Category Archives: Opinion Piece

I try to refrain from politics in this blog, but this is one observation I simply must make:

My dear, beloved Republican Party is so out of touch now that it’s simply falling off a cliff.  This is the party that said allowing the “temporary” Bush-era tax cuts to expire amounted to a tax increase.  Increases cannot be allowed because the vast majority of legislators in the GOP have signed the now infamous Grover Norquist tax pledge, a pledge so stringently applied that even if there were an agreement requiring $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in additional tax revenue, pledge signers are required to reject it.  You’ll recall that the lion’s share of those Bush-era tax cuts went to those in the upper income levels of society.  Indeed, the higher up the economic food chain the greater the cut, not only in actual amount, but also percentage-wise as well.

Yet, you’ll notice that allowing the one tax cut that most benefits the working class to expire—the Social Security payroll tax reduction—has been met with not so much as a wimper from Mr. Norquist and his Americans for Tax Reform.

What lesson is one to take from all this?  It’s elementary, my dear Watson.  The lesson is that only tax cuts geared mostly to the wealthy are sacrosanct, while tax cuts primarily benefiting the middle class (all income up to $100,100 is fully taxable; any income between $100,101 and $10,000,000,000 or more is exempt—do the math on that one) are willingly being sacrificed in a game of brinkmanship without any compunction whatsoever.

If you make $100,100 or less, you’re about to have your taxes on 100% of you income increased by 2%.  If you’re a millionaire, the vast majority of your income (everything above the cap of $100,100) is exempted from that increase.

Now consider this: if all income were subject to the Social Security payroll tax with no income cap, we could all be paying a significantly lower percentage to generate the same amount of revenue for Social Security—far lower in fact than the current 2% reduction affords the middle class.  If the cap were lifted and the percentage were not lowered, then the much anticipated doomsday shortfall in the Social Security fund would be eliminated.  Entirely.  Probably forever, but at least well into the distant future.

This is fair?  This makes sense on any level?  I think not. 

So, when you hear Grover Norquist and the House Republican leadership tell you that they’re fighting tax increases, remember the above.  What they really mean is that they’re against any tax increases affecting those earning more than $100,100, and in all likelihood that ain’t you.  That also goes for the Republican Governor of Wisconsin and those in Washington, D.C., who want only one specific segment of the middle class to take any tax hits—the ever unpopular government employee.  And, yes, no matter how you frame it, if you’re taking more money out of someone’s pocket (even if you call it something innocuous and couch it in populist terms such “an increased retirement contribution” or a “freeze” during a time of inflation), then you have in fact raised someone’s taxes.  But, again, this is a tax aimed at a segment of the middle class, so these proposed increases just do not count in Grover Norquist’s world.

Personally, I’m no longer buying this load.  Come November, are you?

I hate getting political in my blog, but I simply could not let this stand.  So, if you despise the venomous dialog that characterizes what some call “political debate” in this country today then please, please, please skip today’s nonscheduled blog.

I was listening to Rush Limbaugh today. He made the statement that President Obama campaigned directly against the exact operation he ordered earlier this week to kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

This despite the fact that, in August of 2007, candidate Barack Obama said in a policy speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center:

“As President, I would make the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional, and I would make our conditions clear: Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan.

“I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”

Did Rush Limbaugh just make a mistake? Did he perhaps just not know that this was Barack Obama’s public stand as a candidate?

No. He did know. Mr. Limbaugh in fact lied.

How do we know that? Because I remember Mr. Limbaugh attacking Mr. Obama at the time. So, I looked up those previous comments. In response to Mr. Obama’s policy speech, Rush Limbaugh said on September 20, 2007:

“Well, we’ve got another tape from — I get these guys confused — Usama bin Laden. Another tape says he’s going to invade Pakistan and declare war on Pakistan and Musharraf, which, ladies and gentlemen, puts him on the same page with a Democrat presidential candidate — that would be Barack “Uss-Obama.” And let’s go back to August 1st: “U-Bama” gave a speech on counterterrorism, and here’s a portion of what he said.”

Mr. Limbaugh then played this quote from Mr. Obama’s above-cited policy speech:

“If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf will not act, we will.”

After that, Mr. Limbaugh followed up with:

“All right, so, we’re going to attack Pakistan. Poor Musharraf’s going to get it on both ends if Barack’s elected.”

That’s pretty pathetic. Anybody else besides me getting fed up with these talking heads, from both sides of the political spectrum, deliberately lying about the people whom they don’t like rather than just debating their policy differences?

I find this especially hypocritical coming from the Christian right and the likes of self-professed “religious” individuals such as Sean Hannity (yes, I’ve caught him doing this type thing as well) because such tactics run directly counter to Commandment Nine of the Ten Commandments:

Thou Shall Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor.

Shame, shame, shame on those of all political stripes who partake of such tactics.