Scrooge and Grinch Elected to Congress

In 2009, for the first time in my working life, I made less money than I had in the previous year.
Mind you, I lived through the ‘80s and again in the early ‘90s when wage freezes or miniscule raises were the norm. (At my previous job, I think I worked for three years without a raise.) Fortunately, that trend reversed in 2010. I got a meager bonus (after anticipating none at all for a second year), and my raise was more than what I’d thought it would be. Go me!

I feel incredibly fortunate to have a job when nearly 10 percent of Americans do not. And to have gotten some love from my employer increased my gratitude 10 fold. I am not a millionaire. I am not only not close to being a millionaire, I’m not even close to the earnings level for which the proposed tax cuts would expire.

So, I found this stat a little interesting: more than half of all Congressional members are millionaires. (This is particularly startling when you consider that only just about 1 percent of the whole population are millionaires.) In fact, of the 261 millionaires currently serving, eight were in the $100M + range of calculated wealth. NO WONDER they don’t want those tax rates to expire. And, at a time where the wealthy have it better than ever before with tax rates double digits below what they were for the rich in decades past.

Some of these same people – people who receive, on average, $175,000 in government salaries – are the ones who won’t support an extension of unemployment benefits – for the people who were paying those salaries when they did have jobs! And these are the same ones who voted down the proposal that would have retained the Bush tax cuts for those earning $250,000 or less while allowing all others to expire.

And while the U.S. median household income dropped 3 percent between 2008 and 2009, not so with the Congress. Oh no. Their personal wealth increased by MORE THAN 16 percent!

They rattle off a bunch of “chicken crap” (to borrow the Tan Man’s phraseology) about how small businesses will have to cut payrolls and so not allowing the already well off to keep that money will cost jobs. Let me respond to you with a new phrase, John: Bullsh*t.

Maybe you’re fool enough to buy into “trickle-down economics.” The dearly departed Ronald Reagan tried to sell that to us 30 years ago. That theory is still just as much bullsh*t today as it was then. Those tax cuts will go into savings account, trust funds and luxury items. Nary a new job in sight.

I would hope that the Senate would have had the gumption to stand up and call the proposal to not let tax cuts for millionaires expire by its right name. Yes, you guessed it: bullsh*t. But I’ve learned that instead, the Dems are caving on these tax cuts.

The only silver lining appears to be that as part of their collapse on cuts for all, the Dems are holding firm on extending unemployment benefits.

Extend tax cuts for millionaires – or else raise the tax burden on the middle class. Make part of your job denying unemployment benefits to 26 million Americans who, unlike you, don’t have jobs. Hey, Congress. Listen to yourselves. I'm waiting for these phrases to come out of your mouths this week: Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

Yeah, it’s great having Scrooge and The Grinch running the show. Can’t wait until they all take office. Only thing that could be worse would be to have Rush Limbaugh in charge. (He, who just days ago uttered the insanity that if you get food stamps, housing assistance, Medicaid, or are homeless you should lose your right to vote. What an AMERICAN -- not to mention CHRISTIAN -- concept. *rolls eyes* Yeah. Fat, rich, drug-addled b*stards like him should be the only ones allowed to vote.)

God help us all. He may be the only one who can.