Last week my wife received a mailer, sent at taxpayer’s expense, from Congressman Chris Gibson. I guess he doesn’t consider male Democrats as part of his constituency.
Since jobs are issue number one in our country, Gibson leads off by saying he voted for “creating jobs by removing impediments to growth.” Did he vote for a jobs bill? No, he did not. After 4 months control of the House of Representatives, the Republicans have yet to put forth a single jobs bill.
The phrase “impediments to growth” is Republican code for regulation. In this case, the Republicans want to require a job impact study before the EPA adopts any environmental regulation. Their goal is to stifle the EPA by pitting employment against environmental protection. This is not a jobs bill, because it will not have any impact on the level of unemployment we are experiencing.
Gibson’s vote has nothing really to do with jobs, and, from my perspective, it has everything to do with making the Koch Brothers and Carl Rove happy. Rove and the Koch’s are absolutely opposed to the EPA. Remember, they poured over $600,000 into campaign ads that attacked Scott Murphy, which helped Gibson win. Might he owe them one?
If the Republicans were interested in keeping America competitive in the world economy they would be supporting the president’s green economy and education initiatives. But they are not.
Gibson and his fellow Republicans keep marching out their bogus claim that regulation is what’s hurting American businesses. The truth is some regulations work and others don’t. But one thing is certain: without regulation, we get toxic waste sites, unsafe work places, and unsavory financial products. Think Dewey Loeffel, think black lung disease, think climate change, think the financial meltdown of 2008, the savings and loan collapse of the 80’s, and the Great Depression.
After the worldwide financial collapse in 2008, free market guru and Bush’s fed chair, Alan Greenspan admitted he was wrong to believe that the directors and managers of the large banks and investment houses would honor their fiduciary responsibilities and, thus, would never back worthless securities nor push marginal mortgages. His philosophical position of free trade did not work in the real world where organized greed and a hands-off policy on regulation nearly brought on the second great depression. Did the real world conform to Greenspan’s philosophical viewpoint, no, it did not and we are still picking up the pieces of this misguided political philosophy.
Back to Gibson. In his mailing, he points to his vote against the use of “un-elected” agency czars as if that is something that matters. As he knows and so do we, we do not elect agency heads, we elect the president and he makes appointments with the advice and consent of congress. Bush appointed so-call czars for homeland security and drug enforcement and so has Obama. With all the serious problems that confront our country why waste time on this?
Ironically, the one place where Mr. Gibson can control federal spending is in the running of his office. Here I expected big cuts, just like the Republicans are calling for all over the place. Yet all Gibson was able to cut was 5% of his office budget. Is Congressman Gibson realizing that running an efficient and responsive government office costs money? Does he realize that making across the board cuts often creates more problems than it solves?
I hope Chris Gibson takes the time to learn history’s lessons rather than becoming a victim of a philosophy which fails in the world in which we live
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