Senator No

Yesterday in a fit of tweeting I tweeted thusly:

Sen. Mitch McConnell: if it came down to something good for the country and good for #Obama's reelection, would he do it?

This is truly a pertinent question. With the world teetering frequently on the edge of double-dip recession; with our nation's infrastructure badly and dangerously in need of repair; with serious cuts to our nationwide competitiveness in the global market of commerce and ideas being contemplated; with the GOP revving up their propaganda campaign to justify pollution and irreversible climate damage --- it still appears that anything reasonable that the Obama administration comes up with to address some of these things (most recently the infrastructure jobs bill) is met with abject refusal led by Senator No.

I despise him. But putting my personal feelings of distaste aside, this campaign against the President is truly dangerous to the future of the country. Disagreement and negotiation are expected between a President of one political affiliation and a Congress of the other, but stagnation of action regarding anything meaningful puts off necessary responses for too long. But the Republicans are willing to sacrifice the good of the nation's citizenry to promote their ideology, seemingly above all else. That is the opposite of statesmanship. It's one of the ingredients in a recipe for disaster.

How Obama's jobs policies would impact the rich (hint: not much)


"Senate Dems have announced that they will continue to force Republicans to vote on jobs policies funded by such surtaxes, and next week, the Senate will vote on another key piece of Obama’s jobs bill: The Rebuild America Jobs Act. The plan would create a national infrastructure bank and would invest $50 billion in upgrading highways, rail, and bridges, with the goal of putting construction workers across the country back on the job and revitalizing our infrastructure and economy. It would be paid for by a 0.7 percent surtax on income in excess of $1 million."

"*If the new infrastructure proposal were enacted, the surtax on millionaires would impact a grand total of 345,532 taxpayers nationwide — or 0.2 percent of American taxpayers.

* If the new infrastructure proposal were enacted, the 0.7 percent surtax would amount to all of $13,457 on average for the millionaires that would pay it. Given that their average income is $2,923,000, this means they would be paying on average an additional 1/217 of their overall income, or just over an additional 0.4 percent. That’s less than one half of one percent."

And still Senator No persists in his effort to undermine America.

Thanks a lot, Mitch. Thanks for nothing, which is what you're accomplishing.