March 6, 2010 - Republicans are from Mars, Democrats are from Venus – Our Dysfunctional Government. Today, Democrats and Republicans live in different universes, both intellectually and morally.
Far Left – Far Right – No Middle Ground
* Democrats – say Republicans have moved hard to the right, furiously rejecting ideas they used to support. For example Obama’s health care plan strongly resembles past G.O.P. plans.
* Republicans – say Democrats have moved sharply left and are motivating donors that Republicans will save the country from trending toward socialism.
Stimulate the Economy
* Democrats - when the economy is deeply depressed, Democrats –want to extend unemployment benefits to help those in need, reduce unemployment, and create economic stimuli by putting money in people’s pockets. Democrats have sympathy for the more than five unemployed workers vying for every job opening with long-term unemployment at its highest level since the Great Depression.
* Republicans – believe that unemployment relief doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work and drive the country deeper into debt.
Taxes
* Democrats - philosophy is for tax cuts for the middle class in an effort to spread the wealth. Democrats passed a bill that will exempt the assets of couples up to $7 million and leave 99.75 percent of estates tax-free, a bill the Republicans oppose.
* Republicans - philosophy is to build the economy through tax cuts for the rich thereby creating trickle down economics as espoused by Ronald Reagan. The Democratic “spreading the wealth philosophy” is code for socialism. Republicans want to protect the wealthy who got there through hard work and therefore want the remaining 0.25 percent estates tax to also be tax exempt.
Health Care
* Democrats – at the core of their plan is the Individual Mandate – the requirement that everyone has to pay for health care insurance or pay an annual financial penalty. Democrats see more and more healthy people bailing out of insurance plans as insurance costs keep rising for fewer and fewer sick people who must keep coverage.
* Republicans – advocate High-Risk Pools that will not prevent insurance providers from barring clients based on preexisting conditions to get affordable health insurance. However, most states with such pools have had only limited success. Republicans see the Individual Mandate as one more example of a Big Government takeover.
Unity
* Republicans - are more assertive and aggressive. They are more unified and cohesive which is evident in their vote as a solid block in Congress.
* Democrats - look like a party of convenience. Core values do not bind them together.
The Trump Card – Religion
* Republicans – embrace a social movement among Christian conservatives. By being able to apply moral indignation on gay marriage, abortion, and creationism issues, 15% of the electorate tell pollsters they align themselves with the Christian Right and the Republican Party, an important voting bloc that helped to put them back in power back in 2001.
* Democrats - have no equivalent voter block and the energy they once commanded with labor and civil rights movements have been dampened as burning issues.
Over Confidence Has Consequences
* Republicans – are more aggressive and insurgent of the two because they have been in the wilderness so long in American politics. Regardless of recent victories as the majority party in Congress from 1994 through 2006, or presidential victories in 2000 and 2004, the decades it spent as the minority party prior to that shaped its self-perception as an outsider.
* Democrats – tend to be over confident as was recently demonstrated in their assurance of a Democratic win for Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts.
Someday, somehow, we as a nation will once again find ourselves living on the same planet. But for now, we aren’t, and that’s just the way it is.
http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2009/11/democrats_are_from_venus_repub.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/opinion/05krugman.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_right
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