Republican Leaders vs. Republican Voters

Many Republican middle-income voters do not fully realize that their representatives in Washington are actually working against their best interests. They imagine that their congressmen are fighting to reduce the size and cost of government and to keep taxes down. What they don’t seem to know is that their representatives are actually fighting for big businesses and very wealthy people.

Let’s start with the current fight over raising the debt limit. Although the Republicans in Congress are demanding deep cuts in spending in return for a rise in the debt limit, they refuse to allow any increase in taxes. The problem is, the only increase in taxes demanded by the Democrats is a restoration of the tax rates for very wealthy people that existed under the Clinton Administration. Ordinary middle-income Republicans would not be hurt by restoring the old tax rates on billionaires. The Bush tax cuts for the wealthy were one of the main causes of our current deficits. Surely the restoration of the previous tax rates will not impoverish wealthy people. But Republican legislators are loathe to restore the old tax rates because it is the billionaires who contribute so much to their coffers.

Consider the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) created under the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The purpose of the Bureau is to protect ordinary American consumers from dubious and deceptive financial behavior by banks, credit card companies, stockbrokers, and other financial powers. The Act will protect against abuses by predatory mortgage lenders, credit card companies, credit rating services, and payday loan companies. The Republicans fought mightily against creation of the CFPB, and are now fighting to prevent it from exercising any jurisdiction over the Republicans’ beloved multi-billion dollar financial titans. They have refused to approve the appointment of Elizabeth Warren, a strong consumer advocate, to head the CFPB, and have signaled that they will oppose the appointment of former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, an honest and effective administrator, for the post. In other words, they want to prevent any regulation of those in the financial industry who would happily defraud ordinary Americans of their money.

Many Republicans expressed anger at the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), (derisively called “Obamacare”). What few seem to realize is that that law will help not only working poor people who have gone without health insurance, but also millions of ordinary middle-income Americans. The law will create insurance exchanges that will make the cost of health insurance significantly lower for ordinary people. It will prevent insurers from refusing coverage on account of prior existing conditions. It will eliminate the “doughnut hole” which all seniors must endure after they reach a certain cap in payments. It will allow the coverage of children up until age 26 on parents’ policies. It will eliminate the annual caps on coverage provided in most health insurance policies. These and many other provisions benefit all middle-income people, not just the wealthy, or Democrats, or the government. The main opposition to such provisions comes from the insurance industry which sees those provisions cutting into its profits.

Somehow, the Republicans in Congress have gotten ordinary Republican voters worked-up against climate change legislation, particularly the “Cap-and-Trade” bills proposed by the Democrats. It is as if such laws would somehow harm the welfare of ordinary people. Even many top Republicans now admit that global warming is an established fact and that the human emission of greenhouse gasses is one of the major causes of this phenomenon. There is now almost unanimous agreement among climate scientists that continuation of this process will have disastrous effects on the Earth in the coming years if nothing is done to curb greenhouse gas emissions. These effects will include, among many other things, melting icecaps with massive flooding of coastline cities and islands, and dramatic changes in weather patterns with adverse effect on agriculture and ordinary living conditions. These catastrophes will have a terrible impact on ordinary Americans. So why are the Republicans so adverse to climate change legislation?

The answer is not that such legislation will cause higher taxes, higher fuel bills, or more discomfort to middle-income Americans. The reason for Republican opposition to climate change legislation is that it will cost more for giant utilities, coal and oil companies, and manufacturers. These fabulously wealthy businesses are run by the fat cats who pour-out the money for Republican politicians. Those politicians are not thinking about ordinary Republican voters. They are thinking about the billionaires who supply them with the money to run election campaigns.

If you look at many of the main financial issues between Democrats and Republicans you will realize that Republicans furiously oppose the enactment of laws that will protect consumers against the abuses of big business. If ordinary Republicans and Independents really care about their own welfare and their pocketbooks, they should look closely at the actions of their representatives in Congress and question whether those actions are really for the benefit of the middle class.