I saw "60 Minutes" last night and was infuriated with Grover Norquist's smug unwillingness to go back to paying the 3% more in taxes that the rich paid in the Clinton years. I have no doubt that he and his cronies can afford to pay it--far more than the people who he wants to make money on by cutting the return on their mandatory investment in social security and medicare all these years.
Isn't it interesting that the rich are only required to pay into those funds up to their first $108,400 earned? After that, they pay nothing on their earnings. So I can afford to pay on all of my earnings and they can't? And now he wants to cut our payback instead of paying 3% more in taxes. What about the money you got away with by not paying on all of your earnings, Grover? Wasn't that enough? What a crock.
I wish I could say to Grover, "then you will not drive on the roads and sidewalks my part of the taxes paid for or walk through my part the halls of the public buildings you work in, or even take my part of the public money you and your cronies make on defense contracts, overpriced meds and healthcare and all the other things you conspire to take out of my part of the taxes I pay. Use your own damn money to build your little world and stay away from the things my taxes pay for.
I read Paul Krugman's article today, "Boring Cruel Romantics" and then read this comment. I could not have said this better, so here is the comment:
Gilding the lily from behind rose-colored glasses must eventually give way to brass tacks. It is cynical, not romantic, to believe that the people must pay for the excesses of banker's manipulations. The GOP stands out for insisting on increasing taxes on the poor. With trillions in their wallets, the banks are driving the economy into the ground just to prove government doesn't work. Right-wing, fascist advocates endlessly blame "left-wing liberals" for all the out and out evils visited on us by their own party. Non, non, mon ami, this is not romanticism, it is dead serious extortion. These guys are not playing. They will take whatever they can get their hands on, and gleefully, laughing at the poor suckers who drink their kool-aid. They love it when factions of the poor blame each other and fight among themselves. The same party which abrogated the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Conventions, the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the criteria of judgment at Nuremberg now claim to support rights and freedom. That's not romanticism, it's bald-faced lies calculated to do damage they can profit from. Old money didn't get that way by being romantic, but by being hard-nosed and selling arms and ammo to every tinpot dictator and drug lord with do-re-mi. They're not responsible for ideals, for ecology, for women and children--whose nutrition programs they just voted to cut. As Napoleon said, "Money has no motherland. Financiers know no patriotism, no decency, only gain." One more quote and I'll spare you.
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in High Places will follow, and the Money Power of the Country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the People, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed."
--Abraham Lincoln
Martin Weiss
Mexico, MO
November 21st, 2011
3:24 am
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