{"id":724,"date":"2012-12-29T15:32:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-29T15:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2012\/12\/29\/count-me-as-among-the-fed-up"},"modified":"2012-12-29T15:32:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-29T15:32:00","slug":"count-me-as-among-the-fed-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=724","title":{"rendered":"Count me as among the \u2018fed up\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a title=\"http:\/\/usnews.nbcnews.com\/_news\/2012\/12\/29\/16216300-do-something-americans-fed-up-with-washington-as-fiscal-cliff-deadline-looms?lite\" href=\"http:\/\/usnews.nbcnews.com\/_news\/2012\/12\/29\/16216300-do-something-americans-fed-up-with-washington-as-fiscal-cliff-deadline-looms?lite\">http:\/\/usnews.nbcnews.com\/_news\/2012\/12\/29\/16216300-do-something-americans-fed-up-with-washington-as-fiscal-cliff-deadline-looms?lite<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not exactly going out on a limb here, but I am one of the millions of Americans who has had up to here with Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n<p>Have I found a villain among all the bad guys who are herding this country to the brink of fiscal ruin? Yeah, it\u2019s probably the Republican Party leadership in the House of Reps that cannot find the stomach, the will or the courage to actually compromise with Democrats. They have become hostage to the know-nothing tea party crowd that comprises a portion of the House GOP caucus.<\/p>\n<p>They won\u2019t ask the richest among us to pay a little more in taxes, as if the richest Americans somehow will become un-rich. They refuse to buck the no-tax-pledge edict mandated by a professional lobbyist, Grover Norquist, who\u2019s never been elected to anything in his life. <\/p>\n<p>The \u201cfiscal cliff\u201d negotiations have entered the final phase. Maybe something will get done in the name of sanity. Without a deal that must be struck by midnight Monday, the nation likely will plunge into another recession. And the consequences?<\/p>\n<p>Well, speaking for myself, my family is going to see its retirement account drained of a lot of money. I don\u2019t want that. Not now, especially, at my age. My taxes are going to go up. Employers are going to be even more reluctant to hire people. Long-term unemployment insurance will be disappear for about 2 million Americans. Oh, and the tax rates for the rich folks whom the GOP is trying to protect? Their taxes will go up, too.<\/p>\n<p>Unemployment may spike back up to around 9 percent. The economy will stall out. International financiers say the U.S. will register zero growth in the coming year if we dive over the cliff. <\/p>\n<p>And for what? Because Republicans and Democrats cannot find a way past their bitching about ideology and philosophy and protecting their respective political \u201cbases.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To be fair, Democrats aren\u2019t blameless. They need to suck it up on the spending side. The government is spending more money than it can afford on a whole array of programs. However, from my seat, I keep hearing President Obama offering actual spending cuts to go along with a modest increase in tax rates for those who can afford to pay a little more.<\/p>\n<p>But as I write this, we\u2019re still stuck. Americans don\u2019t understand \u2013 or care \u2013 about the political differences that divide our so-called \u201cleaders.\u201d They want something done. Now.<\/p>\n<p>Count me as one of them. Get it done.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/usnews.nbcnews.com\/_news\/2012\/12\/29\/16216300-do-something-americans-fed-up-with-washington-as-fiscal-cliff-deadline-looms?lite I\u2019m not exactly going out on a limb here, but I am one of the millions of Americans who has had up to here with Washington, D.C. Have I found a villain among all the bad guys who are herding this country to the brink of fiscal ruin? Yeah, it\u2019s probably the Republican Party &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=724\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Count me as among the \u2018fed up\u2019<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}