“The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.” 
                                                 -  Daniel J. Boorstin

Here we are, faced with the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, and, contrary to everything they spewed during John McCain’s campaign, the Republicans in Congress are choosing partisanship over patriotism.  In the face of job losses about to pass 600,000 per month, they choose obstructionism over action.

Electing to follow Rush Limbaugh, who has publicly stated he hopes Obama “will fail,” Republicans responded to last week’s vote on the stimulus bill in the House with a strutting performance that would be the envy of every professional football player who thinks he’s just made a play never before seen in the history of the game. 

When 100% of the House Republicans voted against the stimulus, the GOP hailed itself as the party of reason and criticized President Obama for not bending enough to elicit bi-partisan support.  In point of fact, Obama has gone further to work out a bi-partisan agreement than George W. Bush ever did in his eight-year reign of terror.

When Obama extended his hand across the aisle, the Republicans elected to slap it away and oppose any kind of compromise—entirely for partisan political reasons.  Like Limbaugh, the Republicans are more interested in seeing Obama fail than they are in doing what is good for the country.  For, by doing so, they believe they will re-open the door that was slammed in their face in November.

Yesterday and today, only three of 41 Republican Senators have supported the stimulus bill in the Senate.  With last week’s House vote, one can only conclude the Republicans have elected to adopt a policy of naked partisanship.

Faced with the dire economic situation, all but a handful of Republicans worked to block the only solution that can address the problem.  They fought to continue the same Bush economics that got us into this worldwide economic crisis, continuing to insist on tax cuts for the wealthy.  Even worse, they made a cold-blooded decision to pander to their right-wing base rather than participate in the heroic effort required to save jobs and rescue our economy.

Republicans, it seems, would rather see more people unemployed, more children without healthcare and more families living on the streets than suffer the shame of compromise.

Republican Senator Susan Collins told her colleagues, “The worst thing we can do is just say no.”  But that’s exactly what they did.  In the face of America’s urgent need for economic solutions, the Republicans’ hyper-partisanship is simply shameful.

In an attempt to appear they were actually working for the people who elected them, the Republicans presented their own farcical plan, the Thune amendment.  This sham proposal attempted to delete the entire Democratic economic recovery bill and replace it with just four provisions that reeked of swill -

1. Cut the bottom two tax brackets.  Spun up to sound like it helps lower-income Americans, this section would, (you guessed it), actually help the rich.  The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out that under this provision, “Higher-income households would get a much bigger tax cut than less-affluent ones.  A married couple with two children with income of $100,000 or more would get a tax cut of $3,395.  This is 17 times the $200 tax cut that the couple would receive if its income were $30,000.”  And “roughly 23 million lower-income tax filers would receive no tax cut at all.”  This provision would cost $291 billion.
2. Give a flat 20 percent tax deduction to “businesses with less than 500 employees.”  This is the proverbial “small business” support for which the GOP has been falling on its sword since Reagan was president.  I fail to understand how the GOP can categorize these as “small businesses” and maintain a straight face.  This provision would cost $48 billion.
3. Extend the current $7,500 home buyer tax credit from first-time home buyers to all qualifying home buyers.  While this would probably stimulate the housing industry, it fails to help those who are losing their existing homes.  This would cost $21 billion, and obviously, would benefit the more-affluent.  It would most certainly not help the poor and the unemployed.
4. Extend unemployment benefits and make those benefits tax-free.  On the surface, this really sounds good.  But it’s actually a big cut from the unemployment benefits in the Democratic plan.  The Republican provision would cost $33 billion; the Democratic unemployment sections would cost $44 billion.

Overall, the Thune amendment would cost $385 billion over two years.  The amazing thing is that, although the total cost of this plan is way too low to have the slightest positive impact on the economy, and although it is just reheated left-over Bush economics, 37 of 41 Republican senators voted for it last Thursday.  What better proof could we have that these senators were never really serious about addressing America’s economic crisis?

Two things I’m certain President Obama has learned in his first three weeks in office –

1. The Republicans in Congress have a different definition of “bi-partisanship” than does he, and
2. Republican priorities place the GOP’s craving for power first and the country second (or maybe third, or fourth, or not even on the list).

(Author’s note:  Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa), who is up for re-election next year, is one of the three Republicans supporting the stimulus package.  If he carries through and supports the bill all the way to its final passage, he’s earned my vote for re-election.)