WHERE WERE THEY?

Only four. Only four republican Senators voted with the Democrats today to temporarily extend unemployment benefits and COBRA subsidies to Americans whose state benefits have expired. Only four republican Senators understood the very real and very urgent needs of everyday Americans who are hurting as the result of the republican’s running our economy into a ditch.

Shame on the rest (37 in all) of those republican Senators. All of a sudden, they are so concerned about the deficit?

Well, where were they while W., with their help, was running up the largest deficits this country had ever known?

Where were they when they were voting for George W. Bush’s unfunded, deficit busting $1.3 trillion tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans?

Where were they when they voted for an unnecessary war of choice and refused to even make it a part of the budget and therefore pay for it at the time? NO, there was no emergency, no exigent circumstances which required us to attack Iraq without paying for the war. Rather, the republicans chose to forward the bill to future generations.

Now, when there are literally thousands of real emergencies all across our country in the form of hard working Americans who have lost their jobs because of republican incompetence and wrong headed policies, now when people with families really need the support and understanding of these Senators so that they can feed their children and provide needed medical care to them, now, only now, are the republicans worried about the deficit.

Give me a break! All of a sudden they are worried about the deficit? Well, as with everything else that the republicans do, the only reason that these republicans are against increasing the deficit at this point is…you guessed it, their political consultants (you know, people like Karl Rove) have calculated that it will help them in the midterm elections.

While there is a real reason to be concerned about the effects of the deficit on our long term economic strength, you can be sure that the republicans have seized upon the issue because they see it as a winning political argument, just as they did those tax cuts.

Surely extending the lifeline of unemployment benefits to tens of thousands of Americans who are just fighting to survive everyday is as worthy of deficit spending as providing $1.3 trillion dollars of tax cuts to the top 1% of Americans who have not had to worry about where their next meal is coming from for a very long time, if ever.

But for the four, Americans urgently in need of help, would today be asking of the republicans, where were they when we needed them?