Lifelong Republican Leaves Party

I almost never repost as a new post but in this case the blogger asked to get the word out on blogs and their story was very enlightening.  It’s a long post so you can read the whole blog by viguy007 here.

I am a Republican who is upset at the direction my party has taken. When I voted for McCain in the last election I thought he was a “Moderate Republican.” We were fighting for the soul of our party, and I thought Palin was just a bone thrown to the crazies in my party. I am a social conservative, but an economic pragmatist. I have tried to post this letter at Republican blogs and it is always taken down. I hope this letter gives moderates the courage to help take back my party. We need a center-left and center-right political parties, not parties on the extremes. I believe Obama is center-left , but my party is now right-wing crazies, that will compromise on nothing. Since I do not have millions of dollars to get my message out, I must now rely on Democrats. They have friends who are also Republicans. If you feel this letter has any value you have my permission to cut and paste it into an e-mail that you can send to 5 or more friends or acquaintances, and then ask these friends to send it to 5 others and continue the process, like a chain letter. We may not have millions of dollars to get a message out, but we all have 5 friends. Thank you…

…Those who advocate a new age of austerity, like the Romney/Ryan budget, will cite Greece with an unemployment rate of 22.6% and say Greece is a nation we are sure to follow if we do not tighten our belt and reduce government services. They also cite Spain’s 24.3%, Portugal’s 15.2% and Italy’s 10.2% unemployment rate. However, what they do not say is that in each of these countries tax avoidance seems to be a national sport. As a Republican I cannot support Mitt Romney because everything, from his refusal to reveal his taxes to offshore bank accounts in tax havens with strong bank secrecy laws, seem to indicate he is a tax avoider. I do not agree when Mitt Romney says that if he paid more taxes than were required, he wouldn’t be qualified to be president. I think that if he paid a few more dollars in taxes then he had to, as I have done, it would be admirable. Mitt is a part of the problem, not the solution.

These countries have also had austerity budgets for a number of years, even as their economic problems have only gotten worse. Many economists now feel that, in fact, the austerity programs are the main cause of the economic problems.

On the other hand, economies in many countries are doing quite well, such as: Germany which has un-employment rate of 5.4%, Austria 4.3%, Norway 3.0%, Netherlands 4.2%, Switzerland 2.9%, Japan 4.1%, Australia 4.9% and so on. So what do they have in common, and what are they doing differently when compared to the United States?

1- They have Universal socialized health care, and while all their people have health care they spend a small fraction of what United States businesses and Government spend on health care.

2- They have Universal Education, which means you can get an education up to your PhD pretty much for free. This means their people are trained for the jobs of the future.

3- They have much higher taxes than in United States on someone making more than 250 thousand dollars, for example in Germany 45%.

4- They have more generous unemployment benefits than in the United States. This stabilizes demand when people are laid-off from their jobs.

5- They have a more unionized workforce than in the United States. The unions provide hands-on apprentice programs for training new workers in manufacturing industries.

6- They do not spend Trillions of dollars on a gargantuan military, and unnecessary wars, which drains their budgets and keeps needed infrastructure from being repaired and built.

It’s good to see there are at least a few responsible Republicans left.