Tag: Democrats

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The Dog Must be Walked; War Must be Paid For

Why oh why oh why did the Democrats not demand that the Republicans pay for their wars out of current tax revenues?

Would Americans have voted for a war that was going to cost each of them, man, woman, and child, $750 (over $2000 per household) so far? Or would they have demanded better proof, at least, of the actual existence of weapons of mass destruction?

The Republicans cut taxes while taking on the war and then borrowed to cover the deficit. Why did the Democrats allow the Republicans to bill the war to future generations? Did they not realize that once Bush had run up the deficit, the Republicans, having whipped the nation into a patriotic frenzy (with, among other things, those nauseating “God Bless America” interludes at ball games), could now use the deficit as an excuse to slash spending on programs that actually benefit most Americans?

Was this planned?

David Stockton appeared on “60 Minutes” last Sunday. The former Reagan budget director actually advocated higher taxes on the rich for the simple common sense reason that the country’s bills need to be paid.

One could be forgiven with coming away with the impression that there is indeed a class war going on in the U.S.: the rich are out to destroy the middle class.

Common sense: whether you were in favor or opposed to the Iraq War, it defies belief that the Republicans were able to get away with cutting taxes at a time when it was clear that the government needed additional revenues to defend itself against terrorism. Who benefits the most from the peace and security of the U.S.? The rich. So who pays the least to defend the peace and security of the U.S.? Proportionately, the rich.

By borrowing the money for his wars (and that is absolutely what he did), and then cutting taxes to the rich, George Bush stunningly shifted the burden of the cost of the wars to the middle-classes. The next step in the process is for the Republicans to scream bloody murder about the awful deficit they created and weep crocodile tears: “now we’ll have to cut Social Security and Medicare and other social programs! Alas!”

The Democrat’s biggest blunder? By allowing themselves to be cornered into supporting the war and terrified of being accused of raising taxes, the Democrats consented to screwing themselves. They should have demanded that Bush raise the revenue to pay for the war without borrowing! That would have been a Rove-like tactic that might have brilliantly positioned themselves as the more fiscally responsible party in 2010.

Instead, they are like the adults whose kids promised they would walk the dog every day, if they would only, please, please, please, get a dog. And now the Republicans sit on their fat asses watching “American Idol” on TV, ignoring the dog.

And now, well, the dog must be walked. And it’s raining, and it’s cold, and it’s dark. And the dog must be walked.

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But You Wanted to Increase the Minimum Wage!

You have to hand it to the Republicans some days– clever. They have finally decided to allow an increase to the minimum wage, the first one in seven years, because they must have done some polling and the mid-term elections are coming up. Then they combined it with a permanent tax break affecting a tiny percentage of the richest Americans, but which will result in a huge increase in the federal deficit. The tax break applies to estates over $5 million. This tax break is so attractive to the rich that their twit lobbyists, who normally fight every attempt to increase the minimum wage, have announced that they support this bill in exchange for it.

When they were opposed to the bill, their logic was this: when you increase wages for the poor, you make it more costly to employ them. So less of them will find work. So increasing the minimum wage hurts the working poor.

Gosh. They might be right. In that case, Congress should also place caps on the amount of interest credit card companies can charge their card-holders, or people will stop using credit.

The real sin of this contrivance is that the Republicans– the party of high principles and integrity, remember– have tucked the estate tax break into the minimum wage bill instead of letting each piece of legislation stand on it’s own as they should. This is sneaky, devious, deceitful, and immoral. When you hear people like Bill Frist explain why they are doing this, it sounds a lot like, “it depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”

If the Democrats oppose the bill, the Republicans campaign as the friends of the working man, who tried so hard to raise the minimum wage but those damn Democrats– friends of those privileged, snobbish, educated, Eastern elitists– sabotaged it. If the Democrats vote in favor of it– even better. The Republicans can claim it was all their idea. In the meantime, their most ardent supporters get another massive tax break.

Watch the media the next few days. You will see numerous Republicans and their toadies popping up on the talk shows and newscasts using identical phrases and ideas to argue for the bill. This will be highly coordinated. It might work, if the Democrats don’t have the guts to trust the voters to spot a scam when they see one.

Oh joy — now we can turn Cuba into… Haiti. Those who celebrate Castro’s recent illness leave me with mixed feelings. Yes, he is a dictator and Cuba is essentially a one-party state, and yes he has jailed or executed some dissidents (though not as many as, say, Pinochet did in his prime). But if you compare Cuba to other similar nations in the region, it’s hard to argue that life for more Cubans would have been better if the CIA had deposed Castro in the 1960’s. It almost certainly would have been better if the U.S. had not imposed it’s embargo.