Brooks: National Greatness For The Ultra-Wealthy

Let us leave aside the spectacle of David Brooks saying, without evidence or reason, that "Bond markets are with you until the second they are against you. When the psychology shifts and the fiscal crisis happens..." He's just repeating the babble of the right.

But if his column is to be believed, he's a big fan of the catfood commission's recommendations, pointing to them as a means by which America can regain its "national greatness". But Krugman aptly noted that said recommendations basically involve jacking the taxes of the middle class to pay for big tax breaks for the wealthiest 1%.

So is that what "national greatness" is to Brooks? He babbles on and on about America's "economic and social values", and even the possibility of "revived patriotism":

It will take a revived patriotism to get people to look beyond their short-term financial interest to see the long-term national threat. Do you really love your tax deduction more than America’s future greatness? Are you really unwilling to sacrifice your Social Security cost-of-living adjustment at a time when soldiers and Marines are sacrificing their lives for their country in Afghanistan?

David Brooks, who the FUCK is the "you" here? It's sure as hell not the tiny minority that captures much of the income, holds most of the wealth, and owns most of the Senators. They don't give a rat's ass about a Social Security cost-of-living adjustment. It'd be a rounding error on their portfolios. THEY would benefit handsomely from the catfood crew's advocacy of slashed upper-class income taxes and corporate taxes. Where is THEIR pain? Where is THEIR sacrifice?

Sure, Brooks can take weak shots at the "upper-middle class". But who the hell cares about them? They aren't the issue. The upper-upper-UPPER class walking away with an increasingly grotesque percentage of the wealth that America and its people produce: THAT is the issue. The class war that people like Brooks are waging against the middle class on their behalf: THAT is the issue. The long slide of America into the kind of inequality that you used to see only in "banana republics": THAT is the issue.

America's national greatness is not built on propping up the incomes of exploitative Wall Street traders and well-connected executive managers.

Edit: Looking around, I've run across some sad, pathetic libertarians who are whining about that "tax deduction" line. Give me a break. He advocated for the deficit commission's wholesale transfer of wealth upward. He's an apologist for the wealthy, just like yourselves. He's clearly on YOUR side. You're just too dumb to realize it.