This showdown over the Bush tax cuts is great and all. I'm as absorbed in it as the next guy and I love watching John Boehner go INSANE about the "maneuver" of "having his 'chicken crap' ass exposed as a hypocritical jackass" by our steely eyed speaker Nancy Pelosi.
And while we're having this debate and trying to inject some calcium into our leaders' spines, I would like to point out that this is not the most important debate for me. Tick-tock, this is not the most pressing issue I'm concerned about in the last leg of the lame duck session.
While news commentators are vocally wringing their hands about this calcium issue and tax cuts for the Rich...tens of thousands of long term unemployed Americans have lost their unemployment extensions.
Scratch that. Hundreds of thousands. Nearly a million as of today.
I mean REALLY, this tax debate we're having is ALSO about the Rich. Why did we pick THIS as the showdown? Why did we pick a showdown that means multimillionaires have to live on fewer millions, rather than a showdown that means people with no income at all could get by for another year?
901,721 losing their long term unemployment benefits right before Christmas. Some say this will actually cost an additional 600,000 people their jobs.
And instead of THAT being the showdown...even I myself am caught up in the notion and excitement of sticking it to The Man out of a sense of justice.
"Why...it's SO unfair that the Republicans obstructed unemployment benefit renewals, but want tax cuts for the rich! And so we're going to....why we're gonna....gonnna...WE'RE GONNA DENY TAX CUTS TO THE RICH! AHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA!
THAT'LL show 'em!
Take THAT Rush Limbaugh! Now you'll just have to sit there and make do with $44 million dollars instead of $46 million!!!!
AHHH HA HA HA HA HAAA!"
Win!
What's that?
901,868 now without unemployment benefits?
Somehow it seems like it will be cold comfort if the Senate manages to pass middle class tax cut extensions without the top 2% bonus on Saturday, when we tell the million odd unemployed folks that JUSTICE has been SERVED with a big helping of Rescue Mission Christmas Ham dinner with raisin sauce.
I hope to god we're not, in our zeal to score a symbolic victory of justice, passing up an opportunity to help real families who are going to be kicked out of their homes in the next couple of months.