Let them eat cake
And it has been waged by Republicans now for more than thirty years. It was declared by Ronald Reagan in his first inaugural address on January 20th 1981 when he exclaimed “Government is not the solution to the problem, Government is the Problem”. Ever since that day we’ve seen the Republican party systematically, stealthily, and purposely attempt to dismantle the democratically elected government and drown it in Grover Norquist‘s bathtub.
Over that thirty years government made more and more concessions to the wealthy and to corporations. They rolled back regulations (many of them made by Nixon; a Republican) on the finance sector and now they want EPA regulations rolled back because it’s inconvenient and hurts business. Not long ago they declared that we were in a financial crisis. No kidding? That’s what blowing a financial surplus on tax cuts and waging two unfunded wars will get you; trillions of dollars in debt. Now they expect the tax cuts to continue and to be paid for on the backs of the middle class?!?
President Obama, seizing on the public outrage, finally gets off the ropes and throws down the gauntlet to the obstructionist Republicans in Congress. No more tax holiday. Not now. Not in the middle of a recession. The President puts forth a definitive jobs bill (actually a stimulus junior which economists said all along was necessary) and dares the Republicans to oppose it. This was a brilliant move. If Republicans oppose it, they will be openly declaring their opposition to all things Obama even at the expense of destroying the economy, or they will be seen as the selfish tools to the rich and corporations that they are. Either way, they risk losing big in 2012. And if they pass the Obama Jobs plan, they virtually guarantee his re-election in 2012 and will have to admit that he is the President America elected in 2008 for good reason.
The only thing left to defeat Obama is to try redistricting, placing restrictions on voter registration, and changing the rules of the game by encouraging states to alter their electoral rules to favour Republican candidates. Or, as Dick Cheney is doing, advocating that Hillary Clinton run against Obama in order to whip the PUMA‘s into frenzy, inflame the negative perceptions of the President and divide the Democratic party from within.
The President, in his compromiser-in-chief manner has responded to the Republican cries of class warfare by stating, “This isn’t class warfare; it’s math”. Well played, sir. But I disagree; we’ve had a class war waged upon us for thirty years. It’s time we fought back. The good news is, there are more of us middle class than there are the wealthy. And if President Obama takes up this fight, we’ll get his back.
Related articles
- Obama: ‘This Is Not Class Warfare; It’s Math’ (crooksandliars.com)
- Richard (RJ) Eskow: Rich People and Corporations: The GOP’s Trillion-Dollar “Failed Stimulus” (huffingtonpost.com)
- Class Warfare, or Class Reconciliation? (bilerico.com)
- The Republican Universal Tax (538refugees.wordpress.com)
538 Refugees 