President Bush has health care reform at the top of his agenda this year. The President mentioned health care 14 times in the State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, hoping perhaps to shift our focus away from the debacle in Iraq.
There is no question that our health care system needs reform. Forty-seven million Americans are un-insured. Millions of children in our country are suffering because they cannot afford to see a doctor.
Now, after six years of tax cuts for the richest country-clubbers in the world, President Bush wants to "solve" the problem by jacking up taxes not for the diabolical insurance companies but for Americans whose responsibilities involve more than simply bringing the poodle Fifi to the doggy salon for her weekly massage and bouffant.
Despite the neglect of our government, some employers actually provide decent health care for their employees. For everyone else, there is private sector insurance or the daunting prospect of paying $400-to-$900 per month premiums for employer-provided health care.
Instead of hardship and neglect for merely one-third of the workers in this country, President Bush wants hardship for every American worker whose income is below $500,000 per year. That's his idea of "leveling the playing field:" making sure that the middle class is swimming in the same cesspool generally reserved for the homeless.
For Bush, if you work hard, and you get a good education and land a job with good health care, then the government is going to swat you down to that "level playing field" where drug addicts and pregnant teenagers vie for a spot in the welfare line.
The vulture newspapers of the neocon media have praised Bush for the effort. The Winston-Salem Journal, the Colorado Springs Gazette and the Oregonian have all lined up in support of his effort.
Right wing pundits, who assailed Democrats for "hiking" up taxes for BIG OIL, have shut their mouths now that President Bush has proposed a tax hike for the middle-class.
The stench of hypocrisy is rancid. So goes the Corupublican agenda.
When Democrats closed the tax break loopholes for Big Oil, Republican company spokesperson Sean Hannity, who proclaims himself a champion of his listeners, reacted lividly. He assailed the Democrats for hiking taxes on everybody, when in fact the tax hikes targeted the same thievish oil companies gouging prices at the pump last summer.
To catch only a moment of his vituperations on the subject, one might think that Hannity's parents had been bludgeoned by the Democrats...hey wait a second...Big Oil, Hannity's parents...hmmm
Fast-forward to last week. Hannity's reaction to this assault against the middle-class under the rubric of "affordable health care" carried all the animation of a chair squeaking on linoleum during Ms. Peabody's Social Studies class.
The war against the middle class is on. Be prepared to see support for tax hikes on the middle class meet with wide-spread approval in the Republican Party.
Dean Danger Powers is an international man of mystery.
