Ronald Reagan ran against a $1trillion national debt in 1980. Bill Clinton gave us “surpluses as far as the eye can see.” Reagan, Bush I and Bush II slammed through tax cuts for Big Oil, Big Pharma, corporations and the ultra-rich and ran the national debt up to some $12 trillion. As of the writing of this post, the national debt is some $14.34 trillion and counting. The facts don’t lie; Republicans under Reagan, Bush I and Bush II added about $11 trillion to our national debt since 1980. Now, however, Republicans want to tie raising the debt ceiling to spending cuts. Now, Republicans want more tax breaks for corporations and the ultra-rich and tell us that any tax increase is off the table. Now, Republicans want to destroy Medicare by replacing it with a fixed voucher that buys what little coverage for seniors at whatever price insurers want to charge. America doesn’t have a debt problem, America has a Republican problem. More and more, voters agree. A recent poll shows voters overwhelmingly think Republicans just blame President Obama rather than proposing solutions of their own.  The same poll shows that voters overwhelmingly support tax increases on the most wealthy of Americans to make up federal deficits.

The radical right will say and do anything in their attempts to discredit, disgrace and dishonor Barack Obama, America’s first African-American president. The ruling Republican leadership does nothing to dispel falsehoods about President Obama but, tacitly endorses these falsehoods in their attempts to “make sure Barack Obama is a one term President!” The tactics and accusations aren’t new, almost all of them are from previous Republican playbooks and most have been used in Republican primary and general election campaigns for the past 40 years. Some other accusations are vicious racist paranoid rants of a more vocal lunatic fringe that has come to dominate the right as more and more corporate and rich ultra-conservative donor dollars are pumped into any effort that might bear the fruit of the continued destruction of President Obama, the Democratic Party, unions and the American Middle Class. It’s as though the right has taken all the racist, fascist, and corporatist twisted deep blue stygian depths of paranoid lunacies of past Republican abuses of government and recast President Obama, the Democratic Party, unions and the Middle Class as the “perpa-traitors” instead of the actual Republicans who have already done exactly what the right claims to fear the most. My personal favorite is “Obama is the anti-christ!” Polls show that 25%, a substantial minority, of Republican voters actually believe that President Barack Obama is the anti-christ. If these folks would stop drinking the Jonestown Kool Aid they could see that their personal insanities about Armageddon and the end-times are not here because an African American was elected President of the United States in 2008. See here, here and here. [More. . . .]

The Republican budget cuts would cut GDP growth by 2% and cost 800,000 jobs. The federal budget cuts supported by the US House Republicans will stifle US economic growth by some 2% of the GDP and cost some 800,000 jobs. The state budgets cuts by Republican and other governors have caused .5% less growth in the US GDP in the 4th Quarter of 2011. It is apparent that Republicans are cutting spending at federal and state levels so they can defeat President Obama in 2012 because the worse the economy is, the better chances Republicans will defeat President Obama and make him a “one term president.” The US House Speaker, John Boehner (R-OH) says; “So be it!” Governor Mitch Daniels (R-IN), mentioned as a future GOP presidential nominee, told Meet The Press said; “...yes” to state budget cuts even if they would result in fewer jobs and less economic growth. I guess the 2010 mid-term voters who voted for Republicans all thought that it would be a good thing for their Republican office holders to stall economic growth by 2% of GDP and cost some 800,000 jobs. Mr. Boehner, where are the jobs?