My conservative brethren are not out in force these days defending the GOP tax proposal.  I’ve seen a few – true believers, I guess – trying to defend the proposal with comparisons to the Obama administration.  One will not be surprised to learn the numbers they’re using are faulty.  I saw one “chart” – well, I guess it doesn’t need the quotes – it WAS an actual chart.  Anyway, I saw one chart produced by conservatives that showed the the debt had increased $13 trillion dollars under Obama.  That’s a HUGE number!  I’m glad it isn’t true…

Under the MOST simplistic, LEAST accurate way of measuring, one simply takes the debt at the end of an administration and subtracts the debt at the beginning of that administration and – voila! – some number.  But even if one does that with Obama, the difference is only 9.3 trillion.  The rest is just…add on…for effect, I guess.

The BEST way to do it is to track only the debt created by policy of the administration.  So…for starters, one must exclude the first year of an administration – ANY administration – as THAT budget is set by the previous, outgoing administration.  This is just a fact.  That means that Obama isn’t responsible for the first year of his administration.  It ALSO means Trump doesn’t get “credit” for the first year of his administration, either.  THIS coming budget, this one that promises to do so much damage to so many people?  THIS is Trump’s first budget…

Obama shouldn’t be “blamed” for spending associated with efforts to save the country after the GOP economic collapse.  THAT spending wasn’t “his” idea.  Yes, the debt increased but not because of Obama choices.  For the record, the same is true of 43 and Katrina.  Bush didn’t choose a hurricane.  That just…happened.  Bush still had to spend, though.  THOSE costs don’t “belong” to Bush, see?

George’s Wars, though…well, those costs DO belong to Bush.  I say so because 43 chose those wars.  (What?  Don’t I remember 9/11?  Of course I remember 9/11.  But 43 didn’t invade the country that attacked us, Saudi Arabia.  NOR did he invade the country harboring the “mastermind”, Pakistan.  Even though 9/11 and George’s Wars happened at near times in history, the events were unrelated…)  The wars didn’t end, of course, when 43 left office.  The continuing costs for his wars had to be paid.  Not Obama’s choice, not Obama’s debt.  In fairness, the ongoing costs of those debacles will continue under Trump’s administration, too.  THOSE costs WILL add to Trump’s total debt but STILL “belong” to Bush.  (I know, it’s confusing…)

When one considers only debt incurred as the result of specific administration policy choices, Obama is on the hook for $983 billion over the course of his administration.  By comparison, the GOP tax proposal will “only” add $1.5 trillion dollars over the course of ten years (assuming amazing growth and nothing else going wrong).  But it might be the cruelest trillion dollars in the history of the United States and every dime of it – every penny – will “belong” to the GOP.  The whole thing is being done by choice.

Now, I assume the conservative media bubble is working overtime to convince the rank-and-file that this budget will be AWESOME for them.  But, as I’ve indicated, I haven’t seen that many loyalists out there defending the indefensible.  I’m not sure the bubble has succeeded in deceiving enough adherents.  It’s not the first time something like this has happened.  When the GOP tried to take away people’s health care in outright fashion, the conservative rank-and-file pushed back.  They were all too happy to get rid of that boondoggle “Obamacare” but they weren’t about to give up their “Affordable Care Act” care…

I imagine the true fight in our country has been revealed by this budget proposal.  This is not a fight between left and right and it never has been that fight.  It’s a fight between the one percent and the ninety-nine percent and the one percent have dropped all pretense, at this point.  “Fuck you, we’re taking all the money” is a pretty clear message.  So…will the conservative rank-and-file stick an ice pick in their own eye because rich people told them they should?  I hope not and I don’t think so.

I also hope my non-Trump supporting peeps won’t finger-waggle at conservatives.  (“Oh, what do you think of your choice NOW?”)  This is not the opportunity for ‘I-told-you-so.’  I suspect conservatives see what’s happening TO them – right along with everyone else – because they’re not out yelling that “libtards” are stupid and we should all take a course in economics.  I suspect they realize it’s happening to them because they put their faith in people who misled and lied to them.  I’d like to take a page out of the snowflake playbook and give them the space to have been mistaken with dignity.  Even though conservatives, themselves, might reject the notion, we need to give them a “safe space” to come out into.

As it happens, we’re going to NEED our conservative brethren to stand with us.  When liberals call Congress to complain, some conservative lawmakers actually get happy.  If they piss off a liberal, well, they’ve done their good deed for the day.  It makes them feel as though they’re on the right track.  But if conservatives start calling, they’ll know they’ve got a problem.  If they lose the “base”, they might lose their jobs and the only thing GOP lawmakers love more than a shiny penny is themselves.

I’ll tell you this: Conservative or Progressive, if you’re in the 99%, you NEED to start calling your Congress critter and tell them to vote ‘No’ on this looming monstrosity…or suffer the consequences…