On the Senate floor today, Senator Mitch McConnell argued that Senate Democrats’ bill to extend the middle and lower class portions of the Bush Era tax cuts would be a “waste of time,” noting the bill will never make it to President Obama’s desk. This implies what we already know, that the Republican controlled house will refuse to pass the bill. It seems rich to me that Senator McConnell would call this a waste of time considering his own party has brought forth bills in the House over 30 times to repeal all or part of “Obamacare” knowing full well the Senate would reject them, not to mention the guarantee of a veto.

Senator McConnell’s hypocrisy is even more staggering considering he followed up his argument by shilling for a Republican bill to extend the tax cuts for all, including the super-wealthy, knowing full well it wouldn’t even pass the Senate. This is all symbolic; they want people on the record, but what’s more, they don’t want to run the risk of helping the economy improve for lower income people.

Following his bill’s defeat, he went on to suggest that these tax cuts are essential to improve the economy, and cited votes in 2010 that extended these same cuts. He notes that the economy is growing even slower now than it was then. Post hoc ergo propter hoc notwithstanding, these tax-cuts aren’t necessarily the cause of this slow growth, but I think we can all agree it doesn’t seem to have helped in the last two years.

Most experts agree that the recession is officially over, so the economy should begin to recover, perhaps too slowly for some. Senator Harry Reid noted that we’ve had 28 months of job growth in the private sector. So why is the economy still stagnate? Because job growth in the public sector isn’t keeping that pace. Thinkprogress.org reports that, according the Bureau of Labor Statistics, public sector jobs have declined 2.7% since January 2009 (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/06/01/493849/obama-bush-jobs-record/).

Ever since the recession began, Republicans, especially the Tea-Party, keep screaming that we need to downsize government; we need to cut, cut, cut. Public sector jobs, especially those under the purveyance of smaller, more local forms of government have been gutted by budget cuts. These budget cuts are the result of decreased revenue, revenue created by collecting taxes. Tax revenues are down because fewer people are working. And jobs continue moving from the public sector to the private sector, where average incomes are lower. (I wonder how much lower they would be if the top 5% of private sector jobs made the same salaries as the top 5% of public sector workers, but that’s a topic for another day.)

So, we have a question to answer: are we that stupid? Are we stupid enough to wonder what will happen if we continue to run on blind and unilateral policies of lower taxes, tax cuts, never any tax increases ever? Won’t we have to reduce payrolls, won’t we lay-off workers, and won’t that decrease tax revenue further?

And now, the icing on the cake: The Republican Party is poised to nominate a candidate for President that thinks more money needs to flow to the top, and that those people should be freer to do whatever they want with that money. Why, how would this help? In an era when salaries cannot keep pace with inflation, why would more money at the top help? When that money is so often hidden off-shore and tax free, when that money is so often taxed at much lower rates than average Americans pay, why, how would it help?

The point is: it wouldn’t help. The economy will continue to flounder, wages will continue to sink, and government budgets will continue to shrink. Standards and offerings at public schools, colleges, clinics, hospitals, agencies, and safety departments will continue to decline. The opportunities for life and the pursuit of happiness will shrink to a shadow of their former selves. I guess we’ll get to keep liberty, and with liberty we can simply purchase life and happiness… if only we could afford them.