Trumka Willing To 'Accept The Consequences' Of Holding The Line On Ending Wealthy Tax Rates

If Bush's tax cuts are allowed to expire as they are set to on December 31st, the deficit would be cut in half, instantly.   

If the tax cuts are continued for the rich, we would have to borrow $700 billion to pay for it.

If the tax cuts are continued for everyone, we would have to borrow $3 trillion to pay for it.

And if there is a 2-year extension "compromise", we would have to borrow $70-140 billion for the rich's portion and $383 billion for the middle class's portion.

Politicians WANT a high deficit so that they can create a fiscal crisis that forces us to cut vital safety net programs.  It's what Grover Norquist (president of Americans for Tax Reform, and George W. Bush's once-a-week lunch buddy for the 8 years of the Bush-Cheney Administration) meant when he said,"Our goal is to shrink government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub."
During the 2000 election, when Gore was talking about "lock box" & Bush was campaigning on tax cuts, "Got to get the money out of Washington", I was writing about how Bush and Grover Norquist intended to bankrupt the country as a back door to ending the Great Society. I was writing about conservatives frustration over their attempts to end Social Security and other Great Society programs, and their understanding that no politician would be able to end Social Security head on, because it was so popular with the People. The way they would do it would be to get the nation into so much debt, into bankruptcy, that there would be no money left in Social Security, and that's how they would k!ll it.

When George W. Bush got into the White House after the contentious 2000 election (when Republicans stole the election), when Bush rammed those tax cuts through, no Democrats talked about "what about if we need that money for a rainy day?" Or "should we find ourselves in a war". 

Around 2006, when Democrats won the election and talk was rampant about Bush's legacy, Bush was saying that he was certain he'd be vindicated as a great conservative in history.

Even conservatives didn't see what he was talking about, that what Bush is counting on is the end of the Great Society programs, like Social Security and Medicare, vindicating him. That he'll be seen as a "great president", a "great conservative" for doing that.

Not one reporter asked him.  They still don't, as he makes his rounds on his book tour.

Democratic politicians knew this, by the way, and they let it happen.

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