The Democrats are the best compassionate political party in America and the worst at governing, except for the Republicans who want no part of it but say they do.
The Democratic mantra was expressed eloquently and redundantly Friday by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont.
Sanders spoke for eight hours in an empty Senate chambers extolling the grief inflicted upon us by those dastardly devilish Republicans who he described as greedy bastards who can afford a penny ante 4% tax increase.
In those eight hours, Sanders recapped history of how the American working man is getting screwed, highlighted by the once golden standard auto workers who’s salaries in just the past three years have shrunk from $27 to $14 an hour.
The problem with Sanders and his Democratic Party buddies is that their policies work only if unemployment is below 3%, the economy is riding the latest artificial bubble and the nation is not at war with some fourth rate rogue nation or terrorist group which hijacked a religion.
It grieves my sensibilities that the Democratic Party argument against extending the Bush tax cuts for the top 2% would cost an additional $700 billion in 10 years to our national debt. And not once point out that the tax cuts for those earners under $250K would cost $3 trillion over the same 10-year period.
Ah, conventional wisdom tells us never to raise taxes on anyone during a recession.
Bunk, I say. Prove it. The conservatives who argue for less taxes and limited government can’t. Nor can the Democratic Keynesian economists. At least not in this recession even though the idiots declared it over last year.
This is why the worst of all worlds, the compromise everyone hates most or part of, is the only deal we are forced fed to live with.
That is the one now being worked out brokered by President Obama and Senate Republicans.
It is the political can kicked down the road for two years by extending all the Bush tax cuts until days after the presidential election in 2012, extending unemployment benefits an additional 13 months, cutting the payroll tax 2% for one year, exempting taxes on business expansion for one year and taxing estates 50% over a predetermined multimillion dollar threshold.
Former President Clinton says it is the best political deal under the worst of economic conditions. If Bill Clinton says it, it must be true.
Right.
(Photo courtesy zimbio.com)
Cross posted on The Remmers Report
Comments are welcome. Link to my blogsite or go to my email address at [email protected] . Remmers’ varied career spans 26 years in the newspaper business.
Jerry Remmers worked 26 years in the newspaper business. His last 23 years was with the Evening Tribune in San Diego where assignments included reporter, assistant city editor, county and politics editor.