Take This Tax Cut...and SHOVE IT!!!

By Si Dunn

I managed to retire just in time. But now, some of my limited income and retirement savings are being used to help keep some of my adult children afloat.

They absolutely need a helping hand right now from the Bank of Dad. (Memo to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner: Dude, I may need TARP funds soon.)

I'm also hearing from friends now doing the same thing. All across America, millions of branches of the Bank of Dad and the Bank of Mom are bleeding capital.

Their grown kids are out of work, out of health care coverage and having to quit college for lack of money. And their new-job prospects are zero. They fill out application after application and add them to thick stacks of other applications piling up for the same low-end, no-benefits position.

To the Republicans currently fighting tooth and nail (gold tooth and manicured nail, of course) against President Obama's economic recovery package, I have just one thing to say: Take all of your pet tax cuts...and shove 'em where the sun don't shine.

The need for jobs is NOW. The need for health care assistance is NOW. The need for more college funding is NOW. The repairs to crumbling infrastructure need to be done NOW.

And the money needs to be there NOW, not sometime in 2010 or 2011 or 2012, if it miraculously trickles down at all. Millions of people are hurting, scared and worried...NOW...and they need help and reassurance...NOW.

How will one your prized tax cuts feed their family tonight? How will a tax cut pay for their doctor visit and prescription medications tomorrow? How will a tax cut keep a son or daughter from dropping out of college next Monday?

Senators and Congresspersons, what part of NOW do you not understand?

Clearly, you don't venture much outside the Beltway, nor outside your cozy, socially-insulated clubs of well-off friends. Your advisors feed you just what you want to hear: Everything's rosy and another tax cut will make life even better.

President Obama went to Elkhart, Indiana, and held a town hall meeting in a city where unemployment is now approaching 16 percent. He answered stimulus and tax cut questions and tried to reassure Americans that we can get through this very real crisis if we work together.

What have you, Republicans on Capitol Hill, done lately for middle-class and lower-class Americans...except to stretch out their pain, heighten their fear and feed their sense of uncertainty with your stalling tactics, posturing speeches, and appalling yammerings about "tax cuts" and "pork."

There are now hundreds of thousands of Americans who would dearly love to have some pork--just a few slices--at their dinner table tonight.

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One Man's 'Pork' Is Another Man's Movie Project That Creates Jobs

By Si Dunn

The leaders of the Ridiculous Republicans have just published a list of what they consider "wasteful" spending in the Senate's version of an economic stimulus bill.

Near the top of their list is a "$246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film," according to CNN.

Wait a minute. Aren't the Ridiculous Republicans all about reducing taxes? Are they now labeling a tax cut as "pork"?

Clearly they don't understand anything about the movie business.

Number one, it's expensive to make a movie, especially with film. And, despite all of the great digitial advances in recent years, film remains a very beautiful and viable medium for making movies. Movies made with film still look better than movies made digitally. And using film forces better planning and efficiency on the set. You don't just turn on a camera and let it run for two hours while people horse around and do 32 takes of one scene.

A tax break on the cost of film means a producer can put more money elsewhere into his or her production. That means more crew members can be hired. And at least some of the film specialists at post-production labs get to keep their jobs.

Producers who buy film also help keep employees of film manufacturing companies and film processing labs both productive and earning money for their companies.

Things definitely have not been great at Kodak lately. Some of the survivors of recent Kodak layoffs no doubt are now looking to Congress for help with keeping their jobs. Selling more movie film would keep at least some of them employed.

With a tax break on film sales, film editors get more work. Camera operators and focus pullers with experience on film cameras get more work. Lighting crews with experience on film projects get more work. Other members of production crews also get more work.

Jobs are created, and jobs are saved.

This is exactly the sort of economic stimulus that is needed now. And the Ridiculous Republicans are--to put it gently--scurrilous scoundrels and running dogs for opposing it.

You can't incessantly run around screaming "Tax cuts! Tax cuts! Tax cuts!" to the heavens and the moon and then oppose a tax break that both saves and creates jobs in a time of frighteningly high unemployment.

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McCain-Palin Ticket Is Now Imploding, Right Along with the Economy

By Si Dunn

Hey, it's your stupid economy, Republican leadership.

Your promises of more tax cuts and more "market solutions" now are falling on deaf ears as terrified voters suddenly realize they are facing what one prominent retail analyst has warned will be the “worst Christmas shopping season in a century."

Layoffs are surging. Families are losing their homes, their health care and their savings. And many large and small businesses are toppling into the massive financial wreckage you created by overdoing deregulation, then encouraging (and allowing) too much risk and greed.

You can't save yourselves now with wild-ass claims that Barack Obama is a terrorist or that overturning Roe v. Wade will create 20 million new jobs.

