This the second installment of a three-part series. If you missed part one, you’ll want to read that one before continuing. As in the previous installment, text in bold is from the GOP platform; the rest is the author’s commentary.
Chapter 1
Republicans will reinstate President Trump’s Deregulation Policies, which saved Americans $11,000 per household. Lofty goal but I don’t remember suddenly seeing my household income go up by $11,000 between 2016 and 2020.
Republicans will end global chaos. One of the suggested methods for accomplishing this is by lowering commodity prices. Not sure how the two are related but Trump has already indicated that he plans to dramatically increase tariffs on nearly everything which can only lead to an elevation of commodity prices, not a lowering.
Chapter 2
We will complete the border wall. Wonder if there is going to be any greater success at getting Mexico to pay for the remaining work, considering how Trump did with that promise before.
The Republican Party is committed to sending illegal Aliens back home. Regrettably the Republican policy on deporting undocumented immigrants has also included sending back children and separating them from their parents, even if the parents are here legally.
Republicans will use existing Federal Law to keep foreign Christian-hating Communists, Marxists, and Socialists out of America. While it is doubtful that federal law specifies that undesirable immigrants must be Christian-hating, one has to wonder why only the “Christian-hating” ones were singled out for special treatment.
Chapter 3
Republicans will slash Regulations that stifle Jobs. Since “Jobs” was capitalized in the platform, is it possible that it is referring only to Steve Jobs? More likely the party is focused on weakening OSHA, which has, for several decades, worked to assure worker safety.
Republicans will make permanent the provisions of the Trump Tax Cuts…and pursue additional Tax Cuts. That presumably means that the very wealthy in this country will continue to enjoy the largess they received under his previous cuts. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has calculated that the Trump presidency added 7.8 trillion dollars to the national debt, largely through his tax cuts for the wealthy. All this while the Republicans consistently tout their fiscal responsibility.
Under Republican Leadership, the United States will create a robust Manufacturing Industry in Near Earth Orbit, send American Astronauts back to the Moon, and onward to Mars. Why? There is absolutely nothing that concludes that near-Earth orbit manufacturing can produce benefits beyond the costs of pursuing this goal — and the funds being spend for Moon and Mars exploration could be more expediently spent dealing with global warming and investigating our oceans, which promise much greater short-term benefits.
Chapter 4
Cut unnecessary regulations that raise housing costs. The term “unnecessary” is unsettling since it seems to posit that government politicos will be in a position to define what “unnecessary” really is.
Support the creation of additional, drastically more affordable alternatives to a traditional four-year College degree. The platform contains no information as to how this goal will be achieved. Are these the same Republicans who want to abolish the Department of Education (they almost achieved it when Trump appointed Betsy DeVos as Commissioner) and get government out of public education policy?
Expand access to new Affordable Healthcare. Notice the word “new” here. They obviously have something in mind other than expanding the Affordable Care Act. And these are the same people who have consistently refused to write legislation to allow the current healthcare system to negotiate drug prices, which would drastically lower healthcare costs.
Chapter 5
Republicans will support baseline Tariffs on Foreign-made goods. See Chapter 1, Item 2 above.
Revive the U.S. Auto Industry by reversing harmful Regulations. Again, they insert one of those puzzling adjectives, without stipulating which ones are harmful. With Republicans the harmful ones usually turn out to be those that are good for the manufacturers and harmful to the workers.
Chapter 6
Restore Economic Stability to ensure the long-term sustainability of Social Security. Republicans should read the Social Security Office of Retirement and Disability Policy study titled The Future financial Status of the Social Security Policy and they would discover that “restoring economic stability” is not the simplistic method of making Social Security sustainable. There are far more concerted efforts that need to be undertaken; Congress has repeatedly refused to address the issue adequately.
Chapter 7
Restore Parental Rights. Which ones have parents lost?
Allow various publicly supported Educational models. Aha! Guess who’s in bed with the charter school industry?
We support Universal School Choice in every State in America. Same problem, stated differently.
Republicans will support overhauling standards on school discipline, advocate for immediate suspension of violent students, and support hardening schools to help keep violence away from our places of learning. These are all issues best left to state and local school jurisdictions.
Republicans will ensure that children are not taught Leftwing propaganda. We will defund schools that engage in inappropriate political indoctrination. Again, one of those worrisome adjectives, and why is it that only “Leftwing propaganda” is singled out? Shouldn’t all propaganda be ruled out, or at least discussed as a subject?
Reinstate the 1776 Commission. This was a commission established by Trump the day before the 2020 election and abolished immediately after Biden took office because it was nothing less than an attempt to infuse federal control into education. The commission was mostly composed of right-wing conservatives.
Will champion the First Amendment Right to Pray and Read the Bible in school. Funny, I don’t ever recall reading that right in the First Amendment, and I’m pretty sure none of the subsequent Amendments inserted it.
We are going to close the Department of Education in Washington D.C. and send it back to the States.
The abolition of the Department of Education seems somewhat antithetical to all the proposals outlined in Chapter 7 regarding all the new things that the government, under Republican control, wants to insert into the educational system.
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Written by Chuck Witt, a retired architect, a former newspaper columnist, and a lifelong resident of Winchester. Cross-posted from WinCity Voices.
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