Congress extends payroll tax cut
The whining is over.
All of that noise and delay…
…obstruction, and, yes, even stupidity….
Congress very quickly passed the payroll tax cut, which had been delayed by obstructionist House Republicans (the same folks who are looking for any excuse to allow their Big Oil friends to drill off California, off the East Coast, and in an Alaskan game refuge), and it passed with AMAZING bipartisan support today. The House Republican-imposed impasse was broken when Speaker of the House John A. Boehmer (R, Ohio) and his subordinates (it is hard to imagine folks that “low” 
) DROPPED the insistence that the extension be paid for with spending reductions.
“The House passed the bill on a 293 to 132 vote, with Democrats helping to put the legislation over the top in the face of 91 Republican no votes. A few minutes later, the Senate passed the legislation, 60 to 36.”
The political toll on House Republicans, and Republicans in general, had become TOO HIGH.
“The payroll tax cut trims 2 percentage points off workers’ contribution to Social Security. That amounts to an average of about $20 a week per worker. The retirement fund will be replenished from the general fund.
The BAD news…? The way that I read it – Democrats dropped their insistence that the RICH pay their “fair share,” so that Democrats will have income inequality as a major 2012 presidential campaign issue.
No, I do not favor adding such a huge amount of debt (the OTHER, MAJOR BAD NEWS), and I DO favor taxing the rich fairly. John Boehmer has cast a blemish upon the state of Ohio that, if I believed in guilt-by-association, would make me ashamed to admit that I come from that state. No, people who live in Ohio are not stupid. No, they are some of the most level-headed and generous people I know. At least SOME of my ancestors settled there, after coming from Ireland, and that is where they raised their families. However, even though I have many friends and family in Ohio, you see where I have chosen to raise MINE.
“This is an economic relief bill — not a growth bill,” Boehner said after the bill passed. “The only reason the provisions at the core of this measure are even necessary is because the president’s economic policies have failed.”
Sorry, John. The reason that the provisions at the core of this measure are even necessary is that the greed of the rich, beginning in the 1980s and continuing to this day, has finally become TOO GREAT for the American people TO BEAR. The blindness of you and your colleagues in the House to that “root cause” has forced your insistence on protecting that top 1% of Americans from paying their fair share.
Republican aides have said that laying the blame at the foot of President Obama and his policies is a view that could be reinforced by (an almost certain, as always!) increase in gas prices this spring and summer – an EASY trick, when the price of gas is so easily manipulated by Big Oil (see above).
At this time, please remember how we GOT here, that what it took to open up more coastal areas (West Coast; East Coast) to oil and gas drilling was merely holding the funding of the operation of the U.S. government HOSTAGE by Newt Gingrich (who was ALSO Speaker of the House) and (gasp!) House Republicans. Does this look like “déjà vu” to YOU? Do you remember “Drill, Baby, Drill?” President George W. Bush (“coincidentally,” from Texas ) LIFTED the ban on offshore drilling in the summer of 2008, in response to HIGHER GAS PRICES. (Does this look like “déjà vu” to YOU? ) Does it look like Republicans are stuck in the same rut, helping their friends in Big Oil and “replaying history” at a time when the U.S. is facing NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN challenges?
All that it took to increase opposition to such drilling was a later, disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico!
It seems pretty simple:
politics, rhetoric, hot air, and “gas” on one side of the scale – environmental destruction, petroleum industry lies, and dead wildlife on the other!
But Americans have short memories…. House Republicans are betting big money (provided by the top 1% and Big Oil, among others) on that fact.
-Bill at
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