By Carl Hisiro
Recently, Pennlive published an open letter from U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, a Republican representing Pennsylvania’s 9th Congressional District to President Biden, responding to a Biden comment that today, “Republicans don’t seem to be for anything.”
Meuser then tries to discredit Biden by showing all the ways Republicans have performed better than Biden.
I would like to examine Meuser’s statements versus the actual Republican record. First, he states Republicans stand for our Constitution and for law and order, and he attacks Biden’s record of using executive orders to get things done.
How can Meuser make such a claim on the one-year anniversary of the Capitol riot instigated by Trump and his cronies? We all remember Trump’s supporters attacking Capitol Police, injuring many of them, and destroying government property. This was followed by Republican leaders almost universally downplaying what happened that day – even one suggesting it was just a bunch of tourists visiting the Capitol.
Meuser’s credibility is further eroded by his opposition to establishing an independent commission to investigate the insurrection to find the truth.
And on executive orders, Meuser conveniently ignores that Trump issued 220 such orders in his four years, an average of 55 per year, which is the highest yearly average in over 40 years. Many of Biden’s orders simply reversed Trump’s orders that were so bad like withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Accords.
Next, Meuser argues that Republicans stand for national security. This statement ignores that 9/11 happened on Republicans’ watch and that Trump’s “America First” approach isolated us from our allies and instead put us in bed with many dictators. Who can forget Trump’s repeated failures to stand up to Russia’s Putin, his “love affair” with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, or his unilateral and reckless withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal?
Meuser asserts that Republicans are for a strong economy, but fails to acknowledge the major recessions and millions of jobs lost under both Bush’s and Trump’s leadership. Recent Democratic presidents have had solid records of creating a growing economy with strong job numbers and rising stock prices.
The negative issues Meuser points to, such as rising inflation and supply bottlenecks, are happening globally because of the current pandemic and are expected to be temporary in nature. They are not something Biden caused; but, to his credit, Biden has announced a series of active steps being taken to tackle these issues so they are not long term.
Meuser even tries to claim Republicans are big supporters of education while in truth their policies have been mostly counterproductive. Republicans have stood for slashing education funding; injecting made-up controversies intended to rile up their base such as “critical race theory,” which isn’t even taught in our schools; and refusing to address the student debt crisis.
Perhaps Meuser’s most laughable claim is that Republicans stand for fiscal responsibility. Under Republican leadership, our national debt has risen by trillions of dollars thanks in part to several massive tax cuts for the rich they have enacted over the last 20 years.
Under Trump’s so-called tax cut, taxes have actually risen for millions of ordinary Americans in order to give a major tax break to the wealthiest Americans. Speaking personally, my own taxes went up drastically even though my wife and I are both retired and on pensions. Many other families have been similarly hit with higher taxes because of this “tax cut.”
This statement also conveniently ignores Congressional Republicans recent universal refusal to vote to raise the debt ceiling to pay for past expenditures, including Trump’s tax cuts. If this refusal had prevented the debt ceiling from being raised, it would have sent the country into default, creating an unimaginable economic crisis.
Meuser also claims to support “infrastructure spending,” but he voted against the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill enacted in 2020 that will fix our roads, bridges and rail systems.
Meuser concludes by asserting that Biden’s message to Americans has been “entirely divisive.” I would just ask, if he believes in American ideals as he claims, why hasn’t he condemned any of the divisive statements that come out almost daily on the Republican side?
His silence speaks volumes in not condemning such recent statements made by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene that the country should be split in two between Republicans and Democrats and that Democrats who move to red states should be banned from voting in those states.
Carl Hisiro is a retired lawyer who resides in Susquehanna Township.
Ad Choices