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Comic Strip of the Day

CSotD: GOP banking on Stockholm Syndrome in 2012

Published: September 2, 2011 1 minute 7 comments

Siers
Well, Eric Cantor seems willing to back up his heartless insanity, I'll give him that. Kevin Siers has the best take on a situation that is a part of something that will make future generations scratch their heads.

I think most people know that we're not talking a few wet basements here in NH/VT. We've got homes destroyed, cars and bridges washed down rivers, crops wiped out, entire shopping centers now facing the wrecking ball in the wake of Irene.

Vt-standard When the paper I came here to edit closed its doors, my assistant editor Gwen found work as #1 at the Vermont Standard, a little weekly just down the road in Woodstock, Vermont. At the height of the storm, she was updating their web site constantly with news of what roads were closed, what bridges had washed out, a call for firefighters with tractors to come help stem the flooding in one area.

She even leaned out the window to shoot video of the river below, bless her heart, before it knocked the building off its foundation.

You can see, they are still updating the website and have sworn to get the print edition out on schedule. That's old-fashioned community-serving Lou Grant Perry White journalism, by the way, for those not old enough to remember when it was, as the paper's name suggests, the "standard."

It's not extinct, mind you. The photo here is from an online effort, VtDigger, which has this heartbreaking rundown of what is at stake in the Green Mountain State and who is standing in the way.

To bring it back to cartooning, Alison Bechdel posted this blog entry on her experience, which is that, like many of us in the region, she sat on a hillside without power, wondering what else was going on. But read the comments from her friends and neighbors, because they will give you a very good picture of the conversations we've all had in recent days. (By the way, I'm up on a hill and didn't even lose power. Breaks of the game.)

The Center for Cartoon Studies, in White River Junction, Vt., is enough up from the river to have been spared, but its Schulz Library is (was?) on the banks of the river and, as the water went above normal flood levels and started approaching the unprecedented, students and supporters turned out to haul away the collection.

The collection was rescued undamaged but, as shown on the library blog, now they are boxing up the books and wondering where the library will be when everything is resolved and they know whether the building will be cleaned or demolished.

By the way, for those who persist in comparing government economics to family budgets, here's what we do out here when a neighbor needs help: We pitch in. We pass the coffee can around and we put in as much as we can.

Yes, even the wealthiest among us. It's not "charity," except in the religious sense. In common, day-to-day parlance, it's what we call "decency."

So Michele Bachmann made a crack the other day about the earthquake and the hurricane being messages from God that we'd better start listening. She got big laughs, except perhaps from the 40 dead in the wake of Irene.

But I would remind her that the epicenter of that earthquake was in Eric Cantor's congressional district. If you do believe God speaks directly to us, well, you've got to wonder how direct He needs to be.

As for those whose faith is more earthly, this could be our "have you no decency" moment, the moment when what has been going on in this country snaps into focus and we awaken, shocked at our own excesses, and then change direction back to a more civilized level.

Or it might not.

After all, we have a deficit to address. We have to get our economy back in balance. We can't simply shell out money to everyone who wants some.

And I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody outside of Vermont, rural New York, parts of New Jersey and a few other places.

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Comments 7

  1. With a lot of sadness at my loss of 45 – 50 years of belief/hope that people will always eventually come to their senses and things will get better, I predict … it will not.
    As you wrote a few weeks ago, Bachmann should be a laughing stock. Even as I am going more and more cynical, I am absolutely, positively stunned people believe she is competent to be the President of the United States. How did this happen?

  2. Sorry Mike. I gotta disagree on two counts.
    First, we are headed for a huge fiscal disaster if we don’t get our spending problems under control. That fiscal disaster will occur over years…if not decades….and impact more people in a far more substantial manner than the very serious flooding that occurred during Irene. We can make hard choices now and save ourselves from larger disaster later on, or we can make easy choices now and fall behind the rest of the world in another decade, give or take.
    Mr. Cantor made the easy choice to support funding relief efforts for those impacted by Irene.
    He is also doing the responsible thing by insisting that we also make the hard choices to limit spending and get our fiscal house in order.
    “Heartless insanity” is continuing to spend beyond our means in complete disregard of the future consequences.
    Second….and as you know I’m a radical this way….it’s charity if we’re passing the coffee can asking for donation. It’s theft someone’s holding a gun. I’ve never heard of an IRS agent armed with a coffee can.

