DOWNGRADED - and we deserve it!

When the debt ceiling debates were happening, a friend of mine said that he hoped the U.S. defaulted because we deserved it. I agreed but I didn’t think the world deserved it. Now I think we got what we deserved, we’ve been downgraded. The U.S. is not acting like a world leader so why should we expect the world to continue to give us that title. I think every citizen has to take responsibility for the mess we are in. We have all been spending beyond our means. We haven’t demanded enough of our government to effectively regulate financial markets. We haven’t demanded enough from leaders of banks and corporations to act ethically. We also collectively have not done enough to respond to the obnoxiously loud and illogical demand of the Tea Party. The Tea Party helped push us to the brink of default in refusing to budge on their one demand, no taxes. The Tea Party got its way, no taxes, and now, no recovery either. What I don’t understand is why the Tea Party decided that taxes are the main issue of the day when the rich and big corporations haven’t been paying taxes all of this time anyway. According to Bloomberg, Google, Apple and other top profit making companies have avoided paying about $6 billion in taxes through legal loopholes that allow them to shift profits from the U.S. to Bermuda. IRS tax data for 2009 reveals that 1,400 millionaires paid no taxes in that year.

So why do the rich feel that taxes are what is holding back the economy when not only are many of them not paying taxes but they continue to benefit from Bush’s tax cuts that put capital gains and dividend tax rates at historical lows? Why do they want to undermine government revenues that have largely helped to bail them out when banks went bankrupt? Why do they want to continue to inflict deadly blows to the poor and elderly by demanding spending cuts on social programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security? And my greatest question is, why have more moderate Republicans and all of the Left and Independents not united in throwing a “Dump the Tea Party” Party? We ALL need to contribute to restoring our national economy and reputation for fiscal responsibility, even if it means paying taxes.