h/t to OC Progressive
That's right, you know, right now America is become just like an Ayn Rand novel? No, you didn't know that but our esteemed Representative from California thinks so. He's really concerned about the direction the Country is going in, so much he wants to compare reality to fiction.
"People are starting to feel like we’re living through the scenario that happened in ‘Atlas Shrugged,’" said Campbell. "The achievers, the people who create all the things that benefit rest of us, are going on strike. I’m seeing, at a small level, a kind of protest from the people who create jobs, the people who create wealth, who are pulling back from their ambitions because they see how they’ll be punished for them."
Source
John Campbell is my guy actually, he represents me in Congress even though I've never voted for him and as Steve Benen points out at Political Animal, Campbell "isn't some random member of the College Republicans after he's had a few too many".
Some very strange conservatives, faced with the prospect of a modest increase in the marginal top rate, see us creating real-life John Galts. We're supposed to find that terrifying, of course, since the same Wall Street titans who destroyed our economy might be tempted to leave their jobs and take up menial labor.
...
Now would be a very good time to point out how truly insane all of this is. Obama is talking about a 39.6% top rate. In Reagan's first term, it was 50%. Under Nixon, it was 70%. When FDR pulled us out of the Great Depression, it was around 80%.
Of course it's insane, they have nothing us but lies, damn lies, etc. It's like their the polar bears and the ice is breaking beneath their furry little paws, they can't even find solid ground to stand on. Of courses, if they were really polar bears, they could give a crap about themselves.
But the absurdity of it all is laughable. And we can't take them seriously because it's so hard. I know that millions do, as we can see from the fact that Rush Limbaugh has a listenership of millions (But I wonder how many listen in order to get a laugh). I mean, there's not much we can do about the portion of the population that is delusional and insane (Not all Republicans are, that's not my point).
But to start warping reailty to fit some fictional world is downright scary. CitiCorp's stock price is less than what it costs to use one of their ATM's for crying-out-loud, the reality of our banking system going to hell in a handbasket we can't afford is what scares me, the idea that people are going to stop working because they don't want to pay more taxes is absurd, let them.
The market will fill the gap right? I mean, isn't that the philospy, that the market will find a way? The example in a diary I just read was some crazy Dentist cutting back her workload to lower her income below $250,000. So does that mean people will just stop going to the dentist? Hell no, some other Dentist will make up for her work stoppage and have to hire more people in order to meet the demand. How hard is it people?
They don't even have faith in their own principles! Ed Rollins at CNN said it well...
Republicans are not relevant. We just lost two back-to-back elections (2006 and 2008), and obviously, what we are selling, the voters aren't buying. In the midst of the most severe economic crisis in my lifetime, we have a president who is taking the country on a dramatic sea change. This is what he said he would do and he is doing it. And where are Republicans? Right now we don't have the alternative ideas, a message or, more important, the messenger.
They are not relevant and we have to do everything we can to keep it that way. The balance is a fine line and it's politics at its best, but we have to be sure to keep them coming up with the upsurdity. Hey, Earmark spending is out of control! (HM, John McCain pointed out that earmakrs went up 300% under Republican congresses). And of course the fact is this the actual amount of earmarks is less than 1% of Obama's budget.
So they can't make themselves relevant with the truth, they might as well lie. They can write their own fiction and act like my five year old when she can't have a second cookie, although their tantrums are taped and take place on the floor of our Congressional and Senate Chambers.
Geez, I bet even Ayn Rand is rolling in her grave to be linked to such irrelevance and incompetence.