The
white, male dominated, republican congress is holding
America's working poor and people of color hostage, but
let's not talk about it and pretend this whole
media enabled government shut down isn't about
putting President Obama in his place, and making those who
voted for him suffer.
The partial shutdown of the federal government has entered its third day.
More than 800,000 federal workers are furloughed, and numerous
governmental programs have been forced to stop running. For example, the
government shutdown has already caused as many as 19,000 children to
lose access to Head Start. Many recipients of Special Supplemental
Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, more commonly known
as WIC, will lose assistance.
Our Congress Critters try to get the poop off their shoes by claiming they are not going to
accept (key word) their pay check(s) as long as the government is shut down. They must think we are stoopid. How are we going to know if they
accept (key word) their pay check(s) or not? How are we going to know if they deposit their check(s) in the bank or not? And even if they don't
accept (
key word) their check(s), it's not going to hurt
them one bit.
Mo Brooks, the incoming congressman from north Alabama's 5th District, filed in May and listed a $229,000 salary last year from his
Huntsville law firm of Leo and Brooks. As a Madison County commissioner,
he also was paid $63,617. He did not disclose his spouse's salary with
Huntsville city schools.
He and his wife jointly own accounts
worth between $100,000 and $250,000 with the Redstone Federal Credit
Union, plus multiple bond and stock accounts, most of them valued at
between $1,000 and $15,000. He and has wife each also have several IRAs,
and he did not list any liabilities.
Brooks' filing said
compensation he received in excess of $5,000 from any one source is
confidential because of a privileged relationship, so he did not
disclose his legal clients.
Black Agenda Report's Glenn Ford calls it the
Shut Down Game.
The government shutdown battle is more like a Civil War reenactment than
the real thing. A face-saving bargain will soon be struck, returning
825,000 furloughed federal employees to their jobs at wages that have
been frozen for the past two years – not by the Republicans, but on President Obama’s orders.
The clock has been stuck with both hands on “austerity” since Obama
came fully out of the closet as a GOP fellow-traveler following the 2010
midterm elections. From that moment on, Republican-imposed gridlock
has been the only barrier to Obama’s long-sought Grand Bargain to
eviscerate entitlement programs. When the current theatrics are over,
Obamacare will remain intact and the president will be back on his
ever-rightward stride. The GOP will take Obama up on his offer, earlier
this year, to cut Social Security
and will probably be offered other bits and pieces of the social safety
net in the interest of “shared sacrifice” and domestic peace.
Either way, We the Little People are screwed.
Ever since Barack Obama appeared onstage in Chicago's Grant Park on Nov.
4, 2008, to claim his place as president-elect, many Americans,
including a majority of current House Republicans, have fixated on his
political destruction at the expense of their own basic functionality.
