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Tues Nov 29, 2011
Today a caller from New Jersey complained to Sean Hannity that he is no longer on the side of the middle class, no longer looking out for firemen, cops, teachers. Hannity said he used to be a middle class person, and that all his friends are middle class people. The caller said he wasn’t buying it because Hannity is so chummy with guys like Donald Trump and Chris Christie.
Hannity maintained he doesn’t hang out with the people he interviews, but that he does often attend events with them. He said that he hangs out at tennis courts with other parents, not Bar-B-Q’s at the Governor’s mansion.
Then Hannity said that the public should rely on rich people buying goods and services to help keep us employed. He asked the caller, who was a fireman married to a teacher, specifically what policy was bugging him. The caller said that this year he and his wife would be seeing more money coming out of his check as part of increased contributions to pensions and health coverage.
Hannity told the caller “welcome to reality”, saying this is how it is in the real world, where private sector workers traditionally contribute more out-of-pocket towards their benefits than state workers.
The caller had his volume squelched and was ultimately hung up on, so Hannity seemed as though he had made the superior argument. But Hannity neglected to mention that Governor Christie had actually carved out special tax breaks for millionaires who threatened to leave the state, enriching top earners as the working class struggle to get by on less.
Hannity basically told the fireman to stop whining about his loss in pay and benefits because the state is catering to the rich so they won’t threaten moving away and so the middle class can be lucky enough to serve them as they spend money.
This is of course, completely disprovable, utter horseshit – the middle class is what spurs real growth in spending, the rich have been hoarding money and both Hannity and Christie are regular attendees of events planned by secretive multibillionaire sugar daddies such as the Koch brothers and the Heritage Foundation.
Cross-posted from Hannipocrisy Daily Archives.
3 Comments
He must have been a real joy to have on the crew back when he was a carpenter. I can’t imagine 8 hours a day of him working next to me.
With all due respect, the unions helped create today’s “free market” conservatives when they voted for Reagan, Scott Walker and the other peddlers of “free” trade. Unions led themselves to the slaughter on too many occasions and now they can sleep in the bed they made for themselves. Morons.
The voter is not to blame if a candidate doesn’t keep a promise once elected. You are right that too many Americans vote against their own interests but this is mostly Republicans and mostly thanks to coordinated propaganda.
For example, the super-committee talks broke down because the GOP would not raise taxes on the rich, saying it would kill jobs. But there is no evidence of this at all, our own history tells us different, especially 2001-now.
So corporate media with planted ideas is the core of the problem and the bought off stooges (of both parties) that refuse to end Reaganomics as a failed experiment in free market capitalism.