Tea Party threatens govt. shutdown for corporate polluters: A return to the Erin Brockovich era

The threat of a government shutdown on April 8^th, and the focus of newly elected Republicans has not been to create jobs and help America recover from the worst recession in nearly a century. The GOP and Tea Party agenda appears to be all about the destruction of existing laws so big business can benefit by legally exploiting the general population and polluting the environment.

A substantial part of HR 1 includes slashing funding for the environmental Protection Agency. “The bill also blocks EPA from restoring Clean Water Act protections for many of the nation's most vulnerable waterways, including those that feed into drinking water supplies for more than 117 million Americans,” according to the Environmental News Service.

Not only will the republican bill not create jobs, President Obama said it "jeopardize our economic recovery."

There is much more at stake than just money in the budget battle raging on Capitol Hill.  HR 1 is about turning America into a land of no rules for big business; where toxic waste is dumped into the drinking water and air, simply so corporate profits can get a boost, in addition to all the tax breaks the republicans have handed them.

This thinly veiled excuse to reduce the deficit appears to be nothing more than republican redistribution of wealth to corporate polluters. The GOP appears to have failed to learn from the lessons of the past and now they are selling the public deficit reduction snake oil. Deregulation is not smaller government- it’s less responsible government.

“House Republicans included provisions in their $61 billion package of spending cuts that would block the EPA from implementing regulations on a variety of industries”, according to The Republic.

Republicans defending cuts to the protection of clean air and safe drinking water is in the best interest of polluters, not the American public.

One would be hard pressed to find many families who favor living next to a lake or river that the government deliberately gave a corporation the right to pollute and give them cancer. Remember Erin Brockovich?