Letter to the Editor: What are Republicans doing?

Why are Republicans trying to kill the people of this country and destroy our economy?

Let’s start with the pandemic. True leadership at the beginning would have saved at least 350,000 of the 715,000 lives now lost. But we were told, “It is nothing,” “It will go away in the summer,” “Inject disinfectant” and (my favorite) “It is over,” uttered Jan. 20, the day 4,000 people died. Your liberty does not give you the right to endanger other people’s lives with your no-mask and no-vaccine mandates.

We are now again facing a possible default on our debt. Republicans say the Democrats should address this alone, failing to acknowledge that $7 trillion was added to that debt during the previous administration, thanks to its tax cuts for the rich, all done through reconciliation!

Do you know what default will do? This country will be thrown into a recession, just as businesses are finally starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Your interest rates will go up; people will be thrown out of work again; senior citizens will not be paid, so they will not be able to afford their medications or food; our military will not get paid; Medicare will be at a standstill, endangering millions of lives; the world economy will be destabilized; and the United States will be back at square one and the biggest joke in the world.

Our national security is also on the line, as people like Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., are holding up bipartisan approved nominees for the departments of Homeland Security, Justice and State because they want to make a name for themselves, all the while putting our country in a perilous position. They want to destroy any security with their fight over the debt.

Now let’s talk infrastructure. If a big war started right now, this country could not defend itself. Our roads, bridges and rails are right where they were 40 years ago. So as you drive over that bridge to work each day, ask yourself how many cracks are in it that may end your life. The perilous state of our infrastructure is also putting our food-supply chain at risk. Locks on the Mississippi are restricting shipments of food and other vital goods.

Republicans say infrastructure is not about people. We lost child care workers due to the pandemic, so parents cannot go back to work. There are more than 800,000 elderly waiting for help at home, so they can stay in their own houses as opposed to nursing homes. And it is certainly cheaper for someone to stay in their home than paying more than $10,000 per month for nursing homes.

At one time, I voted for a lot of Republicans because they cared about this country. That is not the case anymore. For them, the only thing that matters is power and to hell with the American people. For sure, I will never vote for any of them again.

Doris W. Draper

Houston