Both sides blow.

Our disdain for Obama should never be interpreted as approval of George Bush. You captured the disillusion with both sides marvelously. Look into any government act, program, bill, ruling, etc, and you will find some sort of lie. Time to stop looking for a savior and start looking to ourselves. A great reworking of a great song.

I'm reluctant to say, "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"!!!, but I do love the way you've (unshellfishly) explicated extemism's voible deceits! Right, er, 'centrist' on, brothah!

Great idea for a reworking of the OS, title and all.
I recently included "Left-wing spenders…Right-wing whiners" in a parody about things I hate, so you know I'm with you on this one.

All that "flip flopping" finally paid off in a balanced classic to all that is wrong. Wonderful, Tom!!

Ah, for the good old days of gridlock...555!!!

Right and left on!

TT - Inspired OS choice for this take on "both sides" and well written. I saw that Daily show on the ousting of the gay interpreter - very funny yet sad. The Daily show is the only place to get the reat news.

my fave of the day

John Barry: Great title switch that would be, too! .. thanks for v/c, John.

Patrick: Well said, Sir! ... thanks for v/c, Patrick.

Judi Jiulianiarrak : Thanks for your clever banner/banter! ... uh, "voible"? ... and lots of luck when Rudi sues ya lol! ... thanks for v/c, JJ.

Invisible Boy: Oh, go ahead and plug it! ... else sometime, I'll try to look it up. (I'm like the butcher who backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.) Thanks for v/c, IB.

Mark Scotti: And they make great sandals, too! ... thanks for v/c, Mark.

Leo Keough: YEAH BABY! "No man's life, liberty, or property are safe when Congress is in session." Mark Twain (?) .. gridlock = less gov = less interference and fewer problems. Thanks, Leo!

PMS: Or off! ... thanks for v/c, P.

Timmy1000: True (Leno is good too), and what does that tell us about CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc? ... thanks for v/c, TimmyK.

alvin: honored esp. for a Monday with 50+ ... thanks much alvin.

TT, very good job. I, too, agree with Leo Keough and Mark Twain (my local newspaper – Orange County Register – has a libertarian orientation and printed Twain’s quote on the editorial page today).

I might take issue with the second line of the second verse. Since the top 50% of income earners pays 97% of federal income taxes (and their share of taxes will increase under Obama’s tax plans), taxes don’t flow from everyone. And as you point out in verse 8, taxes don’t always flow from Obama cabinet nominees. But higher taxes do hurt the economy and ultimately do hurt everyone.

John Jenkins: I too was "certain" it was Twain's quote, but surprisingly, the various web sources did not include it among his quotes (perhaps because they disagreed with his POV? Doesn't that hurt your credibility as a source?), and I like to be able to point to sources if needed.

The economy of language necessary for pacing purposes (and syllable-matching, to:

"They rain and snow on everyone")

) probably is what caused the ambiguity of the line in question. The intention was, "Everyone will experience more pain (as you said, economic damage hurts everyone), and more taxes will flow from everyone". IMHO, the middle classes will be facing income tax hikes too, despite the "soak the rich" rhetoric. When the income tax was finally successfully introduced in 1913 after first having been declared unconstitutional ( one of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson's major "achievements", along with introducing racial segregation in some Federal workplaces), its backers got the voters to support the Constitutional amendment legalizing it by promising that "the rate would never be increased from its 1% to 7% range, and would affect only the rich. The middle class and blue-collar workers will never pay it". The minimum income that was taxed was $3,000 for single persons and $4,000 for married couples, after exemptions and deductions. In today's dollars, that's over $64,000 for singles and $86,000 for married, again after exemptions and deductions. And considering how much lower other taxes were then, or those that did not exist, a net taxable income of $3-4000 back then probably made a person much more affluent than the above figures for today. So yes, it originally was passed by appealing to class warfare, greed, and envy, as applying only to the "rich". Not so today. There's progression, but we average slobs pay plenty.

The other point is that the income tax, while the most-discussed and visible, is hardly the only tax. Consider New York's recent levies and proposals on everything from candy to porn and a lap dance. Property taxes skyrocketed so much that your state was motivated to a citizens' referendum, Proposition 13, which led the way for other states to follow. (Thank you, Sir!) Sales taxes keep increasing; the Federal excise tax on rubber tires that was intended to discourage driving during WWII, as well as raise revenue, and was supposed to expire at the end of the War, didn't. What tax ever does? Rather than go on, I think the intention is clear: One way or another, *everyone* is going to be paying more in total taxes (where else will the funding come from? Sh*t it out our recta? Pull it from thin air?) And yes, in the long run, the economy will be further damaged, hurting *everyone*, as you said. Thanks for vote and the usual very thoughtful comment, John.

From comment above:
"IMHO, the middle classes will be facing income tax hikes too, despite the 'soak the rich' rhetoric."
Already happened.

Found an old book "Rise of Empire" by Garet Garrett, an Old Right or Classical Liberal author who opposed Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and foreign policy. This book, published in 1952, sounds as though it were written today. All powerful executive, declarations of war without a vote by an increasingly impotent congress. Garrett's 1920's novel "The Driver" has been cited as a possible source for certain plot elements of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". The principal character is named Henry Galt, and runs a railroad. "Secret of the League" by Ernest Bramah features a strike by the industrial class, led by a man named "Salt". In 1898 the feds imposed a tax on telephones to fund the war with Spain. No one cared because how many people had phones in 1898? The tax was still around over 100 years later. I wouldn't be surprised in the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission was still meeting somewhere and collecting salaries.

Garrett does indeed sound like he saw it all coming. History repeats itself, because we never learn from it. "The Driver" - inspiration, indeed, but the coincidences in character name -- naah, John Galt didn't run a railroad. The Taggarts did, but railroads were a much larger part of the economy in the 1920s-1950s than they are today. So it would be natural for the industrialists to include rail, steel, etc., before iPods became the economic engine. Thanks for following the comment, revisiting, and adding some interesting info.