Yes, there is such a creature, a whole limited edition series no less.
Imagine my surprise when Eric Cantor this morning stated emphatically that he would accept no new revenue. He didn't say no new taxes, he said no new revenue. This occurred on Morning Joe which Mika was anchoring. She smiled and went on. Nobody challenged Cantor. More smiles.
After yesterday's TwitterPOTUS, I have to say I was not impressed by the anemic hypothyroid third grade answers. Our cucumber cool head of state doesn't seem the least bit exercised about HAMP or the millions of foreclosures, but he's working on it. Boehner's snarky ass twitter didn't even evoke a commensurate response from
POTUS. He should have replied to the question with some reality: every proposal that might tend to stimulate the increase in employment has been quashed by the House. We're not even supposed to talk about it, except to blame the Democrats. Any other utterance or idea is verboten.
But take what Cantor said. It's clear that if we have no more jobs, the deficit is coming out of our collective investments over our lifetimes which we guaranteed to those who came before us but which we are supposed to give up because of Republican principles. It's also clearly obvious that reduction of the deficit and debt are not what the Republicans are about. They don't intend to reduce either. What they do intend is to keep stealing from the middle class in order to enlarge the conservative 2% nanny state. No New Revenue. Think about it. It's in your face. Cantor is saying that if taxes go up in one area, then they have to be offset somewhere else. It's ok if it comes out of our social safety net, AND they find some other loopholes, tax benefits somewhere else where you're not looking so NO NEW REVENUES are achieved. This is a double dip. This is further socialization of the losses while they rob the public treasury, AGAIN.
This is a shell game. Obama and whomever are having private talks about some sort of settlement somewhere, at some point, from which the NYT and WaPo are throwing bread crumbs about the prospect of using Medicare and Social Security to seal some deal. Why is this private? Why is this protracted? Why are we just sitting here taking it?
Whatever is cooked up by Obama and the traitors in the Republican faction will be totally negative for 98% of us. The plan is to loot our social safety net on account of the debt while maintaining the status quo for the 2% by shuffling some paper. They don't give a goddamn about the debt. That's just hair on fire fodder for the rank and file righties that don't know any better, and sadly, useful for the Democrats to be able to shrug it off and keep telling us about how we gotta do what we gotta do, oh well.
And nothing about any of it has to do with whether we renege on the spending that has already been legislated, ie., the debt ceiling. At this point, I am ready for a default. The insurrectionist Republicans asked for it, they can have it. I didn't ask for a pony. I was expecting more, a little bit more honesty and practicality. What we are getting is the slow boiled frog into serfdom. I've been doing with less for a long time. I can keep doing it. Millions of us can keep doing it, and many more millions can learn. We have the greatest income disparity now than any other country on earth. How does Richie Rich expect his income to keep streaming if everybody goes offline from his supply side crap? I'm sure he's hurting already with a few points shaved off his portfolio right now. I can easily deal with higher interest rates, can Richie? Somehow I doubt it, interest rates are what Richie farms. That's his product, the vig on what the rest of us want or need. Richie's definitely got the DT's when it comes to Greece, and maybe Ireland, Spain and whatsits.....Portugal? I lost count. It's not my fault or the Greeks', that Richie commingled his holdings with the expectation of vig from a lot of different pies tied to different geopolitical infrastructures, nope, not my problem. Make bets with somebody who isn't able to pay the chit, then that's your fault.
Now the reader will be saying that the debt ceiling and the default are not related to the reduction of the debt and the looting of the social safety net. To which I say: "No, they aren't. These are the conflated contortions of what our legislative process inflicts upon us today.....and the last time we had the CR that siphoned off more money to the subsidized 2% in the form of a two year extension of the Bush tax cuts." But does the average person have the wherewithal and grasp of the situation to be able to see what is happening? I think they don't. It's a very subtle gambit with weasel wording that got us here in this pot, my fellow amphibians.
There's a lot of D words. Debt, deficit, default, debt ceiling.....dddddddddd. If I had to guess, I'd say less than 50% of the citizenry could explain the difference between the debt and the deficit. Even less could define the debt ceiling's actual meaning. Most likely less than 10% would know what a "tax benefit" is. I suppose they don't care, or they would get busy and study up on it. Or maybe they're too busy trying to survive to pay attention. I have to admit there were some periods in my life where the peaceful transfer of power was not monitored vigilantly by moi, but by and large I kept up and boned up. I got rather alarmed when SCOTUS installated the Shrub, more so when the Patriot Act was enactified, Rendition rendered.....but I thought Obama might rein in some of this heresy. Instead he is burning down our house with doublespeak, D words and double negatives. Forget the pony. If we had the pony we'd have to shoot it in the head and then eat it.