Obama, The Best Republican President Ever

Dear Mr. President,
I don’t know how you do it, but it works every time. Under the guise of taxing the rich you managed to make the Bush tax cuts for millionaires permanent, a Republican’s wet dream. Magicians call it misdirection and you’ve perfected the art. You claim that under your tax proposal, the rich will pay their fair share, you slap a miniscule 4.6% tax increase on the super-rich (0.7% of taxpayers, not even the 1%), and lock in all the rest of the Bush tax cuts including the $5 million estate tax exemption and a 20% tax rate on dividends and investment income. “Necessary to get an extension of unemployment benefits,” you say, but that extension is temporary and the Bush tax cuts are permanent. Bush loyalists are celebrating, so are many Republicans, while many Democrats, like Sen. Tom Harkin and even Robert Reich, complain that you once again gave away the store. Yesterday, in a conversation with a friend, a so-called “progressive,” I said you were the best president the Republicans have ever had. She was shocked, horrified and protested vehemently. She thought your deal to not raise taxes on those voters with incomes between $250,000 and $450,000 took away their reason to vote Republican next time but reason has nothing to do with it and those who voted for Romney last time will vote for him (or his clone) next time. I’m afraid my friend has drunk the Obama Kool-Aid and suffers from delusional thinking. She also thought that once people realize how much the superrich have they’ll demand higher taxes on them, that this is only the first round of tax increases, but that’s definitely more delusional thinking from an Obama-apologist; hasn’t happened yet and won’t. What’s the difference, I say, if a Democrat or a Republican makes the Bush tax cuts permanent? In the end it’s all the same; unfair taxes become permanently enshrined in the tax code, unlikely to change for decades, and they will continue to skew income inequality and the maldistribution of wealth. It would have been better if Congress hadn’t passed anything, just let all the tax cuts expire and let the country go over the fiscal cliff. 2013 starts the way 2012 ended. More war, more violence, more injustice, and more maldistribution of wealth in America. As we descend further into our Police State, less freedom, less democracy, less hope. The planet grows warmer, the environment more precarious and no one does a thing about it. Between you and Congress, We the People don’t stand a chance.