Soapbox

Dear America-

    2+2 = 4.
    Additionally, 4 > 2.
    We're all on the same page so far, yes?

    Ok, great. And just to refresh your memory: the Republicans and their incestuous cousins, the Tea Party, ran the 2010 campaign largely on a platform of reducing the deficit. That's reducing, as in "making smaller", as in that is what they said they would do: make America's debt smaller. Not bigger- less than.  Right?  2<4

    And if your boat is already leaking too much water, pouring more water into your boat will not help. If a store wants to charge you too much for a product, the best response is not to  hand them your wallet and say "Here, take even more", don't you agree?

    I know- why am I telling you this? You've known that since the second grade! Well here's the thing. Your boys in congress, with the ink not even dry on the ballots, have declared that their first priority in 2011 is to increase the deficit! They won't call it that, but that is exactly what they are going to do.  Forget all of us without jobs, the unfair foreclosures on our homes, the record demandat food pantries and homeless shelters- those problems are way down on their list. Their stated #1 goal is to increase our deficit by $700 billion dollars.
    And too much plus 700 billion is, well, way too much, don't you agree?

    Oh, and by the way, they're going to get you to not only go along with this, they're gonna have you demanding this, standing out in the rain waving your misspelled signs insisting that they increase the deficit. Which is the very thing you were waving signs in October insisting you wanted to reduce.

    See, they're going to call it a tax cut.

   To the unthinking among us, that's like calling it "Happy puppies and a rainbow". Tax cut. What a nice term. How can it be anything but good?

    "It's unconscionable to increase taxes during economic hard times" the once and future Speaker of the House, John "Spray Tan" Boehner says. He's talking about the democratic plan not to extend the Bush tax cuts on the very wealthiest Americans (in other words- NOT your tax cut, buddy.)
    Once upon a surplus, Bush cut taxes for the rich and doubled the debt. He screwed this country  into a big black hole and no, we're not seeing daylight yet. But when the tax cuts expire, as they were designed to do, that additional $700 billion dollars would be a nice step up.
   
    So why in hell would you insist on giving a tax cut to the (not you) richest of the rich? The GOP congressmembers and their media mouthpieces (many of them among the richest of the rich) will tell you that it will "boost the American economy" to spend money on rich people.
    That's bullshit.

    Remember when Obama was spending money on regular people: on cash for clunkers, and repairing the roads we all drive on, and helping states to keep teachers and police officers and firemen on the job? Remember how red in the face you all got- how dare he spend money on teachers? After all- they have unions, so they must be socialists!
    Well we're about to spend $700 billion dollars more, and not on teachers. We're spending it on yachts, and vacation homes in the Cayman Islands, and gambling junkets to Monte Carlo. Because that is what the richest of the rich will spend their tax cut for.
     They won't spend it at Krogers or Target, keeping your son or daughter employed, the way  you or I would. The majority of them will either save it, hide it or invest it overseas. As in you never see a penny of benefit from it.   Unless just knowing that the Koch brothers and Rush Limbaugh have an extra nest egg socked away helps you feel better while you're working at McDonalds wondering how you'll pay the mortgage.

   Cast your mind back and ask yourself- why are these cuts going to expire any way? Because that was the promise the Republicans made to sell us this bill of goods: lets cut taxes now, for a few years, and then we'll re-evaluate and see if they have helped the economy or if we really need that income.

    Well you've been screaming all year that we really need the income. You're prepared to defund education and health care and renewable energy projects, to let our roads and bridges collapse under us just to get more money. Well here's  a $700 billion infusion, and all congress has to do to get it is to do nothing. Yet your party can't wait to go to battle for the right to increase the debt! That thing you do NOT want to do!! I know, right? It's crazy!

   So, here's the great part. You can stop them, and don't have to change your political stripes. You don't have to suddenly become a progressive and start giving a damn about the unemployed or Muslims or global warming or evolution or any of that. All you have to do is MEAN WHAT YOU SAID.  That's it. Live up to your word, and hold your leaders to theirs.

    You said you wanted to reduce the deficit. Well here you go. Call that Republican asshat you voted for last week and tell him or her that reducing the deficit does NOT mean increasing the deficit by $700 billion, just so their rich-as-sin friends and benefactors can have more money to hide, and to donate to their re-election campaigns next time. More does not equal less, not even in magic Republican land!

     Tell them that too much plus 700 billion equals  WAY too much. Tell them that if tax cuts for the rich helped middle America you wouldn't be getting acid indigestion every time you hear the boss mention a budget meeting.

    Whatever else we do or do not about this economic crisis, we must refuse buy the bullshit that the core problem is that the rich people just don't have enough money.  I think we can all agree that this is not the case.

    So, just to recap: bad + bad = worse.

    Thanks for listening. We now return you to your regularly scheduled dose of FOX propaganda.