Total expenses for the richest family in the bottom half of America?

• 24% taxes
• 27% housing
• 34% food, health care, child care, transportation, household needs
• 12% energy

That’s 97% of their income. The richest family among 70,000,000 households is left with just $1,500 for a car, appliances, a TV, a cell phone, a loan repayment, an occasional night out. It comes to $30 a week, barely enough to take the family out for a pizza.

Meanwhile, our leadership in Congress refuses to increase taxes — or, at least, let a tax cut expire — for the very wealthiest of our citizens.

It’s almost enough to make a nun swear.

(Source: azspot)

Representative Chris Gibson made a campaign promise: to return his Army pension to the government while he holds elected office.  And so far, he’s living up to it: he returned almost $20,000 during the second quarter (of the calendar year). 

While $68,000 will make almost no difference in America’s debt (currently approaching $14.7 trillion), this gesture — and those by other congresspersons, including Spencer Bachus, Tim Walz, Steve Stivers, and Scott Rigell — is a generous gift in a nation frightened by economic difficulties.  I’m reminded of Warren Buffett’s plea for Congress to repeal the tax breaks that allow him to pay less in income tax than his maid does.

Undercover Nun is heartened by these examples, and prays for all Members of Congress.

Undercover Nun gets angry at the hypocrisy.  Don’t claim you’re a Christian if you plan to get into office and shaft everyone.  That isn’t “love your neighbor.”  I wish Jesus and I could tear through the Capitol like he did in the Temple, overturning desks and whipping lobbyists until they run away in shame.  Of course, this is the kind of behavior that got him crucified…

wilwheaton:

Yesterday, I Twittered:

Majority of Americans: Please raise taxes on billionaires. Congress: Herp derp screw the middle class! Majority: #fuckyouwashington

Senator Bernie Sanders (one of the few Senators I respect) says essentially the same thing, but more eloquently than I did:

The rich are getting richer. Their effective tax rate, in recent years, has been reduced to the lowest in modern history. Nurses, teachers and firemen actually pay a higher tax rate than some billionaires. It’s no wonder the American people are angry.

Many corporations, including General Electric and Exxon-Mobil, have made billions in profits while using loopholes to avoid paying any federal income taxes. We lose $100 billion every year in federal revenue from companies and individuals who stash their wealth in tax havens off-shore like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. The sum of all the revenue collected by the Treasury today totals just 14.8% of our gross domestic product, the lowest in about 50 years.

In the midst of this, Republicans in Congress have been fanatically determined to protect the interests of the wealthy and large multinational corporations so that they do not contribute a single penny toward deficit reduction.

If the Republicans have their way, the entire burden of deficit reduction will be placed on the elderly, the sick, children and working families. In the midst of a horrendous recession that is already causing severe pain for average Americans, this approach is morally grotesque. It’s also bad economic policy.

The whole thing isn’t very long, and it’s worth your time to give it a read.

It’s just a fact that the GOP caused this “crisis”, and the lunatic fringe in the House is entirely responsible for it … but the White House and Democrat response to it has been pathetic. Even though public opinion is overwhelmingly against the GOP position, Obama and the White House have allowed the GOP to control the “debate” — which is really little more than stupid kabuki, anyway.

The way I see it, there are two options to explain the behavior from Obama and Senate Democrats: 1) They really are that incompetent, and completely got themselves rolled or 2) They want to slash federal spending that helps the poor and the middle class, and the lunatic fringe of the GOP is giving them the cover they need to please their corporate masters.

I’m not sure which it is, to be honest, though it seems that Obama wants his base to be furious with him (so he can go after the ever-changing “center” that will never support him the way his base did until he sold us out over and over again) and he seems more interested in presiding over some huge “compromise” with the lunatic fringe of the GOP than he is in protecting the people he supposedly serves.

I think it’s just an unavoidable truth: Barack Obama isn’t the great Hope he lead us to believe he was. He’s a weak negotiator, he’s a corporate tool, he doesn’t care at all about the least among us, and he isn’t willing to fight for anything. This president isn’t the guy I supported during the election, and he is a tragic failure for progressives.

I’m angry because the government of my country has abandoned its people, and I don’t think there’s anything we can do to take it back.

(via vruz) (via changetheratio)

To every Congressperson who voted for this clear and obvious offense to Judaism and Christianity:

May God have mercy on your immortal soul.

In Christ’s love,
Undercover Nun