The party of no answers and of the VERY STUPID!
Five Problems Republicans Don’t Have Any Solutions For
October 3, 2015Matt Terzi Politics
Republish Reprint
The United States is a nation that faces a daunting number of challenges today, problems Washington can and should be solving. Democrats are willing to bring any number of feasible solutions to the table, though Republicans argue against most, if not all, of those ideas. But for a number of these issues, particularly the ones Democrats aim to solve, Republicans offer only inaction as their solutions. They never tell you how they’ll fix these problems… only that Democrats are wrong, and that doing nothing is better than trying these things.
Let’s examine a few of these issues, shall we? And if Republicans have offered legitimate ideas to help us curb these problems, I’d love to be proven wrong in the comments below. But as far as I can tell, the only solutions they have for these problems is to do nothing and hope they go away.
Healthcare
It’s pretty obvious that Republicans hate the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. They’ve attempted to repeal or defund Obamacare 56 times, all without offering a single alternative solution to the massive problems Americans face due to rising health care and prescription drug costs. The closest we come to Republicans offering an alternative to Obamacare is Donald Trump’s vow to repeal it and replace it with what he refers to as “something terrific.” What will that “something” actually be? I suppose we’ll never know, since Donald Trump will never be President.
Gun Control
Republicans and the Second Amendment go together like bathrooms and toilet paper, an analogy that is starting to work just as succinctly as “America” and “mass shootings.” The United States has suffered an unfathomable number of mass shootings in recent years, and each time one of these horrible events transpires, we, collectively as a nation, cry out for legislative reforms that might help curb gun violence.
But Republicans tend to avoid the subject altogether, glossing over these heinous acts and refusing to suggest anything whatsoever that might equate to a gun control measure. Some Republicans even suggest gun violence would decrease if everyone in America were packing heat. I don’t know the etymology of the term “facepalm,” but if someone told me that expression was born shortly after hearing a Republican talk about arming teachers, I wouldn’t be all that surprised.
Iran
For those of us who’ve taken the time to learn what’s in the Iran Deal, this impressive diplomatic measure is inarguably great for the security of the world. Reducing Iran’s capabilities of producing nuclear weapons is definitely a good thing, and that’s precisely what the Obama Administration’s Iran Deal sets out to accomplish. Anyone who argues to the contrary is clearly someone who hasn’t taken the time to actually read what’s in the deal.
But the Iran Deal comes from the Obama administration, so naturally, Republicans view it as the work of Satan, and would love nothing more than to yank the deal off the table completely. However, when you ask them what they’d like to replace the deal with, they suddenly become quite sheepish. They don’t offer any real alternative to the deal, which means either they’re protesting the Iran Deal because it makes Obama look good, or worse… they’re protesting the Iran Deal because it doesn’t involve war.
Income Inequality
The phrase “income inequality” is one Republicans have only very recently come to appreciate the meaning of, and only after hearing that income inequality has risen under President Obama… fancy that. But Republicans don’t have a feasible solution to income inequality. Instead of offering new ideas for how we, as a nation, can rebuild the middle class and erase poverty, they continuously suggest the same nonsensical trickle-down bullshit they’ve been suggesting for decades now. We’ve tried Reaganomics, guys… it doesn’t work, and if anything, it helped create today’s income inequality more than any other single factor. If Republicans aren’t willing to even acknowledge their role in creating income inequality, how on Earth do they plan to solve it?
Dependence On Fossil Fuels
Not only do Republicans have no solutions for this problem, but most refuse to even acknowledge the problem exists to begin with. But exist it does: Climate change is a very serious issue, recognized by nearly every scientist in the world, and with dramatic affects seen globally today, even here in the United States.
Even if Republicans refuse to acknowledge climate change, as most do, there are countless other reasons why the United States should adopt strictly green energy policies. For starters, green energy is considerably cheaper and the long-term savings would be astronomical. Imagine how much our budget could be reduced if we made every possible facet of our government as green as possible? Digitizing files to reduce paper waste, solar energy on every government building, and electric vehicles charged with solar power across the board, replacing every government vehicle in the fleet? The savings would be immense, and isn’t that what Republicans love to rant about? Cutting government waste?
Cutting oil and natural gas out of every equation saves us money, too. No more imports, no more fruitless and destructive drilling or fracking… what’s there to not love about this idea? Even if Republicans don’t care about the quality of our air or water, surely they care about reducing how much money the government wastes. This should be a no-brainer.
Problems = 5, Solutions = 0
This is only a select handful of the urgent matters America needs to solve right now, issues that can’t wait years or decades to be addressed. But so far, we haven’t heard any real ideas out of the GOP. The only things they’re willing to recommend are inaction and flatly ignoring the problems as an ideological bullet-point. It’s obvious that above all else, we need Republican reform, because so long as they refuse to acknowledge these problems and also refuse to offer up any of their own solutions, these problems aren’t going anywhere at all.
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