Portrait, Robert Reich, 08/16/09. (photo: Perian Flaherty)
21 December 12
emarkably,
John Boehner couldn't get enough House Republicans to vote in favor of
his proposal to keep the Bush tax cuts in place on the first million
dollars of everyone's income and apply the old Clinton rates only to
dollars over and above a million.
What? Even Grover Norquist blessed Boehner's proposal, saying it wasn't really a tax increase. Even Paul Ryan supported it.
What does Boehner's failure tell us about the modern Republican party?
That it has become a party of hypocrisy masquerading
as principled ideology. The GOP talks endlessly about the importance of
reducing the budget deficit. But it isn't even willing to raise revenues
from the richest three-tenths of one percent of Americans to help with
the task. We're talking about 400,000 people, for crying out loud.
It has become a party that routinely shills for its
super-wealthy patrons at a time in our nation's history when the middle
class is shrinking, the median wage is dropping, and the share of
Americans in poverty is rising.
It has become a party of spineless legislators more
afraid of facing primary challenges from right-wing kooks than of
standing up for what's right for America.
For all these reasons it has become irrelevant to the problems America faces.
The Republican Party in the process of marginalizing
itself out of existence. I am tempted to say good riddance, but that
would be premature.
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