Rita Osborn

Opinion contributor

Once again, Mitch McConnell is pummeling his chest while promising to “block” the Democrats by branding them as scheming “socialists” (Courier Journal, 6/16/19), implying somehow that the term is repugnant and untenable in a democracy.

What we find incredulous, however, is how his definition of socialism never seems to apply to all the corporate welfare he put in place.

McConnell calls any policy, program or legislation that he opposes socialism. But more importantly, he places into the socialist category programs and policies that benefit all Americans: healthcare access, equality under the law (be it economic, religious, race, or gender), justice for all in the courts, equal educational and employment opportunities, and voters' rights as guaranteed by the Constitution. In other words, a government that provides life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for every American, and not just the richest.

So Mitch brands Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid as government giveaways that drain the nation’s economy and must therefore be privatized or abandoned because they’re supported by radical “socialists.” He’s even labeled legislation designed to protect our elections from foreign interference as socialist!

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For someone who says, “I see it as my responsibility to look out for middle America,” he meets that responsibility with a Republican Party platform that deprives the poor (especially women) access to healthcare, taxes the poor and middle class to benefit the rich, slams the welcome door in the face of immigrants and refugees — many of whom are literally running for their lives from danger in their home countries, — condemns LGBTQ individuals as not entitled to protection under the law, and gladly accepts voter suppression or foreign election interference if it guarantees Republican power and dominance.

What about the Republican-supported corporate socialism that strictly adheres to the decades of failure that is trickle-down economics, as evidenced by the recent Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This law passed the Republican controlled House and Mitch’s Senate in 2017, created significant corporate tax cuts and also changed how overseas corporate earnings are taxed. These permanent tax cuts for corporations failed to create any significant jobs increase, benefited only the very rich and have already translated to a ballooning record-setting annual deficit of $900 billion for 2019. This is the same bill that the Mitch-led Republicans falsely claimed would pay for itself.

These massive corporate tax cuts provided windfall profits that were supposed to stimulate corporate expansion and create good jobs and life-sustaining wages for all Americans. Instead, corporations primarily used the increased revenue for bonuses for their CEOs and to fund higher dividends for their shareholders. It would be interesting to know how much Mitch’s portfolio benefited from these government-sponsored giveaways to corporations.

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Mitch has also championed the Trump administration’s deregulations and climate denial policies that have favored corporations’ bottom lines at the expense of the air we breathe and the water we drink. Floods, violent weather patterns and tariffs are killing America’s small family farms and businesses, leaving only large corporate businesses to fill the void, ultimately driving up consumer prices and invading the poor and middle-class consumers’ pocketbooks.

For more than 10 years, our government has been plagued by severe partisanship and gridlock, all thanks to Mitch McConnell and his gross abuses of power. He continually lacks any accountability to his constituents and boasts of his defiance of the Constitution and rule of law. He never holds an open town hall meeting that isn’t a high-dollar, pay-for-play event, strictly controlled to ensure only his favored donors can attend. Mitch’s loyalty is to the Koch brothers and other rich corporations and individuals whose dark money can fund his political ideological PACs and his own thirst for power.

The question is simple: Do you choose an America in which the government works FOR the people, ALL of the people, or do you choose an oligarchical America of corporate socialism and kleptocracy? We know which one Mitch has chosen. As an American who loves my country, I choose the former.

Rita Osborn is a board member of Indivisible Kentucky.