Former State Senator Tim Johnson excoriates the GOP
Former Republican Mississippi State Senator Tim Johnson is likely the tip of the iceberg. He gave a news conference on Wednesday where he stated that he will be leaving the Republicans. He joined the Mississippi Democratic Party. He said he will run as the Democratic candidate to be lieutenant governor.
Tim Johnson excoriation of the Republican Party was complete. His announcement sounded like that of a Liberal Democrat. His main reason for leaving the Republican Party was because of their refusal to accept the Medicaid Expansion to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). However he also went on to excoriate his former party for their lack of infrastructure spending, education spending, passage of laws to bring pay equity to women, and more. It was as if he was paraphrasing the President.
While all should be happy that Tim Johnson has finally seen the light, there is a moral question to ponder. Why is it that many of these Republican Party switchers only do so when a particular ideological flaw of their party directly affect them? Where was their empathy previously?
The country will ultimately become more Liberal. The unsustainable of the immorality and selfishness that afflict the current iteration of the Republican Party makes it a foregone conclusion.
Transcript of Tim Johnson’s Party switch announcement
I am announcing today that I am, I am switching to the Mississippi Democratic Party. And I also want to announce that I am running to be the next Lieutenant Governor of the great state of Mississippi.
Why join the Democratic Party and run for Lieutenant Governor? I’ll tell you. We are all Mississippians first. Elected officials should be in the business of helping all Mississippians. Not picking out who to hurt.
In the current way of doing business in our State Capitol and especially in the State Senate, has hurt a lot of my fellow Mississippians. We watch these current leaders make excuses for underfunding our schools. We see them refuse to repair and maintain our crumbling roads and bridges. And we stood by while they ignored the twelve thousand dollars pay gap between working women and men. We have also witnessed shocking corruption on their watch.
But the failure of the Republican leadership in the Senate to help sick people was the final straw. My home town hospital in Kosciusko Mississippi was up here the other day asking for a five million dollar stopgap bond loan to try to stay open due to the drastic hit they are taking because of Republican leadership refusing to take and accept the return of federal tax dollars through Medicaid Expansion.
Instead of doing the right thing, the Republican leadership would rather see five million dollar tax burden on the backs of the eighteen thousand citizens of Attala County. That’s not right. That’s my hometown. And that’s my home county.
If Montfort Jones Hospital had been closed three weeks ago, we wouldn’t have had a place to take my mother when she suffered a stroke. Thank goodness they were still open when we rushed here there for help. Because all indicators are that they won’t be open much longer all because of Republican political grandstanding.
Full speech here.