Last-Ditch Effort

Note: This was written before the abysmal deal to avert default was struck. Consider the following a moment of brief respite before cynicism swallowed me whole.

I apologize to you, my readers, for this not being the next part of my six-part series on rebuilding America. Work has been hectic, and trying to find time to research both trade policy AND graduate schools has not been the easiest of tasks. Still, I’m making progress and that should be up sometime later this month. In the meantime, I thought I should let you in on a little secret.

For the last couple months I’ve watched with apathy, then disgust, then indignation, then overwhelming rage, as the Republicans have used their control of the House to take the country hostage and attempt to force-feed the middle class a sizable portion of serfdom. I’ve watched as petty criminals have politicized the mechanism by which the country stays fiscally solvent. I’ve watched as an ignorant rider of coattails charged the public for going to his child’s after-school activities while simultaneously gutting the education system that gives that child those opportunities. I’ve watched as an unscrupulous cheesehead unveiled his plan for eliminating the national debt, a plan that ADDS $8 trillion to the debt and gives millionaires and billionaires a trillion dollars in tax cuts while eviscerating Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. I’ve watched as politicians steer the political discourse further and further right even as poll after poll show the American public, as a whole, want their elected turkeys to use their left wings more often. I’ve watched these last two weeks as the House continues to ignore logic, reason, and common sense while making the threat of a second Great Depression more and more of a reality by the day. I’ve grown tired of watching. So today, I did something that under normal circumstances I would never do.

I sent an e-mail to the President of the United States.

Now, let me start by saying that I like Mr. Obama. I think he’s above all else a good man, a man who means what he says when he talks about living up to our ideals. I think he’s a shrewder politician than most people realize, and I think he’s one of the smartest men to ever hold the office (particularly in comparison to his predecessor). I wonder, though, if he isn’t too good a man for the office. You see, Jimmy Carter was a good man as well, with just as much of an intellectual bent (despite Billy seeming to imply otherwise). However, he had very little fighting spirit, and when coupled with his awful choice in advisors, he tended to get steamrolled in most negotiations. Sound familiar? Obama has a good heart, but he also has a seeming obsession with being a conciliator, a person who tries to unite under all circumstances. The fact that he’s surrounded himself with people who seem to directly oppose most intelligent policies, particularly economically (Larry Summers, Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, Ken Salazar, Rahm Emanuel…it’s a longer list than you think) doesn’t help matters. That said, I still believe that he has our (and by our, I mean the average American middle class worker) best interests at heart; he just doesn’t know how to fight for them. His pathological need to broker compromise has led to so many give-backs and cave-ins that I once joked “If this Administration was a dog, the only trick it’d know would be ‘roll over.’” I think there’s a part of him that wants to fight (off-the-record quotes seem to indicate he’s been more than willing to drop the hammer on Boehner and co.), but because of the political pressures on him (unprecedented Republican opposition to everything, coupled with an unrelenting barrage from all corporate media and continuous fire-breathing from seemingly all liberals) he’s felt the need to move to the center-right in the hopes of grabbing undecided independent (read: stupid) voters. It hasn’t worked, and it’s not going to work, because as I’ve said before, the American public is the dumbest and laziest electorate on Earth. Unless he’s willing to fight for his principles NOW, his base will erode, he won’t capture those moron independents who’ll jump at the next trendy story (“Hey, that Bachmann sure is interesting” is the sentence haunting my nightmares right now), some impossibly-disastrous right-wing lunatic will win in 2012, and the current economic sinkhole will turn into a bottomless pit. That can’t happen.

So, in an attempt to try an spur the President to action, I sent him an e-mail challenging him to do just that: fight for us now, while there’s still time to salvage things. It’s kind of pathetic that this is even necessary given the whole “in two years he managed what G-Dub and Clin-Ton couldn’t manage in 16,” but that’s America for you. Much like your average WWE mark, if it didn’t happen within the last three weeks, it never happened at all. Therefore, I felt I needed to remind him of what needs to be done. The text of my e-mail follows; it wasn’t as long as I would have liked because the White House places a strict 2500 character limit on all messages (which I’m sure most of you wish applied to all of my writing). I just hope it was enough.

