The Coffee Party is at it again.
Desperately seeking a raison d’etre other than NOT to be the Tea Party, the Brew Crew has just issued a Congressional chain-letter which it hopes its tens of followers will co-sign. Pulling no punches, the Political Percolators are telling Congress to…to…well, to quit being so darn mean to Us the People. Here’s the full venti cup of their scalding scolding:
Dear Congress,
Please remember: you are fighting over how to spend our money. We the People pay 33.7% of the Federal Fund while corporations pay 7.2%. Many corporations pay no taxes at all. Yet your entire focus during this budget battle has been on how much to hurt the people.
We did not cause the recession, the deficit, or the national debt. We know this, and we need you to know that we are aware of a corrupt system in which corporations spend their vast wealth to lobby and manipulate you.
We know that’s why the tax code so unjustly burdens us while favoring them. We know this is why Elizabeth Warren and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are under attack from the US Chamber of Commerce and other powerful lobbyists. We know that is why your policies reward multinational corporations, including those that DID cause the recession, with bailouts, bonuses, and tax benefits.
As you wrangle over how much to hurt our quality of life and jeopardize our future, consider ways to create jobs and invest in our future.
Congress should work together on how to help us, not fight over how to hurt us.
Sincerely,
Annabel, Eric B, Lynda, Eric W, Gloria, Mark, Beth, Tina, Corinne and the Coffee Break to Save America Team
The note to Coffee Party mailing list members is oleaginously signed with first names only. But the letter to Congress itself is a rich pu-pu platter of economic naivete. Annabel Park–the dark liquid organization’s founder–and her co-scolders have obviously never heard of the Laffer Curve–or if they have, they think it’s a baseball pitch.
No doubt the Melitta Mob’s latest faux-lmination was prompted by the recent revelation that GE paid no corporate taxes last year. Of course, the fact that GE, as all corporations do, merely availed itself of accepted legal tax loopholes to minimize the onerous tax burden imposed on it by a corporate tax rate highest in the developed world goes unmentioned by Annabel, Eric B, Lynda, Eric W, Gloria, Mark, Beth, Tina and Corinne. Oh yeah–and by the Coffee Break to Save America Team too.
In lines that could have come right out of my next book, Class Envy for Dummies: How to Hate Corporations Even More, the signatories of the murky missive posit that “corporations spend their vast wealth to lobby and manipulate you. We know that’s why the tax code so unjustly burdens us while favoring them.”
As usual, to class warriors such as Annabel Park and her gang of non-rebels without a cause, corporations are not populated by human beings. They are an inanimate amorphous construct of pure evil designed to wring every last cent out of the hands of the oppressed and helpless individual. After all, Steve Jobs wasn’t ever just a kid playing around with microchips in his garage for fun. He was always a heartless corporate automaton consumed by rapacious greed and the need to plunder. Likewise Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Oh, wait. I forgot. We aren’t allowed to hate Silicon Valley corporations–they get the LW (liberal waiver). We can only hate truly hateful companies like GE and Halliburton. Even though their profit margins pale in comparison to those of Google and Apple and most other tech companies, they don’t make slick gadgets that make us look hip and feel superior. They just make things that keep us alive or allow us to drive to work instead of having to skateboard. Despicable. How greedy.
And naturally, We the People never seek out legal avenues of reducing our tax burden. No, none of Us the People has ever sought a tax break or accumulated deductible expense receipts with the avidity of a Hoarders subject. No, We the People blindly and blithely surrender every red cent of our income to the government like good little comrades.
No one disputes that the U.S. tax code is a labyrinth Daedalus himself would marvel at. Or that it desperately needs reform. A lowering of the corporate tax rate to 15% would repatriate vast amounts of corporate funds held overseas and be an instant de facto stimulus package that would dramatically outperform the Obama administration’s 800-plus-billion-dollar failed attempt at same. Combine this with a fair (or flat) tax and the U.S. economy would break-dance its way to prosperity. But that sort of sensical approach would rob the class warriors of their stock-in-trade: envy.
Another chapter in my Class Envy for Dummies book is the “Renounce Blame” chapter. Beautifully demonstrated in the Brown Brew’s letter to Congress in the sentence: “We did not cause the recession.”
No, of course “We” didn’t! The Great Housing Bubble–the bursting of which was kindling to the Great Recession’s brushfire–was caused by those predatory (and we may as well add, Evil Corporate) lenders who held guns to the heads of innocent borrowers, compelling them to try to flip their houses for unrealistic Tulipomanic gains. Victimhood, Thy name is Borrower!
Finally, it’s hard to imagine a Congressional member of either party warming up to a group which so openly accuses it of having malicious intent. “As you wrangle over how much to hurt our quality of life and jeopardize our future.” Nice touch. The Kooky Kaffeine Klan is sure to catch plenty of flies with that vinegar.
For all its bumbling, however, the Coffee Party has managed to pull off one amazing feat. It’s mastered the art of making coffee that’s weaker than tea.