Wednesday, December 21, 2011

The Tea Party "jumps the shark"

"Jumping the Shark" is when something has peaked, moved beyond it's original purpose and is on the downward spiral. This phrase comes from the episode in "Happy Days" when Fonzi jumps the shark tank, the point where the series was so far past the original intent and began to become irrelevant.

The refusal of the Tea Party controlled GOP House to continue the payroll tax cuts without getting all of their irrelevant amendments passed flies directly against the very acronym they touted for their movement, "Taxed Enough Already". This same slogan is on the vehicles of their supporters, most of whom will be directly affected by this tax increase. Yet, these members of Congress have shown with little attempt to hide it, that they don't care about the 99%, including the same suckers who voted for them. They screamed bloody murder at the thought of allowing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to expire, but now they vote to block an extension which would allow people like me to bring home more money on each paycheck.

They've shown that they don't have a problem with tax increases, so long as it isn't on the people who are the least likely to have to worry about if they'll have enough money to make it to the next payday. They have no qualms about letting taxes go up, just not on their donors, the folks who put them there. What they fail to realize is that when the middle class has less money to spend, that's less money to purchase goods and services, which will mean less of a demand and eventually translates into layoffs and further unemployment. Eventually this is all going to blow up in their face and they will have no one to blame but themselves. It is just a matter of time.

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