Week of 08/15/2011

If They Gave A Dollar
– by David Matthews 2

“If I had a nickel…”

I was thinking about that little statement when the subject came up to the tired arguments being made by members of the GOP. If I had a nickel for every time someone said something over and over again… I could afford a latte at Starbucks.

Maybe it would be better if we updated that old saying. We gotta take inflation into account, after all. We use that excuse to justify high gas prices, so the opposite should also apply when it comes to that old saying that starts off with “If I had…”

So the thought occurred to me that maybe we’re taking the wrong approach when it comes to politicians and our economic morass. The politicians have pretty much been operating under the premise that they are immune from any kind of accountability for their actions, so they’ve been launching verbal mortar shells at anything and anyone they don’t suck up to them and their grand schemes. Maybe instead of criticizing the use of the verbal mortar shells, we should tax them on it.

There’s plenty of precedence behind this. The conservatives want the FCC to fine broadcasters for fleeting explicatives. The liberals want to force Americans to buy insurance whether they can afford to or not. So let’s give them both a taste of their own medicine and tax them for their overused and tired buzzwords and catchphrases and phony arguments.

The beauty of it all is that it doesn’t have to be THAT expensive. We’re not talking $250,000 or even $100,000 for a penalty. For their excessive use, it could be as small as a dollar.

If they each gave a dollar…

… for every time a member of the GOP accused President Obama of having “no plan” for any subject.

… for every time a member of the GOP complained about runaway spending when their own party contributed to the vast majority of it.

… for every time a member of the GOP shows up on the cable news channels and proclaims that tax cuts equals job creation without explaining how that has not worked in the past ten years.

… for every time a member of the GOP complained about President Obama getting “a blank check” after mindlessly authorizing one for Obama’s predecessor year after year after year.

… for every time a member of the GOP or a member of the talk radio/Fox News circuit throws around the words “socialism”, “Marxism”, “communism”, and “fascism” as though they are all interchangeable.

… for every time a member of the GOP complains about “war-mongering” from the White House while also accusing the White House of “sabotaging the War on Terror”.

… for every time a member of the GOP or a member of talk radio/Fox News circuit complains when Wall Street numbers go down after President Obama speaks but then says nothing when Wall Street numbers go up following another speech from Obama.

… for every time a member of the GOP complains about someone else’s “wasteful spending program” while at the same time bellying up to the same pork trough themselves.

… for every time the members of the “Tea Party” movement call themselves “independents” while still supporting GOP candidates.

… for every member of the GOP or a member of the talk radio/Fox News circuit that complains about the lack of jobs, but then feels that “wasteful spending” is far more important when the discussion turns to jobs.

You guys noticing a pattern here?

Oh, but wait… If they each gave a dollar…

… for every time a Democrat complains about filibuster rules but then tables any attempt to reform them.

… for every time President Obama talks about jobs without actually addressing the problem.

… for every day that President Obama goes on vacation.

… for every time some Department of Labor official or a member of the media refers to people who have exhausted their unemployment benefits as “given up looking for work”.

If they each gave a dollar for all of those things, then we’d probably have a booming economy and a balanced federal budget.

Now, there is no chance at all that we’d actually get even one red penny from any of the politicians or the blowhard egomaniacs in the talk radio/Fox News group, but let’s get brutally honest here… they certainly appear to make money every time they do these things. In a country that refuses to admit that we are still in a recession, the only real growth industry seems to be in obstruction and obfuscation.

And if it seems like I’m targeting the GOP (and their friends and buddies) a little bit more than anyone else, it’s only because they’ve been the most vocal of the groups in this growth industry of gab, and not without good reason. After all, they wouldn’t want the masses to remember just how they got into this situation, would they?

The problem here is relatively simple… we need to raise revenue. It’s not enough to just slash spending and expect the economy to just “reset” itself. If the politicians refuse to raise taxes and also refuse to coax their friends in Big Corporate to live up to their half of the “tax cuts equals job creation” argument, then the politicians and the media people themselves should be the next logical turnip to squeeze for that government lifeblood.