Andy Schmookler: Shutdown

Republicans push themselves as patriots, but something about the claim and the way they act bothers Andy Schmookler.

“In the last year-plus, three times they have basically threatened to do something that would be bad for the country if they weren’t given their demands met. A patriot doesn’t say, Meet my demands, or I’ll blow the kids’ head off. That’s just not how people show love for their country,” said Schmookler, a Democrat who is challenging Republican incumbent Bob Goodlatte for the Sixth District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The game, as it were, is stacked, Schmookler said, against the average American family and in favor of the wealthy and corporate interests, “and though both parties have some implication in this corruption of American politics, it is quite clear that the Republican Party has dug in and almost unashamedly entirely behind not just the 1 percent, but the upper 1 percent of 1 percent.”

“They are paying taxes now at a fraction of the rate that they did in the America that you and I grew up in. And yet they say deficit reduction is the most important thing, and then they turn around and require that we pay $700 billion more in tax relief for the richest people. And then when we make cuts, they cut things that people actually depend upon to keep their families afloat, to keep food on the table,” Schmookler said.

“I think that opens the door for me to people who think of themselves as conservative. Because these Republican leaders are fiscal conservatives only when it comes to paying out money directed by the other party to help average Americans. When it comes to providing subsidies for oil companies, lowering taxes for the richest people, they’re not fiscal conservatives. They’re the people who actually doubled the national debt when they were in power,” Schmookler said.