They think all of you are worthless
Qu’ils mangent de la brioche aka let them eat cake, wot wot? Shoo the complaining peasants away and throw a few rotting cabbages at them.
After pretending for a brief moment in 2016 that the Republican Party stood for working people, the Republican-controlled Congress reverted back to trickle-down form on Friday when they passed a tax reform bill that overwhelmingly favored the rich. Not to be outdone, though, Senator Chuck Grassley made clear his disdain for those not benefiting under the new tax law.
“I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies,” Grassley told the Register in a story posted yesterday.
So he means men, not people. Don’t they always.
At any rate – is he even aware that many jobs don’t pay very much? That working class jobs don’t pay as well as they did for that short period between the war and the oil crisis? That unions have been all but wiped out? That health insurance (ahem) is expensive? That housing in many cities is grotesquely expensive? Does he really think poor people are poor because they spend all their money on…movies?
For a lot of working class people, there is a sense that lazy people living down the street from them are mooching off the government (and hey, there are some bums out there), which draws them to Republicans’ policies. But here’s the thing: Republican elected officials see everyone in the working class as bums. They’re not making a distinction between you and some of the folks around you. They think all of you are worthless if you don’t have a multi-million dollar estate. That’s the Republican Party.
Well put.
He’s also failing to acknowledge that our economy is based on… Wait for it… CONSUMPTION! Spending every last dime on stuff is what you’re supposed to do to keep the wheels turning.
We had trickle-down economics, and that turned out to be bullshit. Why not give trickle-up economics a try instead? There’s a better chance of poor people actually spending the money (and no, not just on booze, women and movies) than hoarding it like the super-rich are bound to do.
Grassley is such an ass. Like he would know jack shit about the lives of poor people.
Pliny-the-Inbetween had a good take on ‘trickle-down’ recently; http://farcornercafe.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/not-gold-you-were-hoping-for.html?m=1
Maybe he can’t conceive of people having to spend every last dime on food and shelter. Because he never has had to. People like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz like to tout their working class backgrounds, but they don’t really seem to have a clue what it’s like to worry that tomorrow you will have no food, no electricity, no home. That one illness could wipe out everything. That your child won’t have anywhere to lay his head at night. I know what all that feels like. I’ve been there. A lot of people have been there. And these monsters are crapping on all of us, because we aren’t them.
They have no business being our representatives. They do not represent the American people. They represent themselves. And shame on those people who vote for these inhuman monstrosities. The shame of a nation is on their heads as much as it is on the heads of the Republican Party.
Oh, those working-class people and their relentless love of movies.
Just like Trump the Inept thinks he’s a world-class mind, these plutes think they really have their fingers on the pulse.
Something that needs shouting from the rooftops every time someone talks about the estate tax: the ones benefiting aren’t even the ones who earned the money – if they even did – but the people inheriting it. Those heirs are very, very able to blow it all on booze, sex, and movies (or yachts – or entire islands) – they’re not working, they’re not innovating, they’re only incidentally investing. It’s a tax on the money, specifically, that you have to do nothing whatever to get.
Also, it’s entirely possible that he’s condemning the alcoholic movie-binging lesbians there as much as the alcoholic movie-binging straight men, and withholding just a bit of spleen from the straight women and gay men with substance and entertainment abuse issues. Bigotry doesn’t have to be consistent!
Jeff Engel: Every time I get into an argument with a conservative about taxes and welfare, they eventually bring up the idea of America being a meritocracy. My immediate rejoinder is, “So you support a 100% estate tax? After all, the only ‘merit’ the heirs have is being fortunate enough to be born to rich parents.” I have yet to have one come up with a response that didn’t involve massive backpedaling from the “meritocracy” bullshit.