The Republican Plan For America

I found the picture above on Facebook. I don't know who originated it, but it struck me as the perfect pictorial metaphor for what the Republicans are trying to do to the United States with their mean-spirited proposed budgets and their economic policies (trickle-down economics). They want to eliminate the Department of Education and cuts federal funds for schools, privatize Social Security and cut its benefits, abolish Medicare and Medicaid, eliminate funding for PBS and cultural arts programs, overturn health care reforms, and slash funding for all social programs to help the jobless and the poor.

Don't believe me? Just read the two budgets proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) and passed by the Republican-dominated House of Representatives. And listen to the speeches by congressional Republicans. They are so confident they have the American public fooled by crying about the deficit and the debt, they don't even try to hide their hard-hearted proposals anymore.

Of course, they're not serious about cutting the deficit and the national debt. They proved that with their free-spending ways during the Bush administration, and with their recent budget proposals (which would increase the deficit rather than lower it). They love spending taxpayer money -- they just don't want to spend it helping hurting Americans. The one door they would leave open for hurting Americans is the door to prison.

The Republicans don't mind spending money for prisons (both public and private). In fact, thanks to their economic and social policies, the United States has more people in prison (both in percentage of population and total number of prisoners) than any other country in the world (including those countries commonly referred to as "police states"). Fully 25% of all the world's prisoners are incarcerated in the United States.

But prisons aren't the only thing the Republicans love to spend taxpayer money on. They don't mind spending money on unnecessary and seemingly endless wars. They love spending money to enrich the corporations in the military-industrial complex.And they continually want to spend money to give the rich and the mega-corporations new and massive tax breaks.

How could anyone with a heart and a conscience even consider voting Republican?