Originally Posted By Dabob2 Required reading: <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-the-gop-became-the-party-of-the-rich-20111109" target="_blank">http://www.rollingstone.com/po...20111109</a> Terrific stuff. As a teaser, this is how it starts: "The nation is still recovering from a crushing recession that sent unemployment hovering above nine percent for two straight years. The president, mindful of soaring deficits, is pushing bold action to shore up the nation's balance sheet. Cloaking himself in the language of class warfare, he calls on a hostile Congress to end wasteful tax breaks for the rich. "We're going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share," he thunders to a crowd in Georgia. Such tax loopholes, he adds, "sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary – and that's crazy." Preacherlike, the president draws the crowd into a call-and-response. "Do you think the millionaire ought to pay more in taxes than the bus driver," he demands, "or less?" The crowd, sounding every bit like the protesters from Occupy Wall Street, roars back: "MORE!" The year was 1985. The president was Ronald Wilson Reagan." ...and it ends with a chart on page 8 that you HAVE to see (unfortunately, I can't copy it), and a quote from former GOP Senator Allan Simpson: "But whatever happened to common sense? People are going to look around in five or 10 years and say, 'Whatever happened to the things that made me comfortable? That made our streets and schools good things?' And they'll look, hopefully, at Grover Norquist. I can say to you with deepest sincerity: If this country and this legislature are in thrall to Grover Norquist, we haven't got a prayer."
Originally Posted By gadzuux I don't remember Norquist ever getting elected to anything. And yet he - more than anyone else - is largely responsible for the gridlock we see in congress. And only one party is "in thrall" to him. The same party that's causing the gridlock preventing teachers from teaching, police from policing, nurses from nursing, contruction contractors from constructing, firefighters from fighting fires . . . Amazingly, some people cannot see this.
Originally Posted By DyGDisney That is a great article. I wish I could print it out, frame it and give it to my Tea Party family members for Christmas.
Originally Posted By Princessjenn5795 That was a great article. I just sent it to a bunch of people. Thanks for posting it.
