Last week, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives voted to cut nearly $40 billion from the country’s food stamps programs over the next 10 years. It was a huge slap in the face to millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table. Fortunately, the bill will die a quick death in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
Yet again, the GOP is proving especially inept at solving our nation’s problems and instead places the blame on the nation’s most vulnerable citizens. It’s an unfortunate situation where many Republicans fully believe that we can simply cut our way out of the country’s fiscal mess and be done with it.
Sadly they’re wrong, and the recommendations they make could be downright dangerous. In the right circumstances, danger can be a lot of fun, so today, we’re going to play a little game called “Let the GOP Do It!”
The basic premise of this game is that, despite having a Democratic majority in the Senate and a Democrat in the White House, the two sides should agree to let all the crazy coming out of the House pass both factions and ultimately be signed into law by President Barack Obama.
It might sound insane, but it’s truly the only way to prove just how bad much of the GOP-led legislation is for the country and our citizens.
Because the Republicans voted more than 40 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act — or Obamacare — let’s go ahead and get rid of that and go back to letting insurance companies drop people’s coverage for preexisting conditions, placing lifetime caps on premiums and provide no affordable insurance to those not receiving employer-based coverage.
Oh, and if we can’t repeal Obamacare, we should definitely tie its repeal to the debt ceiling and funding of the government. Who cares if the U.S. defaults on its debt or that the entire federal government could simply shut down? We’re doing this in the name of freedom!
Let’s not stop there. What else should we cut?
We should pass bills that roll back the Dodd-Frank financial reforms and all other forms of Wall Street regulations Republicans deem harmful to the pure form of capitalism they want for the country. Also, all environmental regulations the GOP wants repealed should happen as well.
Honestly, who actually wants bankers to play fair or have clean water to drink?
Not this guy!
We also need to ensure that draconian cuts be made to almost every federal agency and public school. Your child’s education is not my problem, so why should I pay for it?
Let’s make sure we obliterate social programs like Social Security and any type of welfare. Folks living off their Social Security or welfare checks are nothing more than fat cats sucking at the teat of the federal government.
Oh, but we can’t make any cuts to our military. Like, at all.
The reason I want this to happen isn’t because I’m a sadist who gets pleasure from seeing our great nation decline in the hands of radical conservatives in the U.S. House. It’s because we need to see that the path they want to take isn’t going to lead the country anywhere but down the drain.
Deep cuts to our social programs will neither lift millions out of poverty nor lead to a libertarian revolution in which Ayn Rand’s greatest dreams come true. In fact, it’s putting these frightening policies into practice that might actually convince Americans a large swath of our elected officials don’t actually have their best interest at heart.
It may seem like sound policy to cut food stamps for nearly four million people, health insurance coverage to millions more or even let the federal government shut down all in the name of politics — but it’s asinine, shocking and downright scary to think what the House Republicans actually want to do to our great country.
We have the power to end this madness and come election time next year, I implore you fire these bozos to save our country and ourselves.
Joel Mendelson is a UF grad student in political campaigning. His column runs on Mondays. A version of this column ran on page 7 on 9/23/2013 under the headline "Prove them wrong, let GOP pass everything"
