War on the Middle Class

The GOP is waging all-out war on the middle class. Even though there are legions of Tea Partiers who are incapable of understanding that they will be voting AGAINST THEIR OWN ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL INTERESTS, the rest of us must clearly understand what's at stake in the 2010 midterm elections. Let's look at the tactics and objectives of this GOP war:

- Eliminate the minimum wage. Employers like Walmart who already do not pay a living wage can help even more of its employees qualify for government assistance - subsidized by we the middle class taxpayers.

- Privatize/curtail/eliminate Social Security so that we the middle class taxpayers can work even longer

- Roll back the Affordable Care Act so that we the middle class can rediscover the anxiety of worrying about - or experience the reality of - losing our health insurance care due to job loss, denial for pre-existing conditions, or simply because an insurance company doesn't want us as a customer any longer.

- Accelerate the growth of the National Debt that we the middle class taxpayers and our descendants will have to pay for. The GOP most recently advocates increasing the debt by $4 trillion by continuing the unpaid for Bush tax cuts for all income levels, nearly $1 trillion of which for an average $100k tax cut to the top 2% of income earners. In the 8 years Bush was in office, 6 years with a GOP majority in Congress, the Debt rose from $5.7 trillion to $10.7 trillion. Calculate it yourself: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

- Bring back the Recession, along with a reversal of the steadily growth in job creation that we the middle class have seen since early in the Obama adminstration. Let's not have a double bikini: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_06/024102.php

- Let Wall Street go back to its hog wild, unregulated ways so we the middle class taxpayers can expect to bail em out again.

- Take another bite out of small businesses where so many of we the middle class taxpayers work. While the GOP thumps loudly about supporting small businesses, it acts and votes against them, most recently voting en masse against the Small Business Jobs Act which will - thanks to the Dems who passed it - make credit more available and provides $12 billion in tax breaks for small businesses.

Voting Democratic in November is a vote for we the middle class taxpayers.

No, Dick, Deficits *do* Matter

I guess when VP Cheney famously said "...deficits don't matter" the Tea Partyers were either still snoozing on those couches (GOP Rep Boehner again) or maybe they bought into that fiction then, before they later decided they were against deficits. The Flip-Flop narrative doesn't feel good when it gets flipped back atcha, does it. Well, they're right now, deficits do matter, but can't we all acknowledge that the current debt crisis is the consequence of Bush's 2 major unfunded tax cuts not to mention his 2 wars (Afghanistan is a just war, but we didn't finish the job when we could have), and the *increase* in entitlement programs - none paid for with offsetting spending reductions?? I guess that's stating the obvious...or is it still considered "unpatriotic" to offer critiques of the Bush administration?

So what do we do from here? Whether the CBO's projection that the Health Reform Bill is actually *deficit positive* proves to be exactly accurate, at least this bill represents a PayGo philosophy, something not considered in the $5 trillion debt run up under Bush. How about a bipartisan effort to tackle the debt? President Obama had to sign an executive order to establish a bipartisan panel to look at ways to reduce the debt after the Senate GOP blocked bipartisan legislation to create a similar panel with more teeth.

From where I sit, it looks to me like the GOP is going to keep [covertly, disingenuously] routing for Obama (and thus America) to fail at any cost in order to gain back control.

Tea Party: A New Brand for the Far Right

I attended the Boston Common rally organized by the Tea Party Express in order to counter-protest the appearance of Sarah Palin. I held a sign specifically directed at her lies, mischaracterizations, and general un-truthiness (it read simply: "Lie, Baby, Lie"). I was asked several times "what lies?" when I mentioned Death Panels, for starters, the response I got each time was "that's not a lie" ..and then spent my time arguing over misrepresentations of the Health Reform Bill.

I figured that this particular "2009 Lie of the Year" was a throwaway and I had better be prepared to defend my claims of additional lies. (Darn, I meant to list them on the palm of my hand!) Ok, so the crowd came in below even my initial low expectations in self-awareness and reality literacy (sorry if that's a bit judgmental -- It's something I'm working on!). I'd estimate there were a couple of thousand Tea Party supporters surrounding the stage (from where most could not see nor hear Palin when the sound system crapped out while she spoke) and AT LEAST that many non-Tea Party attendees outside the core crowd who were either counter demonstrating or simply standing far back observing.

Talking with people there and seeing the Queen of Wasila made me see much more clearly how much these people are being played by the Tea Party! A corporate-funded Republican PAC disguised as a grassroots "movement", with a goal to subvert Obama's electoral mandate by preying on the fear, frustration, and anger of the average person in these trying times and offering simple slogans, cause-and-effects, and "solutions". Many Americans want solutions to be simple and quick to digest - like our fast food - and the Tea Party organizers are promising that, even though such easy solutions are difficult because, well, the problems *are* difficult.

One guy said to me "the tide has turned". I don't think so. I think the Tea Party will eventually extinguish itself due to the extreme, intolerant, and yes – racist – factions they have *also* attracted with its appeal as a forum to vent gripes, long-held prejudices, and anger, and that will be their unravelling as they eventually repulse the mainstream This will also be the undoing of GOP politicians who try to ride their coattails. Damn right newly-minted Senator Scott Brown didn't show up on the Common, because he has nothing more to gain from these folks who helped get him elected. They and Palin can only bring *down* his popularity. He knows it. The polls show it.

The nicest thing someone said to me looking at my sign was that I was a jerk. I said “you don’t know me” and he said ‘I know all I need to know about you by looking at your sign’ (which after all said that Palin was a liar, and expressed no opinion about the Tea Party movement). After he told me Death Panels were real, he said that Obama would soon have army of brownshirts enforcing his views, and that he was even going to take way our right to VOTE within 3 years! I thought that told me all I needed to know about HIM, but you be the judge …

I wish I had seen the NYT/CBS Poll of the Tea Party before I went to the Boston Common. It’s VERY revealing and confirms a lot of suspicions about who the active participants are – the answer: Republican, white, male, older than 45. (hmm, that matches me, except for the Republican part - maybe all those dirty looks and angry comments reflected a view that I'm somehow a 'traitor"??). The survey shows that they are at the very conservative end of the GOP scale, and will even turn on GOP politicians who stray from a hard right position. They are fairly well off economically, and are mostly concerned with protecting what they’ve got (INCLUDING GOVERNMENT-PROVIDED Medicare and Soc Security, but they see no contradiction in that). They are significantly more likely than all adults to say that too much has been made of the problems of blacks, that they don’t believe in Global Climate Change, and thet are generally anti-Choice. See the study for more fascination revelations. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html?th&emc=th

I do hear the warnings that the Dems ignore the Tea Party at their own peril …BUT these people never voted for Obama (or any Democrat) and never will: (NYT/CBS Poll: ”… usually or almost always vote Republican” and "nine in 10 disapprove of the job he is doing overall, ....versus 50% approval from overall survey"). So these are the people whose GOP candidate LOST the last election and they CANNOT ACCEPT IT. They’re still carrying on with the last Presidential campaign. They’re still repeating the same lies from the last campaign to delegitimize Obama (socialist, muslim, hitler, Death Panels, terrorist, and in some cases, racism.). They’ve finally noticed the debt, but they were apparently snoozing contently on those couches or easy chairs (that Rep Boehner spoke about) while the debt climbed from $5 trillion to over $10 trillion over the 8 years of the Bush regime. No outcry then.

So I’m wondering why Democrats and progressives should really care or worry about the Tea Party? I suppose the disproportionate attention the media is giving them *might* pull in some independents, but again I think they’ll pull in only the IINOs (Independent in Name Only) !

More power to you who engage constructively in the political process, no matter your political views :-)