IT WILL TAKE MAGIC

Here's a timely quote from the office of Rep. Fitzpatrick (PA 8): "Congressman Fitzpatrick believes we should support ways to generate more revenue but it should not be accomplished by pitting Americans against each other. Instead of presenting Americans with false choices that will lead to more economic stagnation, he believes in reaching serious solutions by bringing people together.”

“False choices?”  What on earth does this mean?    He tries to sound Churchillian but only sounds ridiculous. His quasi-patriotic, quasi-community, quasi-religious language is everything and nothing.  Not one example is ever given; not one fact is ever open to analysis.  Why do we let Fitzpatrick get away with this? 

Pitting Americans against each other?  In 2012, the income difference between the working stiff and a corporate big shot is greater than ever before.  Frankly, it has become completely clear that the sitting House of Representatives has only one concern.  They have been tasked with protecting the tax privileges of the rich at any cost, using any excuse. 

My neighbor is a clever magician.  To the delight of all the children he can pull a quarter out of your ear!  His magic seems real when compared with Republicans that think they are “bringing people together”.  If people are not privy to the magical information that Rep. Fitzpatrick is using to decide that we are in for “economic stagnation”, they should look at history. 

Higher taxes for the rich during the Clinton administration resulted in the largest boom since the end of WWII, and an actual budget surplus.  Lower taxes from the Bush administration gave us the second worst recession in history and the highest unemployment since the Great Depression. 

Did lowering the taxes on anybody, including the rich, result in business success?  Not really.  The wealthy socked their tax breaks away and did not invest a dime in business growth of any kind, especially jobs.  The middle class lost their pensions, a lot of jobs, and many lost their homes as well.

“Bringing people together?”  That would be what should happen when people realize that there is little anyone can do with a Republican majority that has taken a vow to an unelected lobbyist (the Grover Norquist Pledge) and is determined to obstruct any compromise.  The people will come together to mourn what we remember as a functioning democracy; a democracy in which people cared about the real lessons of history, and disdained bureaucrats like Rep. Fitzpatrick who sat on their hands, did nothing to help, and spouted silly oratory in an attempt to rationalize their non-activity.