Although you wouldn’t know it by listening to them, Republicans did lose the election.
At least I think they did.
Mitch McConnell, the lead saboteur who failed to sabotage Obama’s chances of reelection, fired off a statement to one of the most virulent right-wing websites in the country, Breitbart, and said this:
One issue I’ve never been conflicted about is taxes. I wasn’t sent to Washington to raise anybody’s taxes to pay for more wasteful spending and this election doesn’t change my principles. This election was a disappointment, without doubt, but let’s be clear about something: the House is still run by Republicans, and Republicans still maintain a robust minority in the Senate. I know some people out there think Tuesday’s results mean Republicans in Washington are now going to roll over and agree to Democrat demands that we hike tax rates before the end of the year. I’m here to tell them there is no truth to that notion whatsoever.
Everyone knows that McConnell’s Kentucky senate seat is up next time, and since the only thing that matters to him is political power, the first thing he has to do to keep the little power he has is to make sure teapartiers don’t challenge him in a Republican primary. Thus, he has to grovel before them like the low-life reprobate he is.
In any case, the President is supposed to deliver a “fiscal cliff” speech today to address the confluence of budget dilemmas that face the country at the end of this year.
I obviously don’t know what he will say publicly, but here is what he should say privately to Mitch McConnell:
I won. Despite your best efforts to screw me and the country over, I won. And Democrats won. There are now more of us in the Senate. Sorry about that. I know you were counting on being Majority Leader. Ain’t gonna happen. Live with it. In fact, you may have a tough time getting elected next time against that Democratic fox Ashley Judd.
In any case, here’s the deal: Your party does still control the House. I’ll give you that. But that doesn’t entitle you to get your way. You see, I campaigned on raising taxes on those who are prospering. I told folks that’s what I wanted to do. And I’m gonna do it. And you can threaten me with that fiscal cliff bullshit all you want. I ain’t having it. If you want to go there, if you want to risk all those Pentagon cuts, hell, if you want to shut down the whole damned government, all in service to your rich friends and to those Tea Party creeps, so be it.
But I’ll tell you this: I will visit every bleeping town in Kentucky, from Bowling Green to Butcher Holler, from Louisville to Lick Creek, and tell them what you are doing. I’ll tell them that you are willing to wreck the country just to give Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers tax breaks. I’ll tell them you would rather see taxes go up on middle class folks in Kentucky than give one inch in your quest to let rich Republicans keep a few more dollars.
And I’ll tell them just how slimy you are, just what you have tried to do.
You won’t get your way this time. I’ve got nothing to lose politically. Can’t you see that? Those tax rates on the rich, the ones that existed when Bill Clinton was president and the country was prosperous, they are going to go back up, Senator. And if you want to stand in the way of that necessary first step in getting our fiscal house in order, then I’m going to run right over you.
See ya when negotiations start.
The Erstwhile Conservative: A Blog of Repentance 
thgeneralist
/ November 9, 2012I think I see a little yellow puddle forming just below the cuff of Mitchie’s right pant leg.
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R. Duane Graham
/ November 13, 2012The Dems can make him largely irrelevant with some new filibuster rules that can be implemented at the start of next year’s session.
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writer89
/ November 9, 2012If he’s smart, he’ll know this without the President having to say it. But, on second thought, he’s not that bright. In Kentucky, he’s a genius. Not so much everywhere else.
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Jane Reaction
/ November 9, 2012Jane is going to send this to Senator McConnell-KY(Jelly) along with some specific instructions for insertion. Into the Congressional Record of course.
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thgeneralist
/ November 9, 2012Duane, Writer 89, Jane, et al —
What’s to keep the last veins of sanity in the GOP from firing Mitch. He’s not competent. Everyone knows that. He spent 4 years accomplishing almost no real legislative work. He said his main job was to see Obama defeated. He failed. And retake the Senate. He failed.
Even people in KY are questioning his bona fides. If the GOP wants to have a chance at holding more than 40 Senate seats in 2014, they’d be smart to dump his sorry ass on the bench now. I believe the Dems will get out the vote in the mid-term race and figure out how to pick off another half dozen Senatorial spots.
