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Dumb and Dumbest

By Richard Girard





The Republicans' fight to finish destroying this nation's social safety net in a fruitless effort to balance the budget and reduce our burgeoning deficit on the backs of the poor and middle class, is the most certain form of political suicide we have seen in this country since the New England Federalists opposed the War of 1812.





Speaker of the House John Boehner should know better. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell does know better. But House Majority Leader Eric Cantor seems hell-bent on committing the political equivalent of hara-kiri, but only after he watches the rest of his party throw itself off a cliff.





Does Mr. Cantor actually believe that the majority of the American people want him to balance the budget by destroying Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, while not raising the taxes of the richest five percent of the population.





Congressman Cantor, where do you think you live: Mexico?





First of all, we have not in the last sixty-three years (since we started keeping unemployment records in 1948) balanced a fiscal year (July-June) budget with an unemployment rate over 5.0 percent. We aren't going to balance it now with an unemployment rate almost twice that. If we can get the U.S. unemployment rate under 6.0 percent, and then we can start talking about reducing the budget deficit.





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