Who America Voted For and What We're Getting

So Republicans will soon take over the house and use that position to enact their policy agenda. After the tax cut deal with Obama, two troubling perils loom in the future. The first is that the temporary payroll tax reduction (from 6.2 to 4.2%), which reduces revenue to Social Security and will cost the government $120 billion, might become permanent: http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/12/08/republicans-casually-agree-theyll-never-allow-payroll-tax-cut-to-rise-again.  The recent trend to make tax cuts temporary and then call any attempt to return rates to their former levels a "tax raise" has been very effective at continuously lowering the overall tax rates in the U.S., and undermining the progressive nature of taxation. So the dream of destroying Social Security now appears within reach.

The second peril relates to state budget shortfalls: http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2010/12/07/secret-gop-plan-push-states-to-declare-bankruptcy-and-smash-unions. It appears the GOP is planning to stop providing funds to states facing growing debt and deficit burdens. This could cause states to declare bankrupcy, and thus destroy the public employee unions.

In a broader sense, I must again ask what the long term goals of the party are? Without social security, an increasingly large percentage of our elderly would fall into poverty. With states in bankruptcy, the U.S. would fall further behind in the global markets many of them covet. If we continue to increase the gap between rich and poor, social unrest and poverty will only increase, making our streets less safe. If we continue to ignore the cost of environmental neglect, the planet could someday become uninhabitable. And if we don't regulate banks and investment firms, we continue to allow sociopathic personalities to hold inordinate sway over the economic and political worlds.  In the end, it appears the Republican party has become the apocalyptic party -- willing to destroy the country in pursuit of an agenda they don't themselves seem to really believe in.

So the bankruptcy of their ideas could ultimately bankrupt America, and in the process go a long way to make the position of the average citizen in the globe even worse.