Mr. President,

I recall the early days of your campaign as having enormous promise. Hope and change...I believed in those ideals. I believed that you could be a transformative president, one who could turn the country back from the abyss that Reagan's brainless supply-side economics put us on a path towards and lead us toward the shining potential Jack Kennedy saw. Yet over the last two years I've watched as you've led us further down that doomed path. I understand that you're facing unprecedented political opposition, and I sympathize. That said, I can't help but be disappointed in the sheer number of times you've caved to pressure from the opposing side in spite of public support for your ideas. Allowing the stimulus bill to be watered down to half of what it should have been, caving on opposition to a public option for Republican votes you had no chance of getting, renewing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy despite overwhelming public opposition, continuing Bush-era restraints on civil liberties (and in some cases, reinforcing them), your current willingness to barter Social Security and Medicare rather than demand increased revenue from the wealthy...I could keep going, but there is a character limit. Suffice to say, there are plenty of areas where you could have fought and chose not to.

I know full well that you can't win every fight, but quite frankly, Mr. President, I expected you to at least try ONCE. You CANNOT keep letting the Republicans take the country hostage like this, or those of us without the money to have a voice in Congress are going to get economically slaughtered. It's already started, and I have no belief that things will get better any time soon. Hope died with the public option. Change died when the Bush tax cuts stayed in place. I'm holding on to a sliver of faith that the future still holds some promise, but knowing that the majority of Americans are politically ignorant and will reward the Republicans for this unconscionable shell game, that sliver erodes ever more by the day.

I'm short on space, so I'll end by saying this: it's not too late. Please, sir, do something to show my generation that you haven't abandoned us to the whims of corporate power. We need you to be great. We need you to do for us what FDR did for our grandparents. We need you, sir, to fight.

Thank you for your time.


That’s it. I requested a reply, but knowing politicians like I do, I’ll be lucky to even get a form letter. Whatever response I get, I’ll post here for the rest of you to see. I’m not expecting much; hell, I know that I’ll be lucky if it even gets to his desk. Still, if there’s even a 0.0001% chance that this spurs him to finally become the transformative president of our generation as I’d hoped he’d be, it was worth it. Keep your fingers crossed. I know I am.

Next time: on America’s trade policy and how outsourcing (both the NBC show and the actual practice) are destroying the American way of life. Seriously. I promise.

R.O.A: Rebuilding of America, Part 1

Those of you that have been following the progress of our emergence (or lack thereof) from the Bush Great Recession may have noticed that, for all intents and purposes, our economy remains stagnant. Well, stagnant for anyone who isn’t making the majority of their income through capital gains. Unemployment remains disturbingly high, and while many of the “leading economic experts” at the Fed will claim that unemployment is a lagging indicator and that as long as inflation remains under control there isn’t a major problem, the sizable lines at food pantries and in unemployment offices tend to disprove that theory. A recent study indicates that this is going to be the trend for the foreseeable future, as companies are making colossal profits without needing to add jobs. On top of this, Republicans in Congress, believing (or so I suppose; they might just be protecting their corporate overlords) that the Bush Great Recession is over, are pushing for massive cuts in the budget to bring the deficit down. The facts that the cuts they have proposed represent a mere drop in the bucket compared to the monstrous deficit and almost exclusively target programs and spending that help the people hurt most by the economic downturn AND most experts believe such drastic cuts would push the Bush Great Recession to untold lows are all irrelevant. What matters most is looking tough on “the profligate waste of Washington” while protecting corporate interests. Between the unfounded belief that the economy is already healthy again and the Republicans being seemingly hellbent on driving the economy off a cliff, things aren’t looking good for the American economy. It cannot be sustained as it is now without it becoming more battered than your average Lifetime Movie of the Week protagonist.

I’m certain that by this point, my readers, you’re saying to yourselves “So if the economy’s so bad, then what should be done to fix it? Where are your ideas, Mr. Big Shot?” My first response, my readers, is “I’m getting there. Hold up a second.” It’s taken several months, but I’ve assembled a six-part plan for a complete overhaul of the American economy. This is the first of what I intend to be a six-part series (because trying to put all of this into one post would likely result in reader petrification). So, without further explication, let’s get started with the first, and arguably the most important, part:

1. Completely revamp the income tax system

I say “income” because I think at this point everyone knows that our system for corporate taxes is broken beyond repair and will likely never be fixed. If you didn’t already know that, I’d hope that seeing Exxon-Mobil, the most profitable company in history, receive A REFUND of over $100 million would be enough to convince you of that fact. So, since the corporate system stands roughly the same chance of being fixed as Colonel Qaddafi winning the Nobel Peace Prize, it is imperative that the income tax system be totally overhauled. This is usually around the time that the gnashing of teeth, stamping of feet, and shouting of poorly written slogans referencing an event the average American doesn’t fully comprehend begins. Any time the mention of changes to the tax system comes about, people freak out because they think they already pay too much in taxes. They’re wrong, for two reasons: 1, the average American pays fewer taxes than any other major mostly developed nation except Chile and Mexico (and America’s still in much better shape than either of those countries), and 2, marginal tax rates are at their lowest level since the Truman Administration. Furthermore, my tax plan would (much like the President’s plan, prior to the disgusting “compromise” in the lame duck session) result in either no change or a substantial DECREASE in taxes for most Americans, so unless a person is capable of swimming Scrooge McDuck-style through his or her wealth, this plan would be to that person’s benefit.

