Something that’s bothered me for decades is how legislators can put political party over country when making decisions.

The job (the responsibility) is to do what you think is in the best interest of the United States of America. Sure, that means conservatives and liberals, and everybody in between are going to have different beliefs on what the right thing is.

Understandable that you don’t often agree with your political rival. What makes no sense is when you vote against your own beliefs just to avoid giving the other guy credit for doing a thing.

I first noticed it back when Bill Clinton was president. He was no liberal and would sometime take Republican ideas, make them his own, and get them passed into law. Welfare Reform is one example.

Some Republican lawmakers were incensed that he stole their ideas, so they voted against what they believed in order to try to keep him from having a success.

They’re doing it today with President Obama’s Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland, a well respected moderate federal appeals court judge who has been confirmed overwhelmingly by senators from both parties.

But some legislators vote not on what is best for the country, but what is in the best interest of the party.

Another recent example is approval of the nation’s debt limit. Every few years the government must pass a new debt limit because the country must pay back money the Congress voted to spend, above what it gets in taxes.

To not pay back the money Congress already agreed to borrow and spend is irresponsible and damages country’s financial standing.

So Republicans and Democrats alike vote on budgets to increase debt, and then try to say when the new debt limit vote comes up that they’re against it. This has worked for Republicans who then say there is too much debt, but all the debt limit vote really is approval to pay back the money they already borrowed.

Here’s one in the news now. Republicans repudiate the crazy things Donald Trump says, but refuse to denounce his qualifications to be president. For party unity, they’re willing to let a madman become president. Party before country. And then they wonder how Trump got nominated.

Because you have your priorities backward and voters have started noticing that something’s wrong. Government is not working.

How can government work as it should when legislators vote for party over country?

This by the way is almost entirely directed at Republicans. They control both the House and Senate. They crow about what fiscal conservatives they are (vote against raising the debt ceiling), while blaming Democrats, the minority party, for borrowing all that money.

Both parties borrowed the money. Only the Republicans refused to pay it back.

And then they wonder why Republican voters reject them in favor of bat-guano crazy Donald Trump. And they’ll soon be wondering how the Party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt came to an end.

Question Hillary’s honesty? The Republican Party has raised dishonesty to a governing principle.

And its end is being speeded along by loyalty to Trump because everything he says is antithetical to conservative principle and lets the American people know that you never really meant it and have been lying to them for the past 30 years (or more).

You’ve been exposed as hypocrites, liars and con artists, just like The Donald has.

 

Keith Hoggard is a Staff Writer at Roanoke-Chowan Publications. Contact him at keith.hoggarfd@r-cnews.com or 252-332-7206.