GOP Extends Tax Cuts; What Have You Done for Me Lately?

It’s a start. Yesterday Congress extended the 2003 tax rate cuts on dividends and capital gains. As the Washington Times reported:

The Senate yesterday approved $70 billion in tax-cut extensions, sending President Bush one of his top tax priorities and securing a key election-year accomplishment for Republicans fighting to keep control of Congress.

And they extended them to 2010. (Suppose we have a President Clinton and a Democratic Congress by then. What do you call an IED? An expiring Republican tax cut.)

That’s good. That’s great. Now, Congress, what have you done for me lately?

Of course, the truth is that our Republican leaders in Washington DC are playing the Republican base like master fishermen. Here we are, all down in the dumps after a solid year of disappointment and humiliation. Iraq is going badly, or seems to. President Bush got the blame for Hurricane Katrina. Now we have $3.00 gasoline. What’s the point of being a Republican?

Well, I’d say that we are going to see non-stop judicial nominees from now till the election. I’d say we are going to give the Democrats plenty of opportunity to vote against ANWR one more time. And I expect we are going to see the House Republicans’ suburban Agenda popping up from time to time.

And of course we are going to see Gen. Hayden explain to outraged Democratic Senators how the NSA “domestic spying” program is entirely constitutional, and moreover that they have known about it all along.

With all that red meat on the floor, you’d think that someone would have thought to bring a barbecue.