Old Math, New Math, ObaMath

I heard our President say the other day something along the lines of "Regarding the tax cuts, I mean, does it make sense to anybody that when Americans are struggling in this economy, that we give billions of dollars to billionaires?

This kind of "thinking" really illustrates more than anything else, the premier difference in fiscal philosophy between Democrats and Republicans. Nancy Pelosi keeps talking about how much "tax cuts are going to cost Americans." And, while one of my anger management promises is to never again read anything written by Paul Krugman, I did have a near miss with one of his quotes in another article where he too lamented the "idiocy of taking on the cost of tax cuts."

There are all sorts of ways to count things in Washington, especially when it comes to money (although the math surrounding the "Million Man" and "Million Mom" marches were contenders for the "especially"). But I really don't care to expend much time examining the integrity bending formulae with which all sides tend to portray funding inside the inner loop of Rt 495. Like any math, state your assumptions, define your variables, label your units, apply your functions and, always, show your work. Then just about anyone with the patience to wade through your calculations can understand how meaningful your numbers are to the debate at hand.

But again, this isn't about numbers, or really even about the math. Instead, I want to offer some advice to Democrats in Washington government who think it is going to cost a lot of money to extend the Bush tax cuts:

1. You are not giving us money when you extend tax cuts. In fact, you are incapable of "giving us" the money you are so concerned about us "getting". You see, that money you think you are "giving us" is our money. Not yours. You cannot give that which is not yours, no matter how much you think it should be yours in your version of utopian society.

2. You are not even letting us keep our money when you extend tax cuts. In fact, you are incapable of "letting us keep" our money. You see, we are the ones who let you keep some of our money. Not the other way around. Most all of us are willing to ante up to the public coffers for the sake of keeping the government's Constitutionally-mandated functions but this is not a blank check you get to fill in without first consulting us on the amount AND the purpose.

3. If, as has been the clear case with this Congress and this Administration, you continue to treat this money as yours AND you fail to make the case to us, the owners of that money, on why you need the amount of our money that you say you do, then we are going to say "No, you can't have that much of our money and no, you can't do the things you want to do if they are going to cost that much money." This is what is happening right now and if you continue to think you know better than the owners of that money then we owners who are also voters are going to replace you with fellow citizens who show us that they will treat our money with more reverence.

4. And when we owners of that money tell you that you can't do the things you say you want to do, you certainly have the right to denounce us as stupid, unenlightened, teabagging, astroturfing, racist, homophobic, gun-toting, rednecked, Islamaphobic and any other epithet you wish to hurl in our unwashed direction. But you're pretty much telling us you also don't want our votes so no matter how you choose to do your math this November 2nd, don't be too surprised when your numbers just don't add up.

"Giving us" our money. Give me a break.