Hey Marco – Saw your State of the Union response last night, and I just wanted to let you know that I think you’re a jackass. I hope you’re not too insulted, because I find most Republicans to be utter jackasses.
For starters, I get it that it’s the holy grail of the modern day conservatism to oppose taxes and more government spending, but when you said that it’s an “old idea that has failed every time its been tried,” you really meant to have a giant fucking asterisk there, right? I missed whether you held up the asterisk card during your speech, but when you said “every time” I’m assuming you really meant “every time but all those times we did invest in the American people and holy shitballs! It worked out pretty great!” You know, like the $51 billion going to help Northeastern residents rebuild their homes and businesses, repair roads, boardwalks, storefronts, sidewalks, beaches, highways, bridges, school buildings, nursing homes, and literally put their towns back together. That’s probably not going to fail, right? Or how about oh – let’s just say for starts, the GI Bill, which has let thousands and thousands of returning veterans to obtain an education, a mortgage, and a home? We won’t even get into agricultural subsidies today, bud.
Of course, when you said government spending failed every time and then brought up your mother on Medicare, the cognitive dissonance was probably really fucking overwhelming, wasn’t it? It was probably so overwhelming that I actually almost want to give you credit for plowing through your speech. Was that what the water break was about? Anyway, Marco, I’m sure you just didn’t have enough time to mention all the other times government spending worked. Quite frankly, I don’t really have the time to mention everything either. Now excuse me while I go mail a package through the US Post Office system to my dear friend serving overseas in the United States Army, and then go for a quick trip on the federal highway system, maybe take my grandmother to the bank so she can cash her social security check, and then take her to a doctor’s appointment which Medicaid will cover.
Moving on, I just wanted talk about your job creators a little bit. Capital gains tax, estate tax, and income taxes were at an all time low from 2000 until..now, and remain among the lowest rate anywhere in the world. Which means according to your theory, for roughly the last eight to twelve years, these people had all the money in the world to give those raises and benefits you mentioned in your speech last night. More than that, your job creators had more money than ever in order to, you know, create jobs. Except we all know how that story ended (stop me if you’ve heard this one before!), as your job creators – shockingly – took advantage of massive deregulation and minimal oversight, gave out mortgages like candy, and then some of your other job creators packaged these shitty ass mortgages together and turned around and sold them to another sucker who believed in an AAA rating, all while slapping each other on the back for quick buck gained.
When the whole house of cards came crashing down, your job creators had the nerve to turn around and claim they were too big to fail and wanted a handout from the American public. And let’s face it – we really didn’t have much choice in the matter if we didn’t want to see not only our economy, but the world wide economy, get flushed down the tubes. Of course, people lost half of their 401KS, municipalities and towns almost went bankrupt, and people living on their retirement investment funds were probably completely fucked, but the American people managed to finance those job creators a big fat loan so they could, you know – create jobs. Now granted, your job creators managed to pay back every last cent of their loans, but the unemployment rate is still around 7.8% of the labor force. And your job creators certainly didn’t mind taking their compensation packages, golden parachutes and the company jet for a ride, out of some sick sense of entitlement that they “earned it.”
So excuse me, Marco, if I roll my eyes a little bit when you talk about the Republican Party not wanting to protect the rich. Because from where I’m sitting, that looks like all you guys have been doing for the last 30 some odd years. Forgive me, Marco, if it just seems more fucking logical to me that the people on top pay more taxes then the people on the bottom. After all, give my middle class ass some more money, and what the fuck do you think I’m going to do? I’m going to go out and spend those extra dollars at Target, which benefits – oh wait, the job creators.
You know when I’ll take the Republican Party seriously? When they stop pretending that being successful in America takes no more than just a pair of sturdy bootstraps, that equality of opportunities is not the same thing as equality of outcomes; when they admit that pouring money from one bank account into another and back into a third account and calling it a “dividend” is not fucking job creation; and when they realize that that Jesus is not the answer for most of us, guns are certainly not always the answer, and we know the universe has been around for 13.77 billion years. And for the last time, if the Republican Party is so against government regulation, for fuck’s sake please stop trying to regulate my vagina and let people make their own goddamn choices about who they want to marry.
Later, Marco. (Polo!)
Picture via Wikipedia
