Andy Marquis, reporter for RACE22.com, is our guest blogger of the day. He used to consider himself a Republican but not any more.  He changed his voter registration to Independent in 2011 and says that’s how it will remain.

Here’s his latest guest post:

Off The Cliff

Strap in, the American economy has officially gone off the “fiscal cliff”. The Senate has acted, but now the Republican controlled House where people like Congressman Paul Ryan, Congressman Eric Cantor and Congressman Darrell Issa could be poised to wank around and sabotage the Senate deal.

I don’t know, at this point, if Republicans are refusing to act in good faith because they hate President Obama or if they want to punish the American populace for re-electing him. Whatever it is, it’s shameful, repulsive and vomit-inducing.

Instead of cooperating, our nation’s fearless leaders stomped their feet around acting like petulant little children. When a deal was on the table, Republicans walked away in an attempt to spite the President and then spited the Speaker of the House, the leader of their own party, for working with Obama. When a deal looked likely on Monday, Republicans were butthurt over President Obama’s comments. They took to the Senate floor, whining and crying about how Obama said mean things (the truth) about them.

Fact is, President Obama has the advantage in negotiations, but like a pack of Honey Badgers, the Republican Party just doesn’t give a single care. They think they won the election, because Republican Congressmen were gerrymandered right in to their seat on the House Floor. The right wing dumbassosphere knows President Obama’s going to get his way, so they’d rather do nothing at all… the hell with the people.

The entire debate is BS. It’s simple stuff – extend the tax cuts for the middle class, raise taxes on the wealthy (fact, even the majority of the wealthy want their taxes increased) and work on a plan to cut spending. Congress had a timetable, and they knew they did. After all, they are the ones who implemented the “Fiscal Cliff” as a way of forcing negotiation.

You see, I keep hearing Republicans talk about “entitlement reform”. That’s it. That’s all they care about, because they think the money that you paid in to for your Social Security benefits is the exact same thing as giving food stamps to someone who won’t find a job. That’s what the Republican Party, who cares about the rich and damn the poor, thinks about you. They think everyone is a 47 percenter who wants something for free.

Fact is, Democrats have also talked about entitlements – but they believe everything should be on the table.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer in an interview I had with him back in August: “There have been a number. The answer to your question is, I have said all along, entitlements need to be on the table. We need to make sure entitlements are fiscally sound for decades to come and sustainable.”

The difference between Democrats and Republicans can be summed up in this comment by the Democratic Congressman from Maryland, “We need to make sure the most vulnerable are not hurt by any agreement we reach.”

You see, the Republicans don’t give a damn about the poor, the elderly and the nation’s most vulnerable. In their world, people are poor and elderly because they choose to be and they’re lazy freeloaders, so we should just let that starve. And again, this TEA Party logic was rejected in November.

Now that the time has come to talk about meaningful spending cuts, the Republicans would rather see middle class incomes fall to protect their criminal friends on Wall Street and kick the can down the road instead of sit down at the table with a black President. They might think they’re acting courageously, but they’re acting with great cowardice. Instead of bucking Grover Norquist and Donald Trump, they’re bending over the rest of the country.

Let’s all give a round of applause to our “fearless leaders” in Washington who have successfully screwed our economy right off the cliff.

Andy Marquis

Twitter: @amarquis32

Facebook.com/amarquis