GOP playbook worn out

I had a political discussion recently with two conservative friends. They were basically saying we should strip the lazy poor of their welfare and food stamps and force them to get jobs. I said the poor are not the problem and will always be with us, and it would cost much more to pay for the aftermath of such mass dislocation of the poor.

I said the real problem is that one-tenth of 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. One of them sarcastically said to the other, “See, it’s like beating a dead horse.”

He was right about beating a dead horse, but very wrong about whose horse it was. The dead horse is actually the worn-out fallacious and unimaginative Republican playbook of supply-side economics, lowering taxes to stimulate growth and removing regulations (how’d that turn out with the housing crisis?). It has never worked and never will.

Add to that the Republican agenda to “drill, baby, drill” at the very time we need to begin seriously curbing fossil fuel usage to address climate change and you have the perfect storm. Irresponsibility gone mad.

Chris Bowers

Liberty Lake