The Moral Depravity of Senator Mitch McConnell

This is all quite mind-blowing. As you know, House and Senate Republicans voted overwhelmingly in favor of Representative Paul Ryan’s budget plan which “ends Medicare as we know it” – see my two previous posts for an explanation. Ryan’s plan has proved so politically toxic that it recently caused Republicans to lose a special election in New York’s 26th congressional district – a district in which Republicans won nearly 70% of the vote just eight short months ago! A district that has been consistently Republican for decades.

The first thing to notice is how crazy it was for the House Republican leadership to force their members to vote on such a politically risky budget that had absolutely no chance of passing the Senate or getting the President’s signature. The magnitude of this blunder becomes even greater when you recall that Republicans used “death panel” and “government takeover of health care” rhetoric to win the last election. Scaring seniors into thinking the Democrats wanted to cut Medicare to get elected, and then, when elected, actually voting in favor of a plan that would do away with Medicare as a social insurance program, is pretty stupid if you ask me.

It’s stupidity arising from a mix of ideological rigidity and arrogance.

But stupidity is tolerable. Loving your political party more than your country is not. And that’s the only way I can read Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s recent threat that he will prevent the senate from raising the nation’s debt ceiling, unless cuts to Medicare are part of the deal

For those of you unfamiliar with the debt ceiling issue, and how economically catastrophic it will be if Congress fails to raise the nation’s debt ceiling within the next few months, here is an excellent, accessible, and mercifully short discussion of the subject by conservative economist Bruce Bartlett. Suffice it to say it would be akin to financial Armageddon for the United State and, most likely, the rest of the world.

Senator McConnell knows this. Republican congressional leaders have themselves publically admitted this numerous times. But McConnell is desperate to save Republicans from the political consequences of voting for Ryan’s Medicare killing budget. And the only way he can do this is to implicate Democrats in cutting Medicare. Hence, he is threatening to do incomprehensible damage to the nation’s economy if the Democrats don’t implicate themselves in cutting Medicare and thereby give Republican’s cover on the Ryan vote.

Threatening to kill the economy to save your political party from its own stupidity? How despicable is that? How does this man remain in office?

Joe H.