CNN’s John Harwood can’t reconcile that Republicans in Congress haven’t agreed with Democrats and their extreme positions throughout the years, and don’t support the party’s current plan to remake the country while sending it off the fiscal cliff.
The purported journalist, who is currently a White House correspondent for the left-wing cable network, shared his thoughts on GOP opposition to Democratic policies in an article published by CNN on Sunday. Harwood portrayed the Republican Party as the party of “no.”
“[F]or Clinton’s 1993 deficit-reduction plan: 0 Republican votes … for Obama’s 2010 national health care plan: 0 Republican votes … for Biden’s 2021 covid-relief plan: 0 Republican votes … the modern GOP response to Democratic governance is total resistance,” Harwood tweeted Monday, sharing his CNN article.
for Clinton's 1993 deficit-reduction plan: 0 Republican votes
for Obama's 2010 national health care plan: 0 Republican votes
for Biden's 2021 covid-relief plan: 0 Republican votes
the modern GOP response to Democratic governance is total resistancehttps://t.co/6gblUcwNzr
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) June 14, 2021
In that article, the Democratic Party operative concluded that “Washington Republicans have just one move.”
“The Republican answer is no,” he wrote. “What’s the question? Just about anything important a Democratic president is asking.”
Harwood falsely called the Jan. 6 Capitol breach an “insurrection,” and complained that Republicans in the Senate don’t want to spend the next several years pretending that it was the single worst event to ever occur. Harwood also complained that President Joe Biden’s so-called “infrastructure” plan doesn’t have bipartisan support.
“Last week the issue was infrastructure. President Joe Biden asked a few Republican senators to compromise within shouting distance of his plan to dramatically boost investment in America’s infrastructure, financed by taxes on corporations or wealthy individuals. The answer was no,” he complained.
Perhaps if Democrats were simply interested in updating roads and bridges, such a plan would garner support from both parties. We know of course Democrats believe that daycare is infrastructure, as is paid family leave and other social welfare programs.
We can thank Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York for showing the entire world her party’s cards back in April.
Paid leave is infrastructure.
Child care is infrastructure.
Caregiving is infrastructure.— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) April 7, 2021
Democrats have had the ear of Republicans in recent weeks. But it’s clear their “infrastructure” plan is simply another Trojan horse for radical policies, more spending and higher taxes. Harwood can’t understand why anyone would stand in the way of having the federal government further embed itself into people’s lives in the name of remodeling transit facilities and laying down new asphalt.
“But because infrastructure investments involve a lot of government spending, congressional Republicans didn’t act even when Trump rhetorically embraced a major program,” Harwood chirped. “Not only does Biden want to spend more than Trump, he proposes higher taxes to pay for it.”
“To that, the Republican answer is unequivocally no,” he added.
Truly conservative lawmakers should and always will oppose blank check spending and power grabs by Democrats. What rational lawmaker would vote to give Biden his $2 trillion after seeing that Gillibrand tweet? Who would have, in good conscience, voted in favor of the Affordable Care Act — a plan that was never going to make health care affordable?
The law did little more than penalize Americans for not going out and getting insurance until it was neutered by former President Donald Trump in 2017 when he eliminated the individual mandate’s tax penalty. In that vein, Trump’s landmark tax cut bill in 2017 didn’t get a single Democratic vote, so what’s Harwood’s point?
Why would any genuine and self-respecting Republican go out of their way to support Democratic policy positions in any decade — especially this one?
What’s shocking here is not Harwood’s unabashed bias, which is always on display. The stunning aspect of the reporter’s opinion about Washington politics is his obtuseness. The CNN reporter can’t conceptualize that there exists diversity in thought.
Harwood colored himself as surprised that Republicans don’t want to vote for policies that are anti-ethical to their core beliefs about government and its place in the lives of citizens. He then leapt to make an assumption that conservatives in Washington oppose tax hikes, forced taxes and more entitlements as a matter of reflex.
There are two major political parties in this country, and each has a different agenda.
Most surprising about Harwood’s gripes about the GOP is that he doesn’t seem to understand that very basic fact.
