House Republican screws up and tells the truth for once
By and large, Republican politicians tend to be people who hate government but get into it anyway because they can line their pockets with corporate money and then dismantle programs that actually help people, while pointing to their own action or inaction as proof that government doesn’t work and can’t improve your lives.
This is why it’s not easy to find any legislation that was roundly supported and passed by Republicans in the last 25 years that benefited your life in any meaningful way. For some time, if you tried arguing this with a Republican they’d give a whole rambling conversation about small government and rugged individualism or other such nonsense.
On Thursday, however, the tables turned for a brief moment, when Rep. Chip Roy, who’s usually one of the craziest of the crazies, actually told the truth for once when he rebuked House Republican leadership for squandering their majority and not getting anything passed in the last year. He dared his Republican colleagues to name a single thing of significance Republicans have done, despite all their promises on the economy that they ran on just over a year ago.
The fact is, they’ve done nothing but fight amongst themselves, and nearly shut down the government several times over (something they can’t even decide is a good thing or not). Roy is clearly concerned more about his own re-election prospects and being in the majority, but he’s actually giving a clear argument for why the GOP shouldn’t be in the majority ever again.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making