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Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are proving they are willing to gamble the well-being of American families for pure politics, and they are drawing the line in the sand over health care.

The Republicans are being blatant about their wish to not change a thing, by their failure to offer any alternative whatsoever to President Obama’s health care plan. Not only do they not have their own plan, they have shown their true political colors by coming right out and saying that this fight would be all about politics and what’s best for Republican incumbent politicians, with absolutely nothing to say about what’s best for the citizens of the United States.

Senator Jim DeMint, R-SC proved that this past week when he made the Republican goals public. "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."

If Senator DeMint had said something like, “We don’t agree with President Obama on this point or that point, and feel it would be better if we did this or that.” American’s could feel better about the Republican agenda, and public opinion about the Republican party might not be so severe. Recent polls show the GOP declining so rapidly it's like rats jumping off a sinking ship.

Maybe if the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, could get beyond pointing out President Obama’s negative points from a conservative’s point of view, and actually tried to find someone in his party that does “do policy” people wouldn’t be able to accuse them of pure obstructionism, and might be less likely to label the GOP as “the Party of No.”

But since John McCain’s defeat in November, the Republican Party as a whole, its leaders in Congress, and in the RNC have been unable to do much more than shake their heads, stomp their feet, and get caught in sex scandals, and none of it has accomplished anything positive for the nation, or been any good for any Americans, except maybe for its comedians.

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Amidst the usual Obama bashing by the Republican Party, on Monday RNC Chairman Michael Steele answered a question, and in doing so summed up why the members of Republican Party are threatening themselves into extinction faster that the global warming they deny is threatening polar bears.

Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Steele was asked several times about the Republican Party’s health care policy proposals to stand up against President Obama’s health care plan. He was asked why the GOP hadn’t laid out a plan yet and he stumbled and stuttered his way around a non-answer. When asked if he could name any specific GOP policies, he gave the answer that most people would expect from the top man of the party of “No!”, "Look I don't do policy," he said. "I'm not a legislator. My point in coming here was to establish a tone."

The only “tone” Michael Steele and the Republican Party are establishing, is the fact that they “tone deaf” to the needs of this country, and totally deaf to the wishes of the voters. The only “tones” they seem to be hearing are the same old song and dance from big insurance and the other special interests, who are afraid of any change in the status quo. But that’s only natural because conservatism dictates that they be afraid of and suspicious of even the slightest change.

Big insurance is afraid, not because they will be put out of business by Obama’s plan, because he is not by any means proposing a government run health care system that would put private insurance companies out of business. Health insurance lobbyists are willing to sacrifice the health and well-being of millions of Americans who either have no health insurance, or would lose it if they got really sick, and why? The answer is market share.

In order to avoid a possible drop in market share, they have been spending millions of dollars in lobbying money to prop up the candidacies of any politician who will show even the slightest favor towards stopping health care reform in its tracks just like they did in the 1990’s during the Clinton Administration. Opponents will call it “socialism”, or a “dangerous experiment”, and will try to convince you that we have the greatest health care system in the world, but don’t let them fool you. Sure it’s a great system if you can afford it, but tens of millions of us can’t. Health care costs are destroying families at an alarming rate, and will continue to do so until the system can be changed.

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Mention Ronald Reagan, and Republicans bow their heads in homage to St. Ronald as if he he’d been the Messiah of the conservative movement. Anyone who wants to become a mover and a shaker in the Republican party better make sacred reference to Ronald Reagan, and after they finish painting glowing imagery of the conservative knight in shining armor, they’d better drop to their knees and ask Rush Limbaugh for forgiveness for their sins.

That is the rite of first communion into the GOP. So why is the party shrinking faster than the polar icecaps, which according to Republicans are not shrinking, the same people who believe the whole lie of global warming is just a socialist plot to restrict big business? The answer is Ronald Reagan.

