Democrats fell for GOP trick

Democrats fell for GOP trick

Once again the Republi- can Party has tricked the Democrats into betraying their base in the so-called debt ceiling debate.

Obama made his usual mistake of promising to meet them halfway. If I told you I was meeting you halfway and you were 100 miles out, then all you would need to do is to move another 100 miles out and you would be the 100 percent winner. That is exactly what the Republicans did to protect the wealth of the rich and powerful. The American media played along with this charade and even depicted this as a kind of moral victory with of all people Gabrielle Giffords in a cameo star appearance at the climax.

But the truth is that the Republicans got everything they wanted: the debt burden was lifted from the shoulders of those who caused it with their tax cuts, risky investments, bank bailouts, and bogus wars and put on the backs of the working poor and middle classes. $13 trillion bank bailouts, $5 trillion Bush tax cuts, profit-making wars all over the globe for any reason whatsoever, 70 percent of corporations pay no taxes and some even get billions in return.

That is what caused the deficit, not the food programs for the poor. The upper classes will be wintering in their Riviera villas while the rest of us are toiling in the hole they dug for our economy. With friends like Obama the working class needs no enemies. He was depicted as the new FDR and it turns out he is not even a second-rate Hoover. Or as Pogo would say: “We have met the enemy and he is Obama.”

Roger Lafontaine, Youngstown

Obama’s half-hearted effort

Did the president protect the seniors? Did the president threaten to shut down the government to protect the seniors?

What effort if any did the president make to protect the seniors?

When speaking about what concerns the seniors, all I heard was the word “cut.”

Ironic, isn’t it, that the seniors, the disabled, the sick, the poor have to uphold this country.

Or rather, doesn’t the president in reality consider the seniors, disabled and sick, and poor to be a burden to this country?

Sylvia Kozwara, Youngstown