~a column by Colleen O’Brien
When the Republicans passed a bill during the last administration to give the uber wealthy a tax break, the McConnell Republicans and the previous administration were not worried about the debt.
Today they are pretty worried about it – the other side is writing the budget demands now, you see.
But it’s not the debt that bugs them anyway, it’s the looming taxation of the corporations and their CEOs that is making them testy.
The raging hyperbole of McConnell and some of the Republicans stems from legislation written by current Democrats that would tax the wealthy.
I would like the minority party in Congress to lie less about everything they don’t want to do and just fess up that we’re in trouble here.
The stock market is flourishing, but those of us who live spending our money on groceries know that the grocery market is a depressing place because the carrot costs more each week.
We gave corporations and the wealthy a tax break and saw absolutely no dribble-down help from that. They did not pay their employees more, reinstitute pensions, take care of the physical and mental health of their workers or fix a bridge. The stock market held steady, and the soaring price of a loaf of bread went unnoticed.
I’m so tired of the “fright” that the Republicans spout about taxing the big guys. Our elected representatives get their side income from lobbyists who write legislation for them. Historically, this makes for bills that disallow protection for us from insurance companies, or for-profit hospitals, big pharma, media carriers for our TVs, computers and phones. Those representatives frightened of a tax raise to the wealthy do not have to worry about the price of a computer or Wi-Fi for their children.
I’m also tired of the Republicans in the Senate and the House who ignore what needed to be done many yesterdays ago to mitigate the true fright of climate change because of fossil fuel use. Did you know that 137 of our federal senators and congresspeople do not believe in human-caused climate change?*
Where do they think they live, these reps we pay to look out for us? They are powerful enough and wealthy enough – maybe “blessed” enough? – to escape heat waves? Floods? Droughts? Forest fires?
The personal greed, lack of long-term planning and blindness to what is facing us…really, some of us are helping as much as we can, but we do need the help and guidance from our country’s governing class to keep us – and the planet – okay.
The commonsensical as well as the moral idea of promoting the good of all helps not just the working classes and the poor, it bolsters the wealthy classes also. Don’t they know that the economy burgeons during each Democratic administration and flounders under the other guys?**
In particular, it is the conservatives who like to give our military so much money it equates to the military budgets of the next 11 countries.^ That’s a revolting fact to think about and a good reason to diss them for how they get away with being so stingy with the not-rich.
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*Center for American Progress, March 30, 2021
**Evonomics, by Steve Roth, 2021: “…by pretty much any economic measure [meaning the Stock Market], Democrats have outperformed Republicans for a century. Even Tyler Cowen, director of the Koch-brothers-funded libertarian/conservative Mercatus Center, stipulates to that fact. [and others: Forbes, New York Times, Applied Sentience]
^Peter G. Peterson Foundation, July 19, 2021
