Republicans - Money Trumps Everything.

No, this blog isn't about the Donald, not directly. It's about the fact on every government issue that effects the health and welfare of the entire country Republicans over the last couple decades consistently choose money over public health or addressing poverty.

They weren't so bad back in the early 70's.  The Nixon and Ford administrations signed off on laws regulating air quality to reduce toxic emissions into the air we breath, regulating the dumping of toxic materials into the water we drink, more broadly regulating industrial dumping of poisonous substance on the land we live on and requiring government to assess the impact proposed development would have before approving the development.

But for the last couple decades Republicans primary focus has been on getting rid of those nuisance regulations that make business accountable for the damage they cause to the the air we breath, the water the drink and the land we live on.  All because it costs business money.  "Job Killers" the Republicans say.  Yet during that period of time business has done just fine, corporate profits are at all time highs, corporate executives make 300 times the salary of the average worker.

Then there is poverty.  The anti-poverty programs of LBJ have made a huge dent in poverty in this country, although they certainly are not notable for their efficiency.  But Republicans talk only about getting rid of the programs, not improving efficiency.  They say that the free market will take care of poverty.  Odd, given that in the prior history of mankind the free market never managed to come even close to accomplishing that feat. 

Then there is Health Care.  Anyone that cared could see for the last 40 years the US health care system was a joke.  It cost twice us twice as much per person as any other developed country in the world, and produced mediocre outcomes.  The people in tiny, relatively poor countries have lower infant mortality and live longer than we do.  Yet no progress could be made until we had the one two year period of a Democratic Congress and Democratic President in the last 20 years.  Even then Republican obstructionism resulted in a system that is a ludicrous combination of private insurance and public oversight.  An improvement but light years from a really efficient system.

The really odd thing about the Republican obsession with money is that history demonstrates they are oblivious to how money works.  Twice in the last hundred years Republicans have controlled Congress for a decade or more.  Both times they handed the economic controls over to business, confident business knew better than anyone how to run an economy.  Both times ended with the world economy blowing up, leaving the world (including us) poorer (although a few really rich people did just fine).

In Republican primaries this last year virtually every Republican Governor touted his ability to balance his states budget.  They can balance their budget because most Republican states get more back from the Federal Government than they pay in taxes.  The Feds are doing all the heavy lifting on poverty and health care.  Florida (Jeb Bush) get $2.44 back for every dollar of Federal Income taxes paid in the state.  Ohio (John Kasich) gets 34% of the states revenue from the Federal government.

Sometimes it seems Republicans are too obsessed with getting rich to understand how an economy works.