My good buddy Darroch Greer (a fine documentarian and learned historian) sent me an e-mail today that so perfectly expresses my own frustration with the Senate Minority Leader from Kentucky that I felt it should be shared with readers of this blog.
Here is Darroch’s message to Senator Mitch McConnell:
Dear Senator McConnell:
It is time for you to move forward or get out of the way. The American people are done with your obstructionist politics. You and Speaker Boehner are now more than ever the symbols of an entrenched, do-nothing congress. To whomever you are beholden, their interests are not serving the American people. What kind of legacy do you expect to have? You made your stand four years ago, and it has been nationally rejected. You have painted yourself into a corner, and your only chance for a decent record to reflect on with pride is to work with the president and the majority party to move the country forward. It is time for you to work for the interests of the country as a whole, and stop being an obstructionist to progress. Settle the budget and tax questions to the majority’s liking, support the Affordable Health Care Act, and move on. Get the job done.
Sincerely,
Darroch Greer
You too can voice your displeasure!: http://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=ContactForm
Paul's Voyage of Discovery & Etc. 
Hear hear, Darroch!
I’ll second that!
I love it because there’s no bs. Just straight get off the pot talk.
Obama ran on an $800 billion tax hike. Last week, through Geitner, he suddenly doubled it. Problem is we don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. As Margaret Thatcher said, “The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” The members of the house and Senate who are blocking Obama’s nonsensical budget ideas, which I remind you received not a single Democrat or Republican vote last year (http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/227857-senate-rejects-obama-budget-in-99-0-vote/), were also fairly elected and owe their districts responsible representation, something very foreign to our beloved president. Obama did not receive a mandate to bankrupt this country and the historical records show that lower tax rates actually increase revenue (http://www.prageruniversity.com/Economics/Do-High-Taxes-Raise-More%20Money.html).
I respect your opinion, Michael — but the historical records does not show that lower tax rates increase revenue. And we’re only talking about the rates for the top 2%. And still, we’re only talking about letting them go back up to the Clinton-era levels — far lower than the top marginal tax rates under every President from Eisenhower to Reagan. And BTW, the US did pretty well with GDP growth when the top tax rate was 91% under Ike. Nobody’s talking about going back to that, but to hear all these GOP crybabies whine, you’d think that were so. To equate Obama’s tax policy with Socialism is sheer hysteria. Sure, we need to reduce spending — but GOP administrations never do. Clinton did. And Obama has. Reagan and Bush II ran up the national debt. That’s history, Michael — not hysteria.
Furthermore Mike, I can’t let your statement that Obama’s budget did not get single Democratic vote go without clarification. Perhaps you are unaware that, by voting “no” en masse, Democrats were actually rejecting what they considered a GOP gimmick — not the substance of the Obama administration actual budget proposals. (Sorry, Michael, it’s too easy to refute lame right wing talking points when the facts are available to us all.)
From an ABC News story at the time:
“The White House today reacted to news that representations of President Obama’s budget had been voted down by the House and Senate by decrying the introduction of the amendments, by Republicans, as “gimmicks.”
“Gimmicks are not solutions,” White House press secretary Jay Carney emailed to ABC News. “The American people overwhelmingly support a balanced approach to our long-term budget challenges. That’s the approach the President supports. The sooner Republicans drop their intransigence and join the American people in supporting a balanced approach, the sooner Congress will be able to come together and reach a compromise.”
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Miss., introduced a budget amendment representing the president’s budget request; the Sessions amendment was voted down 99-0. (You can read it HERE.)
A similar effort from Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-SC, was rejected in the House 414-0.”
Clearly, the Democrats were refusing to participate in GOP posturing and gamesmanship — not rejecting their party’s leader wholesale. When you can get every Democrat in the House to vote for something, you know it was an easy vote. And truly going against your party’s leader (who is also the Prez) is never an easy vote.
Paul, even the liberal NY TImes mentioned that the Bush tax cuts increased revenue(http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2012/12/04/revenue-was-up-under-bush-tax-cuts.html).
Meanwhile, the budget vote was forced to show how few votes Obama’s numbers would get. Although the programs went unspecified, the Dems were afraid to vote for Obama’s proposed tax increases and energy and welfare spending. Calling these right wing talking points or a gimmick is lame and obscures the underlying fear of Obama’s economic illiteracy. Isn’t four years, two of which he had total control of Congress, proof enough? His spending is mortgaging our children’s future.
Where was your outrage, Michael, when George W. Bush was taking the nation into an illegal war in Iraq under false pretenses — and keeping the cost off the budget books? (Of course, Obama honestly put the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan back on the books — so you right wingers can disingenuously claim the deficit increase as Obama’s — not Bush’s.)
Where was your outrage when George W. Bush waged two wars — while lowering taxes — for the first time in US history?
And show me the proof, Michael, that Obama has raised federal spending more than Reagan or Bush II did? Did you feel that Reagan and Bush’s record-setting deficit spending — which dwarfs President Obama’s — was “mortgaging our children’s future?”
And spare me the right wing claptrap about the “liberal” NY Times — or any truly liberal mass media other than MSNBC. Yawn.
BTW, Michael — are you a member of the upper 2%? If not, ponder this…
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/04/1167225/-Open-thread-for-night-owls-How-Middle-Class-Wealth-Collapsed-to-a-40-Year-Low
Paul, you have not refuted anything I have mentioned with facts.
MIchael, I beg to differ. The problem is that progressives and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, no longer agree on what facts are. When I tell you that the great American middle class was built in the 1950’s through the 1970’s — when marginal tax rates on upper income earners were far higher than they are today — that’s a fact. And when I say that from the time Reagan started lowering those rates through today, the middle class has been slipping, wage growth has fallen, and the actual tax burden (including increased state and local fees, sales taxes, license fees, etc, that help state and local government to make up the difference) on working people has increased — those are also facts. When I say that Reagan and Bush II spent far more than Clinton and Obama and ran up the national debt — those are also facts. These are historic facts that conservatives do not like to recognize because they fly in the face of their trickle-down, top-down, economic fantasies.