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shewhoworshipscarlin · 3 months

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Alvin Childress

Alvin Childress (September 15, 1907 – April 19, 1986) was an American actor, who is best known for playing the cabdriver Amos Jones in the 1950s television comedy series Amos 'n' Andy.

Alvin Childress was born in Meridian, Mississippi. He was educated at Rust College, from which he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology. When he initially entered college, Childress intended to become a doctor, enrolling in typical pre-med courses. He had no thoughts of becoming involved in acting, but became involved in theater outside of classes. Childress and Rex Ingram in the Federal Theatre Project production of Haiti (1938)

Childress's first wife was the former Alice Herndon, who established herself as a successful writer and actress under the name of Alice Childress (1916–1994); the couple was married from 1934 to 1957 and had a daughter, Jean Rosa. From 1961 to 1973, Childress worked as an unemployment interviewer for the Los Angeles Department of Personnel and in the Civil Service Commission of Los Angeles County.

Childress moved to New York City and became an actor with Harlem's Lafayette Players, a troupe of stock players associated with the Lafayette Theatre. Soon, he was engaged as an actor in the Federal Theater Project, the American Negro Theater, and in all-black race film productions such as Keep Punching (1939). His greatest success on the stage was his performance as Noah in the popular drama, Anna Lucasta, which ran for 957 performances. He also worked at Teachers College of Columbia University. Childress also operated his own radio and record store in New York City. When he learned about casting for the Amos 'n' Andy television series, Childress decided to audition for a role. He was hired a year before the show went on the air.

In 1951, he was cast as the level-headed, hard-working and honest Amos Jones in the popular television series, The Amos 'n' Andy Show, which ran for two years on CBS. Childress originally tried out for the role of The Kingfish, but Charles Correll and Freeman Gosden cast him as Amos. Since he had been hired a year before the show began, Gosden and Correll turned the search for an actor to play "The Kingfish" over to Childress. In a 1979 interview, Childress shared information about some of the candidates. Cab Calloway was considered but found wanting by Gosden because of his straight hair. Childress said there were many famous men, with and without actual acting experience, who wanted to play the role. Eventually, old-time vaudeville comedian Tim Moore was cast as the Kingfish.

Shortly after the television show had ended, plans to turn it into a vaudeville act were announced in 1953, with Childress, Williams and Moore playing the same roles as they had in the television series. It is not known if there were any performances. In 1956, after the television show was no longer in production, Childress and some of his fellow cast members: Tim Moore, Spencer Williams, and Lillian Randolph along with her choir, began a tour of the US as "The TV Stars of Amos 'n' Andy". The tour was halted by CBS as the network considered this an infringement of their rights to the program and its cast of characters. Despite the threats which ended the 1956 tour, Childress, along with Moore, Williams and Johnny Lee were able to perform one night in 1957 in Windsor, Ontario, apparently without legal action. When he tried for work as an actor, Childress found none as he was typecast as Amos Jones. For a short time, Childress found himself parking cars for an upscale Beverly Hills restaurant.

Childress also appeared in roles on the television series Perry Mason, Sanford and Son, Good Times and The Jeffersons and in the films Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) and The Day of the Locust (1975). When Childress appeared as a minister in a 1972 episode of Sanford and Son, he was reunited with two former cast members: Lillian Randolph of Amos 'n' Andy in the role of Aunt Hazel and Lance Taylor, Jr. of Anna Lucasta, with the role of Uncle Edgar.

Childress suffered from diabetes and other ailments. He died at age 78 on April 19, 1986, in Inglewood, California. He was buried at National Memorial Harmony Park in Landover, Maryland.

#historical #black history month #actor

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mariacallous · 2 months

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The April 10 legislative elections in South Korea loom especially large for President Yoon Suk-yeol. After winning his election in March 2022 by the narrowest margin in the country’s history, the conservative Yoon inherited the National Assembly elected in 2020, in which South Korea’s liberals won a historic landslide thanks to the Moon Jae-in administration’s strong response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Out of the legislature’s 300 seats, the liberal coalition won a 180-seat majority, the largest margin of victory in South Korea’s democratic history.

