Republican insanity, which is usually no more than the basic insanity of Capitalism taken to new extremes, has found one more issue on which to showcase itself: The Zika virus.
Instead of talking seriously about what may well become a ticking time bomb of heart breaking tragedy down the road (with babies, and families, dealing with birth defects nobody is aware of yet), they are playing the game of "to spend money there you need to take it from other health programs we don't like."
Heaven forbid that they might actually consider bringing in more revenue by raising taxes; an approach, by the way that would save untold millions in the long run with the potential prevention treatments that stand to be developed (if you can do no more than look at this from the cold perspective of "costs" alone). No, they would take money from planned parenthood, just to name one of their "poison pills," added to make it seem like they trying to present some kind of legislation at all.
The problem, of course, is that taxes are simply another cost that would lower the profits of those who already make huge sums. Just as paying an actual living wage would raise costs and also lower profits; which begs the real question: How much of a profit is reasonable? Even more to the point, how much of profit derived from investments that don't actually create anything (other than more money), as with the various forms of speculation, is reasonable? A reasonable question after all as they are always quick to question the value of wages that are supposedly too high.
The usual response to this, of course, is that return is necessarily a function of whatever the market will bear. When you can have a system that plays both automation, as well as the cheap labor of "free market legislation," against human skill as a commodity, however, you rig the setup from the get go. The result being that not only do ordinary folks resist more taxation (for the simple reason they can barely afford the basics of life in the first place), but those make sure that the commodity of money never falters in its value can smugly claim they don't want any more either. A lovely way to keep a certain kind of symmetry going, even as more people, and more babies, get sick.
Revenge may be a dish best served cold, but Capitalism is where cold is a way of life.
Zika Virus Budget Battle 'No Way to Fight an Epidemic'
by MAGGIE FOX
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