Reality Check!!

In the wake of the re-election of Barack Hussein Obama there is elation in liberal and Democratic circles and soul searching in the Republican folds.

The focus is on the fact that “Democrats have won the popular vote in four out of the last five Presidential elections — including the 2000 race in which Al Gore got 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush nationally, but wound up losing the electoral vote by two votes, courtesy of the Supreme Court.” See here. Of course, at the same time it overlooks that Obama, is the only Democratic President since F.D.R. to be granted a second term by a popular majority. See here.

But the first part sounds good! Makes for good headlines! Even has Republicans eating crow. Thus Governor Bobby Jindal in the most dramatic words of any Republican spokesperson said:  

We’ve got to stop being the stupid party… It’s time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults. It’s time for us to articulate our plans and our visions for America in real terms… We are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes or big anything…We must not be the party that simply protects the well off so that they can keep their toys.

So is it a whole new ball game. Have Republicans seen the light? Or in the immortal words of Yogi Berra, is it  “deja vu all over again".

It is a mere six years since I posted an article on my blog entitled "Euphoria and Reality" in which I pointed out that despite the big win in mid-term elections, the ability to govern was far from our grasp. After 2008 euphoria was even greater, but it was still a very big slog to get real reform enacted. To get the stimulus enacted, three Republican votes had to be found to overcome a filibuster, and the three votes were bought by diluting the crucial funding of state governments, leading to enormous job losses in the state’s public sectors, and a drag on job creation in the private sector.

But now in the elation of 2012 we seem to have forgotten what happened a mere two years ago. That was a real drubbing. As a result in 25 of the 50 states Republicans have complete control of all three branches of government, and 30 of the 50 states have Republican governors.  This came at a very propitious time for them since it followed the 2010 census, allowing them to redraw Congressional and even state legislative lines so as to assure them of a majority in State legislatures and in the House of Representatives into the indefinite future. See here. As of this year Democrats will hold complete sway in only 13 states. See here.

But what of the new Republican awakening as outlined by Jindal? Just recently he introduced into his state legislature a plan to “eliminate Louisiana's income and corporate taxes and pay for those cuts with increased sales taxes…” which according “to the Institute onTaxation and Economic Policy, would end up cutting taxes for the wealthiest Louisianans while raising taxes on the bottom 80 percent of Louisianans. So much for “We must not be the party that simply protects the well off so that they can keep their toys.” The talk has changed! The reality has not!

And is Jindal this new Republican moderate on other issues? According to Raw Story he favors "allowing creationism to be taught in biology classes, opposes abortion in all cases, votes against expanding federal funding for stem cell research and supports a constitutional ban on marriage equality."

So what does he mean when he says we have to stop being “the stupid party"? He means that they have to be better at obfuscation.

The fact is that the shift in state taxes from income to sales taxes, increases the burden on lower incomes, and decreases the burden on upper incomes, and it is happening in Republican controlled states, through out. For example Republicans in North Carolina are pushing such a plan. Kansas, which cut its income tax significantly last year, may trim further. Oklahoma, which tried to cut income taxes last year, is expected to try again. See here.

But far more ominous are Republican attempts to fix not only congressional elections by gerrymandering, but fixing the electoral votes by changing the rules.

They tried to suppress the vote in the last election. It didn’t work, or at least it didn’t work well enough. As the Washington Post wrote, now Republicans:

...who have control of states that went for President Obama in the 2012 election are pushing for their states to change how they award electoral votes. While almost every state awards electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis, Republicans want these states to instead award one vote to the winner of each congressional district. 

The other two electoral votes that each state has likely would be given to the statewide winner, as they are in the two states that currently employ this method: Maine and Nebraska. 

The new system would allow Republicans to consistently win electoral votes (and quite possibly a majority of electoral votes) from states like Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Virginia, regardless of whether they win the statewide vote. 

All five of these states went for Obama in 2012. Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania have consistently gone blue at the presidential level, and Virginia is tilting in that direction, which would make winning any electoral votes in these states a victory for the GOP. 

Why does it matter? 

It matters because the congressional district method gives the GOP a much better chance of winning, since a strong majority of U.S. congressional districts lean Republican. 

In fact, if every state awarded its electoral votes by congressional district, it’s likely that Mitt Romney would have won the 2012 presidential election despite losing the popular vote by nearly four percentage points. See here.

They are talking about a new party. They are talking about being more inclusive. About courting the Hispanic vote by supporting legalization of the 11 million illegal aliens in the US. Watch what they do, not what they say. It is already no legalization until the borders are secure, and of course we have been trying to make the borders secure for decades. They will never be secure enough to suit these pretend converts. They are owned lock stock and barrel by a majority of Caucasians, mostly rural, who founded this country on slavery and will never, never, accept the idea that they may no longer be the majority. They will do whatever it takes to keep the vote in their hands. Charles Krauthammer writing in the Washington Post speaks for them. “There is an obvious solution: enforcement first.” Even if somehow Republicans in the Congress agree to legalization, i.e. Green Cards, the will never agree to citizenship. Would they really allow 11 million more non-whites to vote, particularly if they are more then likely going to vote Democratic? I think not! Or as the Christian Science Monitor explains: 

In addition to sinking $1 billion into the failed "virtual fence," the US government has spent $2.6 billion for 650 miles of solid border. This wall doesn’t deter people – but it does defy the laws that protect the land.

As for the idea that the illegal aliens have to go to the end of the line before being considered for legalization that is the biggest hoax of them all. As was pointed out in a recent article in the New York Times:

If we really want to tackle unauthorized migration, we need to understand why it exists in the first place. The most important cause is our system of allocating green cards, or visas for permanent residency, which stipulates that no country may have more than 7 percent of the total each year. With an annual ceiling of 366,000 family- and employer-sponsored visas, the per-country limit is 25,620. 

“In practice, this means it is easy to immigrate here from, say, Belgium or New Zealand, but there are long waits — sometimes decades — for applicants from China, India, Mexico and the Philippines. These four max out on the limit every year. When critics admonish prospective immigrants — as well as the 11 million plus undocumented migrants currently in America — to “go to the back of the line,” they should realize that for many people the line is a cruel joke.

Republicans may go along with allowing illegal immigrants, who in the words of Senator McCain are, “… individuals to mow our lawn, serve our food, clean our homes and even watch our children, while not affording them any of the benefits that make our country so great, … I think everyone agrees that it’s not beneficial to our country to have these people hidden in the shadows.”

Republicans may allow them to come out of the shadows, but I predict that giving them citizenship and the right to vote is something that they will fight to the bitter end.

For a history of attempts at immigration reform, see here.

Marco Rubio, a descendent of Cubans, who won his Florida Senate seat, by less than 50% of the vote because his opposition was split, has been touted as the great immigration reformer. Is he? See here.

The cry of  “no amnesty” may no longer be the rallying cry, but citizenship and the right to vote is another matter all together. Of course that “no amnesty" cry was always phony, for we have statutes of limitations for every crime except murder. Why would we not have a statute of limitations for aliens having come here illegally decades ago?

But people who have made lives for themselves in this country, who have been here for decades, who have families here, are entitled to not only come out of the shadows, but to have full participation in our Democracy. Nothing else can or should be accepted.

Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.