Grover Norquist, Republican leader of the “no new taxes” cult, boasted on TV that he’d received signed pledges from all Republican House and Senate members and almost all current presidential hopefuls to reject any tax raises to solve the deficit problem.

The refusal to consider ending tax cuts for the richest Americans, who already pay a lower tax rate than I (and you) do or to end tax credits and subsidies for huge corporations (which earn record-breaking profits, send factories and money overseas, and create no new jobs for Americans) is self-serving and un-American. It’s political theater, aimed at destroying our economy to facilitate beating Obama in 2012 and repaying their corporate sponsors by ending all regulations on their activities and ensuring an uneducated, powerless, low-paid, desperate working class to service their needs, even suggesting repealing the minimum wage, so “people who want to enter the work force can get jobs at $5 or even $2.50/ hour and trust the ‘free market’” to eventually raise their wages to a living one!

When taxes were progressive and unions flourished, the economy grew. Since Reagan, the lowering of taxes on the wealthiest has led to overseas flight by industry, a huge deficit (created by three Republican administrations and their wars of economic opportunity), and the destruction of the American middle class.

The Republicans’ “new America” is looking a lot like Charles Dickens’ old England.

-- Istar Holliday - Arroyo Grande

-- Istar Holliday - Arroyo Grande