6/30/2010

Conservatives to the Poor and Elderly: Suck on Our Deficit:
1. Take It. Take the Whole Deficit, Bitches:
On the Fox "news" show Cashin' In, the hosts and a guest were aghast this week that the Congressional Budget Office reported that 40% of Americans paid no income taxes in 2007. Said that hour's random blonde hostette, "[D]id we just find a way to solve America's debt crisis, do you think?"

Later, after the frighteningly simian-looking guest spitter spat that taxes on the rich are "tyranny," the show's random brunette with blonde highlights called for the repeal of the Earned Income Tax Credit: "You want to get rid of the stuff at the top? You get rid of the stuff at the bottom. That is the -- it is wrong. Nobody pays tax because of that."

The blonde and the brunette were competing to see which one would get to hand job Roger Ailes and which one had to finger his asshole. It was a tie. So everybody won.

(Note: The blonde and especially the brunette are not, in fact, idiots. They are people who actually know shit. That's the scary part.)

2. Yeah, You Know You Love Sucking On Our Deficit:
House Minority Leader and melanoma spokesperson John Boehner, in an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, declared, "We're all living a lot longer than anyone ever expected." He called for the retirement age to be raised to 70 and for wealthier retirees to get little or no Social Security, although he declined to call it "means testing," even though that's exactly what it is. Republicans have been wanting to do this for a couple of decades now because it would make wealthy retirees put more money in private investments in order to make up for the loss of Social Security income, thus pleasuring the banks and such.

Why do we need to look at how to cut money for old people? Because, Boehner said, we need to be able to pay for the wars. Well, duh.

Oh, and in the same interview, Boehner said he wanted to roll back planned reductions in Medicare. Somehow, the irony of this didn't dawn on Boehner.

(Note: John Boehner actually is an idiot. And if the Republicans win back the House, he'll be just two heartbeats away from the presidency. That's the scary part.)

(Note: If Democrats were as scuzzy as Republicans, they'd say that Boehner is forcing the elderly to work. "Senior slavery," perhaps?)

3. C'mon, Swallow That Shit:
Meanwhile, House Republicans yesterday blocked a bill that would have extended unemployment benefits for millions of Americans. And in the Senate, Republicans put a hold on a bill to help homeless veterans. Republicans don't want to add any more spending to the deficit, they say.

Meanwhile, they're trying to figure out how to extend the Bush tax cuts, set to expire in January. Should the GOP win the House, you can bet that Boehner will try to cut Social Security by making people work until they're 70 while continuing to cut taxes on the rich. Hey, deficits matter, conservatives tell us. Spending matters to them. Except, you know, when it doesn't.