Remember when Republicans would say "There's no such thing as a free lunch"?
That's how they are trying to sell their1% enrichment tax cut plan however. They pretend they are giving away free money to the middle class, and that everyone magically gets money in their pockets without anything of value being sold to get it. Of course the big lie is that this plan has anything to do with the middle class, many of us will have our taxes raised as a result of this "reform" of tax codes. But even if it were true, even if millions of "average Americans" got an extra hundred dollars a month to spend as a result of them, there is nothing painless about these tax cuts.
This is no free lunch. Yes the cuts would add over 1.5 trillion dollars to the deficit. Democrats are already all over that, and the increase in taxes that some will face - but it's not just that. It's not just the fact that those in power today are burdening America's young with a much bigger obligation to repay America's creditors with interest over the course of their full lifetimes. Actually it is far more basic, far more profound than even those outrages. It is about drowning a shrunken government in a bathtub after using it to redistribute wealth to those who already have almost all of it.
Even the rich need some government services. They need a military to keep their oversees investments safe for example. They need legislators they can legally bribe using election laws that they've paid for to be written.They even need tax collectors who collect higher percentages of income from those who labor for wages rather than from those who earn money off of money already accumulated to accomplish the afore mentioned redistribution. They need enough government paid for domestic security to prevent pitchfork mobs from advancing on them unimpended. They meed first responders to protect their properties from fires and from terrorists. They need their government subsidies, and their huge government contracts, and courts to fill their private prisons.
But the rest of us need government much more. We need government to survive. Most Republicans WANT to increase the deficit, although of course they don't admit it. They want every pretense possible to shrink the size of government. And after they've looted the Federal Treasury there's no excuse that they will be happier to give than to say we can't afford the spending. They already say it now, but they will soon be saying it louder. We can't afford to pay for Pell grants. We can't afford to pay for mass transit. We can't afford to pay for nursing homes. We can't afford to be so "generous" with what they like to call "entitlements". If schools in most of America rot that won't effect the private schools of the wealthy, who will pay the bills to educate their own young with just part of the tax giveaways they are now pushing through this Congress. If there is lead leeching from their own water pipes, they can write a check to pay for immediately replacing them. If their children develop special needs they can hire the staff needed to attend to them.
Even if some middle class family in Ohio gets an extra hundred dollars a month to hold onto - how far will that stretch when grandma needs a nursing home that today is paid for by Medicaid? When push comes to shove the government paid for economic safety net is the only meaningful insurance policy that most Americans can turn to when things significantly go wrong. How much is keeping that intact worth to most Americans, let alone Pell grants, decent schools, and roads that don't break axles? Is that worth a hundred dollars a month to a family of four? How much is blood money ever worth?
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