From John Boehner to Paul Ryan to Ben Nelson, it is the mantra of Republicans, Blue Dog Democrats and all others who style themselves fiscal conservatives: “We can’t charge the bill for (fill in the blank) to “our children and grandchildren.” Over and over again they repeat it, like a prayer, in media sound bites and ads, press conferences and on the floor of Congress. And if I hear it one more time, I’m going to shoot out my TV like that hapless Wisconsin man who just couldn’t take one more second of Bristol Palin‘s crappy dancing.
There are, of course, real concerns about the debt, the deficit—and Dancing With the Stars. But it is jaw-droppingly disingenuous, cruel and economically misguided that Republicans in the House—like Louisiana Rep. Charles Boustany—were repeating the “children and grandchildren” refrain today while blocking the extension of unemployment benefits. Just before the holidays, no less.
Like so many of us, I have friends—some educated, middle-class and highly accomplished—who’ve remained jobless, though no fault of their own, for as long as 18 months. They’re trying to find work, trying to figure out options, trying to reinvent themselves. They’re not lazy, spoiled, or shiftless. They’re just really, really scared.
How can legislators deny vital, perhaps lifesaving benefits to people down on their luck and at the same time dig in their heels to extend tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires (many of whom have found endless tax loopholes anyway)?. Not to mention that in so doing they’re exploding the same debt (by an estimated $700 billion) they claim to fret over?
How can they look middle class and working class Americans in the eye—live, breathing Americans walking our towns and cities today, fighting and scrapping for survival today and say, “No, we won’t throw you a lifeline?” How can they do this even though the holidays are coming up, even though they’d be putting money in people’s pockets to shop during those holidays—or to just spend on essentials—and in so doing stimulate the economy?
Even if it would help feed somebody’s children and grandchildren. Today.
You want to cut? Slash some pork, close some tax loopholes, prune some bloated, redundant defense spending.
Maybe the point is that these legislators—many of them millionaires themselves and all of them with government health insurance and benefits—are in such a privileged, protected Beltway bubble, that they don’t HAVE to look ordinary Americans in the eye.
We must force them.
Daily Damocles 