This page was last updated on November 18, 2010.
Wealthy lawmakers cut their own taxes; Jerry Miskulin; Beaver County Times; November 18, 2010.
I encourage you to review Mr. Miskulin’s body of work in the archives. Mr. Miskulin has written at least 62 letters since 2004 (I didn’t critique all of them.). Most (all?) are illogical and full of falsehoods (not just wrong).
Mr. Miskulin expressed displeasure with the tea parties (here and here), proclaimed
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“They call the U.S. Senate ‘The Millionaires’ Club,’ and I know many of the Republicans elected to the U.S. House of Representatives are wealthy, if not millionaires.”
[RWC] What is wrong with being wealthy? In any case, I get a kick out of folks like Mr. Miskulin who would like us to believe Democrat politicians are poor and Republicans are rich. Of the top 10 wealthiest members of the House, five are Democrats [including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA) at #6] and five are Republicans. Of the top 10 wealthiest members of the Senate, the top six are Democrats and the remaining four are Republicans. Democrats were seven of the top 10 until Edward Kennedy (MA) died in 2009. Perhaps being wealthy is bad only if you’re a Republican.
“So I ask: Why is it that the first piece of business they want to undertake is to renew the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and cut their own taxes? It’s like an alcoholic who comes home from a day’s work, pushes the wife and kids aside and says, ‘Let’s have a drink.’”
[RWC] “[T]he first piece of business they want to undertake is to renew the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy?” Has Mr. Miskulin been living under a rock for the last few months? I ask for two reasons. First, extending the Bush-era tax RATE cuts has been on the Democrats’ list recently because they don’t want to be accused of raising taxes on the “middle class.” Two, in doing so, Democrats effectively conceded they had been lying when they claimed the Bush-era tax RATE cuts were only for “the wealthy.” What Republicans and a growing number of Democrats want is for the current tax rates to be continued for everyone.
Mr. Miskulin hasn’t been living under a rock, of course, though he likely hopes we have. You see, a Miskulin letter from nearly four months ago was entitled “Let Bush’s tax cuts for wealthy expire.” Oops.
In any case, if what evil Republicans really want to do is “renew the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and cut their own taxes,” Mr. Miskulin shouldn’t worry. After all, kindly Democrats are the majority in both the House and Senate until January and the last I checked President Obama was a Democrat. Therefore, the only way those evil Republicans can implement their evil plan is with the agreement of House and Senate Democrats and Mr. Obama.
If Democrats block continuing the current tax rates for everyone as Mr. Miskulin apparently wants, does anyone care to guess whom Mr. Miskulin will blame for middle-class tax rate increases beginning January 1, 2011?
“Doesn’t it make you think? I know it does for me because it gives me second thoughts.”
[RWC] I’m biting my tongue; it’s too easy. <g>
“Bob Dylan once sang, ‘You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.’ As for us, we don’t need the Tea Party to keep us on our toes because we know the way it goes.”
[RWC] The “Tea Party” apparently scares Mr. Miskulin. This is at least the fourth letter within the last 14 months from Mr. Miskulin mentioning it.
It’s interesting (but hopefully not telling) Mr. Miskulin would use the Bob Dylan quote. You see, “You Don’t Need A Weatherman To Know Which Way The Wind Blows” is the title of the Weather Underground’s “manifesto.” The Weathermen were a terrorist spinoff of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Local self-described Marxist Carl Davidson was “elected a national leader of SDS in the years 1966-68.” Mr. Davidson currently is a leader of Beaver County Reds. Though Mr. Davidson claims he opposed the violent acts of the Weathermen, I’ve seen postings in which he writes he still considers Bill Ayers (Weathermen leader) a friend.
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