“When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." Jonathon Swift

Nobody is saying that Obama is a genius – smart guy, well spoken, reasonable, decent jump shot – but sure as hell the confederacy of dunces aligned against him would lead you to believe Swift’s prophesy was coming true before our eyes.   There is a tiny-brained republican cabal bent on creating chaos in the economy, thinking that will lead desperate democrats to capitulate and agree to the balanced budget amendment to the constitution that these poor deluded saps worship as the holy grail of 21^st century conservatism – the original intent of the founders played out on Twitter. 

Even John Boner has complained about these chuckleheads, whining to conservative head cheerleader witch Laura Ingram about members of his caucus holding the economy hostage.   And who are the putative leaders of this cult of tri-corner hat patriotism?  Why, none other than deep thinkers Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman, both of whom insist that raising the debt ceiling is unthinkable and a tax increase and license for the profligate spenders in congress to fund new abortion research centers where the conference rooms are used by death panels and the halls are filled with undercover muslim illegal immigrant terrorists plotting to take the guns from law abiding christian patriots.  Or something…it’s all pretty incoherent.

How did these assholes hijack a debate that – while ridiculous on its face, (Reagan raised the debt ceiling 18 times) – was proceeding towards a resolution that involved compromise by both sides?  Now the proposal reluctantly agreed to by John Boner - a proposal guaranteed to be defeated in the senate – includes a mandatory constitutional amendment to balance the budget and essentially make permanent a ridiculously unfair tax structure that continues to favor the richest of us at the expense of the poorest of us.  But it isn’t so much that a balanced budget amendment in and of itself is anathema to thinking citizens – it actually has much to recommend it, not least of which is that it provides political cover for elected officials who don’t have the balls to make a hard decision, perhaps allowing things to get done.  The problem is it takes ratification by ¾ of the state legislatures to pass a constitutional amendment and how long do you think that would take?  It is clearly not a real solution to the present problem of a budget deficit.   No, the reason this is the holy grail is that it is what the lucky million people who run the country really want - their tax advantages made permanent. 

Repealing the Bush tax cuts – in spite of squealing protestations to the contrary – is not a tax increase created out of whole cloth.  It is a return to the tax structure that was in place the last time that the country generated a surplus and had a robust economy.  Hello…!!!!   Tea baggers swathed in red, white and blue insist that doing so would kill jobs, (which are currently generated where exactly?), and “hurt the economy”.   However this is nonsense; propaganda meant to make people take their eye off the ball.   

It’s a legitimate debate to discuss revenue versus cuts; it’s hostage taking to insist that the “deal” has to be all cuts and no revenue.  If these brave souls seriously want to reduce the deficit – and that has ostensibly been a primary goal of the republicans for the last 10 years – they would – if only reluctantly – consider changes to the tax code to close some loop holes and provide for some additional revenue.  But that’s not really the end game here – that becomes more obvious with each passing day.   On a day when Chevron reported a 43% increase in quarterly profits to 7.7 billion dollars, wide eyed tea bag worshipping fanatics refuse to consider repealing the tax breaks that allow these profits to be virtually untaxed at all in favor of cutting social security and other services supporting middle class families – subsidized day and after school care, a competent school experience with enough pencils to go around and a clean park where a kid can go play and be a kid.  On a day when it was reported that the economy “grew” at a pathetically weak 1.3% during the first quarter due to a severe decrease in spending by both consumers and governments at all levels, they insist on a budget deal that will consist only of more cuts in spending, guaranteeing that the economy – for the bulk of Americans – will remain pathetically weak, feeding the fear and dealing a death blow to consumer confidence and, by extension, the economy.  

To Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi; I thought this country never negotiated with terrorists and hostage takers.  Unless you have some diabolical master plan to make this tedious spectacle the first step in clearing out these idiots, you should be ashamed of yourselves.  You folded on their bluff - wimps…