  3. I’ve never heard of a Christian who had to be forced to be charitable at gunpoint. Or, I hadn’t until the current crop of hypocritical blasphemers grabbed center stage and began to do to the crucifix what they’ve already done to the flag.

  4. Dann,
    I completely agree we have to get our financial house in order and that will mean sacrifice for all – but not for people who have been subjected to a true natural disaster. But, let’s get to the real issue here.
    Getting our house in order must include increased revenue through closing industry, and even company, specific loopholes/deductions … and increased taxes/loss of deductions and loopholes for the wealthiest 1%. The IRS reported this spring that the effective tax rate paid by the 400 richest Americans dropped from 26 percent to 17 percent from 1992 to 2007.
    Will Cantor or you support such revenue increases? Where is the sacrifices for the top 1%?
    If someone will not support revenue increases, it is not about fiscal responsibility. It is about politics and power to avoid civic responsibility.

  5. Bingo, Dave. I’m not against paying for things — wars, for example. The idea that increased revenues are off the table and only cuts are an acceptable strategy is not simply unfair but objectively illogical and foolish.
    The “family budget” metaphor is silly, but as long as the GOP is using it, there are plenty of people who, as teenagers, not only had to get jobs to pay for their own fun, but who chipped in to help the family with basic costs.
    When things get tough, yes, we look for savings. But we also look for opportunities. And again, in a functioning society, decent people don’t have to be forced to contribute.

  6. A multiple-choice question for the flag-and-crucifix crowd:
    According to your Bible, what did Christ have to say about taxation?
    a) Render unto Caesar nothing, for Caesar is the shadow of evil.
    b) Render unto Caesar as little as possible, so that you might render more unto God.
    c) Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.
    d) Render unto Caesar both of thy nether cheeks.

  7. @Mike – I’m not sure where you are going with your response regarding “charitable giving at gunpoint”. But the fact is that conservative households have, on average, less income and give, on average, more money to charities. Supporting fiscal sanity has nothing to do with being uncharitable.
    @Dave – I’ve seen no one suggesting that we shouldn’t have a significant federal response to Irene.
    Unlike some folks, I agree that tax increases…or simplifications…or something will have to be part of any solution. I am partial to the FAIR tax approach, but that is another story.
    My problem is that getting actual spending cuts is like getting cake. We can have cake tomorrow and cake yesterday but never cake today. I remain opposed to tax increases until the spending cuts are made in the current budget (not the ‘out’ years). Raising taxes is the easy part. Sometimes we have to eat our peas! Cut spending, cut it deep, and then we’ll talk about taxes.
    Not meaning to be overly critical, but your tax ‘facts’ aren’t factual.
    In 2008, the top 1% of income earners earned had 20% of the AGI reported on federal tax returns. They paid over 38% of the income taxes paid. That is a “fair share” in my book.
    There were 140 returns filed that represent the top 0.1% of income earners in 2008. There were 1400 returns files that represent the top 1% of income earners in the same year. It took ~$380k in income to break into the top 1% in 2008.
    The effective income tax rate for the top 1% fell from 25.05% 1992 to 22.45% in 2007. It went back up to 23.27% for 2008. They weren’t tracking the top 0.1% in 1992, but their effective income tax rate was 22.70% in 2008.
    As a comparison, the effective income tax rate for the bottom 50% of earners fell from 4.39% to 2.59% over the same period. Effective tax rates fell in every other category as well.
    http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html#Data
    If you look at that data long enough, you will see that there just isn’t enough money in the top 1% to solve our fiscal problems. If we take every dollar after the first $250k from the top 1%, there won’t be enough to cover our current projected deficits.
    Of course, that sort of taxation tends to cause wealthy people to move their money and their place of residency overseas toot-sweet!
    Are we going to have to raise taxes to solve this mess? Sure.
    But the mess was caused by overspending. Not under-taxation. The best way to solve it is by cutting spending….first.

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