The Pledge to America
The latest GOP manifesto reads like a comedy but is really more of a tragedy. It does absolutely nothing to address this country’s pressing problems, and it does nothing for the common good. It represents a deterioration into cynical unseriousness. No adults were welcome on the drafting committee. It basically calls for a repeal of recent Democratic accomplishments, and a return to Bush-era politics, all dressed up in meaningless mantras. On the specifics, let me outsource to others:
Jonathan Bernstein on foreign policy:
“What’s the current Republican foreign policy? Stripping out the immigration stuff from that section of the document, what remains is (1) Gitmo; (2) Missile defense; and (3) threatening Iran. That’s it.”
Jonathan Chait on fiscal policy:
“The Pledge To America fulminates against debt, but it should be read as a plan to explode debt through the ceiling. It would make permanent all the Bush tax cuts, at a cost of trillions. It would add new business tax cuts on top of those. It would repeal the Affordable Care Act, at massive long-term fiscal cost. (Republicans are already planning to undermine many of the cost-saving features of the bill.)”
Jonathan Cohn on healthcare:
“It will force a lot of people to pay higher premiums. It will lavish subsidies on the private insurance industry. It will put life-and-death decisions in the hands of bureaucrats. And it will add hundreds of billions of dollars to the federal debt.
Michael Sean Winters on social issues:
“Social issues merit one line in the programmatic section of the document. The Republicans plan to codify the Hyde Amendment. That is fine with me, although it also seems unnecessary since Hyde has been approved every year, by Congresses under the control of both parties, since 1977. A lot of things have changed since the first year of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, but not Hyde. Still, if they can pass it, I am all for that. The only other mention of social issues is a throwaway line about traditional marriage in the preamble to the document. These two sentences, one in the intro and one in the body of the document, were evidently added at the last minute to appease social conservatives. What to say? If social conservatives are satisfied with lip service, that is no surprise. Making a phone call to the Right-to-Life March was enough for Reagan, Bush pere and Bush fils to be considered “pro-life” so lip-service is nothing new to the GOP.”
I’ll end with Peggy Steinfels:
“Unless Obama and his fellow Democrats rally their base to step up and stop a Republican sweep in the midterm election, we will become the nation that the Republicans have worked so hard to create, a nation with a fourth-rate government, a third-rate economy, and a first-rate military (imagine what they will do with that).”
Comments are closed.
During the time the GOP controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, they never bothered to even introduce a bill to codify the Hyde Amendment, let alone pass one. Nor did the NRLC even send a single letter asking for such a bill. I’m glad they have suddenly developed an interest.
Unfortunately they also propose a step back. The GOP plan proposes to allow insurance companies to sell abortion policies in states where it is currently prohibited.
The plan hints at support for the Ryan – Coburn Health Care bill that would give tax credits to buy any insurance policy on the private market. Could someone explain how that is different from the current law that was said to fund abortions? It seems the GOP is going even further.
Dear Vox Nova webmaster:
I intended to log onto the Vox Nova website to read posts about all things Catholic. Instead, I appear to have been mistakenly diverted to the website of the Democratic National Committee. I thought that you should be aware of this technical problem.
I’m no big fan of Obama’s but voting Republican as a “regular” person reminds me of a Brecht quote, “the dumbest calves elect their own butchers.” a Republican sees a calf and thinks of it as veal. How the party of brutal, unmitigated capitalism manages to sell itself as populist and anti-elite is quite remarkable. I guess it’s cause Obama eats arugula.
Holding elections every two years is a bad idea. The Republicans started the fire and now sell themselves as firefighters. The Democrats can’t touch them when it comes to gall. Underfunding schools does pay off, critical reasoning skills would be lethal to the GOP’s chances. All the propaganda about socialism works very well. Few realize that the GOP has big welfar programs – for friendly corporations that get lucrative gigs paid for with taxpayer money. Selling privatization as freedom is a neat trick. Mercenaries, Halliburton, disaster relief, private prisons etc. The rich get prime service (hurricane ? We not only get you out right away, we’re flying you to a tropical paradise for a vacation)
others get to sit on their roof, or float dead in the water, after the levee breaks. As Milton Friedman said, Hurricane Katrina was a great opportunity. That’s the real GOP agenda – ever more wealth, paid for by everyone. Want more and utterly charming police ? Incorporate a McMansion “community” to separate it from the rabble. No more funding schools in poor
areas as a bonus.
We are actually regressing – public welfare is no concern. Instead, private armies. Third world conditions – vast gap between the few and the many – are at hand. And not by force either – people were sold on this system. In other countries were Friedman’s recipe for disaster
was applied people at least fought back.
Republicans only give lip service. So instead, we should support the Democrats, who cut out our lips and tounges, and roast them in baby stew. Got it.
Well said, Kurt.
Dear William Kelly,
Since the other party has become ever more depraved and dangerous, reason points to only one direction. Let me know if this country gets a credible opposition again.
Ah, one trick Matt Bowman is back. Ok, how about this, then. Tell me you agree with everything in this post, but you feel so strongly about abortion that you still can’t support the Dems. Tell me you were a hundred percent behind the House version of healthcare reform that had the Stupak amendment. If you can do this, I will take you seriously. If not, I will treat you as just another cynical liberal using the unborn to further his own tawdry political ends, just like your friend Thomas Peters.
Without wading into the obviously political swamp here, I do like the part in the pledge about giving congressional members at least 3 days to read bills before a vote.
The spectacle of voting on 2000+ bills nobody had read, often with sections to be completed later was beyond bizarre.
