The winners vs the losers, the new American Way

That's right (pun intended), America the Beautiful is no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave, with liberty and justice for all, It's America the Corporation, land of the haves and the have nots, with liberty and justice for the fortunate few, the rest are on their own. Where the rich get richer and the rest get the shaft. God Bless the New American Way!

According the people in control of our state and national government, the federal government is trying to "redistribute the wealth" by taking from the winners and giving to the losers. Asking the winners to pay their fair share of taxes means the federal government is punishing the winners for being successful. According to the powerful privileged, the winners are winners through hard work, and the losers are losers because they are lazy and want the government to take care of them. The losers don't deserve to have access to quality affordable health care if they get sick because they are well...losers. The losers should just go somewhere and STFD and STFU. And to think, this comes from the family values, compassionate, christian, conservative crowd. There is more than a whiff of hypocrisy.

So, how and when did this happen? When did the United States of America morph into the United States of the Rich vs Middle Class/Poor? How did the billionaires convince the have nots they were their friend?

In the next month, despite all their loud rhetoric about the "deficit crisis," the Republicans want to add $700 billion to the national debt over the next 10 years by extending Bush's tax breaks for the top 2 percent. Families who earn $1 million a year or more would receive, on average, a tax break of $100,000 a year. The Republicans also want to eliminate or significantly reduce the estate tax, which has existed since 1916. Its elimination would add, over 10 years, about $1 trillion to our national debt and all of the benefits would go to the top 0.3 percent. Over 99.7 percent of American families would not gain a nickel. The Walton family of WalMart would receive an estimated tax break of more than $30 billion by repealing the estate tax.

Bob Herbet says all we are good at is bulldozing money to the very wealthy

We’ve become a hapless, can’t-do society, and it’s, frankly, embarrassing. Public figures talk endlessly about “transformative changes” in public education, but the years go by and we see no such thing. Politicians across the spectrum insist that they are all about job creation while the employment situation in the real world remains beyond pathetic.

The winners are obsessed with so called deficit spending/reduction, constitution reform and ethics reform because it's a convenient weapon of mass distraction from the real issues, facing real people

In a recent poll, only 4% of Americans identified deficit reduction as the most important issue to be addressed in Congress right now. By comparison, 56% of Americans identified jobs and the economy as the most important issues. These polling results are one reason that it is important, as we explained previously, for the Democrats to avoid getting caught up in the current obsession in the D.C. media and political circles with the deficit.

How is it the winners have any creditability anyway?

What is it, exactly, that the Republican Party stands for? They have a PR rep for being strong on the military, strong on fiscal discipline and strong on traditional values. The problem is that over the last couple of years we have seen that, as a group, they really don’t have any credibility on any of these issues.

The idea that a part who is calling for 700 billion in tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, money that will have to be borrowed, while at the same time braying about the size of the deficit is not one that can truly be credible on the issue of financing the government. The tax breaks they are ready to defend, at the cost of raising the taxes on the middle class in the middle of the worst economic climate in more than two generations. Not a single Republican would answer what they would cut to pay for this windfall for the ultra wealthy prior to the election or even now.

When are the real republicans going to take their party back from the winners?

Boehner weeps for his dad. Cantor mumbles. Palin communes with bears. One of the least diverse, least intellectually-equipped group of freshmen Congressmen invades Washington soon--to lead, create, fix? Nah, to attack and tear up.

I want my Democracy back. You know, the one where there are no red states and blue states, but the United States of America, with liberty and justice for ALL not for some. The United States of America where black, brown, red children have equal opportunities. I want my American Way back. The American way of helping people who need help. The American Way where everybody has the inalienable right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, regardless of race, gender, circumstance or political party.