So you don’t like the way your Representatives and your Senators are acting? So you voted for Obama but now that you’ve seen his true colors you won’t vote for him again? So you think the Tea Party is running the country?
Item: Airlines are absorbing the taxes they no longer collect because on Friday Congress failed to approve an extension of the budget for the Federal Aviation Administration. Instead of the $25 million a day normally collected in federal taxes, the airlines are simply adding these fees to the cost of their tickets. Isn’t that what Conservatives want, fewer taxes so that American businesses can profit?
Item: According to the Pew Research Center, because of the economic downturn, “the median net worth of Hispanic households dropped by 66 percent and that of black households by 53 percent…” while that of “white households dropped by only 16 percent.” The ratio of the net worth of white households to those of the other two groups now stands at 18 times that of a Hispanic family and 20 times that of a black family. Yet, what do both parties intend to cut—the social programs that affect those at the bottom and not those at the top.
Item: In April of this year, one in seven Americans, or almost 45 million, was on food stamps. The cost of the increasing number has grown to $65 billion last year from $35 billion two years earlier. But why should taxes be raised on the rich who didn’t create this situation? (Obama meekly calls it asking the rich to pay “a little more.”)
Item: Representative Steve King (Iowa Republican) tweeted his followers that President Obama should be impeached if the GOP forces debt default. In King’s warped logic, it is the President, and not the GOP, who will be responsible if the GOP defaults on the country’s debt.
Item: Senator Mike Lee (Utah Republican) proclaimed that the United States Constitution needs to be amended so that raising taxes will be impossible. Better yet, Lee has proposed that the country be given only ten days to pass this amendment.
Isn’t it time to nail these people?
Aren’t travelers (mostly middle class) who buy economy airline tickets always bitching about every little price increase and refusing to admit that the airlines also need to make a profit?
Why should one single tax dollar be spent on Hispanic and African-American losers, who don’t work hard enough, who don’t know how to manage money, and are always looking for a handout?
How can food stamps be justified for Americans who have cable TV, cell phones, and own their own automobiles, and who live better than do the poor in all the rest of the world?
Shouldn’t Obama be impeached because he is Obama? (That worked with Clinton.)
Shouldn’t all amendments to the Constitution be made in ten days discussion? The solution to the debt crisis (Cut, Cap, and Demolish) was solved by Conservatives in fewer days.
Time to nail all these whiners. Time to default.
Charles R. Larson is Emeritus Professor of Literature at American University, in Washington, D.C.