Hypocrisy is in the eye of the beholder.

Case in point: Pay for Play. Hillary Clinton was vilified for allowing wealthy foreigners to support The Clinton Foundation because it could have had influence on decisions of State while Hillary was Secretary.

I agree that is not good optics. So, when Betsy DeVos was nominated for Education Secretary in spite of having no experience, or degree in Public Education, but merely because her family supported the Republican Party to the tune of $200 million … that is NOT Pay for Play?

What about the overreach of executive powers? Obama was labeled a king and dictator because he used executive powers to go around the will of the people and Congress. Never mind that (George) W. Bush wrote more executive orders than President Obama. But now we have President Trump doing the same thing with the immigration executive order and the executive order to get rid of the ACA, which was passed by Congress.

Then there is the evil of NAFTA and all the economic disasters that it has created according to President T. Yet Mitch McConnell, and most if not all of Republicans, supported it in 1993. But now it is evil and Republicans who created it are being very quiet.

Of course, the Affordable Care Act must go as well.

But wait, 80 percent of the current ACA came from Republican Senator Chafee’s 1993 healthcare proposal and Romney’s Massachusetts plan. Yep, the mandate to have health insurance, the requirement that all employers offer healthcare, the ban on denying coverage of pre-existing conditions, subsidies for lower income people to purchase insurance, medical malpractice reform, ending insurance ceiling caps, etc., etc., etc. All these proposals were Republican proposals that now are bad because Obama used them as the basis for the ACA.

The height of hypocrisy is the debt crisis in America. (George) H.W. Bush passed a tax increase because President Reagan cut taxes too much. So to (George) H.W. Bush’s credit, he passed a tax increase that also required any new legislation that would add to the debt, to be paid for with either tax increases or other program budget cuts. This was known as “Pay Go” legislation. This was a great step forward and allowed President Clinton to leave office with $200-$300 billion surpluses going into the U.S. treasury. That money should have been used to pay down the debt because as all Republicans know, large debts are evil.

But wait, now (George) W. Bush, a compassionate conservative, entered office and he cut taxes. He cut the Pay Go provision that would pay for any new programs with tax increase or program cuts.

He ballooned the deficit from $6 trillion to $12 trillion in eight years by fighting wars without paying for them. Just think, if (George) W. Bush had not rescinded Pay Go legislation, our nation debt would possibly be $8 -$10 trillion instead of the current $20 trillion!

The first casualty in the demise of a flourishing democracy is Truth. Let’s bring truth back again! Because telling half-truths and lies to gain a majority in Congress are not the signs of a healthy democracy!

Edward Vos

Jamestown