No compromise on tax cuts for the rich! Stick it to the Republicans. Force them to vote against the people if that's what they want to do. Don't play their game, don't share the blame for ruining the Nation. They pretend that the most important issue is the deficit, but want to worsen the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars in order to give the rich money they don't need and that they won't invest to create jobs (in the U.S. — in China and India, maybe). If the Republicans won't extend unemployment benefits unless the rich get tax cuts that are ruinous to the long-term economic and social condition of the Nation, then let the blame fall squarely on the Republican Party. Do not co-conspire in this. Fite the good fite, and make the Republicans see that they are NOT going to co-opt Democrats. Force the Republicans to reveal themselves as the ONLY party that is monstrous to the unemployed, and let them answer for that in the next election — or sooner, because Democrats can surely mobilize mass demonstrations in every city in the Nation, MILLIONS of Americans on the march.

If taxes have to rise for everybody because the Republicans won't extend tax cuts for the poor and middle class, AGAIN let the entire blame fall on the Republicans. At least the deficit, which is one of the two greatest internal threats to the Nation (the other being the rise of oligarchy and plutocracy thru a monstrous redistribution of wealth UP, FROM the poor and middle class TO the rich), will be starkly reduced if taxes rise for everyone. So who ends up looking fiscally responsible? The Democrats, not the Republicans. Who ends up looking like monsters? The Republicans, not the Democrats.

Why would Democrats go along with policies they know are monstrously unfair and will RUIN the Nation? What else can Democrats be coerced into doing as a condition to extending middle-class tax cuts and unemployment benefits? Impeach President Obama? Declare war on Iran? Abolish the progressive income tax and adopt the insane "flat tax"? Abolish the estate tax? How many Radical Right programs will Democrats endorse — co-conspire in — just to extend tax cuts for the middle class and unemployment benefits for the temporarily unemployed?

You must NEVER compromise with evil. The Republican Party of today is PURE EVIL, and you must NOT consent to do their evil for them when YOU are in the majority. Why is it that they refused to compromise, to do good, but were rewarded with electoral triumph in the House, but Democrats think that they MUST compromise or face electoral disaster in the Senate? If Republicans can refuse to compromise, can be "The Party of No", and be rewarded at the polls, why wouldn't the Democrats be rewarded at the polls for becoming "The Party of HELL No!"?

You, as a very rich man, are in an exquisite position to demand that low tax rates the rich do not need are destroying the Nation. Grandstand over it: "I'm a very rich man. My taxes are too low. Raise my taxes! Raise taxes on ALL the rich. We will STILL be rich, but the Nation will be much richer for moving against the creation of the United States into the northernmost nation of Latin America, with an obscenely unfair distribution of wealth."

To extend the tax cuts for the rich two years is to extend them forever, because if a Congress with a Democratic majority in both houses and a Democratic President cannot end tax cuts for the rich, a Congress with a Republican majority in the House surely cannot do so. Expose the sham of a "temporary" extension.

Further, it is obvious that the U.S. Senate has gone insane with rules that have created MINORITY RULE, which the Framers of the Constitution never intended. They intended MAJORITY RULE, and except for a very few items, like ratification of treaties, the Senate is ALWAYS supposed to operate by simple majority, 50% + 1. Supermajorities for ANYTHING not specified in the Constitution are UNCONSTITUTIONAL. What the Constitution does not permit, it FORBIDS. Lead the fite to end the filibuster, "holds", and every other ANTIdemocratic and UNCONSTITUTIONAL rule and procedure in the Senate, and free us from minority rule.

- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 12:49 PM