Here’s my idea, complete with comparisons to the current tax schedule (which you can see for yourself at irs.gov). For simplicity’s sake, I’ve determined everything based on an individual filing as Single:

From $0 to $8,375: 10% (Currently: 10%)
From $8,375 to $50,000: 15% (Currently: 15% to $34,000, 25% above)
From $50,000 to $150,000: 20% (Currently: 25% to $82,400, 28% above)
From $150,000 to $250,000: 25% (Currently: 28% to $171,850, 33% above)
From $250,000 to $500,000: 35% (Currently: 33% to $373,650, 35% above)
From $500,000 to $1,000,000: 40% (Currently: 35%)
From $1,000,000 to $3,000,000: 50% (Currently: 35%)
From $3,000,000 to $5,000,000: 60% (Currently: 35%)
From $5,000,000 to $10,000,000: 70% (Currently: 35%)
From $10,000,000 up: 75% (Currently: 35%)

As you can see, for the vast majority of people, there won’t be any real changes. Just in case you can’t see that, here’s a quick example. Your intrepid neighborhood blog writer earned roughly $32,500 last year in taxable income. Based on the current system, I owed the feds $4,456.25 (worry not for me, my readers; payroll deductions resulted in a refund this year). Based on my system, I would owe $4,456.25. That’s right: no change at all. I can live with that.

Let’s look at the young ingénue doctor just getting her feet wet after finishing her residency. We’ll make a conservative estimate of her earnings at about $120,000. Based on the current system, she’d have to pay $27,309.25 in taxes. My system? $21,081.25. That’s nearly $6,000 that can either go directly into the economy or towards getting out from under the avalanche of debt the average professional student must contend with following graduation. Doesn’t seem too shabby if you want to talk putting money back into people’s pockets, but I’ve presented my system as a means of both repairing the economy for the average American AND eradicating the deficit to generate the funds needed to propel the other changes I’ve got in store for parts 2 through 6 of this plan. At some point I’m going to need to generate a good deal more money, and cutting taxes, despite what Republicans have been saying for the last 30 years, does the exact opposite. Well, that’s where the major changes come into play.

For my final example, let’s have a look at the “busy” hedge fund manager who makes a killing in the market to the tune of $150,000,000 in annual salary (for the sake of this argument, let’s assume that he counts this as normal income and not capital gains…don’t worry, I’m getting to that soon). Under the current system, that fellow pays the federal government $52,477,643.75 in taxes. Seems like a decent amount, right? It’s nothing compared to what that fellow would pay under my system. Under my new tax brackets, this fellow would be looking at a bill of $111,039,581.30. That’s right; this fellow’s tax bill would more than double under my system. Our poor hedge fund manager would somehow have to survive on a meager thirty-nine million dollars a year. How will he manage? At these rates, just 100 people making exactly $150 million would generate nearly six billion dollars in one year in additional tax revenue. That’s just people making exactly that amount; given that in 2007 the top 400 earners in this country made an average of $345 million each and income disparity has only gotten worse since then, we could be talking upwards of $55 billion in one year in additional revenue from just 400 people.

