Dumb Asses

The Republican Party is a farce.  It is held hostage by a bunch of economically illiterate, photogenic morons who parrot the ravings of dead men (in this case, Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman).

This group of barely-washed savages has recently blinked in the current hissy-fit that populates the airwaves and the blogosphere.  Their absolutely asinine assertion that there can be no new taxes to balance the budget is now in question.

This is where this group of nincompoops really miss the boat.  The money has been spent.  We have to pay it back.  It will take generations to do so.  The rich folk, the middle class, and the poor will all have to tighten their belts and pony up to pay for past mistakes.

We have one of the lowest tax rates in the world.  Despite all the screaming by the morons in the intransigent right, this cannot be allowed to continue.  This is not the world of the founding fathers, this is a post-industrial society thrashing about after making a series of desperately wrong decisions.  If anyone thinks that we can right the ship without pain to all parts of the society, they are living in an ideological dream world.

Social security and transfer payments do need to be tamed.  But that taming must include all transfer payments.  Social security, Medicare, Medicaid are transfer payments.  House tax credits are a transfer payment, bank bailouts are a transfer payment, a capital gains tax rate which are lower than income tax rates are a transfer payment, farm subsidies are a transfer payment, oil depletion subsidies are a transfer payment, etc, etc, etc.

Out tax code is a shambles because we have a system that rewards graft and corruption at the electoral level.  The tax code is riddled with exemptions and kickbacks for those with sufficiently large political fiefdoms.  In truth, it is not a unified tax code as much as it is a monument to the purchase price of privilege.