House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday said that “Washington melodrama” and long-term budget cuts have “pushed our military past the breaking point.” He insisted that “the cost of these readiness deficiencies are really dire; and this is literally costing us lives.”
Keep in mind, this is the same House Speaker that last month championed and celebrated a Tax Cut bill which will increase our deficits and debt in both the short- and long-term. These new deficits will be used as a bludgeon to argue for the necessity of new budget cuts and will, inevitably, lead to more “Washington melodrama” that he today derided.
Furthermore, while the Speaker pretends to worry over the readiness deficiencies of our military, he is encouraging our reckless President to sow discord around the world, weaken our alliances and increase the likelihood of armed conflict by staying silent in the face of his dangerous rhetoric.
The Republican Party can no longer pretend to be the Party of National Security. They have emboldened our President with their silence. In many cases, these Republican officials openly agree with the inflammatory things our President says on a day-to-day basis. They are degrading our Government’s most effective methods of maintaining national security: intelligence and diplomacy.
During his campaign and now into his Presidency, Mr. Trump has repeatedly assaulted our intelligence agents and agencies. He openly shared Israeli intelligence with high-level Russian officials inside of our White House. Because of his own lack of intelligence, he has maligned career intelligence officials whose job it is to ensure our President and military have the best information possible to successfully execute their duties. And the self-proclaimed Party of National Security has stood pat and encouraged his recklessness.
The Trump Administration and his accomplices in Congress have overseen the largest retreat in American influence around the world since the end of World War I. America’s greatness and global stature wasn’t something that developed because of our inherit exceptionalism. It was obtained after Europe had torn the world asunder in the first half of the 20th Century. The United States stood as one of the only industrialized societies which hadn’t been devastated in World War II.
Instead of seeking dominance through military expansion and conquest, we rushed to help our allies rebuild themselves and their institutions. We spearheaded the creation of the United Nations. We created NATO to protect our weakened allies from Soviet expansion. The world came to admire and respect us because we cared enough to invest in them when they were in utter ruin. We built a world order that stopped the Soviet Union from overrunning Europe and brought an end to the centuries of constant conflict that Europe had forced the world to endure.
I am aware that our track record isn’t perfect, but America did its best and created a better world from the ashes and desolation of World War II. Yet today we have a government that turns its nose up at the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the homeless, and tempest-tossed. We have a Republican Party that would dismantle everything that America has worked for over the last 70 years and degrade our national security apparatus.
The Republican Party can no longer pretend that it is the Party of Life and Families. While our House Speaker decries the “Washington melodrama” which he gladly stoked while Mr. Obama was President and claims that our military readiness deficiencies are “literally costing us lives,” we have a crisis at home which truly is claiming the lives of Americans.
During the Speakership of Paul Ryan and Republican control of our Congress, the United States has been going through a health crisis which is killing Americans in record numbers. The opioid epidemic has gripped communities in all Congressional Districts. Our President declared it a public health emergency, a declaration that will be expiring next week; yet he has not proposed any new resources, spending or strategies to combat the crisis. Meanwhile, the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 50 is now overdoses. I’ve seen my fellow Americans become addicted to medications that were supposed to help them, turn into criminals in their drive to satisfy their addictions, and be placed into early graves because our society treats addicts like criminals instead of victims or patients to be treated.
But that is not the only healthcare crisis the Party of Life and Families has created. In their misguided crusade to dismantle our governments, both State and Federal, the Republican Party has created a new crisis for women and children. Speaker Ryan recently said that he has done his part in increasing the population of America - a pretty crass way to talk about his own children - and said we need to encourage more Americans to have children. Of course, Speaker Ryan is being disingenuous because he knows there is a measurable trend of decreased birthrate in all highly industrialized nations. This is why we are moving towards an entitlement crisis as the Baby Boomer generation retires.
What is truly egregious about that remark is that Republican policies have not only made childbirth in America more expensive, they have made it more dangerous. On average, an American family can expect an uncomplicated childbirth to cost $32,000. I would love to meet these average Americans that can afford a $32,000 bill on top of the decreased wages that accompanies childbirth since paid maternal and paternal leave is not mandated in America.
Perhaps Americans choose to not have children because it could literally bankrupt them. Those Americans that do choose to have children will not be able to save for their child’s education because of the financial burden childbirth has placed on them. However to talk about the child going to college is truly putting the cart before the horse, since we are experiencing an increase in maternal mortality in the United States today.
In fact, the United States has the highest rate of women dying during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum of any developed nation. Thanks to the Republican Party’s 40 year tax cutting spree, 54% of rural counties lack hospital obstetric services. When Republicans decry that certain areas of America are considered “Flyover Country” by Washington politicians, know that they, too, flyover them with zero regard for the suffering their policies are inflicting upon the citizens there.
It has been horrifying to hear stories of women dying in childbirth due to complications that arose on their one hour drive to the nearest hospital. I have been devastated to learn that women are dying during and after childbirth due to maternity wards closing across our country or, in some cases, maternity wards not being necessarily equipped to deal with things such as hemorrhaging which can occur during childbirth. And these unfortunate children who lose their mothers in childbirth will live a troubled life. Many will end up developmentally stunted, have a higher likelihood of become criminals, and potentially end up impoverished or imprisoned due to the negligence of government officials.
So, please Mr. Speaker, save us your histrionics and “Washington melodrama.” You are not some outsider. You are the most powerful man in our Congress. Your Party controls all of the Federal Government. Your policies and your rhetoric have created these crises our country faces. Your party had $1.5T to work with and you chose to give it away as tax cuts. Perhaps you could go to your wealthy donors and politely ask them to help fund our military.
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