Happy Hour: Bush Tax Cuts Get Donkey Punched

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Cheers!

You know, it's been tough trying to be positive about how my fellow Democrats have been doing in congress lately. We get clobbered in the mid-term elections ceding control of the House and having the Senate majority trimmed to a sparse majority of 53. We manage to pass a watered-down version of the revolutionary healthcare bill, but Don't Ask-Don't Tell is not yet repealed; the DREAM Act hasn't yet seen the light of day; Clean Energy continues to be hobbled by big business interests; and we still have combat troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's enough to make a guy take up drinking, so it's a good thing I've been doing it for a while.

However, every now and then something happens that brings a smile to my face, and reaffirms my belief that today's Democratic Party actually stands for something, the way it used to when my brothers ran the show. Today was one of those days when the Donkeys in the House of Representatives took a collective sip of courage, stood up to the bullying of the Republicans, and voted to reject the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, while keeping the current cuts for middle-class and working Americans in place.

This is a significant show of spine by the Dems not seen since Tip O'Neill would stomp through the House commissary, drinking other fellas' milkshakes. And, it calls the bluff on the GOP, who held working-class Americans hostage by threatening to oppose the extension of the unemployment benefits for long-term out of work Americans unless the rich got their tax cut. 

Naturally, the Republicans will squeal like stuck pigs about this.  They'll lie about how the Democrats want to hike taxes and spread fear about how this is going to further harm the economy.  Their argument has been that giving the wealthy their tax cut stimulates the economy because as the wealthy spend their money it will create jobs.  What they don't say is that the wealthy will use the extra money to buy monocles, light their cigars with $100 bills, and pay whores to indulge their unspeakable repressed perversions.

Republicans will also just ignore the fact that passing this tax cut extension while simultaneously extending the unemployment benefits would really kill the economy by increasing the defecit even further.  They'll also forget to mention that we've already been enjoying this tax break for the past 6 years or so, and it hasn't yet resulted in job growth or economic prosperity.

In fact, we've already had about 30 years of this nonsense and the economy (for regular Americans) has been steadily deteriorating since "Trickle Down" was first introduced by Reagan in 1980. It didn't work then, and it's not going to magically work now.

Which begs the question: why are the Republicans so eager to see the cut extended? 

Well, there's the fact that the people who would benefit most from this extension are the ones pulling the strings of the GOP.  But that's only part of it.  They know quite well that extending the tax cuts is a bum deal that would ruin the economy and leave the US in even worse shape two years from now.  In fact, they're counting on it.  They realize that their best chance to unseat Obama in 2012 will be if the economy has continued to deteriorate.  So they are more than willing to inflict more hardship if it buys them the presidency.

So, now the ball is in the Repubicans' court.  The Democrats have found their pride and that's worth toasting. So raise a glass with me.

Bottoms Up!