Miss Kitty, it's an interesting email, but since I love my boss and know what sacrifices he makes on my and my coworkers behalf, I just can't lay all the blame for the current situation on the politicians and the tax rates. The boss you describe in that email wouldn't have made it through the initial job interview with me because he's a douchebag I wouldn't want to work for, (quibble about that word all you want, I don't have another appropriate word that will make it past the filters).
My boss isn't going to leave the country w/ his business if he doesn't get tax cuts (he's an American FTLOG), he isn't driving a Mercedes, taking lavish vacations, or living in a a McMansion .............. he's me in 10 years w/ a family to support, a modest middle class home, a business to run, clients who aren't paying bills, and is frustrated as sheet that even though he's holding up his part of the bargain by paying his bills, paying his mortgages, being fiscally conservative, arriving at work before me and finishing his work after me, the banks who don't want to loan him money because of their other dumbarse loans to people who couldn't afford them, the stock market and his assets have tanked, and the hard working American is getting screwed like you wouldn't believe........unless you're actually one of them.
He's not going to hang his employees out to dry, he's foregoing his paycheck to make sure MY payroll checks don't bounce, he's negotiating to get me a better health care plan so that I save money, and giving me benefits even though my hours have been slashed so I technically don't qualify for them - that's the reality of the REAL American business that is built on hard work, people, careers, and honesty - not the 'short term money as the only qualifier' sheet they're talking about in out of context quotations, the big box store crap, the idiocy that seems to be taught in MBA programs, and what is unfortunately being held up as an example in these discussions.
Across the country, MY people are paying their taxes, their mortgages, and worrying about their bills, their children, and their future. We don't have large houses, new cars, expensive jewelry, or designer clothes. We pay for things with a check, pay off our mortgages early, and don't buy it if we can't pay for it. My first job (those years of babysitting don't count) was agricultural labor that involved a machete because I was too young (according to the government) for other jobs . Mama Scooterbug gets getting yelled at by me because she works a post-retirement job (after retiring from her regular job after 25 years and actually raising 2 kids), but doesn't go to the restroom all day or eat because she has customers she doesn't want to keep waiting. Papa Scooterbug worked for the same company his father started with and retired after more than 35 years with them. I (used to) have a full time job and then ran my own company in my spare time. We have jobs before we're old enough to technically work, jobs, 2nd jobs, post-retirement jobs, and get grief for our crazy ideas about what is right and wrong - but if the rest of the country was as crazy or hardworking as us, this crisis wouldn't exist.
We'll pay our tax bills like we always have, we'll plan for our own retirement and futures like we always have, we'll be the foundations of our community like we always have, and we'll be the ones that continue to pay for the people making profits at everyone's expense and working the system.
That's our reality.
You want to point fingers, you want to exaggerate partisan bickering, and you want to continuously divide us, but we're still Americans who need a solution, and we are getting screwed because people can't see the forest for the trees, and they've got a voice, but nothing good to say.
There's a possible solution on the table - we're not saying it IS THE solution, we're saying it's A solution, and that if it puts us and our neighbors back to work and keeps our country moving it's okay with us. We don't like it all, we know someone who wrote a check for a campaign is getting rewarded, we know our kids and grandkids will pay for it when we're done paying for it, and we wish none of it was necessary, but we know that common sense, reality, and what we want have always taken very different paths - it was part of the coursework at the 'school of hard knocks' we all attended.
