In political campaigns there are hardly any statements that are not carefully measured to engender support among the voting public. Republicans have staked out a position that government is bad, and there are few agencies that have been spared from their wrath as draining resources that could be better allocated to the wealthy under the guise of deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility. After Willard Romney’s statement that the American people got the message from Wisconsin that there are too many police officers, firefighters, teachers, and construction workers rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, the Republican message became perfectly clear; Americans’ tax dollars are being squandered and could be better spent on more tax cuts for the rich and corporations.
Yesterday, Romney surrogate John Sununu defended Romney’s position and claimed “there’s wisdom in the comment” and that indeed, Americans want fewer police, firefighters and teachers because there is less need for employees on the publicpayroll. The Republican Party leader, Rush Limbaugh also weighed in with the party line assailing public employees like law enforcement and fire fighters as a drag on the economy because they work for the government and not the private sector. Now, Limbaugh is not an economist, but even his addled brain comprehends that firefighters, police officers, and teachers spend every penny of their incomes in the private sector contributing to the economy and creating jobs, but his point was not an economic argument, it was ideological to persuade his audience that Republicans are correct in demeaning government employees as wasting taxpayer dollars on public safety and education instead of supporting the wealthy with more tax breaks and government privatization.
In this column the past two days, it was explained in simplistic terms that public employees contribute to economic growth and job creation in the private sector. Yesterday, Paul Krugman, a real economist, reiterated the point that “the real story about this economy is that this cutback at the public sector are what’s hurting recovery” and that “there is like 1.4 million jobs that we should have had in the public sector, and of course, those are translated to more private sector jobs too.” The point Krugman failed to make is that the Republican agenda is turning over operation of public sector jobs to private enterprise to enrich big business, break unions, and giving Americans’ tax dollars to the wealthy with tax cuts.
Republicans are, finally, exposing their real objective in winning big in this election and it has nothing to do with fixing the economy, creating private sector jobs, or helping Americans struggling in the economy they created. It is a blatant attempt at creating an oligarchy and destroying the government and American way of life now and the distant future. It is true Republicans want to destroy unions that typically support Democratic candidates and their agenda, but their real goal is destroying the foundations of American governance and replacing it with corporate rule. They will have plenty of support from racists and anti-government teabagger types, but it is unknown if the public at large understands the repercussions of eliminating the government and replacing it with a theocratic plutocracy.