Two years into his five-year presidential term, Yoon has left a mark in areas that are down to the president alone. Yoon made profligate use of presidential decrees, executive orders that don’t require legislative approval. In his first year, Yoon issued 809 presidential decrees, while his two immediate predecessors, Moon and Park Geun-hye, issued 660 and 653 decrees, respectively, in their first years. Yoon also exerted influence through his appointments—most notably Park Min, the new head of the state-owned broadcaster KBS who sacked popular liberal journalists as soon as he took office. In foreign policy, Yoon capitulated to Japan’s demands to sideline World War II-era Korean forced laborers and release wastewater from the failed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, paving the way for U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral cooperation.

But in areas that require legislative assent, Yoon has been stymied. The South Korean Constitution allows the executive branch to directly propose a bill to the legislature. For the first six months of Yoon’s presidency, the National Assembly refused to pass a single bill proposed by the government. Yoon’s campaign pledge of abolishing the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, pandering to the toxic misogyny rampant among young Korean men and fueling their conservative turn, has not come to pass because a reorganization of cabinet ministries requires passing a law. (Yoon has responded by simply refusing to appoint a gender equality minister.)

Meanwhile, the opposition Democratic Party has leveraged its commanding majority to pass laws that could have been highly damaging to Yoon, such as providing for special prosecutor investigations of the Itaewon Halloween disaster, in which 159 partygoers died in crushing crowds in Seoul’s popular nightlife district, and the alleged stock pump-and-dump scheme on the part of first lady Kim Keon-hee. Each time, Yoon responded by exercising a presidential veto, quickly racking up nine vetoes in the first two years of his presidency—equal to the total number of vetoes exercised by six of his predecessors combined.

Naturally, the Yoon administration and the ruling People Power Party (PPP) are heavily focused on recapturing the legislative majority in elections this month. Yoon was able to win the presidency by flipping a significant part of Seoul from liberal to conservative between 2020 and 2022, by pandering heavily to grievances over rising property tax. The real estate slump since Yoon’s election—Seoul’s condominium prices dipped by more than 7 percent in the past year—threatened to erode that support, as the lower condo price damaged upper-middle-class Seoul residents’ primary investment while the decreased profits and higher interest rate pushed large construction companies to the brink.

In response, South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service audited banks for charging what the regulators claimed were overly high interest rates, in a move seen as a tactic to pressure banks to extend loans to companies that posed a credit risk. The government also delayed the publication of major economic indicators such as the previous year’s budget deficit and the rising price of consumer goods until after election day on April 10.

For its interim leader in the run-up to the election, the PPP tapped Han Dong-hoon, Yoon’s justice minister and heir apparent. Because of his patrician air and relative youth at 51 years old, Han has been hailed as representing the next generation of conservatives. In the words of conservative columnist Kim Soon-deok of Dong-A Ilbo, Han stands in contrast to Yoon in three ways: “First, he does not drink. Second, he is not a stinky old man. Third, he dresses well and speaks with refined language.” With Han at the center, the conservative party has been able to distance itself from the deeply unpopular president.

The Yoon administration also enjoyed a bump in popularity with its proposal to increase the number of medical students by 2,000—a significant jump from the current level of around 3,000. South Korea has a very low number of doctors, which has resulted in a lack of access to medical care especially outside the Seoul metropolitan area. At just 2.6 doctors per 1,000 people, it’s as low as in the United States, which also has a significant and artificially created shortage, and less than half of the number of most developed countries. Doctors reacted strongly, with more than 90 percent of interns and residents going on strike. Nevertheless, the Yoon administration effectively painted doctors as money-grubbers who wished to artificially restrict the size of their ranks to protect their bottom line. With all these moves, by late February it appeared that Yoon and the conservatives had put themselves in the pole position.

Meanwhile, South Korean liberals have been mired in a civil war. Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the Democratic Party and a former presidential candidate who opposed Yoon, began as a member of the minority faction within his party. As the Democratic Party finalized its slate of candidates in February, the legislators not aligned with Lee found themselves sidelined from running for their seats again. Many of them—including high-ranking members such as Assembly Deputy Speaker Kim Young-joo—quit the party, casting their lot with the PPP or seeking a third-party bid with former Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon, who lost a bitter presidential primary against Lee in 2021.

