance by the Supreme Court, the Democrats feel it shouldn’t be used as a pawn by the Teathugs as a hostage for getting a budget passed.
An hour before the government shut down, the Republicans offered to meet on appointing members on budget negotiations. The Democrats didn’t go for it, unless the clean CR was submitted. Doing so otherwise would create a precedent that any minority could use this tactic in the future to get concessions by holding the government hostage.
Yes, the Tea Party has decided that negotiating like terrorists is the way to get anything done. I can only hope the intelligent, moderate, and, right now, silent members of the Republican Party will gather the courage to purge this cancer from their party. Ultimately, it will be up to the American voters to see the danger the Teathugs have for the U.S. to continue being a strong and prosperous nation and vote those buggers out of office. Here’s hoping…