How Republicans will give Obama carte-blanche in his last two years as President

United we stand.  Divided we fall.

The absurdity that is running amuck in Congress is destined to stop soon.  This is not just wishful thinking.  I say this with  complete confidence.   Republicans in Congress will take the lead in ending their own misery with two last desperate actions to win favor with their wealthy constituents while betraying the rest of us, and this will signal the end.

Within the Republican party, members of the Tea Party caucus are deliberately choosing to end our government.  They have shown that they do not have a desire to compromise, do not want to create useful legislation and are even willing to cause an economic crisis if they don't get their way.  They have split their own party.  Tea Party leaders such as Canadian born Ted Cruz and his Cuban born father are leading simple-minded Tea Party members astray.

Ted Cruz

They claim that the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) is the single most injurious program in the history of the world and must be stopped.  They blame the actions of unethical business owners, such as reducing full time employee hiring and cutting hours to avoid having to provide insurance to their employees, on Obama.  They asked for concessions to allow one more year for business owners to conform to healthcare regulations and requested exemption from the business mandated penalties and got them from Obama.  Now they claim that Obama is helping big business but denies the same exemption for individuals.  Politics and truth seem to be unfamiliar partners in Republican circles.

The first desperate action that Republicans will take is to offer a much monetarily reduced continuing resolution to keep the government running but will attach an amendment to defund ObamaCare.  This will pass the House but fail in the Senate.  After this useless legislation delay, Republicans will allow the government to shut down long enough to make the debt ceiling the next issue they can use as leverage to defund Obama Care.  Typically, they take actions that will hurt many Americans with the

aloof disregard of sociopaths.  

When it becomes painfully obvious that Republicans are hurting their own constituents with the government shut down, they will eventually pass a continuing resolution to fund the government.  You can bet that it will continue to contain articles to attack some aspect of Obama Care which Democrats may allow in order to continue governing.  My guess is that they will first propose a year exemption from the individual mandate penalty that will not be approved.  Then they will attach a demand for reduced employer contributions to the employee insurance premium.  That or something like it will probably pass.

With the government back in operation, a week or so later, Republicans will use the threat of not passing the debt ceiling as another attack on defunding ObamaCare.  Most members of Congress know that increasing the debt ceiling is needed in order to pay for debt obligations already made by Congress.  The last time increasing the debt ceiling was rejected by Republicans, America's credit rating dropped and the interest rate charged increased.  Increasing the interest on trillions of dollars in loans makes for a huge increase in our deficit.  Republicans never seem to remember how much they are personally responsible for "Obama's" deficit.

This time there will be no compromise and America will go into default on its loans for some period of time.  Then it will be a race to see which side will give in first.  Because of our already tight monetary policy, the economic health of America is sure to be hurt.  Federal Reserve Chair Bernanke has described this as a recession inducing action.  

If it appears that there is no compromise in sight, stocks will be affected and Americans 401K's will

Crash of 2013?

lose tremendous value.  Retirees can expect that their incomes from investments will be slashed and their standard of living will be drastically reduced.  The wealthy will remove their cash from the stock market and place it into tax sheltered off-shore accounts.  This will pull the market down even more.  A middle-class financial crisis could become the most severe in history and will signal the end of the middle-class in America.  When the middle-class is gone, business will be affected and the entire economic structure of the United States could undergo the greatest depression in our history.

Because of the potential economic damage to America and the world, I have to believe that Republicans will give up on their insistence to defund ObamaCare and pass the increase in the debt ceiling, especially when they realize that the world will see them as the cause of a world-wide depression.

But some damage will be done to the economy because Republicans won't give up their senseless acts of desperation in short order.  Because this will hurt their own wealthy Wall Street constituents, the Tea Party Republicans will be stifled and healthier Republican minds will prevail.

The future may bring civility back to governing.

Remember the next month when you are voting for your Congressmen in the 2014 mid-term elections.  Let's hope righteousness is a powerful enough ideal and pervasive enough in our voting public to overcome the evil that seems to have invaded Republican politics.

Your vote is the key.

Republican optimism is so refreshing it's like drinking soured milk

Mean old white men taking their football and walking off the playing field.  That's how I'm seeing the Republican Party lately.  It doesn't matter to them that the economy is in the dumps and that the American people who they are sworn to represent are suffering.  They will obstruct progress on economic improvement by simply refusing to play.

Many authors have written about this do-nothing Congress that we have been saddled with during this administration's term but writing about it doesn't help.  President Obama, in giving them the benefit of the doubt said that he believed Republican obstruction would end if he were re-elected.  His reasoning included the assumption that there would be no longer any reason to block legislation in his last term because there would be nothing for the Republicans to gain by it.  Now the Republicans, by way of Mitch McConnell have said they won't cooperate with Obama even if he wins the upcoming election.

America should be outraged.  Once again they are throwing America out the window for their own selfish reasons.  This Party does not represent you America.  They are a bunch of angry old white men who think that they are above the Americans they represent.  How many of you voted for your Republican leaders so that they could do nothing but obstruct progress and prevent resolution of problems?  These fools say that if a coach doesn't have any wins in three years, you'd boot him out.  So it follows that if the players all sat down on the playing field during every game in spite of their coach, you should be looking for better players.  

These worthless idiots are showing you how little they care about you.  They are all nice and cozy with their high paying government sponsored jobs with terrific insurance plans and excellent retirement plans.  They are already taken care of.  They do not care about you.

Republican leaders have proven that they are liars.  They have proven that they are obstructionists.  They have proven that they do not represent you.  What are they still doing in office?  

Your vote is the key.  Don't waste it.  Vote Democratic in all elections and let's get this country back on the right path.

