Ever since debt ceiling meetings began, President Obama and the GOP have been gridlocked. The Democrats have at least been willing to entertain other words besides the definitive ‘no.’ Every time an image of President Obama has surfaced during the talks he’s at least appeared pleasant and approachable, not stoic, rigid, and botox-laden like House Speaker John Boehner. When did working for the American people become a hijacking of the negotiation process? At least the Democrats offered $3 trillion in cuts and an additional $1 trillion in tax loophole reforms; however, the Grand Ole Party has offered no palatable solutions and has been anything but grand.

The GOP’s position is that they are not willing to raise taxes on job creators, yet job creators require consumers to help businesses meet year-end revenue projections. People without jobs will not be consumers! The GOP insists that our economy will revitalize itself once there are cuts made to fundamentally vital survival programs such as Social Security and serious reductions in health care and education. Either most of the GOP graduated from the School of Bush or they have no clue that their proposals will have catastrophic effects on Americans. Perhaps the only Americans they work for are wealthy Americans riding around in corporate jets.

While President Obama may be the head of these United States of America, there are two bodies with which he must work–the House of Representatives and the Senate. Unfortunately, it is not that the House is controlled by the GOP; it is that the GOP has removed words such as ‘diplomacy’, ‘hope’, ‘cooperation’, ‘negotiation’ ‘American’, ‘fair’, ‘solutions’, and ‘yes’ from its vocabulary to be replaced with ‘power’ and ‘no.’ Instead, the GOP has been riddled with an all-consuming illness that was diagnosed centuries before by its former leader of the party, Abraham Lincoln, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

This is an adverse moment facing our nation. Through it all, President Obama has addressed all setbacks and worked to improve Americans’ lives one piece of legislation at a time. The power bestowed to Capitol Hill is conditional; thus, law makers are obligated to create favorable conditions for all Americans. The GOP, on the other hand, has developed powernosis, a debilitating illness in which having the power to use the word “no” without any regard to negotiating means destroying America’s reputation and Americans’ lives. Deliberately.