Before you burn me at the stake for patriotic blasphemy I’ll give you a liberal’s point of view on how Ronald Reagan single-handedly sent the GOP onto their path towards extinction, and how Reagan politics played a major role into getting this country into the mess we’re in today. History may one day show, that Ronald Reagan was one of the worst presidents in our nation’s history, not because he was ineffective, not because he was incompetent, but because he popularized hate, and bigotry, and made it politically correct to hold the middle and lower class people in total disdain in order to elevate the wealthy to super-wealthy no matter what the cost to our nation.

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The images that are coming out of Europe are no less than shocking. An American president being treated with enthusiasm abroad is something we have come to expect to be a thing of the past. Europe is treating the President and the First Lady like rock stars, sort of like the British Invasion of the 1960’s in reverse.

Yet while the rest of the world seems to be embracing a new America and its new president, back at home, it seems that little has changed. Yesterday while President Obama was building bridges with the leaders of the top 20 economic nations, including our so-called enemies China and Russia, the United States House of Representatives passed Obama’s budget strictly along party lines.

Each day the opposing party, the Republican Party, defines itself not only as the party of opposition but also the party of “No”. While Obama exudes positive energy, the Republicans search for a leader and exude nothing but negativity.

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Today the House of Representatives passed Obama's $819 billion economic stimulus package and not one Republican voted for it. Instead a group of prominent House Republicans offered their own bill which focused primarily on tax cuts. What they seem to have forgotten was that tax cuts were also the crown jewel of John McCain’s rejected economic campaign proposals, illustrating once again that Republicans are totally out of tune with America. Tax cuts are great if you have a job and you are paying taxes in the first place, but they do little for the millions of Americans who lost their jobs last year and the thousands who are losing their jobs each day this year.

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The Republican Party is still trying to figure out, what happened in November, and the scary part is, they are so blinded by their no-compromise, biblically-referenced, ideology that they are struggling to identify the causes. They must choose a new chairman to lead their party into the next era, the age of Obama politics. The candidates for chairman, and whoever succeeds in becoming chairman, are facing a monumental conundrum, how do you keep the staunchly conservative, bible-belt party base happy, while trying to lure new constituents to your party when you publicly demean or oppose their very existence.

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I talked about the “new” McCain campaigning yesterday in a stylized sort of way, enjoying the craft of writing to convey my message. But twenty-four hours of seeing the McCain campaign has robbed me of the ability to do anything but speak clearly and directly. No humor, no creativity can mask my anger and disgust with the despicable tactics of the leaders of the Republican Party.

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Two major events are destined to take place tomorrow, and both could affect a great number of American lives (disastrous). I believe it is a poignant coincidence that Hurricane Gustav (Category 4) is expected to make landfall at or near New Orleans just about the same time the Republican National Convention (McCain and who?) begins in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota.

The Republicans will be celebrating their conservative legacy (death and destruction) while a grim reminder of Hurricane Katrina terrorizes the people of the Gulf coast once again, even before their full recovery has been realized (dirt swept under the rug). The G.O.P. (Greedy Old People) will be listing their triumphs of the last four years (profit) since they gathered to re-elect one of the worst Presidents in the history of this country (Bush-sh-sh). Fear is what re-elected George W. Bush in 2004 (9-11), and fear is what they’re relying on to elect John McCain in 2008 (Iraq).

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McCain’s new “Tax man” ad, depicts Barack Obama as the tax man who will destroy your family, suck your household budget dry, raise the price of gas, and whose presidency would be a recipe for economic disaster. The Republicans have decided to shift some of the campaign focus to “Old Reliable”, the foundation of the GOP, the jewel of the party, taxes.

By talking taxes, they are reaching out for the one overall party philosophy that permeates all factions within the party. Taxes bad, tax cuts good, rich people better.

On the surface this issue seems pretty straightforward, simple to dissect, and easy to understand, but below the surface, it takes on an ugly face, that says a lot about the proponents on both sides of the fence. When analyzed from the perspective of the current economic snapshot, to preach tax cuts is very close to being unpatriotic, and as much a threat to national security as Al Qaeda.

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The Republicans have run campaigns for decades on their policies of small government and fiscal responsibility, yet the White House reported today that the Bush Administration is leaving a budget deficit of almost a half a trillion dollars in red ink for the next President who takes office in January of 2009.

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