The Republicans' Ham-Handed Tribute to Richard Pryor
Ever since Ronald Reagan made "voodoo economics" a permanent (and ruinous) fixture of America's domestic policy, the Republican party has defended the indefensible supply-side orthodoxy with the same faith-based ferocity as a terrorist with explosives strapped to his chest. Despite a quarter century of evidence to the contrary, Republicans insist almost daily that "tax cuts pay for themselves" because pots of revenue gold await at the end of every tax cut rainbow. When you think about it, the Republicans are paying a helluva homage to the late Richard Pryor. A generation ago, Pryor cut it up on stage with the line, "Are you gonna believe me or your own lying eyes?" in reference to his wife walking in on him and his mistress in bed. But unlike the COMEDIAN Pryor, Republican supply-side ideologues are deadly serious every time they ask American voters to warp into their dimension of self-financing trillion-dollar tax cuts, and this election year, the party is betting the farm on voters holding their hands while they drive head-first into the canyon.
What makes this year different than 2002 and 2004? The GOP is making at least a partial effort to return to its roots as the party of Ebenizer Scrooge, recently cutting the budgets for popular domestic programs for middle and lower-income Americans....programs that the Republican Party's rural, low-income base has become dependent upon in the post-globalization economy where Wal-Mart is our #1 employer. This past week, more than $50 billion worth of cuts were enacted to numerous programs, including Medicare and student loans. Republicans' lust to slash such popular programs has taken the backseat to political expedience in the Bush era, but after five years of profligate deficit spending, the day of reckoning has arrive. The choice has to be made whether our national priority is to continue awarding hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts to people who are so rich they won't even notice the extra $300,000 in their Swiss bank account at the end of 2006, or to partially subsidize the financial survival of the hundreds of millions of Americans who've come up short waiting for the trickle to trickle down to them. If I were a politician, I'd like the numerical advantage of the latter group.
The Republicans' arrogance may seem like kamikaze politics in an election year, but to them it makes perfect sense. Once again, in spite of poll after poll indicating the electorate's dissatisfaction with the condition of the economy and the general direction of the economy, Republicans are quick to serve up spreadsheet after spreadsheet measuring quarterly growth statistics that suggest a robust economy. From their gated communities and country clubs, economic conservatives can't imagine why the public isn't rewarding them for historically low unemployment rates and solid productivity gains, so they're increasingly changing their strategy from frustrated hand-wringing to calling the American public stupid for not sharing their adulation for the Bush economy. But why is it that the Republican Party can't understand the public's growing anxiety over job-vaporizing globalization, disappearing pensions, skyrocketing energy costs, and skyrocketing health care premiums (for those lucky enough to still be insured at all), among many other things? Simple. The only people Republicans talk to are the Republican faithful. The old-line big money Republicans are indeed satisfied with the Bush economy as they're looting the piggy banks of future generations with fists full of cash that sit idly--uselessly--in their personal savings "trickling down" to nobody. As for the less affluent evangelical community, they might not be getting rich from the Bush economy, but the Rapture is gonna send them to heaven any day now anyway, so why worry about the economy?
The remaining two-thirds of Americans who don't comprise the GOP base are screaming in anxiety as they watch their country turn back the clock to the Gilded Age, but the only response they're getting to the serious financial issues of their lives is the same old Richard Pryor treatment they've been giving us on the macroeconomic level for the past quarter century. Early indications suggest that American voters may finally be willing to call the GOP's bluff. While one can never underestimate the Democratic Party's ability to fold a sure thing, they sure can't blame the GOP dealers who insist on dealing them royal flush after royal flush.
What makes this year different than 2002 and 2004? The GOP is making at least a partial effort to return to its roots as the party of Ebenizer Scrooge, recently cutting the budgets for popular domestic programs for middle and lower-income Americans....programs that the Republican Party's rural, low-income base has become dependent upon in the post-globalization economy where Wal-Mart is our #1 employer. This past week, more than $50 billion worth of cuts were enacted to numerous programs, including Medicare and student loans. Republicans' lust to slash such popular programs has taken the backseat to political expedience in the Bush era, but after five years of profligate deficit spending, the day of reckoning has arrive. The choice has to be made whether our national priority is to continue awarding hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts to people who are so rich they won't even notice the extra $300,000 in their Swiss bank account at the end of 2006, or to partially subsidize the financial survival of the hundreds of millions of Americans who've come up short waiting for the trickle to trickle down to them. If I were a politician, I'd like the numerical advantage of the latter group.
The Republicans' arrogance may seem like kamikaze politics in an election year, but to them it makes perfect sense. Once again, in spite of poll after poll indicating the electorate's dissatisfaction with the condition of the economy and the general direction of the economy, Republicans are quick to serve up spreadsheet after spreadsheet measuring quarterly growth statistics that suggest a robust economy. From their gated communities and country clubs, economic conservatives can't imagine why the public isn't rewarding them for historically low unemployment rates and solid productivity gains, so they're increasingly changing their strategy from frustrated hand-wringing to calling the American public stupid for not sharing their adulation for the Bush economy. But why is it that the Republican Party can't understand the public's growing anxiety over job-vaporizing globalization, disappearing pensions, skyrocketing energy costs, and skyrocketing health care premiums (for those lucky enough to still be insured at all), among many other things? Simple. The only people Republicans talk to are the Republican faithful. The old-line big money Republicans are indeed satisfied with the Bush economy as they're looting the piggy banks of future generations with fists full of cash that sit idly--uselessly--in their personal savings "trickling down" to nobody. As for the less affluent evangelical community, they might not be getting rich from the Bush economy, but the Rapture is gonna send them to heaven any day now anyway, so why worry about the economy?
The remaining two-thirds of Americans who don't comprise the GOP base are screaming in anxiety as they watch their country turn back the clock to the Gilded Age, but the only response they're getting to the serious financial issues of their lives is the same old Richard Pryor treatment they've been giving us on the macroeconomic level for the past quarter century. Early indications suggest that American voters may finally be willing to call the GOP's bluff. While one can never underestimate the Democratic Party's ability to fold a sure thing, they sure can't blame the GOP dealers who insist on dealing them royal flush after royal flush.
posted by Mark at 6:56 PM
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