But the campaign landscape changed dramatically in March as a new third party, the Rebuilding Korea Party (RKP), took the scene by storm. The RKP was founded by Cho Kuk, who was widely considered to be the heir apparent to Moon as the liberal president’s justice minister. Instead, Cho’s short time in office fueled the rise of Yoon.

As South Korea’s prosecutor general at the time, Yoon conducted a massive investigation campaign against Cho and his family, eventually putting his wife in prison for forging a service certificate that was included in their daughter’s college applications. Yoon’s prosecution of Cho galvanized the conservatives, who saw Cho as a symbol of liberal hypocrisy. Liberals, on the other hand, saw Cho as a martyr whose family was destroyed for the sake of Yoon’s quest for power.

With Yoon’s unpopularity, the latter narrative began to win out. The RKP’s slogan is not subtle: “Three years is too long,” referring to the remaining term of Yoon’s presidency. The new party quickly became the rallying flag for South Korean liberals critical of Yoon but disappointed with the Democratic Party’s internal squabbling. Even moderates began joining the RKP ranks, attracted by the clear message of punishing the Yoon administration. Within weeks of its launch, the RKP became South Korea’s most popular party with approximately 25 percent support.

A major turning point came on March 18, when Yoon made a highly publicized visit to a supermarket—a photo op to show that the president was tending to the wild increase in food prices. In January and February, the cost of food in South Korea increased by 6.7 percent year over year, with popular items like apples rising by as much as 121.9 percent in the same period, resulting in some supermarkets selling a single apple for 19,800 won (about $15).

At the supermarket, Yoon held up a bundle of scallions and said: “I do a lot of grocery shopping, and 875 won for a bundle seems reasonable.” But in most grocery stores around South Korea, a bundle of scallions typically sells for between 4,000 and 7,000 won; the supermarket that Yoon visited just happened to be running a suspiciously well-timed promotion on scallions.

Yoon’s attempt at Potemkin produce, over a household item whose price is common knowledge, instantly became fodder for viral mockery. Especially in the Seoul metropolitan area, where partisanship is relatively weak and election results tend to alternate, support for the conservatives began crashing. Yoon’s gaffe, and the rise of his nemesis Cho, is threatening to reverse the gain that South Korea’s conservatives have made in Seoul in the past two years.

Seeking to recapture the momentum, Yoon took to the bully pulpit on April 1 to exhort the striking doctors to return to work. But the government’s standoff against doctors is now losing popularity, as the public is facing the consequences of a lack of medical care, such as emergency rooms rejecting ambulances and cancer surgeries being delayed indefinitely. The newly elected head of the Korea Medical Association vowed that the doctors would not negotiate unless Yoon apologized and sacked the health minister.

In his April 1 statement, Yoon offered no compromise—a stance that has done little for conservatives as election day approaches. After the president’s address, one unnamed conservative legislator despaired: “I feel like a dinosaur looking up at the oncoming comet, sensing our extinction.”

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eyeslikewatercoolers · 10 months

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Sweeter Than Candy (Anarcia)

Some Anarcia for your Saturday :) (Or whatever day of the week you may be reading this). Featuring Fuego the duck

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Read on ao3

Marcia waited over an hour for the sundries shop she worked at to have the next quiet moment to check her phone. She auditioned for a new show coming to Off-Broadway over a week ago and hasn’t heard from the casting director. As the last group of tourists left, mumbling how expensive deodorant was, she fished her phone out of her skirt pocket.

The only notification on her phone was the weather app informing her that it’ll rain later.

They sighed, putting the phone back into their pocket. Only four more hours until their shift’s over, and then they can call their sister Jan to vent to for the rest of the night.

After a quiet period in the store, Marcia kept busy restocking the drinks in the cooler as a few businessmen came in to buy razors and aftershave before returning to their hotel rooms for the night. She hummed along to the royalty-free music playing throughout the lobby and adjoining store. Marcia never understood how one of the most luxurious hotels in Manhattan couldn’t pay for actual pop music.

