Last updated on May 15th, 2012 at 12:11 am
The primary goal of conservatism is maintaining the status quo in hopes of preventing progress, and Republicans are guilty of mendacity and hypocrisy to achieve their goals. For the past year and a half, Republicans focused on social issues and repealing Democratic legislation instead of creating jobs that they promised was their main concern going into the 2010 midterm elections. Subsequently, two years later, House Speaker John Boehner resorted to blatant lies and hypocrisy to reiterate their 2010 campaign slogan of creating jobs that is precisely what Republicans have obstructed and avoided throughout the 112th Congress.
On Thursday at his weekly Capitol press conference, when Boehner was queried about President Obama’s support for same-sex marriage, he restated his opposition to equal rights and told reporters he was “going to stay focused on what the American people want us to stay focused on, and that’s jobs.†Boehner also characterized the President’s announcement as a distraction from the nation’s economy, denounced the President’s congressional “to-do list†as a gimmick, and attacked the President for “diminishing the presidency†by focusing on his reelection campaign. It is harsh criticism from a habitual liar and rank hypocrite who is repeating 2010’s campaign message that Republicans immediately abandoned the second they controlled the House. Not only have Republicans opposed job creation measures, their job-killing agenda  was a strategy to enrich the wealthy and their corporations. To make matters worse, Boehner led Republicans in a vicious assault on women’s rights that besides being hazardous to women, was a distraction from Republicans’ opposition and inability to create jobs.
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Boehner told reporters that “We’ve got a lot of members who have ideas about what’s important to them and you see those items advance here every day. The American people – they’re concerned about jobs. That’s why you’ve seen us focused here for the last year and a half on jobs and cutting spending, so we’re going to continue to stay focused on what the American people want us to stay focused on.†The congressional record informs what is important to Republicans, and what they have been intensely focused on is defending the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act, restricting contraception use, assaulting women’s rights, and sending more Americans into poverty with Draconian cuts to social safety nets to make room for more tax breaks for the rich. In fact, last year when Boehner was informed that the first round of Republican spending cuts would kill over a million jobs, he said, “so be it.†So much for Boehner’s laser-focus on what matters most to Americans. The Speaker also boasted that cutting spending to reduce the deficit was crucial to creating jobs, but there is absolutely no correlation to the nation’s debt and jobs, and the Republican cuts kill public and private sector jobs as well as increasing the deficit with more tax cuts for the wealthy. Boehner is a liar, and he knows he’s lying when he parrots 2010’s Republican campaign promise to focus on jobs, jobs, and jobs, and the congressional record proves he is deliberately lying as a campaign strategy to distract voters from their real agenda.
Hypocrisy is an innate trait for Boehner and Republicans’ who have made socially conservative issues their primary focus throughout the 112th Congress; not jobs. They attempted to redefine rape, restrict contraceptive use, and maintain the bible’s definition of marriage that have nothing whatsoever to do with jobs and everything to do with imposing Christianity on the entire population. For Boehner to accuse the President of using equal rights as a distraction is beyond the pale, and a means to distract voters’ attention from Republican’s agenda of sending women’s rights back to the 1950’s instead of creating jobs. It has been the GOP’s goal to obstruct the President’s job creation plans to restrict economic growth, and they have voted against every jobs’ bill that has come up for discussion or votes. Republicans imply they are concerned with creating jobs with their rhetoric, but their ideology of giving the so-called wealthy “job creators†more tax breaks at the expense of social safety nets is a proven job-killer.
An example of GOP lying and hypocrisy to fool voters into supporting more tax cuts for the wealthy under the guise of job creation is a campaign flyer from freshman representative Jeff Denham (R-CA) who proposed selling off government assets to create jobs in the form of more entitlements for the rich. Denham supports more tax cuts for the rich, and voted for Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity that depends on eliminating Medicare and slashing social safety nets to fund a massive tax cut for the wealthiest 1% of job-creators. After 30 years of trickle-down economics failure, Republicans are still lying to the American people that without their tax dollar-funded largesse, the wealthy cannot create jobs.
Lying and hypocrisy must be requirements for membership in the Republican Party, because it is rampant among Republicans. Speaker Boehner’s assertion that the GOP has stayed focused on jobs is easily refuted, and yet he persists in lying as if Americans have been in a daze for the past year and a half or fail to remember that just two years ago, Boehner was making the same pitch that Republicans were intent on creating jobs. There is nothing Republicans have done for the past three years that remotely resembles fostering job creation and, in fact, they have worked tirelessly to destroy as many public and private sector jobs as possible to portray President Obama’s handling of the economy as a failure. However, despite the GOP’s obstruction, the President’s policies have turned the economy around, fostered growth, and created more jobs in three years than George W. Bush did in eight and it is a testament to Democrats and President Obama’s policies oriented towards helping all Americans and not just the filthy rich.
Boehner ended his press conference by reiterating the Republican lie that he was “going to stay focused on jobs,†and then went directly to the House to vote on cuts to social programs, eliminate consumer protections, eliminate the Meals on Wheels program, and strengthen DOMA all of which will not create one job, but will seriously kill millions of existing jobs in the public and private sector. President Obama made an excellent point about the GOP’s drive to slash government jobs when he noted that in every president’s administration since Richard Nixon, government jobs were increased to bolster the economy, but Republicans have or intend to cut the government workforce during his administration when he has worked diligently to clean up the disaster that Boehner and his cohorts were instrumental in creating and will repeat if they are successful in November.
It is unknown how many Americans will fall for Boehner’s lies and hypocrisy, but rest assured, there will be plenty who forget that his campaign rhetoric now is the same as it was two years ago, and are too stupid to look at the GOP’s job-killing record. However, for every stupid American, there are more who remember that the GOP used the Christian religion to distract attention from their inability and unwillingness to create jobs, and they will see John Boehner and Republicans for what they really are; liars and hypocrites.
Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
