Republicans
Must Pay Price

When are you going to say enough is enough? As they have done in the past, senate Republicans blocked a Democratic led attempt to place a windfall profits tax on the obscene profits that big oil continues to make on the backs of working Vermonters.

The five largest U.S. oil companies made $36 billion dollars in profits during the first three months of this year. Republicans in large part owe their election victories to the huge donations and influence of the energy lobby.

Unbelievably, they continue to pretend that their staunch opposition to additional taxes that could be used to fund alternative energy programs is offered in the interest of our nation. Such a claim would be laughable if it weren’t responsible for so much pain and suffering among average Americans.

The power of money is so great and pervasive in Washington, D.C. that we ordinary citizens stand absolutely zero chance of making any change by directly attacking those most responsible. There is only one way that the Republican party will shed its recent conversion to the role of corporate concubine and that is if it is pressured to do so from within.

If hard-working Americans, especially those who believed in the fiscal conservatism and honor of the pre-Newt Gingrich Republican Party, can bring themselves to send a message at the ballot box this November, the party would heal itself in record time.

A single election cycle in which Republicans in ALL races, national, state and local were turned out of office in protest against the cancer that has overtaken the party would cause the party to find its way again. This will be extraordinarily difficult to do because it will mean voting against some good people.

Not all members of the Republican Party are to blame for the cancer, but ONLY members of the party can excise it. In order for that to happen, there must be a certain amount of political pain felt by both candidates and voting Republicans. Sadly, without that pain, America’s middle class will continue to be victims of the unholy alliance between corporate greed and the National Republican Party.

John B. Kenealy

Brookfield

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