Do Conservatives Purposefully Set Us Up For Failure?

This is something that I’ve had rolling around in my head for awhile, and obviously if I’m writing on the topic, I think the answer is yes, at least to some extent. To be clear, I don’t think your typical conservative citizen wants their government to fail. I think the majority of citizens at both end of the spectrum mostly want a successful government in place. I’m specifically talking about the conservatives that are running things for their party. There are two statements I’ll kick things off with here. The first comes from popular conservative strategist and lobbyist, Grover Norquist.

“I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

Grover Norquist,  May 25, 2001

This comes from a man that is behind a lot of government initiatives, runs a super PAC influencing government, and helps conservatives get elected all over the country.

The second is from someone I think will be a pretty common source as I move forward because he’s the epitome of a ruthless, conservative ideologue for whom the ends always justify the means. Shortly after the republicans took control of Congress in the midterms, Mitch McConnell said this:

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

– Mitch McConnell, October 23, 2010

Continue reading “Do Conservatives Purposefully Set Us Up For Failure?”

The Senate Tax Plan

This is part two of my two part series on taxes. This post was originally the second half of a post on taxes overall, but I split it off into it’s own because the whole thing was getting too long. Now, this post focuses on the bill that was just signed by our president and why I oppose it, why I believe that I should pay more taxes than those less fortunate than I am, and why I have an expectation that those wealthier than I am should pay more than I do. The other post, which you can find here, goes into what I believe a progressive tax system should look like, and ultimately the reason we all need to pay those taxes. Continue reading “The Senate Tax Plan”