OPINION: Despite what’s been said, America is not a garbage dump

The United States is neither a garbage dump, nor are we a “s---hole” country. We never have been, despite what our president-elect says.

Those who voted for Kamala Harris should finish mourning, and embrace change. America wants to change direction. Democrats and independents should get on board and support what the rest of the country wants, while insisting on fiscal responsibility. Idaho Democrats need to change radically. New people moving to Idaho, especially from blue states will see Idaho Democrats as conservative enough, once the (D) does not follow a name on the ballot. Idaho Democrats can just reregister and become a moderate wing of the Republican Party.

In Idaho, for those who voted for Democratic Party’s losing candidates, there are alternatives. For Democratic candidates who lost, embrace the fact that Idaho Democrats are very close to being what traditional Republicans are in other states — fiscally conservative, moderate people who believe in the U.S. Constitution and our Idaho state Constitution. Keep your values, but turn into Republicans — moderate Republicans.

These new moderate Republicans then can run in the only Idaho primaries that count, the Republican primaries. They can debate against incumbents in the primary races. Also, they can stay in touch with the national Democrats so they can have access to Democratic Party billionaires and other billionaires who fund both sides.

The winners in the recent elections want a wall across the Mexican border. They want tariffs. They want the U.S. to be isolationist. And they want the U.S. to be neutral and not involved in foreign conflicts. It’s hard to blame them, given the Iraq War fiasco.

Fiscal responsibility means a return to the days of past generations, when the U.S. paid for what our government spends money on. The last time that was done, Republicans controlled Congress and a Democrat, Bill Clinton, was in the White House. That was a quarter-century ago. The Republican Party abandoned fiscal responsibility in 2001. It is now the credit-and-spend party that took the U.S. from a balanced budget in 2000 to the current $35 trillion national debt. It is time to turn the table and hold Republican excesses in check.

Republicans now might have control, but they have shown themselves to be divided. There is the MAGA wing of Republicans, and yet still existing is a traditional conservative wing of Republicans. They believe the U.S. still has a role in the world and that alliances are needed to defend against a foreign takeover of the U.S. and North America. The shrinking traditional wing needs some Democrats to actually pass legislation.

So how can Democrats support those things and compromise while being the party of fiscal responsibility? It must be done generally, and issue-by-issue.

The Democratic Party in the Congress — House and Senate — must take a page from Republican opposition to all things and apply it to what Republicans want to do. They should vote against everything unless fiscal responsibility is included. They can vote as a bloc and let the split among the two Republican Party wings spin their wheels until Republicans agree to negotiate. They can then insist that everything Republicans want to spend on must be paid for from current taxes or not done. That would include all further tax cuts.

Among these:

Mass deportation — President-elect Donald Trump has now decided on his deportation czar, a leftover from his first term. This will be a legal and a huge fiscal fight, costing tens to hundreds of billions of dollars annually. It will split families and end in deportations of American citizens. Political resistance is futile. All the Democrats can do is insist that the costs of the operations and all legal costs be paid for from current U.S. tax receipts instead of being put on the national credit card. Likely, enough Republicans will agree if the political resistance to the deportations is only from all elected Democrats. And even then, the Democrats must insist that the American citizens deported be provided with 20-year passports, valid from all countries at all times.

Border wall and tariffs — These two issues are and should be linked. In spite of anything politicians say, tariffs are paid by the person or the family who buys the imported product. TV sets and stereos are mostly made overseas, not in the U.S. Clothing is almost all made overseas, not even using U.S. materials. A lot is made in China. Check your clothing labels. Even Mike Lindell, the My Pillow Guy, uses Egyptian cotton, not U.S. cotton. So if tariffs become more in use, they should be limited to imported luxury goods such as Mercedes cars and Tesla cars made with Chinese parts. They should be banned from the stuff sold at Walmart or we will see huge spikes in consumer price inflation.

For every mile of border wall built, the materials must be paid for by tariffs out of a special tariff account set up just to pay for the building materials in cash. That means 100% American content for the wall and 100% American labor at prevailing wages.

It will be impossible to argue that foreign materials be used to build an American wall that is 1,900 miles long. It will be even harder to pay the skilled workers below prevailing wages, if the Democrats stay united with the actual conservative wing of the Republican Party.

Sherry, of Lewiston, taught school and also worked for 30 years on Idaho state insurance laws.