Pulling The Plug And Letting It Die

More and more Republicans believe they will win a House majority and are looking forward to forcing Obama to shut down the government for as long as it takes to get their spending cuts and defunding of government programs they don't like permanently into law.  Republicans like Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia can't wait to throw Americans under the bus in this economy in order to pay for more tax cuts for the rich:

If we hold the line, if we get those courageous men and women to be part of our majority. If we say look, the American people we’re listening to the American people, this is what we’re going to do. If government shuts down, we want you with us. We want you with us. We gotta have you because later on you all will call us and say look I didn’t get my check. Daddy can’t go to the VA. You know, the National Parks are closed. We need to be sure that you are with us because let me tell you this, all Americans need to understand. We need to understand this and I hope you can help share this analogy with people. Just as when you talk about what is going to possibly happen, you know I was unfortunate to cut myself with a chainsaw. I don’t know how many of you have cut yourself with a chainsaw. Chainsaw is not the cleanest instrument if you’re going to cut yourself. [...]

He said this is going to sting a little bit and it hurt like crazy. But you know what, if he didn’t clean out that wound, it would have never healed. I would have got gangrene. I would have died from it. And what has happened with this country, we have put bandaids on things that need to be cleaned out. It’s going to take some pain for us to do the things that we need to do to right the ship.

And Westmoreland and other Republicans want to make sure that pain is felt primarily by working class Americans, the elderly, the disabled, and our injured veterans who fought in the Sandbox for us for close to a decade now.  Meanwhile the wealthiest Americans will continue to get a bigger share of the wealth as their taxes are cut.  They won't suffer at all.

The last 30 years have all but destroyed the middle-class.  The wealthiest one percent of Americans control upwards of 24% of the wealth in this country.  And as home values and wages get smaller and Social Security cuts and Medicaid/Medicare slashing gets bigger to keep the rich getting richer, we're the ones who will bear the brunt of the pain.

The Republicans are telling you that it will be good for you, and it will be necessary.  Meanwhile their fat cat donors continue to rake in billions.  Republicans are all but promising austerity measures that will be borne the most by the least able of us, those on fixed incomes, veterans, and the infirm.  But that's how Republicans roll.

There's a choice in this election.  Sane ideas to fix the economy, or shutting it down and amputating the weakest members of society.