So, the Senate passed the debt ceiling deal, and the POTUS signed it off camera, and that, as they say, is that.
I broke a long-standing tradition of Fred-6 oratories and my relation to them by actually listening to his little speech after the bill passed, and what do you know, for a deal sold as a big winner for the Tea Party and Conservatives, the POTUS talked about jacking up taxes for the four minutes I could endure, ensuring that people who provide jobs such as a) educators and b) scientists will continue to get the funding they deserve.
Yep, that sounds like real victory.
There are times when I want to throw tantrums and rhetorical bombs simultaneously – that time is now, although I don’t have much energy for it. Instead, I want to shout at the GOP in the manner that Eric Cartman shouted at his mother in the middle of Best Buy after she refused to buy him in iPad and instead suggested the cheaper Toshiba model:
So, GOP leadership, are you guys ready to go out to dinner? Why do I want to go out to dinner? Because I like being treated to meal before being bent over and royally fucked, that’s why.
This is different, much in the way that Obamacare was different. How is it different? First, unlike Obamacare, the GOP was not only complicit in this generational train robbery, they could have stopped it. Default? Who the fuck cares? Never negotiate with someone pointing an empty gun at you – it only encourages them, and it makes you look weak.
Second, as with Obamacare, it speeds up the changing relationship between Citizen and State. We are now, more than ever, servants of the American debt, a debt whose “cuts” are generated through baseline accounting, which I will not even pretend to understand. However, as (I think) Rand Paul put it, baseline accounting means that were next year’s budget to have zero government growth or shrink in it, it would be scored by the CBO as as including $9 trillion in cuts, even though nothing was cut.
This isn’t Chick Little time, this is the part in any particular Bruckheimer film of your choosing where something big has just happened, and the lead looks at the sidekick and proclaims, “Shit just got real.”
Remind me again – how is giving Fred-6 a couple trillion more dollars to squander on his re-election efforts and the efforts of his allies a big win for the GOP, the Tea Party, and Conservatism? It’s not – it never was, it isn’t, and it never will be.
I am one of those so-called terrorists Joe Biden on down are referring to – one those people whose life is probably half over who understands now more than ever that there is only one thing any sane citizen can do at this moment: shed any and all debt, hide any savings, expect to fund the retirement and medical care of people twenty-years older (and older than that), and watch as people who think as I think and live as I live are blamed for every financial problem this nation is about to endure.
What a fucking country we’ve inherited.
We can never, ever, ever, ever pay back this debt as it stands right now, much less the debt that is about to pile up in record time. The worst part is we are getting absolutely nothing to show for it – zero! Cars can’t drive on union bailouts, and bridges don’t span education initiatives. The country is not defended by Islamic outreach, and my bills and your bills don’t get paid using baseline accounting.
The GOP sold us out and the Donkeys hate us. The few Tea Party members who stood up to this have been branded as terrorists, and the establishment Conservative media is just now beginning to understand that worse than being Judas’s to the cause, they are the spineless Peter: denying again and again the very obvious sellout that was staring them in the face.
My wish list for what comes next? Simple:
- Everyone pays Federal income tax – everyone. If you get student loans, you pay federal income tax on what you receive, if you get Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps or any other government assistance, you pay Federal income tax on it – let’s spread the fucking pain around if this is a shared sacrifice;
- Remove the tax exemption from churches, charities, 501(c)3s and every other mooching pillar of society that conveniently brings up Jesus, altruism, sacrifice et al whenever talk of cutting assistance comes around – let’s share that sacrifice;
- Want to pass a bond for local improvements on schools or anything else? Half the money raised should go to the Federal government. Need $1.2 million to build a stadium? Let’s make that $2.4 – let everyone share in the fun!
- Since the states are using casinos and lotteries for convenient tax-free revenue raising, I say it’s time to start Federally taxing all that money – it goes into the pit of education anyway, so it’s already being wasted. For every dollar that goes to the State, a dollar should go to the Fed.
Since we’re so eager to feed this beast, let’s get started feeding it. Instead of milking it out of the half of us that already pay, let’s instead start going after that great untapped resource: those people, organizations and entities that have one excuse or another for not chipping in. Too poor to pay, then too poor to play.
If we’re going to get Draconian about foisting our debt off on to people who haven’t even been born, then let’s get literally Draconian – let’s post it on every wall in the country that the taxman cometh, and there are no more write-offs, no more exemptions, no more write-arounds. Why should corporate jet-owners get all the moral certitude of helping the cause – let’s spread that around a bit.
Fury doesn’t even begin to describe my reaction to the sell-out that took place today. We keep hearing it – elections have consequences. When will there be a good consequence for my side? Ever?
Pessimism, they name is King B, and the writing is now on the wall – the end is near. It may not be tomorrow or next week or next year, but elections no longer have consequences. The country as we knew it is vanishing, and we’ve stood by and let it happen. Where my fiddle, for it’s time to light this mother up.
King B Live 