This is nothing but awesome sauce. The astroturf group Fix the Debt had a live Twitter chat yesterday to try to keep spinning up the fearmongering on the debt and they got trolled Big.Time — by smart citizens who know that Fix the Debt is nothing but a front to eliminate Social Security and to cripple us with their austerity program. If you are on Twitter, you can look at #fixthedebtqa to see the fun up close and personal. But here are a few sites who are posting up some of the favorite Tweets:
The Washington Post has more
Some of my favorites:
But that’s not all! Fix the Debt asked for stories from American families about how the national debt personally affects them — seriously. So The Washington Monthly asked their readers to send in their feedback on how the debt affects them and the replies are fantastic:
Last, but certainly not least, Priscilla Bremser emailed with this:
Positively K Street
(with apologies to, and greater appreciation for, Bob Dylan)You got a lotta nerve
To say “Let’s Fix the Debt”
Ten years ago
You were all for an invasionYou got a lotta nerve
To put Medicare under threat
While refusing to put Defense
In your equationYou say let’s cut tax rates
So our economy can grow
But we tried that, and all it did
was stifle and slow itYou say we need a broader “base”
To keep our tax rates low
While your own just keep on shrinking
And you know itI know the reason
For your Astroturfing schemes:
Partner groups each with millions
From the same sourceDo you take me for such a fool
To think I’d buy your memes
And allow you in your greed
To drag us on the wrong courseJust look what “austerity”
Has done to Britain and Spain
In London we now see
A second recessionCEO’s could pay your share
And not be a giant drain
But an indecent level of wealth
Is your true obsessionWe should cancel the F-35
Fix our cities and our towns
Help older people,
Help children who are still growingBut your lobbyists
Hoopes and Wroe and Brown
Do the bidding of G.E.,
Lockheed, and BoeingI wish that for just one time
You could stand inside the shoes
Of a worker on her feet all day
At minimum wageYes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside her shoes
Then you wouldn’t be eager to raise
The retirement age
Proud of the informed people today! If you are looking through the twitter responses (and you should, but it is a time suck), let us know which ones you like. Because as far as I can tell, the only people who bothered to respond to this Q&A were the folks who weren’t buying the need to dismantle the safety net so that rich people could have more tax breaks.