Take One for the Team

     I always like to tell myself that making a mistake is human...unless I keep making the same one over and over again. This sounds like advice to give a teenager, or someone new at a particular endeavor. But it holds true especially in politics. Presently , there are, in general terms, two paths we can choose to pull the nation out of it's economic doldrums. We can invest in ourselves, or we can embrace austerity measures. I don't claim to know all the cost/benefit effects from either approach, although it's evident that the pickle we're in is much worse considering the unemployment situation.
    But one thing that seems so clear is how our major political parties do not change their stripes even in the worst of times.
     Republicans scream about cutting spending (on Democratic programs, of course) which is no surprise. The head-scratcher is that they then expect no one to notice their clamoring to extend the totally irresponsible Bush tax cuts which are due to expire this year.
     No sane person can argue that these cuts helped our economy (other than the upper 2% of our country's ultra-rich). Isn't 'trickle-down' sort of laughable by now? No...it isn't laughable...it's not funny at all. It's sad because this lie actually helped put us in the horrific bind we're in today. The right wing of our political spectrum is doing all it can to sabotage any effort to reach solvency. Very short-sighted indeed, since after the pendulum swings and they regain power, what does anyone think they will do? Fix things? If one can drink in the real danger we are facing economically, it becomes evident that tax benefits, if any, shouldn't widen the class gap. Now is the time for the wealthy to take one for the team. I don't know what an ultra-rich person spends their money on, but these Bush cuts were a badly-timed abberation, not an entitlement in perpetuity. They're not reality based...they are fantasy land.
    To 'trickle-downers' I say, 'Get Real'!