And to my congressman, I sent this ditty-

[MrMickeysMom]

(I happen to be in the 18th congressional, PA) Please, feel free to cut and paste any part of it. I was once again disgusted to hear the same old shit coming from the Republicans, now beginning to talk about how we should cut spending...

Congress(man/woman):
Quoting from your e-mail, “If this is really about cutting the deficit, then we should cut spending. If this is about growing more jobs then we should not be raising more taxes on employers...” I think you are missing some history.

Ever since the late 1980's supporting tax cuts for the wealthy results in asking workers to make sacrifices. There is generally some projection announced to prompt this desperate move, none of which are supported by facts, but manages to scare people. I see you've gotten good at that rhetoric. As Mr. Reagan would say, "Here we go again!" - I can smell the slaughter of "entitlements"!

Look, everyone historically pays as they go into the Social Security system only to learn through lies how insolvent Social Security or Medicare Benefits are! They're told we need payroll taxes for keeping it solvent. In the case of those early Reagan days of social security "reform" - it was phony then as a 3 dollar bill. It's phony now as well.

The artful Greenspan/Reagan and later Greenspan/Bush were instrumental in increasing the top fraction of the top 1% tax bracket. After flattening the tax code further (miserable failure x 2 already) we don't create anything that puts people to work or lubricates the societal dollar as spent within our communities, spent by the middle class. You would have thought foolish Congress would have learned, but they didn't (both parties are a slave to this now). Remember that unified budget deficit in 1988 as attacked by Mr. Greenspan? Upon his advice, it swallowed the Social Security surplus of over $60 Billion and STILL was $120 Billion.

This DOES NOT WORK. I don't care how you spin it - we've taxed the wealthy on a FAR smaller proportion of their income than the middle class. What you propose not only exacerbates what little debt working can people can climb out of, it makes full use of those cuts to benefiting the wealthy, pure and simple. I quit asking myself, "why?", because I know.

They, not us, are your ticket to the next election. Do you really think the voters are that stupid?

I like to do my homework on the local level, because we here, like our other local areas are faced with dealing with what trickles down. Here's something for you to look up: See the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, section 13301 before you start this fool's mission again to cut those entitlements. You're are already getting ready to identify an increased spending, not that you would noticed how much the government increased under Bush the Junior, or that we have 2 unfunded wars (where were you then with THAT spending off budget?)

When you get ready next time to "decrease spending", realize that Congress has been in violation of that law every year. Read this passage: ..."the Federal and Old Age Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund shall not be counted as new budget authority, outlays, receipts, or deficit or surplus for purposes of (1) the budget of the United States Government as submitted by the President, (2) the Congressional budget, or (3) the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985."

Yet, you follow right along with the rest of them in breaking it every year, don't you?

Your congressional class isn't alone, by the way. This act became a toothless gesture as soon as Senator Hollings led in its passage. So, I suppose your next move is to ignore that it's illegal for Congress and the President to include Social Security funds in their budget calculation.

Isn't that a damn shame?

I'm sure that I'll get a made to order, honest reply from this rant.

[MrMickeysMom]

1. Shameless self- KICK...

and I'll cross post this, to boot.

We need to drive this point not only with every day "debate" as a talking point, we need to send this message to EVERY MEMBER of Congress who has chosen to break the law over and over when deciding what constitutes "our budget"!

[MrMickeysMom]

2. Kicked again

Ding-dong.... calling your congress-critter time....

[calimary]

3. I'll kick this for you!

They need to get more shit from us than they got from the knuckle-draggers, beck-er-heads, limbots, palinese, and teabaggers. They need to hear a LOT more shit from our side. Squeaky wheels and all that!

[MrMickeysMom]

4. Beck-er-heads... that's good!

... and thanks for the kick!

[MrMickeysMom]

5. Damn, I'm kicking this once more...

It's worth it for just one person here to contact their congressional rep.

Confront with the facts, and don't back off!

KICK, KICK, KICK!

[calimary]

6. And yes, you'll probably get one of those form letters back.

I suspect only their staffers see most of these and they see very few. I also suspect that whoever on staff does see these is told to keep a count of how many people weigh in on this and that, how many votes for tax cuts, jobs, TCA gropings, ending/maintaining/gearing up the war, global warming, BP, gays, immigration, etc etc etc. In that way they could keep track of what the "hot" issues are in which they need at least to look as though they're interested.

No matter what, it's very useful that you wrote. Better you weighed in than not doing so. They work for us, after all. It's not the other way around. Regular reminders are always a good idea.

[calimary]

7. Also - this reminds me of something I read that Paul Begala said, back during the time

when he cohosted "Crossfire" on CNN every day. He was talking about how important it is to WRITE A LETTER to your congressperson. Write one the old-fashioned way and snail-mail it. What it means is, and I remember hearing versions of this when I worked in local and even network radio. You get ONE of those, that somebody took the time to sit down and write and lick the envelope and take it to a mail box or something, and you know several things:
1) Somebody really gives a huge damn about whatever it is, that they got off their asses and took the trouble to communicate that way, especially when an email or a signature on a petition is so much easier and more prevalent.
2) If there's one letter like that, you can indeed conclude that it represents a LOT of other people who feel the same way but were either too busy, too lazy, too forgetful, too discouraged, too apathetic, or too cynical to pick up a pen and paper and write up their own. Depending on the size of the population pool you're looking at, a single letter could be representative of 10, 100, a thousand, or many more.

It's NEVER a bad idea to weigh in and make your voice heard, in whatever way motivates you. The bad guys certainly don't hesitate to make sure THEY get heard, do they?