Elections Have Consequences
Last week, Standard and Poor’s (S&P), downgraded America’s credit rating from AAA to AA+. While this may not seem like a substantial change, and the long-term financial fallout has yet to be realized, it is important to note one thing: elections have consequences.
November 2010 was a tough month to be a Democrat. Just two short years ago, Democrats were rejoicing the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States and gaining substantial majorities in both chambers of Congress. On November 2, 2010, there was a different tune in Washington and across the country. In the midterm elections, Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives by the largest margin in history, as well as multiple statehouses across the country. While this was an obvious devastating blow to Obama and his base, it remained to be seen how well both parties reached across the isle to work together. Unfortunately, one side simply refused and still refuses to recognize that their actions have sweeping affects on the nation and the everyday people whom they claimed to represent. That party is the Republican Party. While claiming to represent a populism and “Joe the plumber,” the GOP continued to represent the interests of the richest Americans. In the recent negotiations to raise our nation’s debt ceiling, something that has been done every year since the mid-2000s, the Republicans held the reputation of the United States abroad and the job prospects of middle class Americans hostage in the name of preventing tax increases on the rich. Despite the parties being able to reach a deal, the compromised reached is a terrible deal for the American people, which seeks to cut billions from Medicare, military spending, education, and transportation.
In some sense, the American people deserve their fate. By voting for Tea-Party Republicans and kicking Democrats out of office, they seemed to want a change, and that is what they got. But that still does not change the fact that this was a bad deal for America. John Boehner claims to have got 98 percent of what his party wanted. If holding America’s economy hostage for more cuts to social programs is what he wanted, then he succeeded. If reducing America’s credit rating is what he wanted, then he succeeded. And if withholding pay from the bravest Americans fighting overseas in our seemingly endless wars, then he succeeded. Yesterday, in the GOP Presidential Debate in Iowa, Mitt Romney said quite emphatically, “Corporations are people, friends.” In 2012, if the American people vote Obama out of office, then they will not have learned their lesson. They will simply get a government who protects the interests of the corporations who helped create this financial disaster and the richest Americans who do not pay their share of taxes to the government. The most important thing to remember as 2012 approaches is that elections have consequences.