As she reorganized the candy shelf, the bell above the glass door chimed, indicating that someone walked into the shop. “Welcome in!” she chirped and looked over her shoulder to the guest, but then realized that the person wasn’t a hotel guest.

It was the spoiled daughter of the owner of The Royal Lotus, Anetra, and her girlfriend, Aura.

Marcia was pretty sure that Aura was Anetra’s girlfriend, as they had rarely seen the two apart. Aura’s parents were investors in the hotel, and both families had been friends for decades. Of course, their daughters would be a couple, as it was practically fate.

Anetra gave her a blank stare in return as she went straight to the chip section, as Aura gave them a polite smile and wave as she followed. Anetra’s face never changed, as she always looked pissed off at something, but Marcia had no idea what that something could be.

Marcia returned to the check-out area as they waited for the couple to finish shopping. Anetra walked up carrying a bag of Fuego Takis and a Diet Coke and dumped her items on the counter. She was the only person who ever bought these chips, and Marcia honestly thought it was in stock just for Anetra.

“Family account, please,” Anetra said as she waited for her girlfriend. They nodded quietly, typing on the point-of-sale computer, and finished the transaction. They felt slight relief from the awkwardness when Aura walked up with an armful of candy.

Marcia and Aura made polite conversation as they rang up the items. Aura was usually the more social out of the two. “I love this one, it’s made by a new chocolatier in Brooklyn,” they said as they pointed to one of the candy bars.

Anetra’s eyes slightly brightened from where she waited as Aura replied, “Oh, really?” she looked over to Anetra. “Maybe I should take Robin there when she’s here next week.”

Anetra nodded, with a curious look on her face “She would like that.”

Marcia put the items in a paper bag as Aura paid with an Amex Black and wished the two goodnight as they left the shop.

Marcia sighed and looked at their phone again, with no new messages and an hour left in their shift. They were definitely going to get that fancy chocolate tonight as a comfort treat for not getting the role.

A week passed by, and Marcia didn’t get the role. They received a generic ‘Thank you for your interest’ email from the casting director and clicked the delete button without even opening it. As they searched for other casting calls, they watched the quiet store from where they leaned on the checkout counter.

Further along in their shift, they looked at the saved casting call events into their calendar as the door opened and saw Anetra and Aura walk in. They pasted on their customer service smile and straightened up, “Welcome!”

“Hello.” Aure politely said as Anetra continued walking until Aura pulled her back by the wrist and mouthed something that Marcia couldn’t see.

“Oh, um, right. Hi.” Anetra said, giving a small wave. Marcia tried to hide her shock as the two walked further into the store. Anetra rarely greeted Marcia back when she went into the store. Marcia had no idea what Aura said to Anetra, but she was thankful for it.

Several minutes later, Anetra walked up to the counter with a few different candy bars, and Aura stood close by, looking at the small rack of sunglasses. Marcia found it strange that Aura was looking at that particular display when she had sunglasses of her sitting on the top of her head but didn’t say anything about it.

Marcia looked at the items that Anetra brought up, “No chips today?” she asked as she started scanning the items.

Anetra shook her head and glanced at Aura before looking back to Marcia. “No, not today.” She awkwardly looked down and pointed to one of the candy bars. “Do you know if this one is any good?” Her fingers ran through her bleached blonde hair.

Marcia looked at the candy bar, seeing it was from the same chocolatier Aura bought last week. “The sea salt and caramel? I’ve tried it when we first got them in, I think it’s pretty good.”

She felt the awkward tension that she usually felt with Anetra slowly disappear. The two fell into casual conversation when Anetra asked, “Which one is your favorite from them?” She asked, referring to the small chocolate brand on the candy bars.

Marcia momentarily thought before they replied, “I think the dark chocolate and mint is my favorite one. I don’t think we ever get it in our shipments, though.” They shrugged as they put the candy in a small paper bag and typed the family account code into the computer.

The two left the store as they exchanged goodbyes, and Marcia had a small smile. She felt it was a nice change for Anetra to talk to her for once.

