That’s it. If the Tea Party is starting a TV channel that is “anti big government” and “pro-business”, I say we all learn to be pro-business, and vote with our fucking wallets.
After all, we were pro-business for the last thirty years since Reagan, and look where it got us. Real wages, adjusted for inflation, have gone down. The pay of the average American, compared to the CEOs, has been dwarfed. You would think these groups would be clamoring for the blood of the businesses that have forced the government to bail out the country. Instead, they’re blaming the government for having to spend taxpayer dollars to be involved.
We needed healthcare because the health insurance companies were literally killing people. Those businesses were denying coverage to one in five Americans, and trying to shirk out of paying on their policies for those who were insured. After my six-week battle against United Healthcare in 2008 to get them to pay for Ben’s birth, after hearing my uninsured friends tell me why they can’t get coverage, after seeing my policy adjust downwards while my costs adjust upwards, I will cheer on any government interference that holds these businesses accountable.
We needed the TARP bailout because millions of Americans lost their savings, houses and pensions to bankers who gambled with it. Goldman Sachs is being held accountable for fraud as a company – but thanks to the American corporation status, none of the actual individuals who committed those acts will suffer. Ditto WaMu and their thousands of risky mortgages. None of the individuals will be held accountable for the damage done.
So this is why I don’t get the Tea Party and the extreme right wing. We trusted business to take care of the market for too long, and it’s just resulted in everyone being squeezed. It’s not your taxes, America. It’s the nickel and diming that these corporations are taking from you. And the government would never have had to step in if all you hard working Middle Americans hadn’t bought into it. The only reason we need the government to be as big as it is, is because individuals who run the free enterprise system, can’t be trusted to ethically run the corporations that have dominance over the country.
Oh, by the way, that will mean paying more money. For example, it will mean flying airlines that pay their pilots decent wages. It will mean spending more on a car that is a better quality product. It will mean spending more money on groceries because we support locally grown, environmentally responsible, high quality nutrition for our families. That’s free enterprise. That’s how it works.
What’s that, right wing? You don’t want to pay more for your plane tickets? Fine, then you can fly a regional jet that pays their pilots below the poverty line. Then the government has to supply those pilots with food stamps to cover the gap. You don’t want to pay more for your groceries? Fine, then you have to let the government subsidize agriculture – a socialist measure. You don’t want to pay more for your gas? Then you have to let the government tax you so they can supply subsidies for oil.
I say that us left-wingers show the Tea Party how it’s DONE. Let’s vote with our wallets for self-sustaining, profitable businesses who have achieved success through decent practices, and who do not rely on, at some level, the government to bring down the price. Let’s buy from companies who pay their taxes, who do business in a true free enterprise manner. That’s exactly the sort of places us lefties already shop at. Hey, wait! We’re actually doing a better job of NOT sucking up government money!
Also, us liberals are just going to have to learn to hit businesses that support this nonsense agenda where they live. If that Right Network goes live, we’ll all cancel our Comcast. We’ll all stop eating at the fast food companies that the health insurance companies are invested in. We’ll take our savings out of the major banks, and put them, along with our mortgages and loans, with the companies who didn’t fuck up in 2008. Let’s show that we can do “pro business” better than the Tea Party!
After all, no one wants to pay more taxes. And I, a bleeding heart liberal, would happily have the government stand by and have a free enterprise system – provided that free enterprise system was ethical and fair and responsible and actually stood on its own two feet.
Find me a hard working America who can’t get ahead and has joined the Tea Party as a result. I’ll show you a bank, a pension lost, a school not paid for due to tax cuts for the rich/corporations. Let’s hold the corporations accountable, and show them – pro-business does not mean unethical and irresponsible. Maybe then the corporations will stop encouraging the right wing to be “pro business” and anti government spending, and start driving them to do something else productive. Let’s show the right wing that we are ALL against government control of free enterprise – but that we have to have corporations and businesses that do not warrant the government having to step in.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to call United Healthcare to get them to pay my damn doctor bill. Apparently, they don’t think they should have to pay for tests that proved I DIDN’T have walking pneumonia.
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