“But wait! If the tax rate on millionaires is going to be so high, what’s the incentive in being a millionaire?” First off, let me remind all of you that, in our hedge fund manager example, $39 million is still an awful lot of money. It’s nearly three seasons under the contract LeBron James signed for taking his talents to South Beach. So clearly, our hedge fund manager is not going to be applying for food stamps any time soon. Secondly, part of the point of this plan is to deincentivize taking huge amounts of compensation and hoarding it. Once that money comes off a company’s books and goes into the employee’s hands, it’s gone for good and does nothing to further aid in the growth of the company. As long as that money stays in the company, however, it can go toward furthering the company’s goals, be they expansion to new markets, development of new products, investment in infrastructure, etc. Consider the following: A company’s CEO is currently taking home $250 million in compensation when this new tax system comes into effect. Knowing that most of that money will be lost to the government, will the members of the executive board of that company continue to be inclined to pay the CEO that much? Or will they instead try to funnel a larger portion of that money back into the company in the hopes of further growing profit margins? If that CEO’s pay drops just 40%, that puts him at the same level as our hedge fund manager with a final take-home number of $39 million, more than enough to buy another Bentley and continue lording his conspicuous consumption over his neighbors. By dropping his pay 40%, though, the company now has another $100 million to pour into other areas of the business. Maybe the company looks at replacing some of their equipment that’s begun to show its age (buying new equipment = work for the makers of said equipment = jobs = economic growth). Maybe the company looks into expanding production in the hopes of gaining a larger share of the Chinese market (higher production levels = more workers = jobs = economic growth). Before you jump to the conclusion that this proposal is comically idealistic, consider that this is how the business world used to work. The only reason things stopped working this way is because a washed-up movie star decided he wanted his corporate buddies to be richer than astronauts. It CAN be done this way, in many countries (I’m looking at you, Scandinavia) it IS done this way, and if we want to stop our slide into the gutter, it NEEDS to be done this way.

The second major target in my overhaul of our tax system is the estate tax. Currently, thanks to the “compromise” brokered between the President and the Slashonomists, the rate for any money passed on to heirs is 35%, following an exception of $5 million. That last part is the part Republicans don’t want the average American to know about. Under the current system, if a person’s net worth at the time of their death does not exceed $5 million, that person’s family pays no estate tax. As you might expect, most people aren’t worth $5 million dollars at the time of their death; in fact, less than half of 1% of estates currently qualify for having to pay any tax at all. If one listens to most Republicans, however, one would assume that everyone pays an exorbitant amount of “death tax” (as they are often want to call it). Multiple Republican senators have proposed eliminating the estate tax altogether, which would be beyond catastrophic for the Treasury. Consider the case of Dan Duncan, the richest man in Houston, who picked an exceedingly lucky year to die. When Mr. Duncan, with an estate worth roughly $9 billion, passed away, he did so during the one-year estate tax holiday introduced in the original Bush tax cuts. Because he died that year, his family paid no estate tax. Let me repeat that just so it sinks in a little more: Mr. Duncan’s heirs, who had done nothing to earn a cent of their inheritance, collected $9 billion tax-free. Had even the rudimentary current estate tax been in play, the feds would have collected $3,148,250,000. Had the 2001 estate tax been in play (55% with an exception to $675,000), the amount would have been $4,949,628,750. This family, clearly already worth an amount incomprehensible to the average American, received a tax cut of OVER THREE BILLION DOLLARS because an old man died at the right time. For perspective, the major sticking point in the NFL lockout is due to the owners’ insistence on one billion additional dollars. One family could have solved the labor issues in the NFL with just their estate tax break. That’s disgusting, and it should never happen again. That’s why my plan would require a sizable estate tax in the vein of the Clinton tax rate. I’m willing to cut a little more slack with exceptions, and I’d have no issue with maintaining a $5 million threshold. If you’re making enough money to have to pay the Paris Hilton Tax (which I’m advocating everyone use when discussing this tax from now on…people tend to react more favorably when they realize she’s going to be rich for being a member of the Lucky Sperm Club (in more ways than one)), though, you’re going to face a rate of 55%. To quote Theodore Roosevelt (a progressive Republican, which would be about as welcome in the Republican party today as Rush Limbaugh at a pharmaceutical trade fair), “Every dollar received should represent a dollar's worth of service rendered, not gambling in stocks but service rendered.” With this, I think America can more closely approach that goal.

Finally, the most hideous perversion (minus the entire corporate tax system, of course) of the tax code: the capital gains tax and its use by stockbrokers and hedge fund managers. Thanks to loopholes written into the tax code, people who generate most of their income through stock market transactions are now permitted to classify their entire income as capital gains, and thanks to the Bush tax cuts (noticing a theme?), the maximum rate for capital gains is 15%. Think about that for a second; if you make more than $34,000 under the current tax system, you pay a higher tax rate than a stockbroker who makes $3 million. If our sample hedge fund manager counts all $150 million of his earnings as capital gains, he’d only pay $22.5 million in taxes. That’s absurd. Now realize that this also counts for everyone who lives off the interest of sizable investments. A 60-something retired executive with no job can make millions in stock dividends, accumulated interest from any number of other investments, cash from property transactions, and real estate speculation and pay no more than 15%. What a farce. To correct this, I would raise the capital gains tax by 200%, to a maximum rate of 45%. I’m aware that this isn’t perfect and could catch some people it isn’t intended to catch (seniors cashing in bonds, for example). There are ways to work around that, and by definition the maximum rate is just that: the most that could be levied. What matters most in the short-term is finally demanding a fair amount of tax be paid for these transactions.

