Moe, Larry and Curly and the Corporate Cure

Forget the Islamofascists. Within the span of only a few days, that greatest and even existential threat to this nation is now but a memory, and a distant one at that.

Such is the revised appraisal of the once-great jingoist party, which only yesterday had voters damn near apoplectic over the coming hordes of swarthy terrorists with daggers in their teeth and white women on their mind. But that danger, it would seem, has passed. Why, we know not. All we do know is that what now plagues America -- what is shaking her to her very foundations -- is ... an excessive corporate income tax.

That, anyway, seems to be the one and only consensus among the leading Republican presidential candidates as they scour the elimination state of Florida this week in search of panacea lovers.

Naturally the indistinguishable Moe, Larry and Curly also plead for the permanency of Bush's tax cuts, but that's a given and way down the road. No, what this nation now needs most, other than a good 5-cent cigar, is to reduce the burden on the corporate class. The poor dears have suffered too long, I guess, under the oppressive egalitarianism of George W. Bush.

The assorted campaigns' 180 away from the erstwhile greatest threat "is natural," said the American Enterprise Institute's Kevin Hassett, who sidelines as a McCain economic adviser. "When the economy is close to recession, if not in recession," said he to the St. Petersburg Times, "voters think long and hard about what the different candidates have to say."

In John's case, voters may want to think long and hard about what he said just a few weeks ago; that being that "the issue of economics is not something that I've understood as well as I should."

One suspects that is what led Mr. McCain to conclude this business about cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 to 25 percent as the essential cure for what ails us. Why it took Moe this long to locate his Republican cookie-cutter is beyond me, but hey, a belated epiphany is still an epiphany.

Mitt Romney's cure-all also includes slashing the corporate tax rate, of course, but in his model from 35 to 20 percent. Oh, that Mitt. He always has to do the other boys one better.

Mitt did say one thing, however, that surely ranks as the most enlightened comment yet made on the campaign trail by any GOP candidate: "People recognize now more than ever that it makes a difference having a president who has actually had a job in the private sector."

Yowza! -- what a difference indeed, especially if those jobs were with the oil industry and baseball clubs. Larry, this new-fangled enlightenment stuff behooves you not. You had best stick with your previous platitudes. Don't try getting creative.

And then there's Curly Giuliani, who's now auditioning for the lead role in yet another remake of "The Desperate Hours." His cries of "9/11" have been reduced to just "911." Won't the plucky Floridians please save this poor man?

We'll see, but it ain't lookin' good, even though he too has vacated the Islamofascist boat and plunged over the supply side.

Yes, you guessed it, we need to cut those corporate rates, says the mayor. We've been disincentivizing (if I were running, my sole platform would be to ban every English word ending in "ize") the corporately oppressed for too long. Oh, how they've struggled mightily against the wealth-devouring working classes lo these many years, with nary the motivation to earn even one more dollar.

Curly has also proposed "a simpler tax system with only three tax brackets: 10, 15 and 30 percent." The Times story failed to note whether he listed those brackets in ascending or descending-income order. Stay tuned.

How all this Republican rubbish could work on even conservative citizens of the elimination state is beyond me. But work it must; otherwise Moe, Larry and Curly wouldn't be selling it.

What "it" ignores, of course, is the one historical truism of our one, truly Great Depression: When the middling classes -- remember them, guys? -- fail to earn enough to buy all the junk they produce for their employers, the economy hits the skids. Aggressive downturns are, that is, fundamentally demand-sided.

The plutocracy has been milking this nation's workers for so long and so happily and comfortably, it thought the party would never end. But welcome, oh ye of supply-side inevitability, to the Great Re-Awakening.

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Comments

[Sally Sharp-Paulsen]

These guys aren't geniouses like Moe, Larry and Curly! They're more like Shemp, Joe and Jerry Lewis! IF they are defeated I will do my victory dance--slap my own head and yell, "Whoop, whoop, whoop!"

[Realist]

One thing to remember: the real Stooges were very dialed in to dangerous world events and those who promulgated them. No one did a better parody of Adolf Hitler than did Moe Howard, and Curley did a fair Goering. One wonders (not that I think he tried) if Larry Fine might not have made a good Goebbels, and the Nazi trifecta would have been made.

