The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Barth's picture

    Thank goodness for Eric Cantor!!!

    By Barth on Thu, 06/23/2011 - 8:45pm |

    If anyone doubted this (and I suspect few outside the White House and Treasury did), there will be no "adults" coming to the rescue it appears. Congressman Cantor has announced that it will be impossible for him or his party to vote to extend the debt limit (to agree to pay our national obligations) without an agreement by Democrats not to seek a repeal of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest among us.

    Congressman Cantor has done us a service. Even the giddiest advocate of bipartisanship can now see, there is no such thing, and all thanks to Eric Cantor, the "honest broker" with whom we thought we might "make a deal." No matter what the consequences, those recognized even by their own acolytes as well as by sane people all over the land making sure the wealthy contributors who might otherwise not be able to give them the millions needed to fund all their assaults on the political system, takes precedence.

    Sayeth Eric the Good:

    There is not support in the House for a tax increase, and I don’t believe now is the time to raise taxes in light of our current economic situation. Regardless of the progress that has been made, the tax issue must be resolved before discussions can continue.

    Unemployment, a possible new great depression, financial panic not seen since FDR rescued the nation from the last pigheaded mess they made is of no importance. Only politics.

    Even the President, Vice President and the Treasury Secretary, all believers that sonner or later common sense would reign, may now recognize what they are dealing with is insanity. There are no wise heads left to bring the party back to Planet Earth. Sen Lugar has failed, Sen Spector was driven from the party, Sen McCain has lost his mind, and Senator Dirksen has been dead for a long time.

    Comments

    Bluff


    by Michael Wolraich on Thu, 06/23/2011 - 9:21pm

    Or, he's setting up Boehner to take the blame for any compromise. They have internal politics too, you know.

    by Michael Maiello on Thu, 06/23/2011 - 9:34pm

    Even the President, Vice President and the Treasury Secretary, all believers that sonner or later common sense would reign, may now recognize what they are dealing with is insanity.

    The sheer idiocy of Cantor's position is breathtaking.  What he is saying in effect is: the the financial health of the US and the world are so critical that the only way we could possibly agree to do this would be to promise to continue to gut the federal government's revenue base.   


    by AmericanDreamer on Thu, 06/23/2011 - 10:22pm

    Who would have guessed it.  The Republicans are actually trying to win their war outright against the federal government budget, and not just maneuver into a better negotiating position.


    by Dan Kervick on Thu, 06/23/2011 - 10:44pm

    If only the Democrats were as willing to further ruin the economy in order to win an election.


    by brewmn on Thu, 06/23/2011 - 11:30pm

    It's not time to raise taxes when the economy isn't doing well, and when the economy is doing well, it is time to cut taxes, especially on the rich.


    by NCD on Thu, 06/23/2011 - 11:26pm

    No doubt newspaper editorial pages all over the country, Republican, Independent and Democratic alike, are lacerating the GOP for the sheer display of hypocrisy on display in Cantor's actions.

    After all, it's not as though anything important is on the line, such as the full faith and credit of the US government, the viability of the dollar as a currency of exchange on world markets, or anything really important like that.

    And, with all of that on the line, the GOP's top priority in these negotiations, having spent months since the November election preaching about the overriding importance of shrinking the massive federal deficit and debt is, you guessed it--tax cuts for those best off.  

    Imagine the chorus of denunciations, including from the far more honest and self-critical (to a fault?) Democratic opinion sources, if the Democrats had pulled something remotely as irresponsible, childish, hypocritical.  You could make a case that what the Republicans are doing would fit a lay understanding, if not a legal one, of threatening treason.

    For those in this country able to grasp the enormity of the act we have just seen, Cantor's really is a stunning banner statement of what this ludicrous bunch of jokers called the GOP has become in our day.


    by AmericanDreamer on Fri, 06/24/2011 - 9:15am

    Grover, Grover Norquist, King of the Wild Tax Fears!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRvEnu7XmfQ


    by Richard Day on Fri, 06/24/2011 - 1:06pm

    I don't know which is worse - the fact that someone could make such an irresponsible statement or the looming possibility that any segment of the American public would support it


    by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 06/24/2011 - 2:16pm

    Don't worry, Barth. Our fearless President has personally taken over the talks. He'll give the Corporations what they want, and a deal will be done.


    by Red Planet on Sat, 06/25/2011 - 1:46pm