I won’t even get into a few of the other ideas I’ve seen (a surtax on all income above $1 million, a miniscule transaction tax on all stock market trades and transactions) because most of you are probably already asleep. Suffice it to say, though, that while further changes still may well be necessary to get our economy going again, restore our budget to workable levels of debt, and curtail the rampancy of corporate greed, I think this is a good start. Something needs to be done soon, and I see no reason that this couldn’t be that something (well, besides the unrelenting opposition by the Republican drones at the behest of their corporate overlords). When an individual considers a budget, there are always two aspects to discuss: expenses and revenues. The Republicans have placed all kinds of focus on the expense side of the equation. Why can’t the revenue side be part of the discussion as well?

Next time: trade policies and American businesses, Or, Why Protectionism Isn’t a Bad Word

Gutless Obstructionist Punks

When you were younger, did you ever know someone who, when presented with the itinerary for his/her selected group of friends, would stamp his/her feet, hold his/her breath, and adamantly refuse to do anything unless the plan was changed to meet his/her every specification? Someone who believed that compromise equaled “We’re doing it my way or we’re not doing anything?” Someone who always got his/her way just because it was easier than trying to reason with them? I would assume most of you did, and I would also assume that most of you found that person aggravating at best and downright loathsome at worst.

Who would have guessed that that child would grow up to become the entire modern Republican Party?

Yes, I did just compare an entire political party to a single spoiled, rancorous, unlikable child. Given the party’s platform and choice of action (read: inaction) for the last 22 months, I think it’s an apt comparison. Today’s GOP makes no pretence about their objective: their only interest is in regaining power, all others be damned. What’s the quickest way to regain power? Win elections. How do you win elections these days? Convince the electorate that the “other guy” is doing a lousy job. How best to do so? Ensure that nothing gets done, for if nothing gets done, then the people in charge must not be interested in working.

It’s a simple plan, and has been since Karl Rove laid it out following the GOP’s decimation in the 2008 election: make every bit of progress unbelievably difficult. The American public is, by and large, the laziest and dumbest electorate on the planet, and as such only knows as much about Congress as they saw on The West Wing or Schoolhouse Rock. When the public is clamoring for help and demanding action, they don’t know that one side is making even the tiniest issue an impossible mountain to climb; all they understand is that Congress is sitting on their rears not doing what the taxpayers pay them to do. It’s amazing how easily a lack of action can then be turned into a talking point: “The average American is in trouble, and what’s the Democratic Congress doing about it? Nothing!”

How did they accomplish this? How did they turn a public that overwhelmingly supported the Democrats following President Obama’s election into the most anti-incumbency electorate since the days of FDR? Simple: through arcane senatorial procedures and an unprecedented use of the filibuster. The filibuster has historically been used to prevent votes on controversial bills or to force further debate; while historically its use has been associated with preventing social progress, it can be a legitimate weapon for the minority to check the power of the majority and stop poor decisions from being made (as Senator Smith will attest). However, the Republicans now wield the filibuster like a fencer swinging a claymore. Anything and everything of any consequence in the Senate now requires a supermajority for passage, as the Republicans threaten requiring a cloture vote on every piece of legislation. This unprecedented use has slowed progress in the Senate to a crawl and even led to an unconscionable delay in unemployment benefits, the extension of which had never before been politicized in a time of recession. The only reason that benefit extension finally made it through the Senate is because Robert Byrd, whose illness had kept him from the Senate floor, died and his replacement was capable of providing the 60th vote. Maybe it’s just me, but when someone has to DIE for a bill to get passed, it would seem that there’s a fundamental flaw in the manner in which a governing body conducts itself.

