As long as I'm on the subject of taxes, #1

The GOPpers and their Dimcrat allies keep talking about not "raising taxes on the job creators," that is, the rich. Yeah, the "job creators." They're not greedy goons who have ripped off the rest of us to line their own pockets to the point where

[t]he U.S. income gap between rich and poor is the greatest among Western industrialized nations,

on no no no. They're the "job creators." Giving them more money through tax cuts creates jobs! It's amazing!

Well, to any bozos out there who bought into and/or repeat that crap, I have a simple question: Where are the damn jobs? The official, understated, unemployment rate was 9.8% in November. That was the 19th straight month with unemployment above 9% and it ain't goin' down anytime soon:

November's figures suggest that many U.S. companies — especially manufacturers — have found ways to supply any growth in demand for their products without expanding payrolls. ...

"We've found ways of doing things faster and better," said Alan Parkhill, president of Banner American Products Inc., a maker of machines for schools and the print industry. The Temecula, Calif., firm employs 25 workers, down more than 20% from late 2007 when the recession started.

"It's sad to say, but … you get rid of somebody and thought they were integral but then you find out you don't suffer," Parkhill said. "You realize you were bloated."

All that points toward the prospect that high unemployment levels could stretch much further into the future than most economists had expected.

The tax rates at issue were reduced in 2001. They have been in effect since the early days of the Shrub administration. If a lower tax rate for the richest is so great as a job creator, then where are the damn jobs?

In June 2001, when the cuts were first signed into law, the unemployment rate was 4.5%. In the 107 months since then, unemployment has been at or just barely below that figure just eight times, all in a nine month period from September 2006 to May 2007. The last time unemployment was under 6% was in July 2008. Where are the damn jobs?

The fact, the fact, is that this business of giving the rich more cash equals more jobs for the rest of us is crap. It has failed, miserably, thoroughly, completely, it is failing, miserably, thoroughly, completely.

But the only argument the Dims raise against continuing to throw money at the rich is, essentially, that we can't afford it because of da-da-da-DUM the deficit. Not that it's a waste, not that if we really wanted to help the middle class, the working class, and the poor (increasingly the same thing) we'd raise taxes on the rich to where they were several decades back, not that the rich already have, dammit, more than enough and those who gained the most should give back the most - oh, no, none of that, we can't have any of that, why that's class warfare!

No, what the Dims say is, "We're against continuing the special tax breaks for the rich because we're the real Deficit Hawks!" In times past, the Dims tried to out tax-cut the GOPpers. They couldn't. Now they're trying to out deficit-hawk the GOPpers. I expect the same result.

We really are so screwed.