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On the eve of the Republican presidential debate, there was one GOP candidate who spent a good deal of time making the circuit on liberal political shows. His name is Buddy Roemer. A former congressman and governor of Louisiana, Roemer is an affable guy who shoots straight and interacts with the likes of Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow with ease. He handled “gotcha” questions, like “Why won’t they include you in the debate” with honesty and a smile, and he honed in on America’s most pernicious political problem — money in politics — with the laser focus of SEAL Team 6.

Pretty much a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, as I watched Roemer engage, first with Maddow and later with Stewart, I found myself thinking, “Might I actually vote for a Republican?” I am in total agreement with Governor Roemer’s argument that the corrupting effect of money in politics is our nation’s #1 political problem. Listening to Roemer speak so clearly on the issue, “You can’t tackle the jobs problem, the budget problem, the tax problem . . . without tackling the first problem,” I was starting to feel a lot like I did when then Illinois State Senator Obama took the podium at the 2004 convention. When Roemer labeled the system “institutionally corrupt” and continued with, “Corporations have never made more money than they are right now. They wrote the tax code, and they really don’t give a damn about the rest of America,” I was consumed with but one thought — finally, a politician willing to fight the beast.

The impact of hearing a politician speak so honestly about the cancer that permeates every corner of our political system was unnerving; the effect was more than surprise or glee; it was physiological. Money in politics is the shadow system that the kabuki theater is designed to hide — it is the freaking elephant in the room. More than $4 billion was spent on the 2010 campaign, and 2012 is expected to run a tab of over $6 billion. Large corporate contributors, like those in the financial sector, which spends more than any other and tops President Obama’s donor list, don’t donate out of patriotism. Their campaign contributions are investments — investments that pay far better returns than what the market can offer. And make no mistake, they don’t care about jobs or people or America. They are singly focused on one item and one item only — profits.

So, might a candidate who’s willing to take on our nation’s most crippling political problem deserve my vote — even if he is a Republican? Heck, Roemer’s even to the left of many Democrats on the issue of trade with China and the job-killing effects of policies labeled “free” trade. Well, as it turns out, while Buddy Roemer is an anomaly — a Republican who doesn’t contend that tax cuts and deregulation will fix everything short of curing cancer — he really is still a Republican.

Roemer wants to reduce federal spending to 18% of GDP, while “significantly lowering the marginal tax rate for both individuals and corporations,” a position that sounds a whole bunch like feed the wealthy and starve the beast. He appears to be a hawk who still believes that we need to “strengthen national defense” and views the lingering military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan as real wars, instead of the nation-building efforts that they are. He supports the typical GOP claptrap about “domestic sources of energy,” placing emphasis on oil, coal and natural gas, while paying lip service to alternatives. His energy policy actually calls for the elimination of the Department of Energy. Sadly, he also joins in lock-step with the repeal Obamacare crazies — even resorting to the inane “government takeover of healthcare” line.

Damn it! I knew it was too good to be true. Still, if the corruption of a bought government were to be addressed, all of our elected officials would be once again free to act on behalf of the people. But would that gain be worth voting for somebody with whom you disagree on most other issues?

The situation begs many questions: how much would legislation actually change? Why can’t we have a Democrat who will take on money in politics? Where the hell is Obama on the issue? I’d be absolutely giddy to hear the President say, “America, we can’t get anything done because your government has been purchased by special interests.” It’s such a no-brainer to win popular support that you’d have to ask yourself why no sitting politician or candidate (besides Roemer) will take it on . . . if you didn’t already know the answer.

In the end, I’m afraid I can’t vote for Roemer, but the man has earned my respect. He may differ from me on an ideological basis, but he’s certainly not one of the talking-point-without-substance, corporate puppet, GOP politicians who dominate the field today. The man is a considered conservative, the type that once led the Republicans and did hold country over party. He may not get my vote, but I will contribute to his election campaign. I think he’s exactly what the GOP needs to pull it back into the ranks of the politically sane.

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

What do you call people who use their power to line their own pockets by taking from people who can’t protect themselves?  “Bullies?” “Thieves?”

What if they also lie about it and attempt to cover their tracks with irrational nonsense that would make Jabberwocky seem like a reference manual? Would they be “liars?” “Thieving liars?” How about “lying, thieving bullies?”

Judging by what’s happening today in American politics, the answer is inescapable . . . we’d all be forced to just call them Republicans.

