I realize I am an old man that gets easily confused, but I swear since that the stimulus package was passed 2 years ago, the republicans have been calling for the money to be returned to the federal coffers due to it not being spent wisely.
Yet here we are in Dec 2010, where Republicans are refusing to do any business in the Senate until they get the tax cuts for the taxpayers making more than 250,000 dollars a year. They will not even discuss a proposal for tax cuts at the million dollar level and above, they are demanding all Americans get the tax cuts regardless of how much money they make. They are stating that to raise taxes on people who create jobs would hurt the economy despite the fact that in the past decade these people are not using their personal income to hire more people, they are just increasing their own net worth.
Senator Jim Demint is against the Presidents tax cut "deal" not because of the deficit that the tax cuts will cause in the next 2 years, but because the proposal contains unemployment benefits extensions for the next 13 months for peoples whose 26 weeks of federal UI benefits have run out.
There has been no proposal to add any benefits for the 99ers whose UI benefits have completely expired and ignoring the simple fact there are NO jobs for these people to find. They refuse to accept the fact that the new normal is that there are millions of Americans in their late 40s and 50s that can not find work due to their age, and the fact that are millions of fewer manufacturing jobs across the nation due to NAFTA and CAFTA, they have sent the entire production facilities and the jobs overseas.
They refuse to even add the proposal of giving elderly and disabled Americans a 250 dollar check as they have been denied any COLA's from Social Security or Veterans benefits due to this screwed up economy.
I for one do NOT need the 250 dollars as I am very fortunate in the fact that I do receive both SSD and Veterans Disability Compensation due to my medical issues that are related to my years of military service from being in the Army from the Vietnam War era 1973 thru the First Gulf War in 1991, I left the National Guard after returning home from being activated in November 1990 thru May 1991 and when my enlistment was finished in October 1992. I am lucky in that my compensation does support my wife and I decently and allow us to live a very decent lifestyle. I am grateful to the taxpayers of the US for this fact. If I was not disabled I would gladly return to work at the Postal Service making the big bucks I was before I became disabled. Honestly my health is worth more to me than these disability checks compensate me. Most disabled veterans I know would gladly change their status back to being healthy as they were before their military service, but that is not possible, so we have accepted life as it is, not as we wished it would be.
I had big dreams for retirement in 2020 when I will be 65, I didn't see the heart attacks coming nor the triple bypass that failed, nor the failure of the 2 stents they placed in me back in 1997 and 1998. Nor the 3 herniated disks at L3, L4, L5 and S1 which they claim are not operable due to the severity of my cardiac condition.
I do however have friends that are living on Social Security benefits alone, and for some of them the past 2 years have been a little rough, especially the ones on SSI benefits of 681 a month, their lifestyle is pretty rough, they deserve any financial break the Congress can give them, that check of 250.00 would make a nice windfall for them, but Senator Demint and other republicans do not want to help these people.
Despite the fact that the people who would more likely see put the money back into the economy would be people on fixed incomes like disabled people and retired people on Social Security, the ones who could use the money the most and would definately put it into the local economies would be the families of the 99ers who would pay rent, buy clothes and food.
I really can't see why the focus is on millionaires and billionaires, surely there can NOT be enough of them to keep voting Republicans into office. I for the life of me can not understand why so many older folks continue to vote against their own best interest by voting for people like Jim Demint, Sharon Angle, Christine ODonnell, or even listen to the likes of Sarah Palin, the gold pushers Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, all of these people will benefit greatly from this "tax cuts" proposal, bit not very many of their listeners will, or are there that many "rich" folks out there? I don't think so.
I know I have been blessed, my doctors did not think I would live this long, so personally I am glad that doctors continue to "practice" they put things into averages and life expectancies and some times they get it wrong, in my case they have been off by many years.
I get all my medical care from a "government health care system" the Veteran Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) in Augusta Georgia so for people that disparage government healthcare can kiss my azz, I have been very well taken care of by it, and most the people in the Tea Party who decry government run healthcare will be the first to scream "don't touch my Medicare" WTF do they think Medicare is? It's a public option health care system and they all LOVE IT, so why don't they want their children and grand kids to have the same thing they have? I fully favor Medicare for all, call it what you want but the public option would basically be "medicare for all".
Maybe I am just a dreamer, but I see no advantage to most American to spend another 858 billion dollars to just give most of it to the upper 3% of all income earners in this nation, they don't need it and some of them have stated they don't want it. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and many others have signed a letter to that effect, but people like Jim Demint and Mitch McConnell just don't care.
Nothing can get done in the Senate until they get their "tax cuts for the rich" and then maybe they will allow the Start Treaty to be voted on, maybe the Dream Act and maybe the DADT as a stand alone law ( I doubt it, that crazy old man John McCain will hurt himself jumping up and down screaming NO, NO, and hell no)
I am glad to see there is a stimulus package that republicans WILL support, I am just really sad that this is it, one for rich people.