White Hats.
Great! The leap off the fiscal cliff has been postponed for two months and now Senators McCain, Lieberman and Graham want us to inject ourselves into another endless Middle Eastern war. It was the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus the Bush tax cuts, that brought us to the edge of the cliff. Now these ideologues want to shove us over. Before we can complete the process of cutting ourselves to the bone they want us to go and cut some Syrians and spend more billions of deficit dollars doing it. Why do these Senators hate us so much?
How did we ever get into this habit of trying to save the world? Republicans used to be isolationists who fought tooth and nail to keep us from entering into "European" wars. We stayed out of World War II even while German submarines were attacking our merchant marine, until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. After that war we led the formation of the United Nations as the means to end war, yet now we refuse to ratify treaties involving the UN because it might "threaten our sovereignty." Instead our Senators threaten the sovereignty of Syria. Who the hell do we think we are?
The Syrian people do need help and I nominate Iran and Russia to give it to them. Those nations are already supplying arms. If they started supplying bread instead and offering asylum to Bashar al-Assad the whole mess might be cleaned up quite cheaply. Oh, I forgot. We don't want Putin and Ahmadinejad to look good. We want to wear the white hats. No matter how much it costs.
The democrats may have a "War Against Christmas" but the republicans have a "War on America"! For two years now they've been trying to cripple our economy, blocking TARP, reducing stimulus appropriations, trying to follow Britain's example of economy-crushing austerity. They must think that only when America is in crisis will we turn to the business-friendly party.
ReplyDeleteA more cynical view is that republicans know a party of elderly southern men cannot win elections on their own, so they must use any means necessary. Saving tax money is less important than eliminating the New Deal and Great Society programs that "gift" the recipients of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Romney's 47% (those in the lowest quintile of taxpayers) are supported by the rest of us, although most income taxes are paid by the highest quintile.
LBJ instituted a 10% surtax to pay for his war. Why not add a surcharge to every federal tax and fee dedicated to the deficit and see the howls that come from right-thinking plutocrats?