Beware the Bathtub

Taxation as Theft?
Like a bad movie, the neocon zombies just keep coming. Here we are, less than a month after the historic inauguration of Barack Obama, and just when you thought it was safe to ignore these zombies, they still still walk on, droning the monotonous mantra: "More tax cuts, less spending!" over and over and over...

The harmless-looking fellow pictured here is Grover Norquist. I had to search Google to find the name of the person credited with the infamous quote:

I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.

One might think that the last 8 years of failed policy would have put a nail in that coffin, but just like a contract killer, whose employer may have changed his mind, the killer continues the quest. Even with the country in the grips of the worst recession since the Great Depression, there has been a near-total opposition to Obama's stimulus plan, a plan almost all economists (Democrat and Republican) agree is necessary. It seems like the neocons are on a kamikaze mission. They can't let Obama's plan succeed, because it represents the triumph, in their eyes, of socialism over the so-called free market. They would rather we all go down in flames than give the government a chance to put people to work. Obama has had to revert to pre-election town halls to keep the pressure on these politicians to do something. Meanwhile, the stimulus package gets watered down, and spending programs (dubbed "pork" by the conservative media) get cut.

Meanwhile, back here in California, another group of robots has control of the state budget. Due to the legacy of Prop 13, new taxes must be approved by 2/3 of the state legislature. So, a small band of Republicans has held the California budget hostage every year, even with a large Democratic majority. The media seems unwilling to confront head-on the notion that taxes are inherently bad, that for some reason we shouldn't have to pay for government in bad times. Who the h-e-double hockey sticks do they expect to pay for things?

Dig this, there's even some very literal talk of denying the New Deal even worked. If they repeat these lies enough times, it must come true.

Do whatever you can to support the government actually being allowed to help.

What a concept, the government being actually

of the people, by the people, for the people