The Republican line on the wealthy is that they’re not just rich, they are job creators and therefore deserve a break on taxes, the environment, and government regulations. (Think Occupational Health and Safety regulations, OSHA, pollution regulations, air emissions, and labor laws.)
Bill Maher has some thoughts that might help put the Republican line in perspective…they’re pampering their rich cronies at the expense of the rest of us.
Senator Cornyn and his fellow Republicans are out to kill the American Dream for everyone but their rich cronies on Wall Street. While protecting extraordinarily low tax rates for corporations, millionaires and billionaires, they are using budget deficits as an excuse to slash programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Some Texas Republicans want the states to manage Medicare. Can you imagine turning your Medicare over to the likes of Rick Perry, governor of a state with the highest number of uninsured in the country? Republicans are on a mission of power to enrich the rich and pull the rug out from under the rest of us.
Don’t let Republicans like Senator John Cornyn and Governor Rick Perry kill the American Dream.
Senator Cornyn is not the only Republican Senator ducking his constituents. Watch:
A very interesting line in S&P’s full report (.pdf) wherein it downgraded the sovereign debt of the US from AAA to AA+.
Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.
It’s time to put the redneck ideology aside and solve America’s debt problem. The Republican attempt to win the Whitehouse in 2012 by destroying the US economy is shameful. Wake up Republicans! It’s time to be statesmen.
Senator John Cornyn
Let’s do this by the process of elimination…
Huh, we’ve got rich people, bankers and big corporations left. But, does that surprise anyone?
I’m confident the Senator Cornyn is a smart man, but he appears not to be so truthful nor logical. After voting to raise the debt ceiling by 4 trillion dollars during the Bush administration, Senator Cornyn has now buried his head in the sand, turning his back on the very obligations he voted for in the past. An honest statesman would own up to the obvious truth that the Nation’s debt situation can’t be resolved by cutting benefits to old people and veterans. We’ve got to raise some revenues.
This is an excerpt from Senator Franken’s Senate speech on the debt ceiling which makes clear that Senator Cornyn’s position on not raising the debt ceiling is void of intelligent logic.
We have to raise the debt ceiling because we as a nation have certain obligations that we must meet.
We have to pay for the wars we are currently engaged in. We have obligations to veterans who have served our nation in the past. We have obligations to have the dedicated men and women at FEMA who have been responding to the many floods and fires our nation has been facing.
We have obligations to seniors who have paid into Social Security all their working lives and have a right to expect a check every month in their retirement.
We have obligations under Medicare. Not just to seniors, who again have paid in, but to clinics and hospitals and health care providers, and to those who supply medicine and medical equipment.We have contractual obligations to all kinds of businesses, whether they’re building roads or water towers or providing IT services to the VA or the Park Service or the United States Senate. And I think almost everyone would agree it’s good to have guards in our federal prisons. The list of obligations goes on and on.
If President Bush was in office, would we be having this fight over the debt ceiling? No, we wouldn’t. This is pure Republican obstructionism. They are putting Party over our Nation.
The Republican leadership voted to raise the debt limit by over four trillion dollars during the Bush administration after voting for the Bush tax cuts for the rich. Senator McConnell, Speaker Boehner, and Representative Cantor voted for each increase. Senator Jon Kyl voted for every increase except the first.
Senator Cornyn is supporting the Tea Party legislation which they proudly call Cap, Cut, and Balance. He’s actually proud of to be supporting this nonsense and has called for Republican support of the bill in a video you can find here. Below you’ll find Senator Reid’s appraisal of the bill.
Senator Cornyn has voted to raise the debt ceiling numerous times, voted to fund two useless wars, off budget for the most part, voted for the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and voted for numerous tax deductions and exemptions for big oil, big pharma, and the deregulation of Wall Street. Now he wants to destroy Medicare and Social Security…turn it over to corporate America so they can profit from our payroll taxes.
