No Pretense of Compassion

Remember the “compassionate conservatives?” Former President George W. Bush would get that earnest, constipated look on his face as he described himself as one. Early in his administration, he used compassionate conservatism as a basis for his faith based initiative program, which was just a way of shoveling tax dollars at right wing Christian groups. Once Bush got his war, we stopped hearing so much about compassion. He did have boundless compassion for the plight of the wealthy, giving them huge tax cuts while putting the cost of his wars on a credit card, and sending off the children of the far less wealthy to fight and die in the war he was so desperate to start.

The compassionate conservative label was a layer of sugar coating intended to distract us from the fact that what these conservatives were espousing was the same old mean-spirited conservative policies they’d always been in favor of.

Then along came the Tea Party, and sugar coating just washed away. There was no pretense of compassion any longer. That lack of pretense has grown louder and nastier over the years.

There was no pretense of compassion in Indiana, when Governor Pence signed the bill legitimizing discrimination by the religious right. There’s no better way for the religious to show their faith than by refusing to serve gays and lesbians. They tell us that if we don’t allow them to discriminate in the name of their religion that we are discriminating against them!  Of course the same section of their Bible that they point to in order to justify their bigotry also calls for stoning adulterers to death, a practice they don’t seem to have the necessary fortitude to engage in.

A reminder: In 2012, the NH legislature attempted to pass a similar bill. Eighty-five legislators voted for it. Thirty-one of them still serve in the legislature, including Conway’s own Frank McCarthy.

There was no pretense of compassion in the legislature this week while the House was in session, passing their bungled budget. Speaker Jasper and former Speaker (and leader of the rump caucus) O’Brien somehow kissed and made up and worked together to pass this thing. Representatives Neal Kurk and Dan McGuire cackled with glee over the many opportunities they took to gut programs for the most vulnerable among us.

Greg Moore of Americans for Prosperity, a Koch funded special interest group, appears to have had a great deal of influence over the budget, despite the fact that none of us voted for him. Moore was brought in to serve as O’Brien’s policy director in 2011, and then became O’Brien’s chief of staff. Moore wasn’t too principled to refuse a taxpayer-funded paycheck. (The guys who hate gummint never are.) At the end of the O’Brien reign, Moore moved on to AFP, where he has served his new masters (the Kochs) well by putting out political ads last year that were outright lies about the Affordable Care Act. He’s a paid shill who is given a disproportionate level of influence over our legislature and given a disproportionate share of attention by the incurious GOP sycophants who make up the mainstream NH media.

New Futures, a group that works to educate and advocate the reducing of drug addiction in NH staged a “die in” in front of the State House on the day the budget was voted on. Some 300 people lay on the ground, representing the 300 people who died of heroin overdoses in the last year. Some of the participants were family members. Greg Moore was overheard mocking them from inside the State House. Later in the day, a reporter from WMUR tweeted out a statement made by Governor Hassan on the budget. Moore’s tweeted response was “You want fries with that?” Because what is more fun than mocking the plight of those less fortunate! Please ask your elected Republicans why this Koch tool has such sway over House Republicans.

That the GOP has whined for years about the raiding of dedicated funds didn’t stop them from emptying the state’s rainy day fund – a move that would lower NH’s bond rating. Please ask your elected Republicans why they would sanction such an action, knowing how it will impact the future of our state. They claim that hacking apart the governor’s budget was necessary, that we must live within our means. These “means” are an artificial construct. NH is the 7^th wealthiest state in the nation. There are plenty of “means” at our disposal, but we refuse to use them. We refuse to raise sufficient revenues to fund our state at a responsible level, so every two years a new budget kicks the can down the road for the next legislature to have to deal with.

The hope now is that the Senate will have a more compassionate take on the budget. Anyone who equates the GOP majority in the NH Senate with compassion hasn’t paid any attention to the legislation they’ve been passing this year. One bill was a direct attack on people receiving benefits via EBT cards. The bill’s sponsor, Jeanne Forrester admitted that the bill’s provisions were impossible to enforce, but it needed to be passed anyway. What could be more important than demonizing the poor? It’s certainly cheaper than bucking up and doing something about the infrastructure. It’s the kind of legislation that appeals to the lowest common denominator of the GOP, something that she can point to with pride when it’s time to pass the hat for campaign contributions.

Today’s GOP no longer requires the veneer of faux compassion. Today’s GOP would mock Jesus for not getting a co-pay from the lepers.