Letters and Articles on the Republican Party's Agenda

Unless otherwise noted, letters were submitted to the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune newspaper

Dismantling Public Education
24 Jan 2025
 

Emily Pearson makes an excellent point about how New Hampshire's expanded voucher program would severely degrade the quality of public education (Unlimited Vouchers Will Bankrupt Public Education, January 19).  But, she misses the big picture.  Discrediting and dismantling public education is the whole point.

For at least the past half century, Republicans have been on a mission to privatize everything -- including K-12 education.  The entire charter school movement is designed to siphon resources away from public schools and transfer them to private ones.  The various voucher programs being rammed through around the country are just the next step.  Republicans also have a Christian Nationalist bent.  Hence, diverting funds to Christian schools.  They are also the party of the rich, so reserving a good education and upward mobility for the already well off while leaving the "underclasses" behind is consistent with this bias.

Blocking the above will require a concerted movement.  It will also require finally voting Republicans out of power.

Republican Budget Gifts the Rich and Steals from the Poor

14 Feb 2025

As expected, Republicans in the House of Representatives are pushing a budget that makes the Trump tax breaks for billionaires and giant corporations permanent. That will continue its trillion dollar plus annual deficits into perpetuity.

Meanwhile, they will pay for that by stealing from the poor and middle class. It would slash at least $230 billion from food assistance programs at a time when grocery prices continue to rise (so much for Trump's "promise" to lower them on day one). It will also cut $880 billion from Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. Cuts to a slew of other programs are likely also on the chopping block.

Once again, this shows whose interests Republicans actually represent -- it's not us. Why do people keep voting for them against their own interests?
 

Republicans' Disdain for Our Health & Well-Being

9 March 2025

Your article on how Republicans in the New Hampshire legislature are considering weakening vaccine mandates demonstrates once again how they do not actually care about our health and well-being. Instead, they are using a long refuted conspiracy theory to gain political points. This is part of a long history of such opposition to extending access to health care.

In the 1940s, they blocked President Truman from passing universal health insurance. In 1965, half of Republicans voted against Medicare. In the 1990s, they blocked President Clinton's plan. In 2010, they opposed the Affordable Care Act and voted 58 times to repeal it. They got its implementation to be optional. Then, many Republican-controlled states refused to do so or set very low income caps.

During the 2020 pandemic, they made wearing masks a political issue when the science on it clearly confirmed its benefits. Likewise for the vaccines when they came out, despite their proven effectiveness against the COVID-19 disease.

Now, the Trump administrations and congressional Republicans are planning to make massive cuts to Medicare and Medicaid in order to pay for extended tax cuts for billionaires and giant corporations. And, they are going after the vaccines that have all but eliminated numerous dangerous diseases, based on a falsified and refuted research paper from the 1990s. Note that there is no major religion that opposes vaccines, so that fabricated excuse should be eliminated.

Finally, all of this doesn't even get to how they vehemently oppose any regulations that limit pollution or protect workers and consumers.

All of this demonstrates how Republicans care more about political grandstanding to their base than the health and welfare of ordinary Americans.
 

New Hampshire Republicans Rob from Poor to Give to Rich

18 Apr 2025

Thank you to Charles Zoeller for saving me from writing the letter I planned to on the New Hampshire budget shortfalls and cuts (Responsibility for NH Revenue Shortage - April 16). But, he fails to take the next step. Giving more money to the rich and making up for it by taking services away from the poor is the heart of the Republican agenda.

Republicans have been waging a war on public schools for decades. It is the intent behind the formation of charter schools and the rule that each dollar that goes to one is taken out of that town's public school budget. It is also why they refuse to honor the Clairmont decision and transfer the excess state real estate taxes from rich towns to poor ones. The current voucher scheme is just the next level assault. Giving them to religious schools advances the Christian Nationalist agenda that has ruled the Republican party since Ronald Regan allied with the Christian Right to create a wedge issue on abortion.

The cuts to all of the social and environmental programs is just one more dimension of this agenda.

The needs, desires, and opinions of the public don't matter to them -- the wealthy and corporations are their real constituents. Project 2025 is alive and being implemented in New Hampshire. They even have their own DOGE team. It's time to turn them out of office.

School Choice Attack on Public Education

19 Jun 2025

There they go again.  New Hampshire Republicans' duplicity in their campaign to dismantle public education continues apace.  This time it's "school choice."

This plan allows children in low performing schools to transfer to high performing ones.  Unfortunately, the state aid funding travels with them.  Since, in general, lower performing schools tend to be in poorer communities and the higher performing schools are in wealthier ones, this further depletes available resources in the poor districts, creating a downward spiral.  It is effectively a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich -- typical of Republican economic plans.  Thus, we get one more step in their attack on public schools that they started with charter schools and their newly expanded private school voucher plan.

The proper solution is to finally obey the Clairmont decision and redistribute the excess state education taxes from wealthy districts to the poor ones.  That would do far more to equalize educational opportunity across the state.

However, Republican policy is to take services away from poor people and give the money to rich ones, so I'm very pessimistic that this will happen.
 

Insidious Big Ugly Bill

20 Jul 2025

Donald Trump and Republicans have rammed through their Big Ugly Bill that grants trillions of dollars in tax cuts to their billionaire donors (that will send our national debt soaring) and guts the social safety net programs that help the poor and middle class. But they were very devious and insidious about it. The cuts to social programs don't take effect until after the 2026 mid-term election. In addition, the tax breaks on tips and overtime end right after the 2028 presidential election. Their plan is that people won't start feeling the pain until after they reelect the Republicans who just shafted them.

Machiavelli's book "The Prince" was supposed to be a warning and satire. Republicans use it as a handbook.
 

Grover Norquist Lies about DC Statehood

13 Sep 2025

Good old Grover Norquist is back, spewing his Republican lies and disinformation (DC Should not Be a State. Ever - Sept. 12).  Norquist is the grandfather of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025.  He has stated that his goal is to shrink government until it could be "drowned in the bathtub."  He was an architect of President Ronald Reagan's huge tax cuts for the rich and corporations that created massive budget deficits (that have been further compounded by subsequent Republican administrations) and cuts to programs for the middle and working classes.

Regarding the movement for statehood for Washington, DC, his assertion that it's to get more Democrats in Congress is a total Republican canard.  The truth is that residents there are sick and tired of always being at the tender mercies of Congress and the president, who control their budget and are usually quite stingy about it.  Local police are up to managing crime there as long as the federal government would let them and the mayor do their jobs with adequate resources and without interference.

Only a tiny section of DC contains the federal government.  That core could remain stateless.  The rest is mostly a normal city doing normal activities for normal people.  Its citizens just want control over their own fate -- like the rest of us.  Statehood would give them that right.