Shame: A Definition for Republicans

According to Dictionary.com:

shame

[sheym] Show IPA noun, verb, shamed, sham·ing.

noun

1.

the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done by oneself or another: She was overcome with shame.

2.

susceptibility to this feeling: to be without shame.

3.

disgrace; ignominy: His actions brought shame upon his parents.

4.a fact or circumstance bringing disgrace or regret: The bankruptcy of the business was a shame. It was a shame you couldn't come with us.

 

Today the Republicans in the Senate (with the help of two woefully undemocratic Democrats) blocked the Senate from considering and voting on a bill that could have put tens of thousands of Americans to work doing vitally important work--repairing roads, bridges, schools, and other infrastructure.

Infrastructure used to be completely nonpartisan. Everybody understood that the country ran better, and businesses made more money, when we had good roads and reliable utilities. But now the Republicans have decided to block every possible bill that might create jobs, because they would rather keep people unemployed and drive more and more Americans into poverty--while protecting every penny in the pockets of oil and insurance company executives and hedge fund billionaires--than allow the economy to improve even the slightest bit. Because an improving economy cinches a victory for President Obama in 2012, and they would rather watch you lose your house and your kids go hungry than risk that.

Here in Arizona, voters passed a measure back in 2000 that was meant to take partisan politics out of the redistricting process by establishing an independent redistricting commission. Yesterday, upset with the commission's draft report--not even a final recommendation, just a draft created to take public input on--the Republicans in the legislature (at the urging of the governor, who wasn't even in the state but was in New York promoting a book that she has her name on--she can barely speak English, much less write it), accused the independent chair of the commission of "gross misconduct" and fired her, without even giving her a chance to defend herself against the charge. This is a political power grab that has removed a citizen volunteer from her post because she wasn't sufficiently in thrall to the Republican party.

Shame is the only word that really applies here. Those Republicans should be ashamed. People who voted for them should be ashamed of those votes--and determined to make wiser choices next time. When you elect people who hate government--and when government is "we the people," then you are electing people who hate America. Don't give them a chance to do any more damage.

Comments

[Shiai]

I think the real shame I feel is that so many Americans allow themselves to be duped into thinking there's nothing they can do about any of this, so they don't even bother to exercise their Constitutional right on Election Day.

[Randy Johnson]

Unfortunately, shame is one thing Republicans don't have. Hubris they have plenty of. They block everything Obama tries and then stand up saying he does nothing.

[Jeff Mariotte]

In spite of their resistance, the private sector has added jobs for 20 months in a row. If they weren't so busy killing state and local government jobs we'd be making real progress. It's sad that they stand up for the 300,000 millionaires and billionaires instead of the 300,000,000 of the rest of us--especially since a slight tax increase on incomes over a million dollars won't cause a single person to miss a meal, skip prescription medicine, or lose a house, but their refusal to do so will have exactly that effect on tens of thousands of Americans.

[Cnsieler]

Why don't we add to the 300,000.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/07/news/economy/wealth_gap_age/

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Older Americans are now 47 times richer than the youngest generation, marking the largest wealth gap ever recorded between the two age groups.

In 2009, households headed by adults 65 years and older held a median net worth of $170,494, while households headed by adults 35 years and younger held a net worth of $3,662, according to a report by the Pew Research Center.

While it's typical for older generations to hold more wealth than younger ones who've had less time to save, the gap between the two age groups has widened rapidly.

A generation ago, the older age group was richer than the younger by a 10-to-1 ratio. Now, that gap stands at 47-to-1.

Compared to their same-aged peers in 1984, the younger group has actually seen its net worth decline 68%, but the older group has seen its income rise 42%.

Yet we have to not cut Medicare or Touch Social Security......

[Cnsieler]

The 53%: We are NOT Occupy Wall Street
http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/26/news/economy/occupy_wall_street_backlash/index.htm?iid=EL
They call themselves the 53%...as in the 53% of Americans who pay federal income taxes. And they are making their voices heard on Tumblr blogs, Twitter and Facebook pages devoted to stories of personal responsibility and work ethic.

The number originates in the estimate that roughly 47% of Americans don't pay federal income tax, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The 53 percenters stress the fact that they are paying the taxes that support the government assistance the protesters say they want.

.......

"We don't want to be the 53% who carries the 47% on our shoulders," said Gardner, who thinks more people should pay federal income taxes.

........

"What the 99% is missing is the element of personal responsibility," said Trevino, who is also vice president at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation. "The 53% want to bring that into the conversation."

Chris Opinion...

It is amazing Jeff How a party with only with control of the House can control the Senate and the White House.

Do we really need to "grow" Government jobs? If the Government is constricting, how can their be more demand for Government services?

We are talking at the Federal Level here...Because how can we tell? Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats have failed to pass a budget for over 900 days!!!! ( That includes the time the Dems had control of the White House, Senate, and House) That means at the Federal Government level we are still being Funded by continuing resolution at FY 2010 rates. So How can we as a federal Government determine if they need to hire more folks?
They can't know what their future funding levels are going to be....
A better idea then a jobs bill is for Congress and the President to do their Constitutional duty and pass annual budgets.

[Cnsieler]

From Twitter
BREAKING: AZ Supreme Court will take up redistricting chair's ouster. Oral arguments scheduled for Nov. 17 at 2 p.m. #AIRC
So The person will have a day in court

[Jeff Mariotte]

A few points to consider, Chris:

 

Yes, poverty among the elderly is lower than among younger people--but it's a figure that has been growing since the economy crashed in 2008. Obama's much-maligned stimulus program helped keep elderly poverty rates from getting worse than they have. The income inequality between old and young is far less severe--and less impactful to the economy overall--than the inequality between the 1% and the 99%.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/13/elderly-poverty-rate-census_n_808797.html

 

I think you're underestimating the severity of the unemployment crisis, and the effect that fuller empoyment would have on the economy as a whole--wiping out much of the deficit, for instance. A jobs bill at the federal level is critical, because private industry (sitting on more than $2 trillion in cash) is not hiring and the Republicans keep wanting to cut the public sector, pushing teachers, cops, firefighters, county workers, etc. onto the unemployment rolls.

