Tax Breaks, Unemployment Held Hostage

Brace yourself, mark the calendar, sit down before you fall down. The news this weekend left me speechless. That's right, ME, speechless. OK, obviously not totally speechless, I'm sounding off now, but I bit back yesterday because after seeing Orin Hatch sound off stupidly yesterday on Good Morning America I didn't go ahead and blog about it. Frankly, he said so much that was wrong I didn't know where to start.

I really didn't think that Senate lawmakers would expect us to believe they had any intentions of helping Americans by holding middle class tax cuts and unemployment extensions hostage in order to secure tax cuts for the rich. Especially since they had the second bill as an alternative option that extended the tax cuts up to those with an adjusted gross income from $250,000 up to $1,000,000. (that's a cool million for those that get “zero shock” and can't process it.)

Hatch blathered on about small businesses, not extending the tax cuts to the very rich affects small businesses. OK, uhm, BULL. Tax is applied after adjustments, you're heard the term, right? Adjusted gross income? Yeah, that's how much the business profits after all of the expenses and tax breaks are applied. AFTER. So it would actually reduce their taxes to hire more employees. C'mon, Orin, you're not a totally stupid man, you know this.

Mitch McConnell was on Meet the Press this morning trying to sell the same tone deaf song. And to do it with arrogance. Mitch, I see a green smear on your nose.

But they voted yesterday in the Senate. They not only stuck to their policy of “NO” for maintaining the tax breaks for those making less than $250,000, they voted “NO” for extending the tax cuts for those making less than a million. THEN they said, sure, we're in favor of extending unemployment, BUT it needs to be paid for! Guess what? If you let Donald Trump, Warren Buffet, and Bill Gates (btw, Buffet and Gates support the tax increase for their tax brackets) take the tax increases that might make them think twice about buying that fourth summer home, it would be paid for!

It's pretty clear what they want. “Let's debate this for a couple of years, tackle it after the next presidential election.”

Ye-ah. So you can rewrite history, say that President Obama didn't care enough about balancing the budget to let the rich pay their share, but the new Republican president (you hope) does. Or perhaps you're so well fed by a handful of the rich that you'll never let their taxes go up, but expect the deficit and debt to be dealt with out of the pockets of the poor and middle class.

So this is for Hatch, Boehner, and McConnell: You clearly don't care about us, so don't expect us to care about you come election time. The very fact that you'll let 95% of Americans suffer a tax increase, you'll let people desperate for work of any kind lose what little they can get in unemployment just so you can keep a tax break for those that haven't used it to do anything to help ease the recession so far.

Keep doing the same thing we've been doing for 10 years, I'm sure you think that helps. Bureaucratic idiots.