Oh sure. The tea party can be held largely responsible for what Republican pols and their media are doing to the so-called "average" American. But the Mitch McConnells and top brass in the party are the real perps in these cruel games.
What cruelty? Well, try and imagine what it's like for a couple, as they report in the news on this issue, "earning between $20,000 and $30,000 a year" who get their faces rubbed, daily/hourly, in speculations about whether we're about to go off the "fiscal cliff"? Who are told they'll be paying "$1400 more" in taxes? Or maybe not a couple, but a single elderly person living on a similar amount, someone who is no longer able pick up some temp work or find resources to pay the rent?
Both Democrats and Republicans have been involved in the negotiations, but it's the Republican party as a whole that cooked up the fiction that our debts are killing us and we need an immediate remedy. For many of us, this is simply a political issue. We're a step or two up the income scale. Though we're inconvenienced by tightened budgets, we have enough to survive.
But what about the vast number of Americans who, in addition to tightened budgets, are now exhausted by anxiety? Who believe they may well be at the edge of the cliff and about to fall?
That's what struck me -- full force -- this morning. For a few thousand Republican politicians and think-tankers, it's a game. They make me angrier than you can imagine.