 

Are you really arguing against the idea that we should be fixing old, dangerous bridges, roads, and schools? Are you arguing that advancing rural broadband access isn't as important as the rural electrification projects were to an earlier era? Are you arguing that individuals, families, and businesses don't all benefit when infrastructure is improved? If so, you're arguing against Ronald Reagan. He said:

 

"The bridges and highways we fail to repair today will have to be rebuilt tomorrow at many times the cost...So, what we’re proposing is to add the equivalent of five cents per gallon to the existing Federal highway user fee, the gas tax. That hasn’t been increased for the last 23 years. The cost to the average motorist will be small, but the benefit to our transportation system will be immense. The program will also stimulate 170,000 jobs, not in make-work projects but in real, worthwhile work in the hard-hit construction industries, and an additional 150,000 jobs in related industries. It will improve safety on our highways and will make truck transportation more efficient and productive for years to come.

Reagan believed in infrastructure and the stimulative power of federal employment projects. Today's Republicans don't.

http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1982/112782a.htm

 

And the people who call themselves the 53% are idiots, quite frankly. Yes, many people don't pay any federal income tax at all (including about 7,000 millionaires, and many corporations). But that doesn't mean they don't pay taxes, federal, state, and local. They still pay payroll taxes, which contribute about as much to the federal coffers as the federal income tax does. They pay a far greater percentage of their total income in sales taxes. They pay state and local income taxes and every other kind of taxes. Exempting them from federal income tax by no means alleviates their total tax burden or their contribution to the country. That 53% of crybabies make me sick--they have benefited from living here, and they shouldn't begrudge the fact that people making $20,000 a year can't pony up as much. Someone making $20,000 a year would have to work for 116 years to equal the average annual salary of the 1%. And you're going to complain that he's not paying his fair share--while refusing to ask the 1% for a little more after their first million in income? I know you and I don't think you're that cruel. But the Republicans in Congress are.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/business/economy/14leonhardt.html

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/signs-of-dissent-what-about-the-47-who-pay-no-federal-income-taxes/246721/

 

I agree that we should pass a budget. Tell your Senators that. The Republicans in the Senate have abused the filibuster and other procedural roadblocks in historic proportions:

http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/03/02/republican-obstruction-at-work-record-number-of-filibusters/

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-6014772-503544.html

 

Creating a 60-vote threshold where none existed for the preceding two centuries is one more example of the destructive nature of the Republicans in Congress. They hate government and want it to fail, so they ensure that it fails by blocking every attempt to do anything.

 

The economy needs jobs. Working people need to be able to work. We need spending--at the federal level, especially right now, while the government can get essentially zero-percent interest--to create jobs. Every night that Republicans in Congress (and yes, the House can hold this up, all alone, because spending bills must originate in the House, according to our Constitution) prevents jobs bills from passing is one more night that kids go to bed hungry and parents stay awake wondering how long they'll be able to keep the house. Taxing a tiny bit of incomes over a million dollars would not hurt the rich one iota, but it would help save some of our fellow Americans a lot of pain and heartache, and would also save the lives that are being cut short by growing poverty and its attendant impacts on health and access to health care.

 

[Jeff Mariotte]

An interesting piece on the new way of defining povery in America, that helps illustrate how government programs help people cope with it:

 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/74e8c4fa-0960-11e1-a20c-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1d2xxPBjw

[Red Tash]

Heck no, we don't need to fix bridges. Bridges like the Sherman-Minton, a few miles from my home, which is closed due to a major structural failure. It only causes about 89,000 cars per day to be re-routed to another highway bridge. It only causes hours of extra commute time per day. It only contributed to my metropolitan area being featured on CBS Sunday morning last weekend as the INSOMNIA capital of the US. No biggie!

Who needs a job, anyway? Definitely not the folks who've been living under that bridge for years. I know for a fact that some of them used to walk to work to the veneer factory in downtown New Albany, because a friend of mine used to run the place. Oh, that's right--that's before he lost his job, as well. Did he go on unemployment? No. He scrambled like hell to find another job--moved out of state, uprooted his family in a costly move, and ended up being so miserable that he forked out tens of thousands of dollars to move back home, taking a lesser-paying job in a different industry.

But, you know, that was probably LAZY of him. The same lazy guy who worked devotedly for a decade to get his degree part-time at the local university, paying for every class himself, out of pocket.

Thank God he had the $ to invest in the stock market after 9/11, so he could take advantage of the buyer's market and grow his portfolio, just in case. Oh, wait, no...he ended up liquidating & putting that into his house, didn't he? Or was it that he burned through it when the plant closed? Oh, well, it's only money, he'll make more...it's someone else's problem. Gosh, I blinked and suddenly we're behind in saving for our retirement, but that's no big deal. There's always social security, right? Right?

Jobs are the answer. Get people jobs! Infrastructure is always a great investment!

[Jeff Mariotte]

Brilliantly put, Red. In the end it's all about people--or it should be. Too many on the other side want to think that "corporations are people," as a famously clueless politician said. But people are people, and they should come first.

[Cnsieler]

You win.

But we can't give in to folks that try to get their way through violence or destruction of property.

[Jeff Mariotte]

Of course not. These days, the violence is being directed AT the progressives, in particular the Occupy folks, not committed by them.