Dear Editor:
I hate to get taken for a fool. Or, as George Bush once said, “Fool me once, shame on….shame on you. Fool me…uh, er, you can’t get fooled again.” Kay Bailey Hutchison, in her guest column
“Goal for New Congress: Cut spending cut taxes”, seems to be taking all of us for fools.
Americans are known for our short memories, but surely our memories can’t be as short as Ms. Hutchison hopes. Does she expect us to forget that it was the tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans that put us into the deficit position we’re now in? Does she expect us to forget that the financial crisis that started the whole recession began during her favorite president’s term? (Ms. Hutchison voted along with Bush 90% of the time, while he was in office.) Now, she wants to continue these policies. And who will pay for the cuts that are required to lower the deficit?
Seniors will pay. Social Security is on the chopping block. Ms. Hutchison won’t say so, in so many words, because she’ll lose the senior vote. But make no mistake about it, as Republican Senator Lindsay Graham said this past Sunday, on Meet the Press, “… this is an opportunity to….deal with our long-term debt obligations, starting with Social Security.”
Isn’t it strange that every time Republicans make the “tough yet necessary decisions to cut federal spending,” as Ms. Hutchison puts it, it always cuts into middle America’s pockets and not the big corporations who pay these pols’ way into their Senate and Congressional seats with campaign contributions? Why don’t these “tough yet necessary decisions” ever impinge on the pocketbooks of these corporations who, incidentally, often don’t pay any federal taxes at all? In fact, Exxon paid absolutely no federal income taxes in 2009. Not a dime. Guess which female Senator from Texas has received almost one million dollars in contributions from the oil industry? I’ll give you a hint: her initials are KBH.
The Republicans, Ms. Hutchison included, hope to cut the deficit by cutting Social Security benefits to our seniors and, once again, allowing large corporations (who are shipping our jobs overseas, while selling their products in our country) to get away with paying absolutely no taxes on their billion dollar profits. Making the tax cuts permanent for the richest 1% causes the deficit to rise; but then there are always the seniors, who will pay the price for that tax cut, with a cut in their Social Security benefits.
Yes, Americans have short memories, Ms. Hutchison, but we can still put two and two together. And, I hope we won’t get fooled again.
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