More Tea Party Nastiness

If it seems that Republicans spent all of last week trying to blame President Obama for everything except the weather, they didn’t.  Actually, their Tea Party congressmen were still trying to protect the rich while abandoning those who work for a living. 

First, House Republicans passed a bill that would blunt the impact of the Dodd-Frank financial-regulation law on banks and other financial services firms.  Democrats tried to at least protect the pensions of first responders and teachers, but the Republicans rejected the effort.

Democrats then tried to replace the GOP’s plan with a system that the Security and Exchange Commission already uses to regulate Wall Street, but the Republicans refused that, too.  

In short, Republicans once again protected the people who caused many of the problems that got our nation in the financial mess we’re in, and they left those who had nothing to do with causing the problems, specifically those who protect and educate us, swinging in the wind.   

And then, adding insult to injury, they passed a bill to repeal Obamacare.  It was the 37th time they have passed a bill to repeal or decimate Obamacare.  Thirty-seventh time!

None of these bills stands any chance of getting by the Senate, of course, and they stand even less a chance of getting by the president.  

So why do the Tea Party congresspersons insist on wasting time passing these useless bills while Americans everywhere wait with growing impatience for them to do what we elected them to do? 

I don’t know why.  I can’t even imagine why.  I wish that some Tea Party type would tell us why.

-Skip

Another Bizarre Moment in South Carolina

South Carolina is known for bizarre politics, but tomorrow’s congressional election surely ranks among the bizarre-est. 

And the whole nation should pay attention, if not because of its national importance, then at least because of its bizarreness.   

Recapping: Voters in South Carolina’s First Congressional District will choose a congressman Tuesday to fill a vacancy.  Our heavily Republican legislature has skillfully gerrymandered the district into a bright crimson, and yet the polls show a political newcomer Democrat might win.

The race has national implications.  If a Democrat can win in this district, a Democrat can win anywhere.

The Republican choice is Mark Sanford, our disgraced former governor and a Tea Party darling.  He’s the one who told his staff, and his wife, that he was going hiking on the Appalachian Trail, then flew to Argentina  to be with his “soul mate” -- paying for  some of his trip with my money.  

Sanford later divorced his wife, got engaged to his paramour, paid the biggest fine for ethics violations in South Carolina history, filed for Congress, asked his ex-wife to direct his campaign (she declined), and trespassed at least once into her home despite a court order telling him to stay away. 

The Democrat candidate is Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a political newcomer best known as comedian Stephen Colbert’s sister but an accomplished woman in her own right.  After a disastrous marriage that produced three children, she put herself through college and rose to the top levels of a male-dominated maritime corporation.  She preaches a traditional Democrat philosophy.  

It’s not a matter of forgiving Sanford. He’s forgiven,  just not forgotten.  After all, he confessed because he got caught, not because of a sensitive conscience.  It’s a matter of fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

I’ll vote for Busch.

-Skip

Cowardly Democrats Succumb to Tea Party 

People who know me know that I despise the Tea Party.  At best it’s misguided, and at worst it is greedy, insensitive and cruel.

It was bad enough when the Tea Party was just a bunch of angry old white people venting.  It got worse when the it became the tail that wags the dog in the Republican Party. 

But last week, when the Democrats in Congress kowtowed to Tea Party thinking to make life easier for moneyed people, it became disgusting.  

Some background:   The whole purpose of “sequestration” was to make things so uncomfortable for everyone -- repeat, everyone -- that Congress would be forced to do its job and pass a budget.

But when sequestration began delaying flights and thus inconveniencing business people and others with enough money to fly a lot, well, sequestration be damned.  Congress leaped to their defense by approving a plan  to put sequestrationed air controllers back to work and spare moneyed people their inconvenience.  Then the senators and representatives scurried out of town for a vacation. 

And what did Congress do for people who sequestration is truly hurting, not merely inconveniencing?   I’m talking about destitute mothers who are being denied milk for their children, children who have been locked out of Head Start, adults who lost their jobs through no fault of their own and have been forced to depend on rental vouchers and jobless benefits.  Et cetera ad infinitum.   What did Congress do for them? 

Nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  Why care about them?  Let them suffer. 

Ah, but don’t let moneyed people be inconvenienced.

A single Democratic senator could have stopped this cowardness.   None did.    

It’s disgusting. 

-Skip

Sequestration Gets Personal 

It’s a given that capitalism could not exist without unemployed people.  Where else could businesses get employees?  Thus, sad but true, capitalism rests squarely on the shoulders of unemployed people.

That may be a necessary evil of capitalism on the big stage, but inside the homes of many poor young mothers and their babies nowadays, sequestration is making it personal.  Here’s why:

One of the first non-military groups to feel the sequestration cuts has been young mothers who live in poverty.  Until sequestration started, they were getting help from the government under a program that provided formula for their babies.

But tea partiers insist that the richest among us must be protected from paying more taxes, regardless of consequences.  And since the Tea Party has become the tail that wags the dog in the Republican-controlled House, we have sequestration.  

And so, in a very real sense, the very poorest among us are forced to give up food for their babies so that the very richest among us won’t have to pay more taxes.  

All this comes at a time when, ever since we went over the cliff in 2008, the richest have been getting richer while the poor and the middle class have been getting poorer -- or, at best, stagnating.  

I don’t understand how tea partiers can live with themselves.

-Skip

That $*#@&>! Tea Party!

Unless that Tea Party crowd comes to its senses this week, hundreds of thousands of people -- including firefighters, police officers and school teachers -- will lose their jobs.  Our armed forces will take a heavy hit. Many social programs will be slammed.  State governments will suffer.  Much more.

And there will be a domino effect.  People without work spend less at the grocery, drug store, theater or shopping mall, so businesses lay off workers.  If people don’t buy, manufacturers don’t manufacture, resulting in more layoffs, resulting in less buying, et cetera ad infinitum.

All so that the very rich among us will get to keep their money in stocks and bonds and offshore banks and wherever else they stash it, while the rest of us, the middle class and poor, will absorb the entire hit.  

Somehow this all makes sense to Tea Partiers, even though virtually every economist in the nation says the only way we are going to get our fiscal house in order is to cut spending and raise taxes -- for now on the rich, but later on the middle class as well. 

In one sense it does make sense.  Most Tea Party congressmen are themselves quite wealthy, and they represent skillfully gerrymandered districts where they are safe from political competition.

But in every other sense, it is nonsense. 

To recap: America is on the verge of facing sharp declines in education, police protection, fire protection, military readiness and job security, all to keep the very rich from paying more taxes, even though there is no other way to fiscal sanity.

If there is a Tea Partier out there who wants to defend this madness, I would love to hear it.

-Skip