Held Hostage

by Rich Miles

You know, there are lots of people who write blogs and columns who are trying very hard to make noise and get noticed. So when a guy with a national forum just plugs along, telling major truths without shouting about it, it's kinda refreshing.

So it is with Paul Krugman. I know I've spent a lot of time and column inches praising him lately, but he really does seem to be one of the few national voices telling us the unpleasant truths. He's a leftie, that much seems undeniable, and that's probably one of the reasons I like him so much. But he's also revealing some of the deep-level machinations going on in Washington, and we need such revelations.

Like, for instance, that the Republicans in Congress are seeking to blackmail the entire country if they don't get what they want: consider this excerpt from Krugman's column of this date (9/23/10):

“Nice middle class you got here,” said Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader. “It would be a shame if something happened to it.”

O.K., he didn’t actually say that. But he might as well have, because that’s what the current confrontation over taxes amounts to. Mr. McConnell, who was self-righteously denouncing the budget deficit just the other day, now wants to blow that deficit up with big tax cuts for the rich. But he doesn’t have the votes. So he’s trying to get what he wants by pointing a gun at the heads of middle-class families, threatening to force a jump in their taxes unless he gets paid off with hugely expensive tax breaks for the wealthy.

You got that? He's willing to raise taxes on the middle class and poor in America, and if he doesn't get the permanent tax cuts he wants for the TOP 2% of wage-earners, he will hold the remaining 98% of us HOSTAGE by raising our taxes.

Now seriously - what kind of total scumbag would do something like that? Who, other than a repug moron, like oh I don't know, Mitch McConnell, thinks that the richest 2% of our population deserves more consideration that that poorest 98%?

And to go back to the top of the page, my point about Paul Krugman is that he's just quietly revealing this sort of information, very quietly, without fanfare or acrimony. Or name-calling or hatred or childish behavior. He just tells it like it is. Which is pretty damn rare these days.

But back to the point: Mitch McConnell and his party-mates are willing to fuck you in order to score partisan points. They'll harm you, raise your taxes, AND leave the taxes of the wealthy UNraised.

I mean, did all these jerks fail basic arithmetic? Do they not understand that wealthy people have more money than the rest of us? I mean, as surprising as it may seem, I don't, and most liberals don't, want rich people to be taxed punitively. We don't want them taxed so much that they cease to be wealthy.

We just want them to pay their fair share. Like about, oh I don't know, Clinton-era tax levels. No one went bankrupt at those tax rates, and we ended up with a budget surplus (yes, that's right, a SURPLUS) for about a minute and a half, till the repugs lied their way into office in 2000.

Doesn't anyone remember George Bush claiming in the campaign debates, more than once, that his tax cuts would benefit all Americans, and Al Gore replying that the actuarial analysis showed that Bush's proposal for tax cuts overwhelmingly benefitted the top 1-2% of taxpayers, and Bush lying his ass off, even ridiculing Gore by saying that it wasn't true.

But it was. True, I mean. And a few months after the election, when the big-time pundits discovered it was true, they acted soooooooo surpriiiiised! One of the network guys, I wish I could remember which one, even said that there was "no way we could have predicted such an outcome." I remember this much - when I saw the guy say that, I wanted to wring his effin' geeky little neck.

And it remains true. And the entire repug side of the entire U.S. Congress, both houses, are willing to lie through their teeth right to our faces.

And these same repugs want us to give them CONTROL of both houses in November, so they can do stuff to aid the wealthy and big business even more. And by extension, whether intended or not, to screw the rest of us. And I'm pretty sure it's intended.

Man, talk about yer class warfare!

Democrats, stand up and knee these guys in the nuts! Please!

And repug voters, come ON!!! Look at what's going on around you! They're screwing you too, you know. It doesn't take much research to see it.

It's not partisan politics. It's the future of our country. Believe it!