Republican Lies (In the Manner of One Mr. D. Trump)

Republicans running for election or re-election in next month's election have been getting feedback and even static from their constituents over the issue of whether they want a government-supported health care plan to cover pre-existing conditions.

The Affordable Care Act (so-called Obamacare) provides that the insurance plans offered by private insurers who offer health insurance to individuals under the Act must cover pre-existing conditions. Republicans have tried, sixty times, to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something else. The exact details of the replacement plan have never been made public (as I understand it), but it is widely believed that it would not require coverage of pre-existing conditions.

Now we see that this has become a big issue, and Republicans are getting a lot of pushback over the pre-existing conditions thing. Their response to this, and their campaign strategy? To claim that they support coverage for pre-existing conditions and that the Democrats do not.

If this were true, they would simply need to leave Obamacare alone and not try to repeal it, as they have done 60 times.

Evidently Republican congressional candidates are trying to copy a strategy so often used by Donald Trump, which I think I can describe as "Lie to them and they will believe it, 99% of the time." This cynical approach is based on the belief that the electorate is stupid or at least incapable of critically examining what is told to them. Unfortunately that often seems to be true.

Copyright © 2018.

New Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh

Please scroll down to July 5 posting.

Republicans: Friend of the Rich, No Friend to Seniors

Today's news says that Mitch McConnell (a Republican senator from Kentucky and the U.S. Senate majority leader) wants to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits. The reason? To alleviate the deficit in the US budget. And the reason for the deficit? Because Donald Trump's (and Republicans') tax cut has benefited corporations and the ultra-wealthy but reduced the government's income (i.e., worsened the budgetary deficit).

McConnell, not unreasonably, feels that the loss of revenue due to the tax cut should be made up somewhere, somehow. But it should be clear to anyone that cutting taxes on the very rich and corporations, if that loss of revenue has to be made up by cutting programs like Medicare and Social Security, is favoring the rich at the expense of the elderly for whom Social Security may be a chief, or only, source of income, and who also greatly benefit from Medicare.

The moral is this: If you are a recipient of Social Security and/or Medicare--or even if you are not but are simply someone other than a member of the "One Percent" (that is, the very richest in our society)--you should not be voting Republican, because you are not voting in accordance with your own interests.

The Republicans have long been the party of and for the rich. For people who have not seen that, it should be more obvious now.

If you're one of the One Percent, I'm actually going to tell you that you should vote Republican; it's in your interests. If you're not, remember that the Republican philosophy is help the rich and screw the poor. And, they have huge amounts of money with which to influence elections. So--support the other side.

Copyright © 2018