This essay was submitted by Arthur C. Donart, Ph.D.
The political season is here already, thanks to being so close to Iowa. Unfortunately, we are bombarded with all the political ads of G.O.P. Presidential wannabes. These ads do give us some insight into the bankruptcy of the Republican Party. Vote for me. I am great. I am wonderful. I am a billionaire. I created thousands of jobs. I will secure our border; I will eliminate the cartels, (assumes we know which cartels.) I will send the “suckers,” oops, I mean, the Army, to secure the border (with Canada?) I will eliminate all illegal drugs. (How? Make them all legal?)
That is the problem! They ignore many other issues or problems. They tell you absolutely nothing, as to how they will make life better for the American people. There is a reason for that.
They have no clue as to how they can accomplish what little they promise. Not one of them mentions the problem of homelessness. Yet, every night, there are approximately 582,462 people sleeping under a bridge, because they have no place to call home. If you have no home, then you have no address. So how are you supposed to get a job, so you can rent a room to call home? Is living in your car “home?” Perhaps that’s half a million Americans these politicians don’t give a tinker’s dam about, because they no address, and therefore, no ability to vote. It’s easy to ignore people who can’t vote, but still pay some taxes. What was that 1760s Colonial argument against paying British “taxes without [having] representation [in Parliament]?” It led to the Revolutionary War!
Strange. Not one of these wannabes bothers to mention that prescription drug prices in the U.S.A. are the highest in the world. I guess that’s no problem for them. But it is, for four million, uninsured children in our Nation (who cannot vote to change that situation.) It is a problem to the millions of elderly who must live off their meager Social Security checks. In fact, medical care is a problem for the 44 million people who are under-insured; they can’t afford better medical coverage. There are 19 million who experience a gap in coverage and 24 million who have no medical insurance.
G.O.P. Presidential wannabes are so worried about China “passing us up.” Yet, they fail to realize China has already passed us up–when it comes to medical care. Even South Africa, one of the poorest Countries, has “Medical Care for All.” Here in America, the G.O. P. calls it Socialized Medicine, which they believe makes it “bad.” After all, the American people would not like a medical system where they could 1. see any doctor or dentist they liked; 2. get any care they needed; 3. never see a bill. So, where do these candidates stand, on prescription drug cost and medical care? Someone/Everyone needs to ask them.
Donald J. Trump, when running for President in 2016, promised that if elected he would see to it that we would have the best medical care in the world. Yet in the four years he was in office, he never even submitted one proposal to Congress to implement even one improvement in medical care for our citizens.
Unfortunately, the wannabes are focused on our Southern border and migration. Do they not know our history? have they not heard of the infamous Monroe Doctrine? Have they not counted how many Central and South American Governments we have overthrown? Because of our Government’s sanctions, life in Venezuela has deteriorated; so they flee here. Our Government has ousted Governments in Panama, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Honduras, Argentina, Guatemala, and Nicaragua–to name a few. So if our Government messes up their Country, who is to blame for them coming here?
Neither Party is willing to admit they are complicit in making this mess. Just building a wall is not a solution. Denying Climate Change is not a solution. Just continuing to raise the debt ceiling and cutting funding for the I. R.S. are not solutions. Ignoring the horrible wealth disparity is not solving a problem.
We are either going to have chaos or solutions. Looking at the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and their difficulty in electing a Speaker, we have chaos. What we need and should demand is real solutions to our many serious problems.