Blog: Raise the Flag, Say a Prayer & Cut Taxes: The Republican Way

Whatever policy challenge one can imagine – foreign or domestic - the Republican answer to everything involves some version of Raising the Flag, Saying a Prayer and Cutting Taxes. That’s it!

Wouldn’t it be easier, on all of us, if they’d quit fiddling around with their long-winded explanations, think-tank talking points, and future clown debates and just admit it – that when it comes to matters governmental, saber rattling, invoking God, and sneaking in a tax cut is all they’ve got. Any other “solution” is blasphemy, ideologically impure, and beyond contemplation no matter how practical and salutary the effect. To be clear, Republicans, especially in times of crisis, are more than willing to enhance people’s suffering rather than abandon one iota of their ideological bedrock. Mitt Romney’s “let Detroit go bankrupt” and Andrew Mellon’s Depression era edict “liquidate” being prime examples of Republican adherence to economic “principles” no matter what the cost.

The world can literally be spinning out of control right before their very eyes (as it was in 2008 when eight years of Republican economic malfeasance came crashing down) and demanding new approaches and fresh ideas, but there Republicans stood and will stand “athwart history yelling stop” and having none of it. Their virtue measured not by flexibility and forward thinking, but by a stubborn and increasingly undiscerning allegiance to all things worn and past. A declared preference for any utterance of an 18th century strict-constructionist or any opinion of a 19th century free-marketer is stone, and not to be tinkered with.

Auto bail-out? Not necessary. Stimulus? Uh, no. Infrastructure spending? No way. Tax increases on those making 5X median income. Sorry!  Health care costs at twice the per capita average of all developed nations elicits “We're not going to turn the American health care system into a western European system” from the Minority leader. That is -  nimble, modern-day, cost-effective solutions to real-world problems, which correlate mightily to the pursuit of happiness, will not be considered here. No way.

The Republican way.