If Romney's speech is all it takes to convince America that he should be President, then America isn't listening

After three days of self indulgent speeches by Republican Governors and repeated lies about the out of context words 'you didn't build that' and false statements about Obama's hidden agenda to screw the elderly by stealing from medicare,  I was actually looking forward to Romney's speech.  I wanted to hear for myself how this potential President of the United States would explain how he plans to make things better for the people of this great country.

But, if you're someone who is not easily impressed, a thinker, or use to dealing with facts, then you were probably disappointed by Romney's address to the Republican National Convention.

After getting by all the fakery about being concerned that Obama was unsuccessful and that America deserved better, Romney started getting into the complaints about the current administration.

Romney's explanation of Obama's failure is based on the fact that he does not have business experience.  It may seem reasonable to ordinary Americans that a CEO would be a good person to fix our struggling economy, but is this necessarily true?

The most important thing driving the actions of a Corporate businessman like Romney is to make a profit through the sale of goods or services.  A government not only does not sell goods or services, it also does not have a profit motive.  A government is driven by concern for all members of it citizenry.  Sometimes that concern is in the form of social programs to help Americans through times of hardship.  Sometimes it means building an infrastructure of roads, bridges and technology that benefit society and provide citizens and businesses a means to accomplish more.  In Corporate America, times of economic difficulty usually mean that a Corporate CEO takes actions to reduce those elements of cost that he believes are not indispensable.  Interpreting this into a CEO-President Romney terms, this means cutting those social programs that the government provides.  As expected Romney was short on explanations of how his business experience at Bain Capital would help him be a better President than Obama.  How much he believes the importance of business experience may have been exposed today when he mis-spoke and called America a "Company" instead of a "Country."

Romney dismisses the idea that the economic problems we have been experiencing were the result of the Bush Presidency.  He simply states that Obama should just accept the blame for it because he hasn't gotten us out of it yet.  This is as anti-intellectual as stating that the person sent in to help fix a mess confess that he created the mess because he wasn't done cleaning up yet.  People have to realize that the  recession we are in is the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression.  That disaster took nearly fifteen years to get resolved.  Instead, Romney would return to Bush era practices that caused our present economic situation.  Additionally, Romney would not mention that there are many signs that the economy is improving and has been since Obama came into office.  Obama's policies are working despite all the obstruction that Republicans in Congress have caused in order to prevent him from being successful.  As they have stated themselves, Republicans in Congress had a most important objective to obstruct everything Obama proposed in order to make him appear to be impotent and unsuccessful.  They did this in the midst of the economic disaster and they did it to the detriment of the American people they are sworn to represent.

Jobs under Bush (red) vs Obama (blue)

Romney claims that Obama crushed the middle class because there are no jobs.  He does not admit that since Obama has been in office new jobs have shifted their negative trend from the Bush era and have been on a constant increasing trend.

Romney says that Obama hates small business and intends to increase taxes on small business.  He does not admit that Obama has only reduced taxes on small business since he has been in office.  Obama's newest proposal for taxes does not increase tax on small business.  Government programs such as the Small Business Administration are strong and helping small businessmen and women everyday.

In his speech Romney continues the lie about Obama stealing 716 Billion dollars from medicare to fund Obama-Care.  I hope everyone knows that this lie which has been disproved by numerous independent sources will not become true simply because the Republican leadership re-states it over and over again.

His speech took on a very militaristic character at one point.  I thought for sure he was against cutting the military budget because he has plans to start a war with Iran if he was elected.

Romney concluded his speech with promises to the American people.  Romney gave no detailed explanation of how these promises will be accomplished so I guess he just wants us to trust him.  He promised:

1. Twelve million new jobs.  It has been estimated that we are currently on a path to accomplish this without any new Romney actions within four years, so I guess this one is possible, but still an empty promise.

2. Energy independence by 2020. This claim is made even though Romney is critical of Obama's interest in  funding research on new forms of energy.  Romney has signed onto the Oil and Coal coalition as well, so I guess he intends to drill and dig more in America.  We have been told many times by the oil companies when they increase gas prices, that oil is in limited supply.  So over the long term how does Romney expect to become energy independent?

3. Create new trade agreements and punish any country that cheats.  Which countries and how punishment would be carried out was left to our imagination.

4. Assure that the "job creators" investments won't vanish.  Romney will also cut the deficit and balance the budget.  None of this is explained, but protecting the wealthy  investors sounds like tax law reform and Wall Street regulation is not high on Romney's agenda.

5. Reduce taxes on business.  I guess this is to support the job creator lie or maybe to give more credence to the possibility that the job creators really will turn away from American workers as an effective threat against having their taxes raised.

6. Repeal (and now replace) Obama-Care.  I can't believe Romney thinks taking health insurance away from the American people will be seen as a good thing to anyone except die-hard (and healthy) Republicans.  Again Romney gives no explanation on any of this.

In concluding his speech, Romney's additional unexplained rhetoric included statements that seemed intended as a band-aid to cover what has recently become controversial about Republicans.  He vows to care for the sick, statements apparently made to soften the view that he intends to repeal Obama-Care.  He claims that he will respect the elderly, seemingly trying to change the popular view that Republicans like he and Ryan have plans to change Medicare into a voucher program.

Empty promises claiming certainty of success may sound good but without details give us no factual information to evaluate whether they will ever be achievable.  I guess we'll need to listen closely to Romney's explanations if they exist in future appearances.

I'm so looking forward to the Presidential debates in October.  Perhaps by then Romney will have better explanations for his promises.  If not, President Obama will walk all over him.

Romney's head will be spinning and he'll probably have to admit that his Party really was not only responsible for the current  economic disaster, but also responsible for blocking  progress on resolving it.