Republican Dishonesty

They sit in dimly lit, smoke filled rooms, conspiring about how they can enrich themselves and their crooked lobbying friends without constituents finding out. Knowing that most of the the Republican agenda is not popular with the voters, and wanting to retain power, they needed to develop a way to bamboozle the public. It has been found.

It works like this: With their overpowering majority in the US House, these crooks only need to have enough votes to defeat the Democratic minority. Each member makes a judgment as to whether their vote would be “bad” back home with the voters. Knowing that the bill will pass anyways – because the House Republican leadership said it will, they make deals on who will be able to vote NO so that they can proudly say to their constituents “I am independent, I represent you, I have voted against our leadership....” This ability is traded back and forth – allowing every Republican to say they voted against the leadership. This is the “badge of honor” displayed to voters in their districts.

Rep. Tom Allen (D-Maine) put it this way: “As with the adage that absolute power corrupts absolutely, the centralization of authority in the House of Representatives has come at a disastrous cost for democracy, decency and the public interest. The public has awoken to the folly of current leaders’ practice of passing bills only with a majority of the majority. The result is votes held open for hours to allow for vote buying; huge bills, with nefarious special interest riders attached, rushed to the floor after midnight so Members and the public can’t read them; budget rules routinely waived to permit deficit-adding tax cuts. It’s time to put the people’s voice back into the People’s House.”

As noted by Rep Barney Frank, “The United States is now trying to instruct the people of Iraq and Afghanistan in democracy. We have helped to form legislative bodies. But if they get C-SPAN in Iraq and Afghanistan, we should have a line running across the bottom of the screen that warns, “Please do not try this at home.”

More here.
Posted on The Human Stain