Democrats are struggling even to pass a middle-class tax cut under the banner of fiscal responsibility. A House plan to shield 21 million mainly Democratic households from the alternative minimum tax, and offset the lost revenue with higher taxes on Wall Street, appears to be unraveling. If it does, so does the vaunted "pay as you go" rule that Pelosi pledged would re-establish fiscal responsibility in Washington after years of rampant Republican borrowing.
Bewildered Democrats have concluded that Republicans simply want them to fail.
[...]
Even Republican moderates are furious. "I think it's disgraceful," said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, as she left the Senate after the last vote before the Thanksgiving recess. "Unfortunately, there are not enough people building bridges. There are too many people destroying them."
[To clarify, those “21 million mainly Democratic households” are middle class taxpayers who live in high-tax states like New York and California.]
It’s always just about the politics with the Bush crowd, isn’t it? Well, what do you expect from a group whose sole ideology is that government doesn’t work? They’re right: their kind of government doesn’t work. We certainly learned that with Hurricane Katrina. And is anyone really surprised that Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s Gulf Coast recovery plan has favored big-business casino interests over that of the people who lost their homes? It’s the GOP way to put profits over people.
I still fail to understand why anyone would put our domestic policy in the hands of a group of people who don’t believe in government’s ability to work. That’s like going to a doctor who doesn’t believe in medicine.
Now it’s time we stopped trusting these clowns wituh our foreign policy, too. From the above-referenced budget story is this:
The White House seems happy to make the argument that the war should be fully funded, while domestic programs should be contained. The war, now in its fifth year, has killed more than 3,870 American military personnel and wounded more than 28,000, and is estimated to have cost taxpayers more than $800 billion if the current request is approved.
[....]
James Horney, director of fiscal policy for the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said, "My impression is that the White House decided quite awhile ago that it was in the president's political interest to have a confrontation with Congress over budget issues.
"He's not really trying to take stances on the budget that necessarily appeal to the majority of the American public, but stances that will play well with people currently supporting him, and stances that allow him to still be relevant," Horney said.
That sounds about right. Who was it that said President Bush’s job is to serve those that voted for him? Oh yeah, that guy.
This is all such a shame. Because we’re talking about a war that every day takes more American soldiers’ lives. We’re talking about people without healthcare and senior citizens still living in FEMA trailers. This isn’t about President Bush or Karl Rove or political games. It’s about America -- or, it should be. Too bad the Republican Party has forgotten that.
