Republican Reich

Congratulations to the Republican Tea Party for a smashing victory, so far, at least, in the House of Representatives.

I just listened to returning Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Sen.-elec t Rand Paul, R-Ky., a non-board-certified ophthalmologist but a certifiable lunatic. Aside from opposing civil rights laws, wanting to repeal the income tax and repeal the direct election of senators, Paul asks “why we have to balance our budget but they (in Washington) don’t have to balance theirs?”

Even asking that question reveals an ignorance shared by every single Republican elected tonight that will, if enacted into law will cause more poverty, more power to corporations, domestic civil war and international depression. A family does not fight wars. A family does not control air traffic. A family does not inspect its own food or its own coal mines.

Blackburn, a raging intellectual compared to Paul, claims the states know how to balance budgets. They do it, she says, by enforcing across-the-board budget cuts. And cutting taxes. However, states do not fight wars or pay Social Security and they have separate budgets for construction projects; that is, a state can balance its operating budget, but it still has to borrow money to pay for roads and schools.

Yet military spending, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are off her table. That leaves a tiny percentage of federal funds “eligible” for cutting, and that means safe water, safe air, safe planes, interstate highways,

The first vote anyone will take will be to extend the nation’s debt limit. A single senator, like Paul, can and will no doubt block that single-handedly. At which point the nation’s and the world’s economy will collapse and his father, Rep. Ron Paul, along with Glenn Beck, will have cornered the market on gold.

Cynics say, correctly, that the Republican tide helps President Obama, because it puts the onus on the Republicans to put up or shut up about reaching solutions. And if government shuts down, it will be a Republican doing.

So it would be fun to watch the tide of lunacy sweep the House if it didn’t mean the hastening of America’s decline, the rise of anti-Americanism throughout the world, domestic violence, and the takeover of America by China sooner rather than later.

One could always say the pendulum will swing back when the Republicans try to enact their agenda of building a corporate state, but by then they will have captured enough governorships and legislatures to permanently redistrict the House into a thousand-year Republican reich.

As the sign at the recent Jon Stewart-Stephen Colbert rally said, “If you like small government, try Somalia.”