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Get off your duffs
and do the People’s Business!
That’s My Opinion
By Bob Robinson
How many of you would like to see your taxes jump about $1,000 a year
(if you make $50,000) - you can guestimate your increase based on your
income... for instance $500 a year for $25,000 earners?
For many of us in this area, it comes to about $50 a month.
That’s what we’re facing in about 10 days if Congress and our “Supreme”
leader don’t get their acts together.
County News Online got an email from The White House Tuesday that went
something like this...
“We’ve been fighting for months to make sure taxes on the middle class
don’t go up on January 1st.
“This weekend, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate came together,
compromised, and took a giant step to avoid just that. In fact, 89
senators approved an extension of the payroll tax cut. And 39 of them
were Republicans…
“But now, a faction of Republicans in the House refuses to even vote on
that compromise. And they’re on the brink of allowing taxes to go up on
160 million Americans...”
What the email DOESN’T tell you is that this is only a two-month
extension that “kicks the bucket down the road” for another cat-and-dog
fight early in 2012. It also raises some taxes on the “rich,” something
the majority of Republicans have vowed they will not accept.
Oh yeah, it also doesn’t tell you that it will create chaos with most
businesses - large and small - that won’t have a clue how to plan their
tax structures to keep the other arms of government, such as IRS,
happy. And IRS will be stuck with trying to adjust its tax formulas
based upon a rate that could change at any moment.
The cost to us? Your guess is as good as mine.
County News Online also got an email from House Majority Leader John
Boehner the same day (in the form of a letter to Obama) that went
something like this...
“You and I both understand the economic uncertainty many Americans are
feeling this holiday season. They are worried about their
families and futures, and they are looking to us to find common ground
to help create jobs. As you requested, the House passed
legislation last week to extend the current payroll tax holiday for a
full year, extend and reform unemployment insurance (UI) for a full
year, ensure American seniors still have access to their doctors for
two years...”
What the email DOESN’T tell you is that the Republicans put a rider in
the bill forcing work to begin on the 1,700 mile Keystone XL oil
pipeline from Canada. Democrats say an EPA study is more important than
the thousands of jobs this would create.
Republicans knew their bill would be DOA (dead on arrival) in the
Senate but they passed it anyway.
Doing nothing not only raises taxes on most Americans, it allows
unemployment benefits to expire and Medicare reimbursements to be
lowered, which would prompt many in the medical profession to opt out
of the program.
Boehner wants to keep negotiating. Obama wants Republicans and
Democrats to keep negotiating. However many of their colleagues in the
Senate have already left town for the holidays.
Both sides have drawn lines in the sand. Both sides care more about
their political philosophies than they do about the damage they inflict
on the American public.
Philosophically, the Dems want Big Brother to solve all our problems.
The Reps want the Free Market to solve our problems. I support the Free
Market solution. Big Brother has caused more problems than we can begin to
imagine.
We have been on this path of self-destruction for decades, starting
with FDR, and growing exponentially since Lyndon Johnson’s “Great
Society” of the sixties.
We are all at fault. We have tasted the fruits of Big Brother handouts
and we have become addicted. We have allowed career politicians to keep
their jobs because they keep promising even more handouts.
2010 was supposed to change all that. We elected a majority of “Free
Market” Republicans, many of whom are part of a lean-and-mean Tea Party
contingent, to the House of Representatives.
The problem is that we didn’t do this in the Senate. It is still
controlled by “Big Brother” Democrats, with a “Big Brother” president
sitting in the Oval Office.
End result? Stalemate.
Democrats need to see the writing on the wall. We can no longer dole
out goodies on the backs of American taxpayers. Even “taxing the rich”
into oblivion will do nothing to shore up the cavernous appetite of
their programs.
Republicans need to see the writing on the wall. We’ve spent half of a
century getting to this point… we are not going to do a 180-degree
turnaround in one year. Addictions to handouts do not go away with the
snap of the fingers.
The Senate has yet to see the light. Our current president will never
see the light. And they hold two-thirds of our government.
Both parties have a responsibility to serve the people who elected
them. Refusing to budge off the lines that have been drawn solves
nothing.
It could even cost us an election in 2012.
Our representatives need to remember that while political parties play
their games, the American people suffer the consequences of their
folly. Stop pontificating and work for long-term withdrawal to our
devastating addiction…
That means both sides have to understand the impact their decisions
have on the country as a whole… and act accordingly.
I don’t think this is being done, and apparently neither does the vast
majority of American people. Obama’s approval rating is in the low
forties and that of Congress is in the teens.
Our illustrious leaders might – or might not – do what they did during
the previous go-round… strike a last minute midnight deal with both sides
crowing victory. That isn’t what they were “hired” to do. The
continuing drama is harming – not helping – the recovery of an ailing
economy.
To those we elected to serve us, our message is “get off your duffs and
do the People’s Business!”
That’s my opinion. What’s yours?
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