A crowded field of Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate and House is supposed to represent the future of Kansas politics.
If that be the case, then God help us.
If the much-too-long campaign season has taught us anything it’s that Republicans cling to the past like Linus to his security blanket.
It was Albert Einstein who said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Welcome to the world of Republican economics.
Despite record-setting federal deficits, job creation that rivaled the Great Depression and tax policies which made the richest two percent of Americans even more obscenely wealthy while middle class Americans lost ground with their income over the past decade, Republicans insist that the path to economy recovery is guided by Reagan and Bush policies of the past.
Republican candidates from Tim Huelskamp, to Jim Barnett to Tracey Mann have shown no inclination to depart from - or even question - those failed policies.
If the Senate and House campaigns have taught us anything it’s that the field of Republican candidates is a vacuum of original thinking. Outside of Marck Cobb’s declaration that he would reduce the deficit by pulling our troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, there is virtually nothing that separates anyone in this field from the other.
That should be particularly disturbing to Christian conservatives who are avowed critics of cloning. What other explanation is there for six candidates, supposedly of different parents, who share the same brain?
Like glassy-eyed zombies, our Congressional candidates are a dearth of new ideas. In fact, engage any of them in a conversation or interview, as we have, and all you get is a long list of what these candidates are against. They’re opposed to health care reform, financial regulations (or regulations of any kind) or elimination of tax cuts for the wealthy, just to name a few.
Because these Congressional candidates have spent so much time and money telling us what they’re against, it’s only fair to translate that into what these Senate and House hopefuls actually support.
They support health insurance premiums that are too expensive for middle class families to afford, which means waiting until a health issue becomes critical before seeing a doctor, or making a visit to the hospital emergency room.
They support the ability of health insurance companies to deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions.
They support allowing private industry to regulate itself, which worked swimmingly for Wall Street. And it certainly worked out well for coal mine giant Massey Energy corporation, though the 29 workers killed in the West Virginia mine explosion might disagree.
And it’s been wonderful for BP, though the 11 people killed in the oil rig accident in the Gulf might think otherwise, along with the hundreds of thousands of people who have seen their livelihoods impacted, along with the Gulf coast eco-system.
They support denying benefits to the unemployed unless that expense can be offset by cuts elsewhere in the federal budget. But they don’t hold the same standard to tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
They support cutting the federal deficit but they offer little substance in how they would accomplish that. And when they do offer a suggestion (i.e., eliminate the Department of Education, eliminate No Child Left Behind, etc.) they have no idea how much their ideas will really save.
They support an end to earmarks. Of course, money brought back to the district for defense spending, opera houses in McPherson, or the Oolagah Lake Watershed don’t really count as earmark spending, right?
They support strict enactment of the 10th Amendment, which limits the federal government to only those powers outlined by the Constitution - such as national defense.
As true supporters of the 10th Amendment, that means they also support bringing an end to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid since these are obviously outside the Constitutional role of the federal government.
To carry that concept further, they also support an end to the minimum wage law because that oversteps the authority of the states, as do worker safety regulations, laws that prohibit discrimination and regulations which provide handicapped accessibility to public buildings.
Amidst the rhetoric, Republican candidates for Congress in Kansas have left little doubt they favor a return to the economic policies which drove us into the ditch. Their opposition to higher taxes and regulation of Wall Street have left no other alternatives.
It would also seem they favor a return to pre-1930 social policies.
Their collective pledge to repeal health care reform puts them squarely on the side of the health insurance industry and pharmaceutical companies.
Despite the rhetoric, you can’t say no to everything that hopes to improve the life of middle-class Americans and then claim that you’re in their corner, willing to take up their fight in Washington, D.C.
If it walks and talks like the same old Republican politics, there’s a good chance it’s going to quack like it, too.
That is the sad face of Republican politics in Kansas.
Rod Haxton can be reached at editor@screcord.com