Okay, so the “messed up” and “out of touch” refer to two different things, but I think they both point to the kind of systemic problems that exist in our political system. In response to a post about the Bush tax cuts an anonymous comment reveals this:
I made about $47,000 and I paid $1700 in taxes so I effectively made $45,300. If I had made $45,000 in your scenario I would have effectively made $47,400. So if I had made $2000 less I would have come out with $2100 more money in my pocket for the year.
I can vouch for the fact that this is true because last tax year I did make $45,000 and I got a huge return (everything I had paid in plus about $2400).
That’s what I call messed up.
Not long after I ran into that post I saw one from Kip Meacham that five days after sending in his perspective as a party delegate on the delegate email list policy of the Utah Republican Party he still has not received so much as an acknowledgment. This just reinforces the image that party leaders don’t feel the need to respond to regular citizens -or even grass-roots party members.
I can’t imagine a more effective way to be viewed as out of touch.
A messed up system is easy to find at many levels of both parties as well as the current party system as a whole. It is also too easy to find counter-intuitive (sometimes even destructive) practices being perpetrated at all levels of our government. The perception that the leaders of our parties and our elected representatives are out of touch with all but the most short-sighted needs of our nation is easy to maintain when everything they do is either because the party said so, or because the latest poll said so. We are almost devoid of principled leadership in the political arena.
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