September 12, 2011 03:10 PM UTC

How Do Republicans Think?

• 4 Comments
• by: Konola

One of the people appointed to the “super committee” is Senator John Kyle of Arizona. He agreed to serve. If you recall, this committee was created by the legislature during the manufactured debt crisis. It is charged with finding $1.2 trillion in budget cuts over the next 10 years. If they fail to deliver a bill that the president can sign, the bill that authorizes the committee and increased the debt ceiling so that ALREADY APPROVED budgets can be implemented, requires across the board cuts of every federal program at the higher amount of $1.5 trillion.

The committee met for the first time on September 8. (The next meeting is scheduled for September 14, where the head of the CBO will talk about things that drive our economy.) Everyone on the committee has made conciliatory statements about working together for the good of the country. Yet the committee, which is made up of an equal number of people from each party and from each house, started out by laying out political lines in the sand.

Republican members don’t want any revenue increases, but they want to gut Medicare and Medicaid. Democratic members want to close corporate loop-holes (raise revenue) and to look at the military budget for cuts.

And that leads me to the question, How DO Republicans think? Kyle delivered a speech at an event that was sponsored by conservative think tanks where he said, “I’m off the committee” if further cuts to defense spending are planned. I want to get this straight: the committee can negotiate a bill that identifies specific areas to be cut, or if the committee fails to create a bill MORE cuts will be made. If the committee’s bill passes the House and Senate, but Obama vetoes it, MORE cuts will be made because the trigger calling for cuts at the higher level will be pulled.

Kyle, who agreed to sit on this committee, is willing to take HIGHER cuts to the military for the sake of sounding tough in a crowd of conservatives. Why did he agree to be on the committee in the first place knowing that he has no intention of helping to craft a bill unless he gets to dictate the terms of the bill?

The fact that military expenditures have been increasing for decades, whether we are at peace or at war, coupled with the fact that we spend more money on our military than any other nation on earth can’t be looked at by the committee?

John Kyle would take away health care for seniors to pay for more things that get blown up? If seniors start dropping like flies because they can’t afford health care, who does Kyle think he’s protecting? Never mind, he’s protecting the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about. It is another example of profit over people.