Democrats and Republicans Play the Game:
Good Cop, Bad Cop

Mar 21, 2011

Arguing that they want to “put America on a fiscally sustainable path to help create jobs and save our children from bankruptcy tomorrow,” the House Republicans passed a bill cutting last years’ budget by 61 billion dollars.

The Senate Democrats, arguing that the Republicans’ budget bill is “extremist and reckless,” are trying to appear as if they were the good guys.

This leaves the door open for Obama to push through a compromise. We know from the past that Obama’s compromises take from the poor and give to the rich. In his previous compromises he froze federal workers’ pay for two years and handed the wealthy huge tax breaks.

The Democrats and Republicans are playing a political game. But it’s win-win for the Democrats. They can blame the Republicans all while voting to cut programs we need. For workers and the poor it’s a lose-lose situation.

Neither party is proposing to eliminate tax breaks for the wealthy, like the 11.5-billion-dollar per year cost of recent tax cuts millionaires’ estates, or the 8.9-billion-dollar cost of allowing mortgage interest deduction for vacation homes, or even the 6.7-billion-dollar cost of “estate planning” techniques used by the wealthy to avoid taxes–to name just a few. These three alone add up to 27.1 billion dollars.

Instead they both propose cuts in Head Start, Pell grants, job training for the unemployed, etc. These are all attacks aimed straight at the poor and working class. It doesn’t matter if the person holding the gun is a Democrat or a Republican.

Both parties say that “shared sacrifices” are needed. Shared? Taking food from poor single mothers and their children against a tax break on the estates of millionaires? We share the sacrifices and they give the spoils to the wealthy who put them in office.