In Gratitude For The Magnanimous Understanding and Generosity of Our Betters In The Ruling Class

[Cross-posted at If I Ran The Zoo, as a follow-on to this post.]

If I hear another mention of tax credits in the context of government having any influence over people's economic lives, I'm gonna rip somebody's head off. It's emblematic of emasculated government -- all the power that should be in the hands of the people in a democracy, and we get crumbs off the table. Meanwhile, any real solutions (e.g., properly structured progressive taxation, controls on the oil industry, single-payer health care, etc.) are never part of the discussion, leaving us effectively a subjugated population in an occupied nation.

How condescending is it to propose a measly $3,500 tax credit (gee, thanks, Dubya), when it's just as likely that tuition increases year-to-year (even at a lousy community college) or the home-heating bill, or the gasoline for working-class people forced to live further and further from their jobs, or even increases in the grocery bill at Sam's Club, fer chrissakes, will eat that in a heartbeat?

There are "Sam's Club Republicans" all right, but there are two kinds: The ones who shop there, and the Waltons, who own Sam's Club and Wal-Mart, along with their other billionaire buddies who have plundered the middle- and lower-class economy to the brink of catastrophe. David Brooks says

Finally, Republicans are shifting their emphasis from tax cutting to fiscal rectitude. McCain, Huckabee and Thompson emphasize spending control and dealing with the monumental problem of entitlements. Middle-class workers don’t worry so much about investment incentives. They worry that their government is fiscally decadent and fundamentally irresponsible.

You mean in between home forclosures, while they're not filling gas tanks with $3/gallon gas, working three jobs to afford groceries, trying to keep their school programs running, paying exorbitant deductibles to health care providers and exorbitant premiums out of their paychecks to health care insurers, all they think about is fiscal irresponsibility on the part of a government that's had its hands tied for thirty years by the relentless supply-side propaganda machine?

Right.