Oh Great

There’s a group trying to secure Kansas City as the site of the 2016 GOP convention. Gross.

Who Else is to Blame?

I saw an obscene bumper sticker yesterday that read “Don’t blame me, I voted Republican.” Setting aside the GOP’s distinguished history of war, tariffs, central banking, cronyism, and many other evils, just look at the most recent “fiscal cliff” debacle. Republicans are largely to blame for the coming tax increases, and not only on wealthy earners, but anyone collecting a paycheck, as Ryan McMaken noted recently on the LRC blog.

This whole mess happened because Republicans put a ten-year sunset on the tax cuts. They did nothing in the senate to prevent passage of the Orwellian-named “American Taxpayer Relief Act,” and in fact, their leader in the senate was mighty pleased by the work he did. Finally, the house went right along with it, including supposed fiscal hawk and Ayn Rand fanboy, Paul “TARP” Ryan.

“Don’t blame me, I voted Republican.” Are you kidding me? Who else but the Republicans is to blame?

Thanks, GOP

On that impending tax increase, Ryan McMaken notes that it’s happening because:

the GOP put an expiration date on the Bush tax cuts, even though they had total control of the Congress and the White House are various times during the past decade. So, we can thank the GOP for putting us in the current position where tax cuts are automatically set to expire.

He also points out that if Republicans really wanted to do something about the tax increase, they could refuse to approve any budget that would require greater spending. They won’t, of course, and are therefore no lesser an evil than the Democrats in congress.

They All Do It

I often hear Republicans accuse Democrats of “buying votes.” The past few weeks have seen a rise in this considerably, as the GOP struggles to come to terms with its latest defeat. Everyone from right-wing news commentators to Facebook demagogues have vented their frustration over this ancient political tool, as if Republicans haven’t taken equal advantage of it.

After all, what else are we to consider Bush’s multi-trillion dollar expansion of Medicare, Reagan’s amnesty, Nixon’s increase in Social Security payments, or virtually every Republican politician’s promise to expand military expenditures?

A Ridiculous Idea

The Republicans want libertarians to vote for Willard Romney. Here’s my reply.