Two days later, Marcia walked into shipment day from the store’s different vendors. After clocking in that morning, Marcia and her coworker, Amethyst, emptied and organized all the shipments from the vendors that dropped off before the store opened.

As the two took turns checking out the few customers that entered the store, the number of boxes they worked through lessened throughout the morning. Marcia worked through the last box in the candy section, working on the gourmet chocolate display. They pulled out a handful of candy bars, and the first one on the pile caught their eye.

Dark chocolate and mint from the new chocolatier in Brooklynn. A pleasant surprise to see their favorite flavor now for sale in the shop, at first. Then Marcia remembered the conversation with Anetra from the other night,

They told Anetra that dark chocolate and mint was their favorite flavor, but the store didn’t carry it. Now suddenly, the store has it in their regular stock.

Marcia questioned the power and motives of rich people as she continued to stock the shelf. Was Anetra trying to be her friend?

As Amethyst and Marica were tearing down the boxes to be taken to the dumpster outside, the door chimed as it opened. The two looked over and said, “Welcome in!” in unison as Anetra walked in and waved at the two.

What surprised Marcia about Anetra coming into the store this time was that she was alone. No Aura and no other rich friends accompanied her.

Amethyst looked from Marcia to Anetra, who was already looking at the candy display, and then back to Marcia. She bent down and picked up the pile of flat cardboard boxes and said to her coworker, “I’m gonna take these out, I’ll be back soon!” before she scattered out the back door.

Marcia didn’t even have the chance to tell her they were barely halfway through all the boxes before she ran out.

Marcia sighed as she walked over to the check-out counter while Anetra waited with another pile of candy bars with a Diet Coke. “It looks like the ones you like came in,” Anetra said, pointing to the new chocolate bar on the top of the pile.

“It did, I’m guessing telling you that it was my favorite had something to do with it?” Marcia asked as she started scanning the items in front of her.

Anetra had a sly smile on her face, “Guilty, but I wanted to try it for myself.”

Marcia smiled as they started to type in the family account number, but Anetra held out a $50 bill to stop them. “Actually, it’s cash today.”

Ignoring their annoyance for having to break the $50 bill for a transaction that was $7.09, they handed Anetra the change and kept the larger bill nearby for the moment. “I’ll see you later, Marcia,” Anetra said with a little wave and walked out the door again with the paper bag.

Just as Marcia was about to put the $50 bill into the safebox near the register, she felt something on the back. Pulling off the hotel-branded sticky note from the back, she read what it said.

555-XXX-XXXX

Text me whenever ;)

-Anetra

“So what did Miss Heiress have to say?” Amethyst said as she walked back into the store, and Marcia looked up from the note.

“She gave me her phone number for some reason,” Marcia said, unable to hide their confusion. “I have no idea why she would give it to me.”

Amethyst tilted her head in mock sympathy “Aw, Marshie, you’re lucky that you’re pretty.”

Over the next week, Marcia found Anetra visiting the shop at least once a day, buying the same items over and over again. The heiress would smile and wave at Marcia, head straight to the candy counter, and buy some candy bars and a Diet Coke. She started to make small talk with Marcia while they rang up the items, seeming more comfortable with talking than she had a few weeks before.

They’d seen Aura come in with Anetra a few times during the week, so Marcia ruled out the possibility that the two broke up. They hadn’t texted the number that Anetra gave them during the last shipment day, but Anetra hasn’t mentioned it either.

At the end of the week, Marcia waited for Anetra to visit the store during her shift. Her shift was almost over, and there was no sign of the other woman. She was feeling more disappointed closer to the end of her shift.

Luckily she had a casting call after her shift, so at least she had something to look forward to.

She realized Anetra wasn’t coming in that night when they saw Amethyst walk in to take over for her shift. Sighing, they finished their end-of-shift duties and passed the store keys to Amethyst, and headed to walk out the door.

Marcia stopped when they saw the hotel’s lobby manager, Sasha, enter through the heavy glass door.

“Oh, good, you’re still here. I need you to do one more thing before you leave for the day.” Sasha cheerfully said, passing Marcia a slip of hotel-branded paper.

