Congressman DeFazio: If we do nothing, seniors are safe and Lloyd Blankfein's taxes go up!

[Egalitarian Thug]

81. Ah, there's one problem. The north east is not like any other part of the nation, yet the people

that live there just don't seem to understand that. I'm in Nevada now but LA is my adopted home and I can assure you that pretty much everywhere else in the nation is nothing like the north east. For example, with few exceptions (Chicago is the only one I know for sure) there is no public housing and generally never has been. Now, I've qualified that statement just to allow for the fact that I haven't been everywhere, but let me assure you that from Georgia to Portland to Denver to San Diego, it does not exist. There is no such thing.

I suppose the idea was to simply write checks to property owners, who inevitably become slumlords, rather than building government housing. I think both failed because once the idea got through, no attention was given to the execution. As I told you in the previous reply, section 8 housing has been turned into a massive welfare program for property owners who are universally hated by everyone from their tenants to the other owners who still live in their own houses where the neighborhoods have been ruined.

Then there are the shelters and the streets and cars and that's it, There is nothing else. Chicago tore down Cabrini Green about a decade ago (perfect example of good intentions going awry) and replaced those towers with nothing. That's it outside of the world you live in. Public housing is a myth west of the Mississippi (maybe St. Louis?).

I didn't intend to dismiss your point. OTOH I do believe that the members of the Progressive Caucus have a much better idea of what is going on and how the game inside the beltway is played than you do. When Bernie Sanders says that political reality dictates your taxes cannot be left raised, it makes sense and I believe him. I also know that there is no way that this or any other Congress in the next decade or so, can feasibly pass another tax cut for the rich unless it is hidden inside one of these package deals. If we step off the fiscal curb all of us get a minor tax increase, but much more importantly, the inheritance tax is reinstated (something which your kids will absolutely benefit from) and a 34% increase in the capital gains tax rate (something that will never get through Congress while the republicans rule the house and also something that will benefit everybody including your kids), and most importantly of all, it will force the collective Congress (both parties) to deal with all of the issues they want so desperately to duck.

And BTW, you're not the only one that struggled to rise up the ladder. In 2003 I retired because I had enough and wasn't willing to kill myself on the hamster wheel just to get more than I needed. But 'our' government decided that making billionaires was more important than a healthy middle class and enforcing the law. We can trade sob stories some other time.