Republicans argue, “So let us run it.”

Recently the scandals of ISIS and Ebola have been used by Republican congressional candidates to suggest that the Obama government cannot work but, presumably, Republican policies would have worked.

How might that look? What might Republicans have done to stop the spread of Ebola eventually to America? Well they cut the budgets for research on the Ebola virus and reduced the funding to the Centers for Disease control. Those decisions certainly would not have helped.

Republicans did not demand the U.S. send troops to the Western African nations plagued with Ebola, so that would not have helped. Perhaps their “help” was in scaring Americans and misrepresenting the threat of Ebola here, but that could certainly not be seen as constructive or even honest.

Perhaps they could have handled ISIS better than the Obama administration. But then that would have meant rejecting the Bush administrations’ failure to secure an agreement with Iraq for troops remaining behind to continue to train the Iraqi army.

And, even had the troops remained behind there is no guarantee ISIS would not have arisen where Sunni’s were ignored and rejected by the Iraqi government. Maybe Republicans would have left hundreds of thousands of US troops in Iraq to protect the country, but the American public would not have tolerated the extension of the War for No Purpose.

Now, on the eve of the 2014 elections Republicans stand confident that voters will re-elect their House majority and give them a majority in the U.S. Senate. And why not? Why not put the people who claim daily that government cannot, will not, may never work, in charge of governing?

Possibly because their past governing efforts have been disaster for America. The most recent generation of Republican control of government that cannot work gave us the George W. Bush administration. How did that work out?

The Bush administration gave us the largest terrorist attack in the history of the nation; two nation building wars, funded with tax cuts and debt, that failed to provide security in either nation. The Bush administration gave us the deepest recession since the Great Depression; that administration gave us an 86 percent increase in the national debt of $4.9 billion, according to factcheck.org.

The Bush administration also gave us Abu Ghraib, torture, Jack Abramoff, Scooter Libby’s conviction, Katrina and the outing of Valerie Plame, among other misdeeds and embarrassments.

To look back over the past 20 years of Republican accomplishment we need only visit the Republican National Committee’s website in 2012, where the following “accomplishments” by Republicans are noted: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; school vouchers in the District of Columbia (did not work); tax cuts for the wealthy; the contract with America; and welfare reform (signed by President Clinton). Such an incredible list of successes, why not elect them once again?

But what have the Democrats done for us other than accomplish a national healthcare system attempted by six previous administrations; killed bin Laden and most of his al Qaeda leaders; ended the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; produced the strongest economic recovery among western nations; reduced the deficit this year to the lowest in the last eight years and the lowest percentage of GDP in 12 years?

Well , they also supported marriage equality, an increase in the minimum wage, equal pay for women, the protection of voting rights, lower cost student loans, the reduction of Medicare abuse, an increase in border technology and staffing, and the creation of financial structures to prevent another economic collapse by banks too big to fail.

So elect those who promise they cannot govern because government always fails?

Really?

 

Jim Crawford is a retired educator and political enthusiast living here in the Tri-State.