The uncommitted voters are waking up, taking a long, hard look at the vacuity of your platform and fleeing in terror toward the Democrats. Or, they are just fleeing. Either way, you ain't gonna get their vote, Jack. And you're gonna lose big-time among the contested seats in the Senate and House, as well.

Ordinary people finally are figuring out--after years of partisan gridlock--that "divided we fall." The momentum is shifting toward one-party rule again, and this time, the Grand Old Party will be marched outside the velvet rope.

The McCain-Palin ticket has bailed out of Michigan, and it's now starting to get its butts kicked in the polls in Ohio, Virginia and a few other key "battleground" states.

In desperation, the GOP is sending its Swift Boats out to attack. But all they are doing is colliding with each other and smashing into big walls of voter rejection and fatigue. William Ayers? Who cares? What about my job, my savings, my house, my Christmas?

Obama-Biden may not be the best governance team on the planet. But compared with the bizarre and twisted package the Republicans have put forth, they are far and away the best and the brightest for these troubled times.

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John McCain to Fight Global Warming by Cutting Earth's Atmosphere

By Si Dunn

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Building on his promise to preserve and extend George W. Bush's tax cuts for wealthy Americans, Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced today that he will fight global warming by removing 50 percent of the nitrogen from Earth's atmosphere by 2012.

"It's mostly an inert gas, folks. It just floats there, takes up space, and does nothing to contribute to economic growth," McCain declared at an impromptu press conference near the Lone Sailor statue at Washington's Navy Memorial. "So we're gonna suck it straight out of the sky and start creating more room for carbon and other aerial byproducts of a robust, growing economy."

To avoid a nitrogen glut, McCain also announced a plan to encourage automakers to voluntarily retrofit existing SUVs and other gas-guzzling vehicles to run on nitrogen by 2058. "Yeah, the cars will be pretty old by then," McCain conceded. "But if they are kept up on blocks in a decent garage, they can provide affordable transportation and housing for the poor--housing that the federal government won't have to subsidize--fifty years from now. What low-income family wouldn't want the chance to live in a classic Ford Expedition or Chevy Suburban or Lincoln Navigator and also drive it around burning almost-free nitrogen?"

A spokesman for the Obama campaign had no immediate comment. But a well-placed Obama consultant hinted that the Democratic contender may now be working on a plan to reduce hot-air emissions inside the Beltway. "He'll say that we deserve a cooler government. And the best way to get it is to reduce Republicans in the House and Senate by 60 percent, or more, by 2012."

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Republicans Promise FREE Gas for All!!!

By Si Dunn

CBS News has reported that Republicans once again have blocked Democratic efforts to tax bloated oil profits and use some of the money to fund research and development of alternative energy sources.

The Republicans apparently have a new energy plan of their own. And here are some key details, leaked exclusively to Dateline: Oblivion by sources deep within the GOP.

"Making President Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans permanent, at least into the 29th century, will drive down gasoline prices by $3 a gallon immediately," one high-level Republican promised.

"And if drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve in Alaska is approved and made permanent," another top-level source added, "gas prices will drop by at least another $3 a gallon, right away."

Asked if this means what it seems to mean, yet another top-level GOP policy wonk grinned enthusiastically. "That's absolutely right! If gasoline prices stay below $6 a gallon, the federal government then will have to start paying you to drive! Is this a great plan or what? All you have to do is let us extend a few little bitty ole tax cuts out toward infinity--which ain't nothin' but an '8' tipped on its side, anyway--and then kick a few mangy seals and caribou out of the way. Next thing you'll know, you'll be topping off your Hummer again and getting rebate checks every time you fill up!"

Sources equally deep within the Democratic Party said they are aware of the secret Republican energy plan. "We have moles--secret Obama admirers, in fact--already at work within their ranks. Whether they try to bring this scheme up for a vote before the November election or after President Obama is inaugurated, it will be toast. We'll even stage a big photo opportunity and cook it in a solar oven, to save energy," the Democratic source declared.

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Bush on Climate Change: Better Never Than Late?

By Si Dunn

With barely nine months left in his lame-duck presidency, George W. Bush is set to propose a “new strategy” for reducing greenhouse gases.

Details have not yet leaked out. But some pundits predict Bush will proclaim that making his tax cuts permanent is the only way to save the planet from thermal runaway. Others speculate that he will call upon all environmentalists to “surge.” Or, he may send Condoleezza Rice on a secret mission to meet with dissident Chinese climatologists.

More boldly, however, Bush may order a preemptive nuclear strike on water vapor, which causes more of the greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide does. That way, if we can’t have victory in Iraq, maybe we can at least have some serious shock and awe… in the stratosphere.

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