The Seriously Deluded Right

     I remember a Seinfeld episode in which the character George Costanza tells off his boss and quits his job, only to regret his rash act later. He decides to report for work Monday morning as if nothing happened. He thought if he bought the lie that his boss and co-workers would as well. I recently thought about this episode while listening to some on the right, especially radio talk show host Michael Medved, as they tried to pretend that the Republicants bested the President and Congressional Democrats in the recent fiscal cliff deal.
     The seriously deluded Mr. Medved theorized that since the current tax rates were going to remain the same for 98% of taxpayers, somehow that meant that George W. Bush, and by extension the feckless Republicants in Congress, were the big winners. He further suggested that separating the tax issue from the spending issue somehow magically gave the Republicants the upper hand in the upcoming sequestration/debt ceiling debate. I am disheartened to see my fellow Conservatives be so deluded that they refuse to accept reality. Their desire to live in a fantasy world they wished existed, instead of the real one that does exist, further contributes to the Republicant party and the country being destroyed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats.
     The Republicants lost the fiscal cliff debate because the President and Congressional Democrats were able to divert the debate from dealing with the real problem of spending and shift the focus to the manufactured problem of taxes. Raising the tax rates on individuals making over 400k a year and couples making over 450k a year is going to raise 60 billion dollars a year in revenue. When the Federal government is spending 1 trillion dollars more than it brings in every year, 60 billion dollars is only about 6% of that deficit. The Republicants bought into the false assumption that any tax increase would actually be used to reduce the deficit, even that measly amount. The President already has plans to spend that increase and more. In fact President Obama and Congressional Democrats are already talking about raising taxes even more.
     As for Mr. Medved's assertion that somehow John Boehner's latest cave-in forces the President and Congressional Democrats to deal with their over-spending, it's a complete fantasy created by people who want to believe that you win by losing. In the real world, the President and Congressional Democrats are the ones who have won the public relations battle and by virtue of having done so, have the upper hand in any upcoming debates. I can tell you with one hypenated word what is going to happen in the sequestration/debt ceiling debate, cave-in. The Republicants are going to give the President exactly what he wants, just as they did in the fiscal cliff debate and every other debate that has taken place over the last two years. The President's real goal for the fiscal cliff was to get the Republicants to break their tax pledge, which they did with abandon.
     The larger issue in this debate is that those on my side of the aisle like Mr. Medved continue to buy the manufactured crisis of the Left and then are soothed by a "solution" that puts the country in a worse position. Some on the Right are mollified by the fact that tax rates on 98% of taxpayers will not change, that will only last up until the point that they do change. Meanwhile the Medheads are celebrating some bizarre victory that they have twisted themselves into pretzels to create. By the way, pretending that reality doesn't exist didn't work out for George Costanza either, in the end he was left without his job.

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