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Yellow Dog
/ November 9, 2012General, shhhh. We got ’em dumbed down don’t blow it. We Democrats have got more elections to win. The Republicans are absolutely clueless as to what they did wrong and our job is to keep it that way. I don’t tell ’em nothing. Let them figure it out. I just want the liberals to hush up.
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R. Duane Graham
/ November 13, 2012Yellow Dog,
You’ve got a point. And it will be much fun watching them try to “figure it out,” although I don’t think they will until after the next election.
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brucetheeconomist
/ November 9, 2012I think relative to current law rates go up next year on their own. McConnel can call what ever is passed a ‘tax cut’ or at least not an increase, thus saving some face and arguably keep his promise above. Let’s hope he does.
I imagine you won’t agree Duane, but I do think making a decision about balancing the budget into one about increasing taxes on the high incomes was a mistake. Don’t forget that the implementation of the health reform act will also result in higher taxes on high income people, pushing their overall tax rate beyond where it was under Clinton. It is what the President promised in 2008 though, so he gets credit there.
I believe in progressive taxation, but that doesn’t mean that if a little progression is good, still more is better.
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R. Duane Graham
/ November 13, 2012Bruce,
Political campaigns naturally have to round off the corners of policy prescriptions. Folks don’t focus on the details all that much and it would be foolish to try to explain the details of how just taxing wealthy people won’t solve all our fiscal problems. Obama did say time and again that it was just a start, that it was a way of being fair, that it had to happen before we could ask folks on Medicare and Social Security to take a hit. I think he made that pretty clear, albeit in a necessarily simplistic way.
As for progressive taxation, when all taxes are considered, the tax burden isn’t all that progressive, in terms of percentage of income. We are a long way from overburdening the moneyed class.
Duane
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Jim Wheeler
/ November 9, 2012I like your suggested Obama message to McConnell, Duane, but have a small addition to suggest. When Obama visits Mitch’s backyard in Kentucky he will be emphasizing just how ridiculous the small-business-being-hurt argument is, thus exposing McConnell as the grasping toady for the greedy rich that he is . Consider this from a small-business owner in Portland Oregon:
This, in my opinion, is the argument the American people need to be exposed to in the starkest terms as the fiscal cliff nears.
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R. Duane Graham
/ November 13, 2012Damn, Jim!
That was great. Here’s the salient point he made distilled into one sentence:
That’s true of all businesses, big and small, and it is a point that needs to be made far and wide. Paul Krugman has been saying that ever since the Obama administration took office.
Granted, in a fit of pique, there are a few business folks who are overreacting to Obama’s victory by laying off workers, etc., but the bottom line is that it is consumer demand that drives this economy and thus drives business expansion and job growth.
Thanks for citing that small business guy with a brain.
Duane
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Troy
/ November 10, 2012BRAVO Jim! That says it all. The boys at the top just don’t get it. When people like us have money in our pockets we spend it; and guess what? Business thrives and the top boys get it all back.
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R. Duane Graham
/ November 13, 2012Troy,
“The top boys get it all back.” Yeah, that’s what makes it so hard to understand why they oppose government stimulus programs, when the economy is struggling. Poor and middle class folks don’t keep that money, they spend it and it goes into the pockets of business owners and shareholders, as well as into the pockets of their workers.
RDG
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Troy
/ November 10, 2012I agree Yellowdog. We shouldn’t be offering the republicans any ideas on how they can win any elections. F–k em………
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R. Duane Graham
/ November 13, 2012They won’t listen anyway. And if we offer them advice and they don’t take it we can laugh as they do down again.
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Troy
/ November 10, 2012And Duane maybe O, while in private, slap the jerk from Kanetucky a few times….
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R. Duane Graham
/ November 13, 2012I’ll tell you the truth, Troy, I don’t know he keeps from it. That guy is about as repulsive as a politician can be. The only guy who needs slapped as much as he does is the race-baiting John Sununu, who predicted that if Romney were to be the Republican nominee, Democrats wouldn’t even campaign in his state of New Hampshire! Smack!
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