Heritage Foundation

The Tea Party Republican Influence In The US Senate Grows, Even With Jim DeMint Leaving For Heritage Foundation

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South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, the creator of the Tea Party Caucus in the US Senate, and one of the most right wing, reactionary members of the upper chamber, is resigning to head the ultra conservative Heritage Foundation for about ten times his Senate salary, and to continue to work to purge the Senate Republicans of anyone moderate, or willing to compromise with Democrats or President Barack Obama.

The members of the Senate Republican minority considered to be Tea Party oriented include:

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky
Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin
Senator Mike Lee of Utah
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida
Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania

Also, new Senators joining the group include:

Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona
Senator Deb Fischer of Nebraska
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas

The Tea Party Senate Republicans failed to elect the following to the Senate:

2010
Christine ODonnell of Delaware
Sharron Angle of Nevada
Ken Buck Of Colorado
Joe Miller of Alaska

2012
Todd Akin of Missouri
Richard Mourdock of Indiana
Josh Mandel of Ohio

One could say, therefore, that there are now EIGHT Senators in the group, with SEVEN others being successfully defeated in the past two Senate election periods.

One more is likely to be added, when South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley appoints someone to replace DeMint, until the next Senate elections in 2014, with a tremendous edge for that individual to keep the seat.

Potential candidates for the replacement include:

Nikki Haley herself, who has national ambitions to run for President
Congressman Tim Scott, the only black Republican, and similar to Allen West in his views and attitudes
Congressman Joe Wilson, who infamously said Barack Obama was lying in his first State of the Union address

Many might say that the Tea Party is in decline, but in reality, it is far from dead, and there are still a large number of Tea Party Republicans in the House of Representatives, making life difficult for House Speaker John Boehner.

And one can be sure that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will be having more sleepless nights, more so with DeMint able to work to make the Republican Party ever more right wing in his position as the head of the Heritage Foundation!

Any thought that the Republican Party might move toward the center of the political spectrum seems highly unlikely after this event of DeMint’s move out of the Senate!

The “Two Ricks”: Dangerous To The Less Fortunate People Of Texas And Florida!

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It is really a sad state of affairs when the Republican Governors of the two largest GOP governed states (Texas and Florida) refuse to consider expansion of Medicaid, and also reject willingness to start planning health exchanges to promote development of ObamaCare, now that the Supreme Court has declared it constitutional.

Texas is the second largest state in population, and Florida is fourth, and that means millions of unfortunate Texans and Floridians will be victims of the refusal of the “two Ricks”, Rick Perry and Rick Scott, to accept federal money, and face the facts that citizens will die because of the refusal to provide health care to the needy and disabled of their states.

It is reprehensible and shows no conscience, as both governors play politics, and make ObamaCare seem radical, when the basis of it is RomneyCare, and the Heritage Foundation and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich endorsed the idea in 1993 as an alternative to so called HillaryCare, the proposal of President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton for a more advanced health care system than ObamaCare is.

ObamaCare is far more limited and, really, conservative in nature, but it is all part of the plan to oppose EVERYTHING promoted by President Barack Obama.

But with the Supreme Court having backed ObamaCare, for these two large state governors, and others, such as Scott Walker of WIsconsin, Paul LePage of Maine, and other GOP governors, to work to undermine it, knowing that it affects the lives of millions of the less fortunate among us, is beyond rational thought!

A Century Of Struggle For Health Care: Theodore Roosevelt 1912 to Barack Obama 2012!

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Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, out of office and running on the third party movement, the Progressive Party, in 1912, first proposed some form of national health exactly a century ago as part of his New Nationalism platform!

His distant cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, considered it as part of his New Deal in the 1930s, but it was controversial enough to promote Social Security, which was called “Socialism”, and bitterly opposed by most Republicans, and used as a campaign issue by Republican Governor Alf Landon in the 1936 Presidential campaign.

Harry Truman actually was the first to promote a program as part of his Fair Deal programs in the 1940s, but the Southern Democrats and the American Medical Association bitterly opposed it as “Socialism”, and it died in committees in the US House of Representatives and US Senate.

John F. Kennedy proposed what became Medicare for the elderly as part of his New Frontier, but it was blocked again by the AMA and the Southern Democrats who headed Congressional committees in both houses of Congress in the early 1960s.

Lyndon B. Johnson overcame the AMA and Southern Democrats, and accomplished Medicare in 1965, and the Republicans campaigned against it, but failed to gain enough support to repeal it

Richard Nixon had devised plans for more health care legislation, but Watergate killed any movement in that direction in the 1970s.

Jimmy Carter also had developed a plan for expansion, but faced too much conservative opposition and other issues and crises, which drew attention away from the idea.

Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton proposed a major government program, but it went down to defeat in 1994, with Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and the conservative Heritage Foundation proposing a “mandate” instead, which would allow private health insurance companies to profit from health care reform, but nothing was done.

And Senator Ted Kennedy fought the good fight for decades, and was at least able to see progress before his death in 2009.

