The Future Is The Past

The evolution of the modern Republican Party is a tragic tale.The Party of Lincoln has become The Party of Ayn Rand. The party which once held that government should do what the people cannot do for themselves has become the party which holds that government is the enemy of the people.

Today's Republicans want to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act; and -- as is becoming abundantly clear in places like Wisconsin -- they want to repeal the Wagner Act. If they could, they would repeal the entire New Deal.

During the last election, the party faithful railed at President Obama for not creating enough jobs. Last week, after the Republican controlled house passed legislation to strip $60 billion from Obama's current budget, John Boehner declared that, if jobs were lost as a result of the cuts, then "So be it." The hypocrisy is stunning.

Republicans have been in charge for twenty of the last thirty years. During that time, President Reagan and the second President Bush left the nation with record budget deficits. When the second president Bush raised taxes to restore fiscal sanity, he was pilloried by his own party. When Bill Clinton passed his first budget -- without any Republican votes -- the Grand Old Party predicted Financial Armageddon. Four years later, Clinton ran the first of four surpluses -- the only time in the last thirty years when the government's finances were in the black.

Now, under the guise of financial responsibility, Republicans have adopted the slogan, "The Future is the Past!' George Orwell understood these folks. So did Franklin Roosevelt. "A conservative," he said, "is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward."

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.