For decades now I have been saying that
there was no difference between Republicans and Democrats and with the election
of Donald Trump, no time since now has this even more clear. Sure folk will say
that Trump is a Republican, but I dare anyone to show any ideological bent he
has toward either party. If he is a
Republican, then Bernie Sanders is a Democrat.
But a more articulate example of this can be observed when one tries to
make a distinction between the actions and policies of traditional partisans
like Cory Booker and Tom Price.
For cats attentive to history, we must
recall we have Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to thank for our modern day
derivative of what are now considered Republicans and Democrats. Both these men
founded the Democratic-Republican Party. It was founded by these men to serve
as a challenge to the Federalist Party which was run by Alexander Hamilton in
1791. Hamilton at the time was Secretary
of the Treasury and a significant player in the administration in America’s
first President George Washington.
Madison and Jefferson questioned Hamilton’s interest in truly wanting America to be a republic since he sided
with the concept of federalism and disapproved of the manner in which the
Constitution was written to limit the government and not the people. In
contrast, Jefferson and Madison claimed the Constitution gave the federal government too much power such that it might place the citizenry at risk of
being oppressed if there was no Bill of Rights to guarantee individual liberty.
As an outcome of this, the first two U.S. political parties were formed – the
Federalist Party (Hamilton) and the Democratic-Republican Party (Jefferson).
These two parties did not last too long
and by the twentieth century, there was just one party divided in half – the
Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Both of which have decided their
main objective is not to serve on behalf of the unalienable individual rights
of the citizen but rather the mechanical apparatus of the national government .
Moreover, instead of the business of the people, their goals, motivated by
political avarice motioned toward personal enrichment by becoming a
professional class – something the founding fathers feared when they desired
citizen merchants to serve and eventually return to the community.
Seeing this truism in modern day partisan
politics, there is no better example than the relationship between Tom Price
and Cory Booker with big pharma. The record is clear on both these politicians
and their relationship with large U.S. pharmaceutical giants. Price was the benefactor
of large campaign
contributions from a CEO whose company manufactured a drug with the shelf name
of BiDil - A treatment for African Americans suffering from heart failure, although
one study raised problems about its safety and effectiveness. Add to this, the
recent. Kaiser Health report that Price invested in an Australian biotech company named Zimmer Biomet which resulted for him a
profit gain of more than 400 percent and may be even more profitable for the
company with the enacting of the 21st Century Cures legislation Price
supported. Likewise Sen. Cory Booker and 12 other democrat senators supported the same
legislation which serves to lower drug safety standards. Booker also votedagainst the Sanders/Klobuchar amendment which would have allowed for the importation
of pharmaceuticals from Canada and aided sugificantly in reducing the
unreasonable and exploitive price gauging currently practiced by U.S.
Pharmaceutical giants. Booker did this while remaining one of the biggest
recipients of pharma, receiving contributions in excess of with $260,000. Is there a difference between these two politicians
although one is a republican and the other a democrat?
Well
to answer this we have to beat the bushes a little more. Tom Price, the Georgia
Republican nominated by Donald Trump to become head of the Department of Health
and Human Services, received additional contributions from the CEO of Atlanta
based Arbor Pharmaceuticals LLC who bought the rights to BiDil. In return he sought to have the aforementioned
study questioning the drug safety and effectiveness removed from the federal government
website. It was effective. Emails show that an assistant to Price
contacted the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality multiple times
regarding having the study taken off their website according to documents obtained by ProPublica. It should be noted that Arbor is headquartered in
Price’s district.
Similar
to Price, Booker too seems to be in the pocket of big Pharma. He demonstrated
his true colors (green and white) when he visibly stood in opposition to a
Senate amendment allowing for the importation of pharmaceuticals into the U.S.
that would have lowered the absurd cost for drugs that is a major economic
burden on millions in the U.S. Considered to be a potential 2020 presidential
contender, Booker’s office issued a statement saying that he was in favor of
the importation of prescription drugs but that “any plan to allow the importation of prescription medications should also include consumer protections that ensure foreign drugs meet American safety standards. I opposed an amendment put forward last night that didn’t meet this test.” This alone is
questionable and goes against attempting to aid the tens of millions of U.S. Citizens
struggling to deal with the exorbitant cost of prescription drugs because it is
the same argument made by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of
America (PhRMA) and the Obama Administration prior. Not to mention that Democratic
Sen. Ron Wyden amendment to the Sanders/Klobuchar legislation included a clause
for verified safety certification.
So
is there a difference between Republicans and Democrats on ideology? Would say no and that the Democratic-Republican Party established by Thomas
Jefferson and James Madison are mirror images of each other and represent a
professional class that have the singular objective to enrich themselves at the
expense of the American people.
No comments:
Post a Comment