And when Hillary Clinton, and then Barack Obama, adopted the Heritage Foundation plan in 2008, far less than the original Clinton plan of the 1990s, suddenly the Republican Party and conservative ideologists bitterly opposed it, as they still do, and their hope is to repeal the program declared constitutional by the Supreme Court this past Thursday.

So it has taken a century, and we are the ONLY major nation in the world which allows millions of people to be uncovered for health care, and we have the opposition bitterly trying to destroy it, including Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who actually promoted the SAME idea successfully in Massachusetts in 2006, but now is out to destroy “ObamaCare”!

What a history, and hard to believe that it would take a century, and still be a controversy in 2012!.

The Conservative Heritage Foundation, Newt Gingrich, And Mitt Romney: All Supportive Of “Individual Mandate” In The Past!

Ronald 1 Comment

The big argument against the Obama Health Care law is that it is unconstitutional to require an “individual mandate” of all citizens, that they be required to buy health insurance or be assessed a penalty on their income tax returns.

And yet, this is PRECISELY what the conservative Heritage Foundation advocated on the issue of health care as early as 1989!

This is what Newt Gingrich advocated when interviewed on NBC by Tim Russert in 1993!

This is what Mitt Romney advocated in Massachusetts, when they passed the model for the Obama Health Care plan in 2006, and still praised two years ago when the health care law was passed by Congress!

So therefore, the idea of the “individual mandate” is a CONSERVATIVE and REPUBLICAN idea, but now bitterly attacked when the Democrats and Barack Obama achieve it after decades of debate about the need for health care coverage for all Americans!

What does this make the Heritage Foundation, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and many other conservative and Republican leaders?

It makes them total HYPOCRITES, not worthy of our respect and support!

Now Federal Workers Are Facing Attack By Conservative Interests!

Ronald 1 Comment

The country has been witnessing attacks on public employees in state government and local government, including teachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses, prison guards, social workers, sanitation workers and others, by conservative and business interests who have been working to turn the American people against these public servants, and to claim they are overcompensated.

Now the attack is also beginning against federal employees, so called “bureaucrats” who have regularly been trashed over the years by citizens, as if they are the evil force in government!

The argument is that they are overpaid and have too many benefits, with the attack being led by the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, two conservative think tanks.

The fact that federal workers are more highly educated and work more highly skilled jobs than private sector employees is conveniently ignored.

Also, the fact that there is a two year freeze on cost of living increases for all federal workers through next year, is overlooked, as the attack on government workers at all levels continues.

Poverty Growing Among America’s Children!

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A recent USA TODAY article details the fact that more than one out of every five children in America in in poverty, and that it is the highest such percentage in two decades! 🙁

Eighteen percent do not have a secure source of food, and a half million are homeless! 🙁

This is, unfortunately, a state of affairs that leads to more health and education problems long term! Poverty also has a long range effect psychologically on children who suffer from it while they are growing up! 🙁

One would think that this would be an issue of urgency, but at least to the conservative Heritage Foundation, it is not, as one of its researchers states that poor families receive food stamps and housing assistance, although he does not point out that these aids are far from adequate! But the same researcher claims that government programs are ineffective in making lives of children better, and are just an excuse for more government programs and spending!

Somehow missing from this researcher’s assertions is any compassion for the harm done to children who are in poverty, and instead the emphasis on attacking government, even though private charities and groups have been proved inadequate in dealing with the problem of hunger and poverty!

Sad Commentary: Rising Food Stamp Usage, Especially By Children

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The Food Stamp program, often seen as a sign of the scorned word “welfare”, has become a lifeline in these difficult times for one out of four children in America, and overall, one out of eight Americans.

Conservatives once tried vigorously to wipe out the program, but now all kinds of people, not just the chronically poor, are utilizing the program desperately. This is a safety net program that has survived, no thanks to the conservatives who don’t care about hunger in America. They see the situation as Social Darwinism as first enunciated in the late 19th century Gilded Age.

In 239 counties, a quarter of the population or more subsist on food stamps for basic staples. This includes big cities and rural pockets hidden from most Americans. People of all ages and races and different social class backgrounds are victims of the crisis.

Major urban areas such as St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati face major portions of their population needing this aid. Many surburban areas in Florida, California and other once prosperous areas now burdened with foreclosures have also seen a tremendous rise in food stamp use. In areas of white Appalachia, on Indian reservations, and in Eskimo inhabited areas of Alaska, more than half of the people are on food stamps.

A study shows half of the American people at some point by age 20, at least briefly, are forced onto food stamps, but African American children have a rate on food stamps at some point by age 20 of NINETY percent!

28 percent of African Americans, 15 percent of Latinos, and 8 percent of whites depend on food stamps, and there are certainly many who are still too proud to ask for help, although many reluctant people in the past have given up their pride and asked for help.

But the Heritage Foundation, a conservative group, can only criticize and say food stamps are a “fossil of the war on poverty” and should include a work requirement.

Where are the Republicans calling for action on this issue? They are, not surprisingly, silent, as they have always been, but never saw a weapons program they would condemn.

How can we be proud of our nation as we see many politicians refusing to see a crisis that ultimately undermines us more than any external enemy can possibly do on their own? This situation is a national disgrace that calls for strong action, instead of stale Social Darwinism rhetoric!