Marcia looked at the list, “Excedrin, Diet Coke, Fuego Takis, Dark Chocolate, and Mint bars…What is this?” they asked as they read off the list.

“Anetra sent down a list of what she needed from the store. She wanted you to bring them up to her penthouse.” Sasha explained.

“Why me? Couldn’t someone from room service do it?” Marcia pointed out.

Sasha shrugged in response before turning to leave the store “She explicitly said that she wanted you to do it.”

Marcia sighed again and started picking out the items on the list so Amethyst could check her out on the family account.

Several minutes later, Marcia exited the elevator on the hotel's top floor and turned towards the penthouse door. The door looked different from the guest rooms, and Marica knew she was in the right place.

Giving the door a loud knock, she waited for someone to answer the door. After almost a minute, the door opened to reveal a make-up-free Anetra in an oversized hoodie that had a faded logo for the Taekwondo Championships..

“Thank god, this migraine is killing me.” She looked relieved to see Marcia holding the paper bag.

Marcia passed over the bag, “I don’t know why your girlfriend couldn’t do this for you.” She blatantly said.

Anetra opened the door further, tilting her head at Marcia “My girlfriend? What do you mean by…” her voice trailed off as she thought to herself.”Oh! Did you think Aura is my girlfriend?” She asked with an amused smile.

Before Marcia could stumble out an embarrassed answer, she felt something small and feathered brush against her legs.

“Oh shit, Fuego! Get back here!” Anetra brushed past Marcia and walked quickly, chasing whatever escaped from the penthouse down the hall and rounded the corner.

Anetra returned a few seconds later, and Marcia felt dumbfounded when she saw what Anetra was carrying.

“Y-You have a duck.” was all they managed to say. The more they got to know Anetra, the less they understood about rich people.

“Yeah, let me take him to the kiddie pool with his siblings, and you can wait in here,” Anetra said casually as she led Marcia inside the penthouse. Marcia waited on the expensive leather couch in the dimly lit living room, wondering why the rich couldn’t have normal pets like the rest of society.

Marcia heard the door Anetra went through open and immediately asked her, “So you and Aura aren’t dating?” Might as well jump right into it.

Anetra shook her head and sat next to Marcia, “No, we’re just close friends because of our families. Plus, Aura has a girlfriend, she’s just been in Connecticut for work most of the time.”

“Oh,” Marcia responded quietly, as she felt relief at this news. “I’m sorry I assumed that you two were dating. I just see you two together all the time and I just kinda figured.” She shrugged, trying to explain her assumptions.

Anetra smiled gently “Don’t worry about it. Our parents thought the same thing for years until Aura brought home Robin a couple of years ago.” She laughed as Marcia felt herself relax slightly.

“Then why did you give me your phone number?” Marcia asked.

“It’s because I like you, Marcia,” Anetra admitted. “It took me so long to try to talk to you, Aura had to walk me through how to start a conversation with you” She let out a small laugh.

“Really? You like me?” Marcia realized that if they knew Anetra was single, they would have probably picked up on the social cues much quicker.

Anetra nodded, “I do, I’ve been going to the store every day to see you since you haven’t texted me yet.” She gave a sheepish smile, “I’m hoping the reason why is because you didn’t want me to be a cheater.”

Marcia nodded, smiling as well “It is, yeah. And I thought you were just trying to be my friend.”

“So can I take you out on a date next Saturday night?” Anetra offered.

“I would love that.” Marcia beamed as they accepted, “Just something that’s not too expensive for a first date, okay?” they said taking another look around the penthouse.

The two were interrupted by Marcia’s phone alarm chiming, and Marcia slipped it out of their skirt pocket to see that the casting call just started. “Oh, I’ve got to go to an audition. I’ll be sure to text you later.” They said as they stood up.

Anetra stood up after Marcia, “Wait, I need to give you something before you go.” she said as she walked to the paper bag she had dropped off by the door. She pulled out the chocolate bar and handed it to Marcia. “It’s your favorite, it’s why I put it on the list.”

“Thank you, but don’t you like them? You’ve been buying them all week.” Marica pointed out.

