Not since Huey Long's shifty, wholly disingenuous "Share Our Wealth" depression-era movement has a political party so fueled itself with nothing but pure bullshit. The GOP just can't quit The Dodge: a slippery fiscal hoax sputtered for months by the sidewinding Mitt Romney, who has now officially molted into John Boehner--a poor imitation who not only disbelieves what he's saying, but tends to show it.
When cursed by the daily hauntings of Romney we heard his howls of "tax reform" over tax increases, especially increases on the vaunted "job creators" (whom Romney, this sharpest of businessmen, repeatedly mistook for the plutocracy, rather than working-class consumers, but that's another story). Heaven forbid we should tax the wealthy more than they're already taxed, for then they cannot endeavor Creation. Instead, said Mitt, let us lower their marginal rate, thereby permitting the God-sanctioned blossoming of yet greater supply-sided splendors. But not to worry about federal revenue, for we'll simultaneously close their loopholes and exemptions; hence the wealthy will pay the same amount they're paying now.
Say what, Mitt? You're going to unleash the supply-sided power of less-fettered capital--which, you say, will create jobs--but at the same time you're going to effectively increase the wealthy's taxes in proportion to their decreased taxes so that government revenue isn't diminished. In short, it's all one immense wash. The wealthy wind up with not one extra dime to trickle down on the unemployed proles and the government suffers the same inadequate revenue flow.
This was among the most transparent of shell games ever attempted on the electorate--yet not once did I hear a member of the Fourth Estate demand of Mitt Romney even the remotest of clarifications. He just let the bullshit fly, with journalistic impunity.
Now Mr. Boehner finds himself having to re-heave all this crap as the party's position. In today's weekly Republican address he said, and I'm quoting The Hill, that "Congress's deficit-reduction deal should focus on tax reform, closing tax loopholes, and reforming entitlement programs instead of raising tax rates."
Most of which (besides, that is, entitlement reform, which means screwing the sick, the hungry, and the old) would reduce the deficit not one dime. Yet what is America's greatest sin, its vastest ill, according to the Republican Party's recent standard-bearer and now its newest, John Boehner? Yep. The deficit.
They just can't stop. They can't help themselves. They've been wedded to vapid bullshit for so long, it smells like sweet, sweet home to them.
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