Thank you for saying what you have said. So much is lost when we get behind empty catchphrases and rhetoric and identify with one party or the other. The call of our Catholicism is the call to discern and that means being Catholic first. You elucidate that extremely well. This and your recent post on liturgy are in my saved files for future reference.
Republicans only give lip service. So instead, we should support the Democrats…
If you read my post, you would see that my problem was that on selling abortion insurance, the Republicans are not giving lip service to life but proposing a step in a pro-abortion direction.
And as to the lip service on Hyde, that was coming from the corrupt Pro-Life Movement as much as the Republicans.
So now you have to support the Obama/Reid/Pelosi/Rangel vision of healthcare (so long as it includes Stupak) to be a reasonable person?
That is one of the singularly most unreasonable things I have ever seen, and it is ultimately a way to dehumanize your opposition.
Further, virtually nothing in the original post has anything much to do with any particularly Catholic issues.
Just checking in after a long Friday and I find that one-party Minion has bestowed two honors upon me: first, his juvenile name-calling in the wake of having censored my own comments, and second, counting me as a friend of Thom Peters. A great way to start the weekend!
Now let’s all celebrate that the Dems haven’t paid lip service on war and terror suspect treatment!
I notice, Mat Bowman, that you failed to answer my question. So I will ask another – do you agree with your dearest friend Thomas Peters when he says Catholics should support Sharan Angle, who finds it outrageous that she is forced to pay for coverage of autism and maternity in her health insurance plan? Do you follow Peters and dub this a pro-life and pro-family position? Please answer.
Smf – yes, given that the status quo is a gross violation of Catholic social teaching. There are probably better ways to fix it, such as single payer, but these are off the table. The Republican options do nothing at all for the uninsured, and – as Kurt notes – would lead to a massive expansion in federal abortion funding. In these circumstances, I believe it becomes incumbent on Catholics to support some version of the current reform, if they are satisfied that it will not expand abortion funding.
Every industrial country in the world has healthcare that’s smeared as “socialism” by the American Right. My European friends can’t fathom the level of exploitation in this country, not even during their 5-6 weeks of legally mandated vacation :-) just like Americans usually have no idea of the dearth of rights and benefits they have compared to everyone else in the West.
What if instead our objection is that it is in fact anti-life, but is further anti-human and illegal?
Let me clarify what I mean by this. First I have grave doubts about the current and future state of abortion funding in this system and its inevitable successors. Thus not a safe bet on life.
Further, the approach taken is not one the genuinely approaches the problem in a way that takes correct account of human nature, nor does it operate on a human scale.
Finally, I don’t think it is in any way shape or form legal by a correct reading of the Constitution, which means no one could vote for it without violating their oath of office. I don’t support policy that makes liars of people. (I should note that much of what the fedgov does is probably unconstitutional by my reading, even many of the policies I agree with in principal do so. I think we should actually follow the process laid out in the law when we want to increase government power in a way that fundamentally changes our nation, rather than deforming the law into a sort of anti-law, which is lethal to a republic.)
Finally, I think much of it is bad policy. I don’t base this on political talking points, but on my own understanding of it coupled with my own educational background, (econ and poli sci). I find it probable that it will have a net negative impact on the common good (economically, socially, ethically) as currently enacted. It is the constant tale of (what I will grant as) good intentions meeting up with unintended (and often willfully ignored) consequences.
Oh if only we could actually apply Catholic principals and theory to the question is a rational way when crafting policy, rather than having to judge something that was created along entirely different lines… It makes for rather a mess trying to sort out the coniving of ceasar and mammon.
I really should take more time to edit blog comments before I post them. Oh, well. My mistake.
MM: help me with the source quotes so I can comment on what was originally said. Thx!
What is amazing is how many unemployed, underemployed and uninsured people have bought the line that the Republicans are going to help them come November… no, the Republicans will keep everything free-tradey and trickle-downy and maybe one day in GOP Fairyland the benefits of these policies will reach the poor and working class.
I say this as someone who is probably voting a straight Republican ticket this time, due to other moral issues like the right to life and the deficit and the fact that the current crop of Democrats, while meaning well, appear to be incompetent…
The democrats are also into free trade and trickle down these days too incase you haven’t noticed.
Their version of trickle down is obviously different, since it believes in trickle down from an ever expanding, ever more powerful, and ever richer government and government favored political groups, then through state and local government and corporations, and finally to the people. Same idea, different execution.
As for free trade, everyone is all on board for that these days, with only an occasional protectionist Republican or “fare trade” Democrat objecting.
Basically our entire political system stinks these days, and it is ultimately self destructive. Lacking some massive shift in political alignments (which an external force like the Tea Party can do, or a real mobilization of the Catholic people could do) it will continue with both parties racing each other for the bottom.
As for free trade, everyone is all on board for that these days,
EXCUSE ME!!!!! There are quite a number of us working hard to promote fair trade policies. The vote today on China Currency is an indication that victories can be one. The Fair Trade Movement is alive and well.
The Chinese currency things is all thunder and no lightening, and for good reason, essentially they now hold the better hand in these disputes. They know this and we know this. Thus it is mostly symbolic gesture, which the Chinese will then at some point counter with some sort of “face saving” anti-US move. Again, we know this and so do they.
Fair Trade is alive and well as a thing which is talked about and as a sort of exotic reality that lives in parish Christmas bizarre booths and the like, but is of little notice in the main of the culture or economy. I am all in favor of anyone who can making purchasing decisions that account for fair trade principals, but that isn’t really making much of an impact.
In any case, what the authentic free trade folk and the authentic fair trade folk both want is essentially the same thing, they just have somewhat different ideas about how to get there. On the other hand, neither idea as it manifested politically has much of anything to do with reaching such a vision of the common good, but rather has a great deal to do with serving certain private and collective goods.