Republican Image Makeover, Part XVIII

No matter how much lipstick the GOP keeps putting on its pug-ugly face, it’s still too hideous for public viewing.  What’s the answer?  Why, more lipstick of course.  If Humpty Dumpty had another great fall, Republicans would yell “More Horses!  More Men!”

Behind the scenes, Republican legislators are more determined than ever to ban abortion, eliminate the safety net, break the backs of those commie labor unions and block everything President Obama tries to do.  But you’re not supposed to be looking at that.  Look over there at that big neon billboard, where Republican strategists are publicly asking “How can we reach out to more people?”  “Why do voters think we only care about rich people?” “How can we modernize our image?”

Nice try.  This newest installment of the Republican Image Makeover is brought to us by a spokesman for the American Enterprise Institute.  He says:

“Today, the top marginal tax rate is 40 percent, and inflation is 2 percent. Health-care spending and the debt have both risen by nearly 80 percent as a share of output. The average American is 37 years old.  Economics and demography require a reworking of the conservative policy portfolio. But center-right politicians in Washington keep offering same-old, same-old stale solutions.”

An article in the National Review said:

“They slavishly adhere to the economic program that Reagan developed to meet the challenges of the late 1970s and early 1980s, ignoring the fact that he largely overcame those challenges, and now we have new ones.”

These are all good points.  Try selling them to the teabaggers and corporate prostitutes who want to take “their” country back to 1850.

An editorial in Commentary Magazine proposed a five-step recovery program for the GOP:

“Focus on the economic concerns of working-and middle-class Americans;”
“Welcome rising immigrant groups;”
“Express and demonstrate a commitment to the common good;”
“Engage vital social issues forthrightly but in a manner that is aspirational rather than alienating;” and
“Harness their policy views to the findings of science.”

ROTFLMAO!!!  If they actually gave a flying fuck about the middle class, the common good, and science, they wouldn’t be Republicans.

War is Making You Poor

Not to be confused with “War, What is it Good For,” which was Tolstoy’s original title for “War and Peace.”

John Conyers and Alan Grayson are co-sponsoring the “War is Making You Poor Act” (H.R. 5353). This bill would limit defense spending to the exact amount that’s already allotted for the 2011 budget: $548.9 billion.

But the main selling point is: There will be NO federal income tax on the first $35,000 of every American’s annual income. For couples it’ll be the first $70,000.

This tax relief will be made possible by allocating $159.3 billion that was set aside for “discretionary operations abroad.” Alan Grayson said:

“I believe that the thing we need to do is to take that $159 billion that the President has set aside – we’re not saying he has to stop the war, we’re not giving a cut-off date for the war – we’re simply saying you need to fund that out of the base budget of $549 billion. And we take 90 percent of that and give it back to the American people.”

E.D. Kain of the National Review said:

“Each troop we send to Afghanistan costs the public $1 million per year. That’s $1 million siphoned out of the U.S. economy and shipped overseas to the mountains of Afghanistan and the Iraqi deserts…For years many of these costs were hidden, not even included in the Pentagon’s defense budget. This obscures not only the real cost of war, but the costs of all the extraneous programs our tax dollars end up going toward in the name of national defense.”

Grayson adds:

“The costs of the war have been rendered invisible. There's no draft. Instead, we take the most vulnerable elements of our population, and give them a choice between unemployment and missile fodder. Government deficits conceal the need to pay in cash for the war. We put the cost of both guns and butter on our Chinese credit card.”

Here is a petition you can sign if you want Congress to pass the War is Making You Poor Act.