How You Were (Probably) Screwed Today

Somehow believing the rich and successful need a break, Republicans today rammed through an extension of the tax that's extending Bill Gates's lead as richest man in the world, that benefited you to the tune of a few dollars a month and that could very well have spelled doom for the dollar. That's right, if you're an investor, you can breathe easier for two more years now and not pay your fair share of the Nation's tax burden. This benefits only the wealthy. Most of us little people with dividend income have it through tax sheltered investments such as IRAs or 401ks. It's those who have money to invest, ever fewer of us, who now become even more rich, making the United States look a whole lot more like Mexico than the influx of immigrants from south of the border. George, here's some truth for you. Mexico's economy sucks because there are rich and there are poor, there's no middle class. They've been eliminated due to economic policies very similar to your own.

And they did it in such a way that responsible Democrats couldn't stop it. By limiting the bill to $70 billion, it falls under fast track legislation and can't be filibustered. So, once again, we've voted against our own self-interest by electing legislators who belong to the rich, who are the rich and who have no compassion for those who aren't rich. They have little foresight, either. Already foreign countries are "diversifying" their investments, meaning they're losing faith in the Dollar and in our government's ability to rein in spending and to raise revenue. This bill does neither. About the only thing good it does is to prevent some moderately wealthy families from paying another tax that hits them but not the rich, the Alternative Minimum Tax.

If that doesn't have you reaching for the vaseline, you aren't paying attention.

Shortsighted oil policy now has the United States looking for oil like a crack whore looks for her fix. Cheney is praising the dictator of Kazakhstan, not a model of democracy and human rights, in an effort to whore for oil even as he castigates the Russians for using their natural resources in their own interest. Before long we'll be reduced to begging the Chinese and the Indians to use less. There's an interesting article in the Motley Fool today on oil prices that takes some of the onus off the administration had they not fallen into the trap of claiming responsibility for everything that goes right. Here's the link:

http://www.fool.com/news/commentary/2006/commentary06050910.htm?source=mppromo

In the article, Bill Mann makes the very good point that the best thing the Government could do now is to shut up. Anything they do would only make things worse, witness Hawaii's mistaken policy of policing gas prices, a policy they terminated this weekend. The screw-up is in not providing incentives to conserve and to build more refinery capability, one that won't be fixed by a $100 band aid or drilling in pristine lands. As this worsens, we'll become oil whores or worse, go to war again over crude while protesting it's over democracy.

Cheney's duplicity, praising Kazakhstan for its authoritarian government, castigating Russia for theirs and attempting to claim we're fostering democracy one bomb at a time, will only lead to a foreign policy catastrophe for the U. S.

Last week we learned the Brits with their socialized health care were twice as healthy as us. This week's installment of "You Don't Get What You Pay For" comes in infant mortality statistics. In the developed world, only Latvia has a worse infant mortality rate than we. Republicans with their aversion to universal health care are killing far more babies than abortionists. Can I say it plainer? Apparently, though, after the baby leaves the womb it's up to God to keep it alive. They'll cut the rich's taxes but won't spend the money for adequate prenatal and pediatric care? That's hypocrisy, folks. It's also a sign that our overpriced, market-driven health care system needs an overhaul much more than the tax rate of a few rich investors. We're good at providing high-tech, high-paying health care services and drugs. We're unwilling to pay for basic services to those who can't afford it for themselves. You're killing babies, conservatives.