Whereby the United States Congress channels its' inner Marie Antoinette....

Here in America we continue to witness the genesis of a genuine 'grass-roots uprising' as the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to gather steam (unlike the Tea Party which is merely a physical manifestation of the racist fringe of the republican party and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch Industries). The OWS movement has captured the imagination of those that for a very long time have felt left out, stepped-on, beaten-down, and used and abused by a system that tilts evermore in the favour of the 'haves' over the 'have nots'. In other words the 99% of the rest of America that haven't seen their lives drastically improve since 2000, but instead have had their dreams and hopes destroyed by a system that is becoming exponentially more corrupt as every day passes.

There have been a few on the left of the political sphere that have voiced their support for the movement, but those voices have not necessarily been welcomed with open arms. One of the main reasons being that the very object of the OWS's ire is the entire system these politicians represent, one which they feel is broken, skewed and thoroughly corrupt. Naturally the presstitutes in the M$M did their very best to ignore the whole situation for the first week, but as the crowds grew, and as the cops stepped in with their usual hob-nailed boot tact and pepper-sprayed the unarmed protesters, it finally made it's way onto the front pages.

Whilst the politicians and pundits on the right have poured their scorn on the protesters, calling them 'filthy hippies', 'unemployed free-loaders' and other such compassionate christian phrases, Congress itself has decided to provide the ultimate "let them eat cake" moment....

As the OWS movement rallies against the preferential treatment given to Corporate America by those in Congress in the form of tax breaks and tax loopholes, and Senate republicans voted to not even entertain a debate about the President's jobs bill, never mind a vote on the actual bill itself, comes news that both Houses are seriously considering on giving an almost 300% tax break to corporations that decide to repatriate money they sent offshore.

Let me break that down for you: the proposal would lower the repatriation tax rate of offshore corporate money coming back into the US, money that was sent overseas initially so that it could avoid any taxation at all, from 35% to 9%.  And just so you understand we are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars here (that's billions with a 'B') not just a couple of mill here or there, but a metric shit-ton of money.

I am hard-pressed to come up with a situation where there has been a more spectacular display of being completely and utterly tone-deaf as this. Whilst the banks are illegally throwing people out of their own homes, whilst credit card companies continue to charge usurious interest rates even if you've always paid on time and never been over your limit, and thousands of ordinary people in the "richest country in the world" have to decide whether to buy food or pay for their medication, this collection of malcontents, nit-wits and village idiots have decided that the very best course of action for them to take is to give the Corporations another fucking tax break.

Let them eat cake, indeed.....