Happy Ground Hog Day! Today is the day the American people across the country — suffering from one of the harshest winters in memory — have been waiting for, the day America’s Groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, comes out of his Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania hole, while Americans watch. This morning, thanks to one of the worst snowstorms this winter, Punxsutawney Phil didn’t see his shadow, foreshadowing an early spring.
Sadly, the GOP hasn’t been able to experience the same optimism as America’s Groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil. It’s as if they saw their shadow, got scared, and are working to extend our long, hard winter by repealing everything good in sight.
Why is it the GOP, at the state and federal levels, are working not to move the country forward by creating jobs, but are working to move the country backwards by repealing good laws that help the American people? Despite the GOP’s campaign promise last year to make creating jobs job one, their entire focus — at the state and federal level — has been on social issues. In fact, they’ve not created a single job since taking over the House this year, nor have they produced any legislation that will.
Here’s what the GOP is “working” on:
On Tuesday, Iowa state House Republicans “passed an amendment that seeks to repeal the state’s marriage equality law, and deny any form of legal recognition for gay couples.” You’ll remember that Iowa’s Supreme Court in 2009 ruled that state’s ban on marriage equality unconstitutional. So Maggie Gallagher and NOM got those judges repealed also.
The New Hampshire GOP is playing politics with marriage equality. In an attempt to appear “moderate,” Republicans in the granite state “will ask that the fight to repeal gay marriage be postponed until 2012.” Of course, 2012 is a presidential election year, so they’re doing themselves a favor. Expect marriage equality to take center stage next year across the country as the GOP works to divide the American people and use our equality as a tool to get bigots to the polls.
At the federal level, Congressional Republicans are working on a complete and total repeal of the Democrat’s historic health care reform, for which not a single Republican voted last year. The House already voted to repeal the healthcare law. Now, Republican Senators, who hate “Obamacare,” as they disparagingly call it, so much, are willing to let a Democratic jobs bill that would add 280,000 jobs, AND re-authorize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) — the folks who make sure planes don’t fly into each other — die. Yes, The GOP would like to see “Obamacare,” (which will help at least 30 million Americans get health insurance,) the FAA, (which pretty much keeps the sky from falling) and 280,000 jobs, all die.
Not satisfied with repealing the agency that prevents the sky from falling, House Republicans are also working to repeal the Supreme Court-direct responsibilities of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and ban it from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
David Espo in The Huffington Post writes, “the bill would nullify all of the steps the EPA has taken to date on the issue, including a threshold finding that greenhouse gases constitute a danger to the public health and welfare.”
“In addition, it seeks to strip the agency of its authority to use the law in any future attempts to crack down on the emissions from factories, utilities and other stationary sources.”
What else is the backwards-moving GOP working on repealing? Here’s a list:
- In the wake of the Tucson shooting that left six dead and thirteen wounded, including Rep. Gabby Giffords, Arizona Republicans want to effectively repeal gun laws and “make Arizona the second state in the nation to require universities and communities to allow guns on campus and one of 10 that permit guns inside public government buildings such as the state Capitol.”
- Also in the wake of the Tucson shooting that left six dead and thirteen wounded, including Rep. Gabby Giffords, Minnesota state lawmakers are working “to eliminate state system of background checks, permits” on guns.
- More repeal from Minnesota: Rep. Michele Bachmann (who has actually said she wants to “repeal Obama,”) is working to repeal Dodd-Frank, “the landmark Wall Street regulatory law,” designed to rein-in the financial industry, in the aftermath of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
- State GOPs across the country are pushing “for a constitutional amendment to allow state legislatures to repeal acts of the federal government,” by a two-thirds vote of all 50 state legislatures.
- At the intersection of federal-meets-local, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is “seeking to overturn Washington, D.C.’s marriage equality law,” which was signed into law after a thirty-day Congressional waiting period, on December 15, 2009.
- Federally, the GOP wants to repeal the 14th amendment to the U.S. constitution. “Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced a proposal to amend the Constitution ‘so that children born in the United States are only considered automatic citizens if one parent is a U.S. citizen, one parent is a legal immigrant, or one parent is an active member of the Armed Forces.'”
- House Republicans want to “repeal” the definition of rape, by “permanently prohibit some federally funded health-care programs from covering abortions, but would change the language exempting rape and incest from rape to “forcible rape.”
Repeal of healthcare, marriage equality laws, gun laws, the 14th Amendment, not to mention strangling the FAA and the EPA, etc., etc. Is there anything today’s GOP won’t do to “take their country back” — to the stone age?