In Case You Were Wondering Why Politics Have Become Partisan

Let me recount some of the history of how the Republicans have shot a cannon through Democratic willingness to compromise and left me with no choice but to vote for only Democrats.

We must start with the programs that Bush II put in place to combat the potential depression.  It was Bush II and his Secretary of the Treasury that designed TARP - which I agreed with - to provide a safety net for the financial system; without which the economy would have had a precipitous fall the likes of which I cannot imagine.  It was also Bush II that started to provide some support for the auto industry but left the final decision to the incoming President Obama who implemented the full support wiping out the equity holders of GM and Chrysler in the process; as they would have been in a bankruptcy.  The reason the auto companies could not go through a normal bankruptcy is that their finance companies required  liquidity to make car loans and the banking system did not have the liquidity to provide DIP financing.   So this was in essence an extension of TARP for a sector that employees a lot of people and has the biggest job multiplier after the construction industry.

President Obama designed his fiscal stimulus with Republican input - that is why there was such a high % of tax cuts vs fiscal spending, which would have been more effective - and then the Republicans didn't vote for it saying the tax cuts were not big enough.  Ditto with the Affordable Health Care Act.  Republicans were against a Public Option so there is not a Public Option.   Instead we have Health Insurance Exchanges - which I am willing to give a chance to - as designed by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.  This design was first implemented in Massachusetts by the Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and is working well with reasonably a reasonably satisfied population.  Yet, the Republicans did not vote for the Affordable Health Care act and run against it without suggesting what they would propose instead.  The aggregate cost of health care is our most pressing problem and one of its primary causes in the cost of medical treatment for the uninsured.   The only thing on this issue out of the mouths of Republicans is we want to ruin the Presidency of Mr. Obama and make him a one term President.  This from the Senate Minority leader, Mitch McConnell, who should be looking for ways in which to make things better, not worse.  I wish I could make him a one termer but I don't live in Kentucky.

Of course, throughout all this we have the birthers doubting whether the President is a citizen despite all evidence that he is.  This unfortunately is still alive on Yahoo as that bigoted Sheriff in Arizona, who wants to evict every Hispanic from Arizona, is now a document expert claiming that parts of the birth certificate were forged.  How he can tell that out of a photo and why would a birth recorder in Honolulu forge something 50 years ago for a 5 day old baby?

Then we have the continuation of the Republican legislator's "anti-the-president" continuing in the Presidential primaries.  There is not one Republican who can even give the President full credit for conducting the War on Terror in a sound fashion, rather they focus on Iran and suggest that we should start another war when such a war would wreck havoc on the global economy and US jobs which they claim to be issue #1.  Now military action may become necessary, but talk is cheap and I doubt that Mitt Romney would send bombers into Iranian airspace on Day 2 of his presidency as he has firmly stated he would do during his campaign.  YAP YAP YAP

Now we have a conspiracy theory that somehow Andrew Breitbart's death was caused by something other than a heart attack.  I guess "24" has somehow made it into this White House and a 43 year old with a history of heart problems is the 1st victim rather than someone more obvious like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Bashar al-Assad.

I don't know what any Republican stands for anymore except tax cuts, military actions and conspiracy theories.  You bet I have become partisan because I am in the middle and there is no home for me except in the Democratic Party.  The thought of Republicans being rewarded for such coarse behavior leaves me frigid.