Your Weekly Dose of Austerity Propaganda

The latest presidential side of non-fiery chat: (rough draft rescued from a White House dumpster.)

Hello, everybody. Over the last few weeks, there’s been a lot of bullshit talk about phony deadlines we’re facing on how to steal from the poor and let my donor class take whatever they want jobs and taxes and investments. But with so much manufactured fear-mongering  noise and so many opinions flying around, it can be easy to fool most of the people some of the time lose sight of what this debate is really about. It’s not about which political party comes out on top, or who wins or loses in Washington. It’s about making sure the top one percent keeps sucking up all the wealth of our great nation smart decisions that will have a real negative impact on your lives and the lives of Americans all across the country.

Right now, middle-class tax cuts are set to expire at the end of the year. Time is running out because we are pretending there is a fiscal crisis and not a jobs crisis.  And there are two things that can happen.

First, if Congress does nothing, every family in America will see their income taxes automatically go up on January 1^st. A typical middle-class family of four would get a non-immediate $2,200 tax hike. That would be temporarily inconveniencing bad for families, it would be bad for businesses, and it would drag down our entire economy. Of course, since we could easily and retroactively restore the deductions early next year, it would actually not have an immediate effect at all. It would take at least a year for the economy to slide back into recession. But nobody, especially me, is mentioning that. I need cover to slash the social safety net, and this kabuki debt crisis theatre is giving it to me.

Now, Congress can avoid all this by passing a law that prevents a tax hike on the first $250,000 of everybody’s income. That means 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses wouldn’t see their income taxes go up by a single dime. Even the wealthiest Americans would get a tax cut on the first $250,000 of their income. And families everywhere would enjoy some peace of mind. Through this bit of weekly propaganda, I will make sure that your peace of mind is becoming upset, just in case it wasn't already. 

The Senate has already done their part. Now we’re just waiting for Republicans in the House to do the same thing. But so far, they’ve put forward an unbalanced plan that actually lowers rates for the wealthiest Americans. Ironically, if they fail to deal with me, your Medicare and Social Security will be safe for now!  If we want to protect the middle class, the best possible thing would be just to go over the fiscal cliff then the math just doesn’t work.

We can and should actually be representing the people who elected us do more than just extend middle class tax cuts. I stand ready to fuck you over work with Republicans on a plan that rewards multinational corporations spurs economic growth, creates McJobs jobs and reduces our deficit – a plan that gives the rich both sides some of what they want. I’m willing to raise the Medicare age to 67, thus giving even more profits to the private insurance leeches find ways to bring down the cost of health care without letting on that I will be hurting seniors and other Americans who depend on it. And I’m willing to make more earned benefits entitlement spending cuts on top of the $1 trillion dollars in cuts I signed into law last year. That means adjusting the formula by which we figure increases in the cost of living for Social Security recipients. We already don't factor in food and medical care; now we have to find even more cruel ways to make sure middle class refugees share the sacrifice, work longer, and die sooner.

But if we’re seriously beholden to Wall Street about reducing our deficit while still investing in things like privatized, for-profit education and research that are important to enriching the plutocracy growing our economy – and if we’re seriously pretending to care about protecting middle-class families – then we’re also going to have to grovel ask the wealthiest Americans to pay only slightly higher tax rates. That’s one principle I won’t compromise on in order to give credence to my shared sacrifice meme and keep some of the people still stupidly believing that I actually care about them.

After all, this was a central question in the false choice election between two evils. A clear majority of Americans – Democrats, Republicans and Independents – agreed that jobs are the most pressing issue with a balanced approach totally contrived by me that asks ignores the poor and longterm unemployed something from everyone, but a very temporary, paltry, miniscule little more from those who already grabbed more than their fair share can most afford it. I am ignoring the fact that only 15% of those polled said the deficit is their primary concern. It’s the only way to give the richest of the rich who spent a billion dollars to re-elect me their way put our economy on a sustainable path without asking even more from them the middle class. And it’s the only kind of plan I’m willing to sign.

Everyone in the elite financial, media and political class  agrees the rich can never have too much we need to bring down our deficit and strengthen our economy for the long-term. The question is whether we can do it in a an opaque responsible way that allows us to keep fooling you investing in the military industrial complex things that have always made America an imperialistic bully and a banana republic strong. I’m convinced we can keep up our charade. And if both sides of the Money Party are willing to compromise, I believe we can give businesses and families a false sense of security going into the New Year.

Thanks for swallowing this crap, and have a great weekend.