Eric Cantor, Douchebag  ⚐

05 Aug 2011

"CANTOR: And what airlines have done is have stepped in and said, well, if we’re not going to pay that money to the federal government, we’re going to keep it towards our own bottom line. And I guess that’s what business does."

Oddly, Cantor seems to be unintentionally making the progressive argument about corporate taxes here. While conservatives generally argue that cutting business tax rates will lead to companies passing on savings to consumers and hiring more employees, progressives argue that corporations will just pocket much of these savings. The FAA shutdown offered an ideal test case for this question, and it seems that even Cantor agrees that pocketing tax savings is “what business does.”

(Via ThinkProgress.)

ThinkProgress pretty much nails it. Time and time again, the "market" has had the opportunity to police itself, to do all of the good things it says it does when unfettered.

And now we're all financing a huge bailout, a housing market that is gutted by a bunch of assholes betting on defaults, and a Congress that just passed a debt ceiling package on the backs of the handful of entitlement packages that have actually made a massive difference in the quality of life in the United States over the past 75 years.

The good news, though, is people are starting to get it:

A couple of weeks ago, congressional scholar Norm Ornstein dubbed this 112th Congress as the “Worst. Congress. Ever.” And after the combative and exhaustive debt debate, it appears the American public agrees with him. Per a brand-new New York Times/CBS poll, 82% now disapprove of Congress’ job, which is a record high in that poll. A CNN poll also had Congress’ disapproval at an all-time high of 84%.

Thank you, America, for showing some brains for the first time since 2008.

It gets better.

the Tea Party’s fav/unfav is now 20%-40%, compared with 26%-29% back in April; and by a margin of greater than 2-to-1, respondents said creating jobs should be a higher priority than spending cuts

Sanity.

Now, the bad news: President Obama will take this as a sign that he and his fellow Democrats need to show some more bipartisanship. So expect that, in the coming weeks, they'll compromise on a "jobs" bill that will not create any new jobs, but will reduce taxes on people making a lot of money and voting GOP. Because, you know, Compromise is better for American than Jobs.