The Land of the Free and the Home of the Rich

Just when I thought the Republicans couldn't display more hypocrisy, blow me down if they don't go ahead and best their own record. Whatever happed to fiscal conservatism and paying down the national debt--the stuff they hit us all over the head with during the recent elections? Apparently gone with the wind when it comes to tax cuts for the wealthy.

For the wealthy for heaven's sakes. For people making over $250,000 a year. I've never earned anything like that and I consider myself upper-echelon middle class.  Even for two people to make that amount means each has a a pretty good salary.  But even if one cavils over the exact point where wealth begins, I just can't see giving wonderul tax breaks to billionaires who can't spend the money they already have in their lifetimes and just sit on it or invest it abroad.

I guess I don't get it because I'm not Republican. George Bush once said to an audience of very wealthy donors that some people called them the rich, but he called them his base. I can't think of a clearer statement of what the Republicans represent--the wealthy, the greedy, and the corporate. In the case of the latter, remember those financial sociopaths who said proudly they were stealing "granny's savings."

And we are about to reward them AGAIN? 

I can't pretend to understand the ways of politics even though I've worked with politicians but I do know a little bit about dealing with devils. I would have played chicken with the Republicans and I would not have blinked. OK Chums: no tax extension for the middle class, OK none either for the rich--and you be the one with the angry fallout both from your base and the electorate because extending the tax cuts for the rich is widely unpopular.  Obama's problem is that he has a heart in a business where that is a liability and appears a weakness.

I rather hope the Dem rebels do filibuster the "compromise." It deserves to be because it rewards greed and self-interest. But then I suppose the Republicans will conveniently gloss over  their own inconsistency: the national debt goes by the wayside when it comes to rewarding the people who have bought their toy congressmen.