George W. Bush came into office and immediately gave everyone who pays income taxes a tax break. For some people on the lower end of the pay-scale, this amounted to a few hundred extra bucks a year. For people on the high end of the pay-scale, however, this amounted to few extra hundred thousand bucks a year, or even millions of extra bucks a year for the very top earners. We quickly ate through what had been a large projected surplus in revenues and began to go trillions of dollars into debt. Then Bush sent our troops off to fight a war of choice in Iraq that turned into an expensive quagmire. For the first time in our history, no one was asked to pay for this war, or the one in Afghanistan. Look at the history. Taxes went way up in 1917 to pay for our entry into World War One. The top marginal rate hit 94% during the last two years of World War Two. Taxes hit 91% in 1950, to pay for the Korean War. Taxes went up again in 1968-69 to help pay for the Vietnam War. And taxes went up in 1990, to help pay for the Persian Gulf War. If you want less taxation, demand less war. But that’s not what Republicans do. They do the opposite and demand less taxation.
But they really only care about taxes on rich people. That’s why they just submitted a tax plan that raises taxes on ten times as many people as receive cuts. Middle class folks will see cuts in the Child Tax Credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the American Opportunity Tax Credit that helps them pay for their children’s higher education, but rich people will see their Bush tax cuts extended. In other words, they want the middle class to retroactively pay for the Bush wars (with interest). Then they are going to ask you to work longer to receive less from Social Security and Medicare. Why? Because they want the middle class to pay for the huge hole Bush’s handouts to the rich blew in the country’s budget.
Remember this, too. Other than six and seven-figure annual tax cuts for rich people, the other thing that killed our fiscal situation was the lack of regulation and oversight of Wall Street. That was another gift to rich people, the smartest of which developed schemes to game the housing market and make a fortune for themselves, while the rest of us were left with properties that were worth less than we borrowed to move into them. They took away our money and then they took away our jobs and then they took away our freedom to move to find a new job.
And then they convinced the Supreme Court to allow them to contribute any amount, even into the billions, to corrupt and influence our politicians and misinform us about the real deal that has been going down in this country.
The Republicans did all this and then they pissed on our legs and told us it was raining. They had the gall to actually complain that taxes on the rich were too high and that the budget deficit they created was too big. They offered to lower taxes but then gave us a plan that raises taxes on ten times an many people as it cuts taxes for.
They always lie. They never tell the truth.
you tell the truth.
keep on telling it.
one quibble, and it is substantive and substantial.
The conservatives did not “convinc[e] the Supreme Court to allow them to contribute any amount, even into the billions, to corrupt and influence our politicians and misinform us about the real deal that has been going down in this country”.
That is not what happened. What happened was they stacked the court with corrupt judges who lied to congress about their intentions (transparent lies that a child could see through), and who were already on board with this strategy. There was no “convincing”.
Okay. Fine.
And with the exception of Clarence Thomas – who was hung up primarily by Anita Hill, not his grotesque record – the Democrats rolled over for every one of them. Even the noises about Alito were too little and much, much too late, when his record was plain for all to see from the get-go.
Of all the acts of Democratic spinelessness during DubyaTime, the two Supreme Court appointments – the Roberts vote on ACA notwithstanding – will do the most long-term damage to our conception of America. They couldn’t have stopped Roberts, in all likelihood, but putting up some resistance, any resistance to him could have laid the groundwork for stopping the far more radical Alito nomination.
Hell, they should have saved Harriet Miers. She was probably pro-choice, at least.
Speaking of people voting for weird reasons, over at Andrew Sullivan’s FB page I see people saying that if the Republican nominee was a sane, level-headed person (I imagine they’re thinking of George Bush I), then they’d vote for them if only to break the gridlock. People are fucking stupid…
The Republican base is motivated primarily by race and by their warped interpretations of Christ’s teachings. The leadership, on the other hand, is always motivated by wealth redistribution, upwards. Always.
You wrote: “For the first time in our history, no one was asked to pay for this war, or the one in Afghanistan. Look at the history.”
I always think of this quote:
— Adam Smith, Book V, Chapter 3 of The Wealth of Nations
Adam Smith was writing about folks like David Brooks, Tom Friedman, and Charlie Rose. Only thing is, now we don’t even raise their taxes when we go off on new adventures.
Makes it a lot easier to tell people to Suck. On. This.