Bluff:
1
a : to deter or frighten by pretense or a mere show of strength
b : deceive
c : feign 2
: to deceive (an opponent) in cards by a bold bet on an inferior hand
intransitive verb
: to bluff someone : act deceptively
Dear Mr. President/Senator/Congressman,
There has been much media buzz broadcasting panic to pressure Congress to get a budget deal, done by December 31. The President is trying to rally middle class support to petition Congress to implement austerity, when the experiments with such in Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Latvia all have clearly shown that austerity during recession makes the debt to GDP ratio worse and increases unemployment while shredding the social safety net. Americans are being asked to make sacrifices that will only exacerbate our fiscal problems. Much ado is being made about "shared sacrifice", and how Americans must accept cuts to social programs for the good of the country, while Congress preserves tax advantages for the super-wealthy. Those tax breaks for the rich began with the Bush tax breaks, and have greatly contributed to the fiscal issues we are faced with today.
Special interests want us to accept this fiscal cliff as fact, but we know that the “fiscal cliff” is not really a cliff at all, but rather an invention of a congress to moribund to imagine the way out of a false fiscal scenario sold to them by special interests. In short, it is a fiscal bluff. Were those special interests correct in their analysis, we would not be able to sell US Government bonds at the low interest rates that we now do. The bond market is actually telling us that it has more confidence in America and its ability to repay its debts than the scaremongers feeding soundbites to the American people would have us believe. Those special interests stand in opposition to the best interests of our citizens and country, and I believe given some thought, you will see this to be true. Should Congress and the President proceed on the course you seem set upon, you will be asking the American people to have radical surgery to alleviate a problem that does not really exist. Please do not cut the social safety net in order to avoid this imaginary cliff of Congress's making. I urge you to find other means to create jobs, and thus in turn increase tax revenues.
It is well known that the multiplier effect of federal dollars spent servicing the social safety net return to the taxpayer in greater value than that spent, while those spent, (or lost), through tax breaks to the rich, usually are lost at less than a 1:1 ratio, and certainly less than dollars spent on the social welfare of Americans. Herein lies the key to keeping our economy from stumbling into a second dip in this recession like those countries mentioned above. If anything, we should be spending more, not less at this critical juncture to compensate for the loss of aggregate demand since this recession has hit us. Missing the “deadline” for the fiscal cliff is likewise a non issue regarding the economic health of the country. Any changes that are passed by Congress can be allowed to be retroactive to the beginning of 2013 in order to ensure proper Treasury receipts.
It is time Congresswomen and Congressmen such as yourself made a stand for the welfare of the American people, and not for your political and monetary benefactors. Will you please stand on the side of the multitude of American citizens and preserve the social safety net which so many of us depend on and comes back to us in greater value? Will you not also stand up, and help us point out the false premise of the so-called fiscal cliff?
Sincerely, Miguelitoh2o
That's the letter I sent to my congress-critters. Feel free to copy and paste it into your own.