Do Something

Giving Republicans exactly what they want isn't going to stop them

One of my favorite lines from The Simpsons is in Marge vs. the Monorail. A swindler comes to Springfield, voiced by the late, great Phil Hartman, and convinces the town to buy a monorail. Naturally, the conductor job is given to Homer as this is only the fourth season, and the town hasn’t learned from its repeated mistakes of giving important things to do to Homer. We’re still a season away from NASA sending Homer to space.

Naturally, the monorail is faulty, like it was made in China for the Trump Organization. During its initial run, the train is speeding, and the brakes don’t work. Homer is told over the radio that he needs to find something to use as an anchor. Bart is also on the train and tells Homer, “Think, Homer! Think!” Homer looks at his son, and instead of seeing him, he sees an anchor with a mouth and eyes. Then, the anchor says calmly, “Think harder, Homer.”

That has become one of my favorite lines from The Simpsons and almost ranked as high as, “Duh…and stay out of Springfield.” The line came back to me while watching the ongoing mess in Washington.

“Think harder, Homer,” to me at least, is like telling the Democrats in their resistance to the runaway monorail in the Trump/Elon administration, “Do something!” After seeing Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and seven other Democratic senators for Trump’s and Mike Johnson’s budget, I say, “Do something else.”

Many Democrats saw a government shutdown as one of the party’s few points of leverage on the government funding bill as Trump and Elon have illegally shuttered programs, fired federal employees, and canceled spending previously authorized and voted on by Congress.

Schumer argues that allowing the government to shut down would only give Trump and Elon (who shouldn’t even be a part of this process) more power to fire federal employees, cut budgets, and fire people, but in case you haven’t noticed, they’re doing that anyway.

And I grant you, Chuck and Democrats are in a tough spot as the choices are a shit sandwich vs. a shit sandwich with raisins. But Chuck needs to understand that we’re not in normal times. Congress doesn’t negotiate and compromise anymore.

Remember in 1988 when George H.W. Bush said, “No new taxes!”? He meant it, but the Democrats put his feet to the fire and refused to move anything through legislation until they got the taxes they wanted. As it turns out, Bush should have just ignored the constitutional process and illegally done what he wanted, but it’s working for Trump. George H.W. Bush should have resisted the tax cuts and told voters they included funds for making their kids trans while teaching them Critical Race Theory.

Where are these guardrails we were promised that would constrain Trump? Sure, there’s a loss here and there in the courts for Trump, but each of those may just be temporary. Why isn’t a court stopping an unelected bureaucrat from firing federal employees, cutting budgets, and eliminating entire departments?

Passing a GOP bill that adds $16 billion to the Defense Department while setting up $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for the rich that will be funded by $2 trillion of unspecified spending cuts (pssst….Medicaid) is NOT constraining Trump. We’re not just failing to stop Trump from destroying our nation while selling Elon’s cars on the White House lawn, we’re giving him another tax cut. Let me remind you, that’s on top of him already not paying taxes.

By the way, on nearly $11 billion of income over the past three years, Tesla paid 0.4 percent in taxes. If you think that’s too harsh, don’t worry because more Republican tax cuts are on the way.

Elon was placed into his current position to find ways to cut government spending. He initially promised to cut $2 trillion out of our $36 trillion debt, but now he’s walking that back and will be lucky to hit $1 trillion. But we know Republicans don’t really care about cutting government spending when they’re tacking on nearly $5 trillion more for the billionaire assholes (there are programs and spending Republicans want to cut, but they’re lying when they say they care about debt).

Elon said that if he cuts enough from the debt, every American taxpayer will receive a $5,000 check. I’m not a genius like Elon, but even I know that if he wants to give us all $5,000 checks, it would have to be borrowed. It’s very clear to me that if Elon cuts trillions from the debt, it’s just going to be given to Republican billionaires like himself, and we’re still going to be in debt.

By Republicans’ logic, the tax cuts for billionaires don’t count because the extra money they have “trickle downs” to the middle class and the poor. The only problem with this theory is that it doesn’t work. If it was going to work, it would have kicked in at some point over the last 45 years.

Since we all know trickle-down economics doesn’t work, and even Republicans know it doesn’t work, then these tax cuts are just a gift to billionaires. Your kids’ kids will be paying for them unless their last names are Trump because Trumps don’t pay taxes.

Honestly, I don’t know how to stop this, but I do know you don’t stop it by voting for it.

We needed younger leadership in the House, and we got it. Now, we need it in the Senate. Chuck Schumer has to go.

Let’s stick him on a runaway monorail.

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