GOP Fearful Of Government Success and Any Credit To Obama

For more than thirty years an anti-government philosophy has been escalating within the conservative movement in the United States. Conservatives were never all that taken with government in the first place, except to fight wars, but for about thirty-five years they've been perfecting their hatred. Fairly early on we heard then President Ronald Reagan declare something to the effect that government was not the solution to our problems, that government was the problem. A further little quip of Reagan's was that people were fearful to hear "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." As time went on, so did the anti-government rhetoric from conservatives. In the mid 1990s, the Republicans, by then virtually a conservative only party, took control of Congress and essentially declared war on  government. In a famous confrontation with President Clinton, the government was shut down, but the conservatives found their ardent philosophy lacking among much of the populace, as many Americans weren't as fearful of their government as Reagan's quip implied.* Conservatives lost that particular battle, but the war continued, and their ideas actually framed much of the debate.

Reagan gave huge tax cuts tilted toward the wealthy and increased military spending, and though Reagan had criticized his predecessor Jimmy Carter for deficits, Reagan's deficits made Carter's almost look like balanced budgets. Into office came George Bush Sr. to grapple with the financial mess bequeathed to the nation by Reagan and his philosophy. The staggering economy went into recession, only making the financial mess worse, but President Bush and Democrats in Congress worked out a compromise to bring deficits down as the economy healed. George Bush was followed by Bill Clinton, who reversed the role previously played by President Bush, as Democrat Clinton worked with Republicans in Congress to turn deficits into surpluses.**

Then came George W. Bush who sent Americans into action in two wars, but chose not to pay for those wars. He also pushed for and got a prescription drug benefit for Medicare, an admirable achievement, but he didn't pay for that either, with deficits accumulating into the trillions. When the economy went into meltdown mode in the waning months of Bush's presidency and into the early months of Barack Obama's first term, the deficits of Bush's two terms made many Americans a bit skittish about more deficit spending to combat the severe downturn, although economists and governments around the world called for just that. Republicans, who had "spent like drunken sailors," according to Joe Scarborough, a former GOP congressman turned cable TV host, now changed their tune once a Democrat was president, and they began a relentless campaign to advocate reductions in spending. They also denied any responsibility for the economic meltdown. Nope, not their fault: after all, the downturn and deficits all started on the day Barack Obama took office, January 20, 2009.*** After a major Republican victory in the 2010 midterm elections (they took control of the House of Representatives and cut the Democratic majority in the Senate), the shrillness of the cry for more spending reductions spiked to new highs. The economy, staggered by the massive fraud perpetrated by Wall Street bankers in the mortgage industry, was not about to take off, as the country then faced the Gulf oil spill, which shut down a large element of the economy in states along the Gulf of Mexico. Then a major earthquake struck Japan, halting that nation's ability to send needed auto parts to this country. All the while the drumbeat of the slow economy was trumpeted by Republicans, as they hoped for a takeover of the White House in 2012. Whether it was hope for Obama's defeat or fear of reprisals by right wing fanatics in their own party, or perhaps something of both, Republicans held ranks, with few Republican votes ever going to support any of Obama's proposals in Congress.

So now we hear how "government is broken." Let me tell you what I think. This is exactly what the right wing fascists want. They have told us for decades how government can't do anything and government is something to be feared. Funded by the likes of the Koch brothers and other right wingers, they have to make sure that government fails, for if government works to actually help Americans, conservatives may not see the White House for quite some time, and their big money supporters want tax cuts, as well as cuts to any and all government programs that actually help those who aren't wealthy. They don't have to like or agree much with President Obama and Democrats, but their blatant attempts to do anything to bring down his presidency is shameful to say the least, and is more like treason, in my opinion. Think about it folks. If Democrats had stood united against George W. Bush, the Republicans would have screamed how "unpatriotic" they were. It was no sheer coincidence when in Barack Obama's early days as president Rush Limbaugh said he wanted Obama to fail. This has been the strategy for decades of the fascists and right wingers who have become such a part of the GOP and some of them desperately want to bring down and humiliate the nation's first black president to satisfy their racist element. Right now, Republicans want to win elections more than they want to rid themselves of fascist and right wing nutcases.        

* Reagan was right about one thing, the money people ARE afraid of government, because it's the only thing that can rein them in, outside of a total revolution, in which case they would all lose their heads, literally. That's why so many wealthy people contribute to the war on government. They're afraid of it and they want to destroy it. These are SUPEREGOS. Are there foolish regulations? I'm sure there are, but without regulations the public would be exposed to anything and everything so that wealthy business people could make more money. Remember folks, like capitalism or not, it is not about anything except making money. It is NOT about your life, sending kids to school, taking care of the sick or injured, feeding the hungry, or anything else associated with being a decent human being. It is about MONEY and only about MONEY! Like the trickle down nonsense spouted by conservatives, unrestrained capitalism might let a few crumbs fall off the table, but its fundamental principles can be ruthless endeavors to make money.

**  The budget surpluses looked larger than they actually were, because of Social Security being included in the overall federal budget numbers. Understand, that also means the budget deficits of previous years were really worse than most Americans realized, because of the inclusion of Social Security. What do I mean? Well, during that general era, Social Security was taking in more money than it paid out annually, thus, when added to the overall federal budget, it made surpluses look larger in the late 1990s, just as it had made federal deficits look smaller prior to that time.

*** The other day, I saw a post online by an obvious Republican woman who claimed, "Obama has started all of these wars, but refuses to give our troops the weapons they need." To be fair, Democrats have some folks who say similar way out things, but it just shows how people can ignore events they've actually lived through and reconstruct those events to fit into what they want to believe. In the early part of 2009 just after the passage of the stimulus bill, an acquaintance of mine, a Democrat turned Republican because Obama is black, told me he had been listening to one of the right wing radio shows (I just forget which one). He asked me, "Randy, what are we going to do about all of this inflation Obama is causing with this stimulus money? It's only going to get worse according to the guy on the radio." Folks, at that point in time, prices on many things were FALLING, not rising, and the threat of DEFLATION, not inflation, was the concern of many economists. Right wing and fascist propagandists count on people relying on the lies, I mean, "information" they provide. They can convince their "flock" that day is night and night is day. Don't be fooled! There needs to be a "truth squad" to relentlessly pursue these lying bastards! It's no coincidence the Nazis burned books, for knowledge is the enemy of these types. In my opinion, Republicans have been in a flight from reality for decades, as they wanted so much to believe that Reagan's economic policies would benefit the country, they couldn't face the reality that his policies were exactly the "voodoo economics" they were tagged with by George Bush Sr.   

WORD HISTORY:
Shall-This word "seems' to go back to Indo European "skel,' which had the notion of "be obliged to do something, owe." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "skulan," which meant "to owe, be obligated;" thus also, "have guilt;" that is, "owe a debt for an illegal act." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "sellan/sculan" (the "sc" pronounced like "sh"), with many of the same meanings. The notion of "ought to, be obliged to," eventually gave "shall" a future tense use, now in modern English often replaced by "will" ("I shall go," but more likely today, "I will go."). The other Germanic languages have: German "sollen," Low German Saxon "schölen," Dutch "zullen," Icelandic "skal/skulu," Danish and Norwegian "skal," and Swedish "skall." I could not find a form in modern Frisian, but I believe, like modern English, they use a form of "will" to express future actions.