Public Comment

A Game of Chicken Coming Home to Roost

By Bruce Joffe
Tuesday April 12, 2011 - 09:48:00 PM

The Republicans certainly got my attention today. I kept checking the internet to see if the government was going to shut down or remain functioning. I learned that their original demand for $30 Billion cuts in government services was agreed to by the Democrats (without closing corporate tax loopholes that enable General Electric to pay zero tax on profits of billions). So the Republicans upped their demand to $61 Billion. The Democrats gave in to $39 Billion (with no estate tax on the super-rich's progeny). Since Democrats were still willing to compromise, the Republicans went "for broke" and insisted on cutting health care for low income women (using Planned Parenthood as the symbol). Now, yes finally NOW, the Democrats are offering some resistance to this insane schoolyard game of chicken. 

 

Republicans showed that winning, so-called, is more important than governing. They are willing to disrupt vital government services to protect their super-wealthy benefactors. They resent providing health, education, and social services to the most wretched in our society, and have successfully pushed the cost onto hard-working middle class and off the top one percent who own nearly half the wealth in this country. Republicans have conned many folks that the problem is the government. Now, Tea Party supporters can see the real problem ... that the government is run by Republicans who represent the very people who have gotten obscenely wealthy at the expense of the middle class.