GOP "Pledge": Weak Tea

By Donna Brazile, Democrats.org

24 September 10

his year, the Republican Party has embraced out of the mainstream candidates and ideas, but when it comes to their agenda for America…well, let's just say their agenda is pretty weak tea. Today, Republicans released that agenda, a "Pledge to America" that simply recycles warmed-over versions of the same failed policies Republicans pursued during the Bush era and injects them with steroids to make their negative consequences even worse.

Republicans are pledging to hold up tax cuts for middle class families in order to secure tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires - tax cuts that would cost America $700 billion and are, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, among the least effective ways to grow the American economy and create jobs.

Republicans are pledging to roll back the Affordable Care Act and roll back Wall Street reform - giving big insurance and big banks a license to resume the same reckless, destructive policies that hurt middle class families before Democrats undertook reform.

The cost of Republicans' pledges would be hundreds of thousands of American jobs and trillions of dollars in deficit spending. But even while running up America's debt, Republicans wouldn't invest in the things that matter to most Americans. Their pledge fails to mention any Republican commitment to investing in education for America's children, in the growth of critical industries like clean energy or manufacturing, or in rebuilding America's infrastructure.

Not only does the Republican "Pledge to America" ignore our country's recent history by pushing for the same policies that led to the economic crisis, the worst recession since the Great Depression, and the loss of 8 million American jobs - it also ignores the input of everyday Americans.

The "Pledge to America" was supposed to be based on ideas solicited on Republicans' "America Speaking Out" website, but the number one idea on that site - ending tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas - is nowhere to be found in the "Pledge to America." In fact, Republican leaders have gone on record time and again to defend those tax breaks and oppose Democratic efforts to repeal them - demonstrating more clearly than ever that Republicans' aren't interested in governing for the middle class; they're more interested in representing the special interests.

Republicans can keep peddling this agenda and all their other weak tea ideas, but I don't think most Americans are interested in gathering by their water cooler anytime soon.