GOP needs to give up failed policies or die

In high school, we supported our team, win or lose. For those who failed to mature, that esprit de corps evolved into “my country, right or wrong”. Our politics have become similar with respect to parties, to the point that party is more important than country. Both sides are responsible, although, to no one’s surprise, I believe the Republicans have taken it to the extreme.

While I won’t concede overwhelming success to the Reagan Administration, I won’t point to it as a failure. However, they did triple the national debt while charging Democrats with taxing and spending. Bush 41 waged a successful military effort in Iraq and Kuwait with a well-organized coalition of support that paid for our efforts. Yet, when Bush saw the need to raise taxes, in spite of his promise to the contrary, he was run out of office.

Clinton, in spite of his sexual peccadilloes, had a successful presidency particularly on the economic front. In spite of dire economic warnings to the contrary from Republicans, he raised taxes on the wealthiest Americans, triggering an economic boom.

Bush 43 unequivocally ran the country into the ditch. Only the hardest of diehards dispute that. Yet, even with evidence to the contrary, conservative Republicans continue to argue for the failed policies of the past — tax cuts and deregulation.

An accepted definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.

Wake up Republicans or go the way of the Whigs.

BOB WYNHAUSEN

Sandpoint