The supermajority requirement is just the tip of the iceberg. Senate rules allow for senators to place holds on pretty much anything they want: presidential nominations, bills, steam trays in the Congressional cafeteria (joking about the last one, maybe). While an ordinary hold requires the senator to claim it and present a reason for the hold, secret holds allow any senator to do the same thing without claiming the hold or providing a reason for it for up to 6 days, at which point the senator must either claim it or release the hold. In a typical session of Congress, secret holds come up from time to time, again typically on more controversial matters (often times in the past they were used on controversial judicial nominees). In the current session of Congress, nearly every nomination has faced at least one secret hold, and some have faced multiple secret holds (in what some have dubbed “congressional roulette,” one senator can release their secret hold and have another secret hold be immediately placed on the same nomination by another senator). What’s worse is that nearly all of these holds are on nominees with completely noncontroversial backgrounds, nominees that came through committee with no dissent, nominees that ultimately are confirmed by sizable margins if not unanimously. Judicial vacancies are now at critical levels. Vital government departments are lacking the employees (and in some cases, the leaders) they need to function at full strength. The country becomes a little bit weaker every day that passes without these nominations making it through, and for what? The power to drive the country back off a cliff?

What bothers me the most, though, are the uses of bizarre, previously unused Senate conventions for the sole purpose of stopping anything from happening. For example, the Republicans have invoked on several occasions a never-before-used statute that requires the Senate, whenever there is not unanimous consent to continue, to halt all work and adjourn immediately. Think about that. The average daily session of the Senate starts somewhere between 9 and 10 AM. This rule forces the end of work in as little as 4 hours. Imagine trying that at your place of work, my readers, and then imagine the unemployment line you’d inevitably end up in. This has resulted in the delay and even cancellation of several important committee meetings, including at least one meeting of the Armed Services committee in which several major generals traveled half the length of the globe specifically to give testimony. Here we have an example of the party that allegedly are the only ones that can keep America safe from terrorists deliberately acting in a way to put America at risk. Why doesn't anyone call them on it?

I'm sure by this point some of you are wondering why, if the Republicans are so eager to regain power, they don't just present their own ideas to an increasingly skeptical and short-sighted public. To make a long story short, the answer is that they don't have any ideas. Just have a look at some of the amendments they proposed for the health insurance reform bill. Only two of those amendments weren't already covered in the bill, and neither had anything to do with the debate at all. How about having a look at their objections to Wall Street reforms? Each objection specifically targets an area that can be directly linked to aspects of the financial collapse and economic degradation of the last three years, and each objection could only benefit the fraudulent, irresponsible white collar criminal bankers whose high-risk, greed-soaked actions caused this whole mess in the first place. Or how about we look at the current House Minority Leader's economic plan? Immediate cutoffs of all stimulus spending, dramatic slashing of funding for federal programs across the board...sounds like a great way to kill any growth, no matter how small, that's come out of the last 12 months. But hey, at least we don't have to worry about taxes going up for the rich. That makes me feel so much better, because keeping taxes low on the rich has worked so well every time it's been tried for the last, oh, FOREVER (end sarcasm). No matter what the issue, the Republicans just don't have any viable answers to solve it. So what do you do when you don't have any ideas and want to win? You set up roadblocks to prevent your opponent from having any success. You drag everything out and fight tooth and nail to cripple or bury necessary legislation. You abandon any pretext of caring about your constituents for the sole purpose of scoring points with the corporate bigwigs that run your party and hope that the voters are too stupid to notice.

The most disgusting aspect of this? It's working. Polls suggest that the Republicans will most likely gain control of the House and cut into the Democratic majority in the Senate substantially. This would appear to be irrefutable proof that the American public is, as I said before, the laziest and dumbest electorate on the planet. At the very least, it stands as a testament to what Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone calls "the American voter's unmatched ability to forget what happened to him 10 seconds ago." If there has ever been a greater indictment of how pathetic, how slothful, how unwilling to seek the truth we have become, I can't think of it. We are no longer a nation of free-thinkers, of knowledgeable human beings determined to do what's right for the good of the country. Now we are a nation that needs to be spoon-fed its opinion on everything, because learning the truth is hard work, and we stopped doing hard work a long time ago. Why waste time searching for the right answer when the ranting crying Mormon on the TV can tell me what the right answer is?

No more. We cannot continue like this. People constantly invoke the Founding Fathers to justify any crazy philosophy they have, be it on gun control or policing internet pornography. Well, there is one thing that the founders were undeniably, adamantly in favor of: a well-informed, rational, reasoning electorate. That's why I call on all of you to stop believing what you hear and find out for yourselves. Do the legwork and find out just how little these bullies have done to help us out of this quagmire. Dig a little deeper and see the roadblocks they've put in the way of national healing. Switch over to C-SPAN for a few minutes and watch these empty-headed goons go through the same talking points they've been harping on since last February. And for the country's sake, don't reward these spoiled brats on November 2nd for their constant threats to take their ball and go home.

These children need to be grounded. I implore you, America. Be smarter than this. Work harder than this. It's time to lay down some discipline.