Tax Boogeyman for President!

Mitt Romney and all those running down ballot in the Republican column are convincing themselves that the upholding of the Affordable Care Act has a poisonous silver lining: taxes.

Supreme Court Justice John Roberts decided that the penalties for not purchasing mandated health insurance coverage are a tax and therefore Constitutional. After Republicans thrashed Roberts verbally and even pushed their shrill rhetoric to include one of their favorite wind-up toys, high crimes and misdemeanors free impeachment, they got back to their cynical and selfish selves to reframe the battle for health care to be all about taxes. The bottom line for the GOP on health care is neither solutions that extend coverage for the US population nor an alternative vision of true affordability and access, especially for the poor.

Maine Republican Chair Charlie “bus-watcher” Webster was quick out of the gate with the newly improved GOP attack-du-jour:

“I thought Obama said he would never raise taxes on the middle class. Well, this is obviously another bait and switch tactic the Democrats used to push their tax, borrow, and spend agenda on the American people, when all along they said this was ‘not a tax’.”

Will voters fall for an anti-tax line again?

Frankly it remains to be seen since Citizens United basically allows unlimited money to pour into our politics. Even should there be widespread support for the Affordable Care Act, it’s just from mere people not the self-important elitist financial interests with the most cash. And cash spends pretty easy and with more pronounced results tearing down something as a tax versus making an articulated case for fulfilling a genuine need in our society that requires fair investment support.

However, at the very core of this debate, one thing is visibly lacking: a viable Republican alternative. Anyone giving reasoned review to the GOP mantra about competition knows that it just leads to the high deductable, low benefit equation that benefits insurance interests’ bottom lines and only results in competition for the largest chunk of poor and middle class’s wallets in their struggle to avoid the gambling chance of medical bankruptcy. And the other GOP standard fencepost, competition between the states, is really about being able to buy into the worse levels of regulation from states that care less about their citizens and are more in political pocket of big insurance.

The bitter truth is that health care is not really a Republican priority; it neither fits with their market worship of picking winners and losers nor their “got mine, you’re on your own” attitude of class warfare. The anti-tax party is exposed once again as the anti-people party. We have not seen anything creative dedicated to health care delivery since the 2006 “Act Providing Access to Affordable, Quality, Accountable Health Care” in Massachusetts under then Governor Mitt Romney. But, hey, why go there?

Prove It Charlie

Regardless of position, using facts and not fiction in debate is expected of our civic leaders. When someone purposefully veers into outright deception and spreading false claims to build support for one’s particular position, it is disservice to Maine citizens. Argue with passion, debate vigorously, but tell the truth.

LD 1376 which reduces Maine citizens’ access to the polls by denying them the continuation of same day registration unanimously enacted by a Republican legislature in 1973 and continually used by Republicans, Democrats, and unenrolled voters without problem is a case in point. For partisan and rhetorical reasons Maine’s GOP joined the national trend to restrict ballot access using sound bite and talk radio reasoning.

Most disheartening is the largely unchallenged and I contend false assertion made by State Republican Chairman, Charlie Webster, published on June 27th regarding “witnessed busloads of new voters who register Election Day, folks most of us have never met and frankly most of us may never see again.”

I’ll be upfront; I do not believe Mr. Webster. The sad element in this affair is that his motivation seems to be to spread fear of people who for understandable reasons register at election time rather than welcoming greater involvement in our electoral process.

Mr. Webster ought to post videos of the busloads of undesirable voters swamping polls online. Surely the Republican Chairman has photos, news stories, and hard evidence to make such a charge. He should place sworn affidavits by reliable witnesses in front of us. In other words, prove it Charlie.

If proof is not forthcoming then Mr. Webster ought to apologize or the Republican State Committee ought to admonish him. If neither is forthcoming, then we as voters will need to admonish the GOP ourselves next election because truth is important.