Example A and the inevitable correction. I could say a lot about this, but instead I’ll just say: I can understand John’s frustration. Technically, he’s not wrong, and we all will pay back the irresponsible “tax cuts,” with interest. And what will the rich get, while we snap and snipe at each other about who is more poor? A bunch, I bet.
John isn’t hurting, he’s got a nice place and some security. But like the poorest, he too can sense how easily the rug could get pulled out from under him. It’s less likely that will happen to him than to say, a homeless Latina veteran. But he’s right to feel anxiety. This post just seems bitchy and self-concerned, and makes him look unaware of how much worse off the plight of those who will get a “tax cut” suffer. More common than you may think, that particular shortcoming and many of our leading “progressive” voices.
The lesson for the movement: make all tax increases on the truly wealthy. There are plenty of them, they can afford it, include corporations and then no better-than-average “centrists” or “liberals” will complain again.
Front page
Yup. And it's nice that he's catching
a big ration of shit for it over there — 403 comments as of noon Pacific.
On cluelessness in general
the same goes here.
We all have blind spots. John just let his frustration with the process overcome his good sense.
Hey, we can’t ALL be lucky and have mansions in Topeka. Some of just have to suck it up and live in DC.
Jake
oddly enough
The headline is probably perfectly accurate. Mind you I’d be thrilled shitless about Dems giving away my stimulus check, if only they’d bother to give it away to somebody who really fucking needed it.
Americablog fell off my regular reading list for no particular reason back around late ’04, but now I kinda see why that might have happened.
“Dems only care about the poor?” On what planet?
The Stimulus is BS, Of Course, and Won't Help
But I do understand John’s frustration, and I think it gets at the problem with basing this sort of thing purely on “income.” A professional a month out of school with $100,000 in debt is considered “rich” for tax and benefit purposes the instant they get that first paycheck, nevermind the 15 year old car they are driving, the mountain of debt, the one “interview” suit they have, etc. They get treated essentially the same as, say, their silver-spoon-in-mouth classmate who comes out with no debt, the latest new car daddy bought them, a trust fund, and a closet full of office-ready clothes. And while the former will be up shit creek the second they lose their job, the latter will have no worries. The fact that those two people get treated as equally super rich by the tax code is absurd, but that’s how it is.
jeff in TX: i think the distinction i would make is that
even the poor “professional” grad has a chance at a job with a salary that could sort of/some day/perhaps pay off debt in that range. the most poor never get that shot. nor do they get the things one can buy with 100K or more of “credit,” which is more or less all a “student loan” really is, a line of credit againt the collateral of your brain.
thus, these matters will continually seem to be light years apart to both groups. you make a valid point, but also one telling assumption: the poorer grad already has a job. for the undereducated, sometimes even that isn’t an option. i hope you can see how this makes a huge amount of difference in terms of priorities, as well as the fact that in raw numbers: there are many more under/uneducated people than educated ones in this country. i consider it my job, as a very overly educated person, to not forget those who never get the chances i got, nor to forget what it was like to live among them, as i worked/slaved my way thru school.
Damn.
I’d like a chance to “struggle to make ends meet” on $75K a year. That’s about three times what I make at my ’real’ job. Poor Aravosis.
What, you're just now figuring out Aravosis is a jerk? N/T
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
Well, we all have the crosses we have to bear
And given the income differentials we have now, $75K is a lot only by…. Well, by the standards of the rest of us.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Update
Aravosis seems to have purged the comments on this post — there’s only 15 over there now, losing more than 500. And he’s getting mighty contentious against anything negative in the “new” comments — editing/adding to them, mostly along lines of “you bastards didn’t read me right, plus you’re vicious.”
Although I’ve enjoyed a good bit of his work in the past, I’m coming around to Sarah’s p.o.v. on him …..