Unfortunately for Democrats, they allow Republicans to define a good bill on GOP fraudulent terms instead of the good it will do.
Democrats, this isn’t it.
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) appeared on CNN’s State of the Union with Dana Bass alongside Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Graham was as prepared as Blumenthal was either ill-prepared or unable to engage with the necessary narrative to discuss the Inflation Reduction Act. Blumenthal started the discussion as follows.
“Great question,” Blumenthal said. “And thanks for having us in this bipartisan way.”
This response made it clear to Lindsey Graham that Blumenthal had no intention of holding Lindsey and Republicans publicly accountable for their obstructions and disregard for the poor and middle-class.
Blumenthal continued to answer Dana Bash‘s question in a manner that poorly described why the bill was a must. He talked about the reduction in prescription drug prices and tax fairness. The Democratic Senator also pointed out that gasoline prices are falling. But he did not speak about these in a manner that connected to financially stressed Americans. Nor did he explain the urgency in getting more Progressives elected to neutralize Senators Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and the Republican cabal preventing good middle-class and poor-centric policies.
How did Lindsey Graham start his response? He made it clear he was going for the jugular even as his answers began with misinformation. While Blumenthal was touting bipartisanship, Graham made it clear he was not.
“Well, this is not the bipartisan part of the interview,” Graham said before immediately going on the attack. “So the American rescue plan, remember that one that was supposed to make us make everything better? Well, it became a recession plan.”
Graham continued with plausible statements but misinformed Americans on the 15% corporate tax minimum, prescription drug negotiations, hiring more IRS agents, and more. Blumenthal responded poorly.
The first missed opportunity was to tag Graham as a liar. A country cannot be in a recession while creating half a million jobs last month. Two consecutive drops in GDP are accurate but technical.
Blumenthal failed to tag Lindsey Graham for protecting tax cheats and supporting corporations paying zero taxes with a gimmick claiming if they pay their fair taxes, it will stop them from investing in their companies. That is an easily refuted lie. Companies do not expand based on tax policies. They raise their investments because some other company will take away their business prospects if they don’t.
Lindsey Graham tried to justify his opposition to the government negotiating prescription drug prices by stating a lie. He claimed that it would stifle investments in innovation and that the fast development of the COVID vaccine results from our current system of drug companies gouging us all. Blumenthal should have refuted his statements with a few realities. Corporations/Pharmaceuticals do not take too many risks as they would have us believe. The government takes risks. The government invested in the underlying mRNA technologies that became the COVID vaccines. When it was time to develop, an influx of billions of our tax dollars brought it to fruition as corporate executives walked away with millions and shareholders, billion — YOUR MONEY. We pay to be less healthy than the rest of the world. We are the only country where medical bills bankrupt millions of Americans. We pay more for prescription drugs that we spend to develop than every country in the world.
Again, we-the-people invest in technologies, and then corporations take them to the profit-for-a-few next step. For example, Bezos did not develop any new technology for his not-even-orbital flight that the media talked about like children. Decades ago, with much less computing power, we made dozens of orbital flights, flew humans to the moon, and traveled and landed on Mars. You paid for your government to do that, and thousands of products resulted from your investment. We have got to stop the misinformation that continues allowing policies that hurt the poor and middle-class.
Americans need politicians and spokespersons ready to refute well-designed lies, disinformation, and misinformation. Once we do that, we will get bills that move us forward.
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