Commentary: GOP has no solution to economic troubles

The Republicans appear to have "lost their groove." Republican leadership decided to obstruct the stimulus bill even as President Obama was calling for bipartisan support.

It passed without their support. A few days later the stimulus package passed in the U.S. Senate with the help of three courageous Republican senators, Specter, Collins and Snow. Republican leadership told their members not to participate and, despite President Obama's plea, Republicans chose to treat the bill as "politics as usual" " one of the most important pieces of legislation in our nation's history.

Republicans made themselves irrelevant, or worse, by not participating.

I understand the deep philosophical differences between President Obama and some Congressional Republicans. But expecting the Obama Administration's economic plan to fail " working to cause it to fail " reflects a desire for our country to fail! That doesn't sound to me like enlightened public policy.

We are faced with an extreme national crisis; we need to work together as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans.

Sen. John Ensign recently demonstrated the full range of failed, bankrupt Republican ideas for solving economic problems. On Sunday, Feb. 8, I watched Sen. Ensign on "Meet the Press." I was embarrassed.

With millions watching, Ensign claimed our state, and other states as well, were "bloated" (presumably he meant they all had plenty of money). He insisted Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., also on the show with him, was "fear-mongering" when Frank claimed Massachusetts would have to lay off teachers and first responders without help from the stimulus package.

Ensign went on with his scripted diatribe about how policemen and firefighters were not going to be laid off in Massachusetts; that Nevada was not going to lay off teachers or first responders because the schools themselves, our state and our cities were "bloated." He claimed that doing nothing was better than the stimulus bill.

All that was needed, Ensign went on, was to cut taxes, fix the mortgage foreclosure problem (Ensign's mortgage foreclosure bill had been defeated in the Senate), and let businesses solve the unemployment problem.

Ensign appears detached from the reality. Unless he and his ideological Republican colleagues start thinking about solving problems, they will become the problem. They clearly are not the solution.

Eight years of Republican failed tax-cutting policy for the wealthy, unregulated markets, greedy bankers and an unnecessary war have left our country in economic turmoil. Doing more of the same is simply digging the hole deeper.

In Nevada, we will work to find solutions to our own broken tax structure, decline in tourism, and failed K-12 school and university budgets.

But the governor's "slash and burn" strategy for eliminating government services, an indefensible "no new taxes" pledge, and a noisy, ideological minority in the state " revisiting all of the failed policies of the past eight years " will not make us economically viable again; nor will the governor's recent comment that he will not support money from the stimulus bill that may cause spending increases in the future. Not smart. Smaller government, fewer services and deregulation will not help Nevada recover.

There are attempts in our own Legislature to coerce and intimidate legislators who contemplate changes in the tax structure. But regardless of the pressure, our legislators must do what is best for the people and what will be the most productive for the state.

This obstructionist strategy perpetrated by a few, both statewide and nationally, appears to be much more ideological and reactionary than thoughtful and constructive.

Let's work to support the responsible and thoughtful legislators, both Republicans and Democrats, to make our state and nation viable and livable once again.

- Dr. Eugene T. Paslov, former Nevada Superintendent of Schools, is a board member for Charter State Charter School.