If the Stooges were around today, they would be just as effective as Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert are in presenting the farcical reality behind the corporatists.

[beamer]

with the lowest corporate tax rates&the largest military budget in the world why is our economy faltering? farce and tragedy is hardly comic.

[Ronald W. Albers]

I thought it was Curley, Schlep and Moe. But whatever, p.m. is right on. If it's not 935 lies leading up to war against Iraq, its hundreds more about how tax cuts for wealthy corporations is good for the country. If we don't tax the war-profiting corps, who is goinmg to repay our national debt? Not the thousands of returning vets, or the thousands of permenently damaged causualties of that brutal catastrophe.Not the growing number of jobless or underemployed workers. That leaves only the weathly. They got the money. Tax 'em.

[Clemsy]

No problem. Give the corporations their tax cut and charge them an arm and a leg to rename some public buildings like:

The GE White House (That's soft white for better light!)

The Capitol One Washington Monument (What's in your wallet?)

The Halliburton Capitol Building (Hell, they've owned it for years anyway.)

The Sprint Jefferson Memorial (Can you hear me now?)

And my personal favorite:

The Kentucky Fried Chicken Lincoln Memorial. (Finger Lickin' Good!)

Yes indeed, we can bilch those rich suckers for thousands, I say, thousands!

[Dan Van Riper]

I'm astounded and disheartened that there are actually American citizens out there who would be impressed by a bunch of clowns calling for corporate tax cuts. So impressed, that is, that these clowns don't shut up about it. Or maybe this is a cry for help... monetary help, that is, from the corporate class for their faltering campaigns.

[Thinking]

... and Bushie wants to change the death tax. Most Americans are unaware that there are no inheritance taxes on $600,000 and below. Georgie stands to inherit billions from daddy-poo so he doesn't want the government to take a slice of it. Georgie and his friends want to keep family wealth inside of certain wealthy and powerful families. People like Soros, Gates, Buffet and even Bill Clinton have stated that they certainly don't need their taxes lowered by Bush and that it is the middle class who needs less taxing.

Let's face it, the corporates usually find loopholes to avoid paying their share anyway. The average Joe just doesn't enjoy those loopholes.

[Bill McWilliams]

The cry for more wealth transfers from us to "them" will not abate in 2009 even if the election isn't stolen by the GOP.

The Democrats in Congress will cave in to corporate tax cut demands and do so in the name of compromise. The only question is what crumb they'll settle for in exchange for the giveaway to the country's real owners.

[m. ohalloeran]

I thought Rudy wanted to lower the tax rate to around 9 or 11 percent.

[Mooser]

The compassion and altruism of Republican voters, as their o'erweening compassion for the corporations causes them to cheer tax cuts which will be as finacially exsanguinating for those same voters as a punctured aorta, is a never-ending source of wonder.
I wonder, do they put those same corporate cheribum and seraphim in their prayers, too.

[Lyrical]

This Administration has been so truthful, without us realizing it...they really did mean they were going to create an Owner Society (Remember?)...'Us' didn't quite grasp what 'they' meant. Oh, and BTW, Citicorps is now 51% owned by a (that's one person, folks) non-citizen. I won't even go into from where. In a way, it doesn't even matter.

[Edith M. Conrad]

I am writing this as a progressive fan of Sen. Russ Feingold and Congressman Dennis Kuchinch--a disappointed fan.

The congressman is supposed to be fighting for our progressive values, but only if he can see himself as the lone warriar. He not only choses to support Sen. Obama, a fine man but not progressive, but attacks Sen. Edwards who is the progressive candidate other than Kucinch. How are ever going to make any progress this way?

Sen. Feingold complains that Edwards was not this progressive when he was in the senate. Should we not have hope that politicians can grow in our direction? Feingold further complains that the Edwards platform is what his would be if he were running. This is his second reason for not supporting Sen. Edwards. Heavens--how could he ever support someone with these ideas who is not Sen. Feingold.

As I said I am so disappointed in these two egos--I might not ever support them again since they choose not to support we fellow progressives.

Edith Conrad
Asheville, NC