Congressman Paul Ryan, the new chairman of the House Budget Committee recently released the Republican budget for 2012, and it subsequently passed through the House with all but four Republican members voting in its favor. Labeled the “Path to Prosperity,” the Ryan plan is touted to cut $6.2 trillion from President Obama’s budget over the next decade. But while this may sound promising on the surface, even a cursory look at the details leaves a person asking, “To whose prosperity does this path lead?

According to Ryan, the Republican proposal is “guided by the timeless principles of the American idea,” but unless he was referring to the principles upheld by the Robber Barons of the 19^th Century, Ryan must be talking about another America. If the congressman was indeed talking about the United States, a nation that was founded on the notion of a government empowered by the “consent of the governed” to “form a more perfect union” that would “promote the general welfare,” then the only explanation is that the man is either ignorant of the facts of our founding, or he’s just an unethical self-serving liar!

The fact of the matter is that Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” is a full frontal assault on working Americans. It makes a mockery of our Constitution by subverting the federal government for the benefit of the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. In short, the proposal that Ryan refers to as the “new House majority’s answer to history’s call,” will end Medicare as we know it, replace Medicaid with block grants, make the Bush tax cuts permanent, and lower both the top individual and corporate tax rate to 25%.

Indeed, Ryan and the other social cannibals of the Republican Party like to talk about being adults while paying lip service to shared sacrifice, but as is evidenced by their budget proposal, the truth of their actions is a different matter. The Republican plan not only attempts to slash social programs to pay on the debt created by years of excess military spending, tax cuts for the rich, and banker bailouts, but it does so by first making matters worse.

In what has become SOP for the GOP, the Ryan plan will trim the tax bill of the wealthy by 29%, bringing it to its lowest level since 1931, and it will attempt to cover the loss in revenue by hacking at the discretionary services  relied upon by everyone else.

So, the Republican plan is to address spending by gutting education, allowing our infrastructure to further decay, and slashing $1.6 trillion total from domestic discretionary spending, while shifting the burden for the high costs of healthcare onto seniors instead of addressing the root causes, and also ripping the heart out of Medicaid, which expends 87% of its costs to serve children, the elderly and the disabled. All told, the Ryan budget will reduce spending by $4.3 trillion over 10 years, but even though the justification for all of these draconian cuts is based on the deficit, Ryan and the snake oil peddling Republicans will actually give $4.2 trillion of that total back in tax cuts.

That’s right, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Ryan plan will reduce the deficit by all of $155 billion over 10 years. But what the heck, the deficit is really nothing but a policy bludgeon created and used by Republicans anyway. Since Ronald Reagan took office, the Republicans have been dedicated to increasing military spending, while cutting taxes, and as a result consistently ignoring the deficit and adding to the debt. The Ryan budget is no exception.

Just why the beltway press has referred to Ryan as “courageous” for proposing what appears to be standard fare for the Republican Party is more than a little curious. The truth of the matter is that the release of the Ryan plan may have been much more “careless” than it was “courageous.” Like the realtor who inadvertently reveals that the field behind that bargain-priced Tudor is slated for a chemical factory, the Ryan budget leaves no doubt regarding the true motives of the Republican Party.

Fortunately, this time around, people are paying attention. Blinded by their own lack of integrity, Republicans evidently believed that by grandfathering everyone 55 and over into the traditional Medicare system, they wouldn’t receive much pushback at their attempt to screw everyone else. But they were wrong. As it turns out, seniors who have learned that the Ryan plan will replace Medicare with a voucher system that will cause future retirees to reach into their own pockets for an estimated $12,500 each year for insurance, have reacted as if the change affected them personally.

Hurray for American seniors! In one town hall meeting after another, Republicans returning to their home constituencies are getting an earful about their illicit attempt to stuff their pockets with money gained by throwing future retirees to the wolves that run the profit-rich medical insurers.

Of course, the big-money Republican damage control apparatus is already underway trying to spin the dismantling of Medicare. Spending millions on bullshit television ads, the voucher system that Paul Ryan euphemistically refers to as “premium support,” is now being presented as a Republican attempt to “preserve Medicare.” Sadly, that preservation would be in name only, preserving the program in much the same way as a classic car is preserved by sending it through a car crusher. But hey, in the Bizarro World of Republican spin doctoring — rhetoric is reality.

So, where does this go from here? Nowhere. There is absolutely zero chance that the Ryan plan will pass the Senate and be signed by the president, which makes it all the more painfully obvious how ridiculously disconnected the Republican Party is from the reality of life in America. Why House Republicans would actually reveal their true agenda, knowing that it would never become law, is anybody’s guess. It’s like a thief giving his victim advanced warning — in writing. But be that as it may, the genie is out of the bottle, and he’s got “Republican doom” tattooed on his forehead.