Art of the Union

Over the past couple of weeks there has been an increase of antics on the circus on the hill. With The United States set to default on it’s debts weeks away the race is on to address the debt ceiling, because Congress apparently handles important issues as timely as I did my highschool homework assignments. Now, with such dire circumstances looming, you’d think it’d be an easy task to manage. But, since this is the United States government it has become a debacle fit for VH1 programming.

There seems to be an impasse with the Republicans turning into second rate Stalwarts and Democrats treating Obama for touching entitlement programs the same as a disappointed mother would her son for a bad report card. That said, even with browbeating from the left such as the Progressive Change Campaign Committee threatening to pull support for the Obama 2012 campaign if he touches entitlement programs, he has not backed down. So, with Obama pledging to reform Social Security and Medicare, why aren’t we back to our old ways of swimming in money pools and buying bulk groceries just to throw half of them out for fun? Ah yes, Republicans are being combative because, “screw Obama,” that’s why!

With conservative leaders such as Franklin the Turtle McConnell saying that he refuses to help Obama get re-elected in the crafting of his own debt ceiling strategy, it’s clear but not surprising our current bucket of conservatives are working to spite Obama. And being just as crafty, they’ve disguised their plight behind taxes. I have to hand The Republican Party credit though, they have done a stellar job of fooling Americans into working against their best interests. The middle and lower class conservatives scream and fight in honor of preserving the Bush Tax Cuts in between shifts at their three jobs they have to work to make ends meet, more often than not working harder than the millionaires who they scream worked “so hard for their money.”  We as Americans have a publicly funded government, we pay for our system to work and provide for us as a whole. You would think the party that is so eager to play the patriotism card would be the first in line to offer their earnings to be taxed. But no, they love this country to an even greater extent. They love it so much that they want to be the ones to kill it. I can understand though, I love my dog just like conservatives love this country. I love my dog so much that I never feed him, he’s skin and bones and five days away from dying because he’s my world and I would do anything for him.

I may not be the smartest man, but I have been blessed with the good graces to know that swallowing my gum is a bad idea, so I grasp the basics of life. When John Boehner stands in front of a microphone and states “Americans understand that taxes kill jobs,” I know that is wrong. I know that Senate Republicans voted down an act that would tax businesses for sending American jobs offshore and that I read reports such as “Goldman Sachs firing Americans and adding more than 1,000 jobs in Singapore.” I know that Clinton raised top marginal tax rates to 36% and he left office producing 22 million jobs and federal budget surplus. I know that his successor Bush and the “fiscal conservatives”  cut the top marginal tax rates and left office with a deficit and a recession. But more importantly, I know taxes are good. I know taxes are good because I am an American who loves his country and would hate to see it decay like an aging professional wrestler, and I know that can’t happen with an empty treasury. And if ever you find yourself arguing that point with a Republican just tell them one thing that they can’t refute, Reagan raised taxes.