“I don’t really like sweets, I’ve just been giving those to Aura and Robin,” Anetra admitted shyly. “But I realized that you only talked to me when I bought them, which I know sounds silly but I thought that-”

Marcia cut her off from the other girl’s rambling “No, it’s really sweet.” She ran her thumbs over the wrapper of the bar. “So I’m guessing we aren’t going to this chocolatier on our date?”

“As long as I’m with you, we can go wherever in the city you want.”

#anarcia #rpdr s15 #rpdr fanfiction #my fics #my writing #one shots

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

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Opinion | The GOP tax plan is to let the rich pay less and make you pay more

By Jennifer Rubin

President Biden, consistent with his idea of building an economy from “the bottom up and the middle out,” has tried to get the rich and big corporations to pay more taxes. The MAGA GOP, abandoning all pretense of populism, has a scheme to junk the progressive tax code and replace it with a national sales tax, with devastating results for the middle class.

That tells you a lot about the contrasting visions of the two parties. One still fights for the little guy in practical, concrete terms while the other proposes one harebrained scheme after another with no regard to the needs of average Americans.

Biden’s American Rescue Plan expanded the child tax credit for a year and permanently made it fully refundable, meaning that parents receive the money regardless of how much they owe in taxes. Keeping his promises not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year and to get businesses to pay more, Biden raised $300 billion in revenue in the Inflation Reduction Act by placing a new tax on stock buybacks and enacting a minimum tax on big corporations. To the chagrin of tax cheats (and their sympathetic Republican politicians), the law also boosted funding for the Internal Revenue Service to crack down on tax evaders.

None of these were radical changes in the code. More far-reaching plans to increase the individual top marginal tax rate, to boost the corporate tax rate, to equalize tax treatment of capital gains and ordinary income for those making more than $400,000, and to eliminate the step-up basis for the estate tax never passed.

The principle underlying all of these measures, which would be comparatively small adjustments that would not hit the vast majority of Americans, was simple: The rich have made out very well and should pay more taxes; working- and middle-class taxpayers shouldn’t.

“Over the past 40 years, the wealthy have gotten wealthier, and too many corporations have lost their sense of responsibility to their workers, their communities and the country,” Biden said in a speech in September 2021. “CEOs used to make about 20 times the average worker in the company that they ran. Today, they make more than 350 times what the average worker in their corporation makes.” He added, “Since the pandemic began, billionaires have seen their wealth go up by $1.8 trillion. That is, everyone who was a billionaire before the pandemic began, the total accumulated wealth beyond the billions they already had has gone up by $1.8 trillion.”

That grotesque widening of income inequality offends most Americans, who consistently tell pollsters the rich should pay more.

GOP politicians and their wealthy donors see things differently. The first tax measure proposed by the MAGA House was to try to take back funding for the IRS to chase down tax cheats.

“The debate should focus on one accurate and alarming number: the IRS has 2,284 fewer skilled auditors to handle the sophisticated returns of wealthy taxpayers than it did in 1954,” Chuck Marr of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities wrote. “The decade-long, House Republican-driven budget cuts have created dysfunction at the IRS, where relatively few millionaires are now audited.”

But allowing tax cheats to avoid paying what they legally owe is not the sum total of the GOP thinking on taxes. “As part of his deal to become House Speaker,” Semafor reported, “Kevin McCarthy reportedly promised his party’s conservative hardliners a vote on legislation that would scrap the entire American tax code and replace it with a jumbo-sized national sales tax.”

A mammoth 30% sales tax would be grossly regressive, socking it to the same working- and middle-class families Republicans ostensibly worry are paying more at the pump and grocery store because of inflation.

You know the idea is rotten when Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform, blasted the move. He told Semafor: “This is a political gift to Biden and the Democrats.” Even Norquist knows that because the poor and middle class spend a much higher percentage of their income on necessities such as food and clothing, the impact would be devastating.

Unsurprisingly Democrats leaped at the chance to blast the scheme. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tweeted:

Biden also hammered Republicans: “National sales tax, that’s a great idea. It would raise taxes on the middle class by taxing thousands of everyday items from groceries to gas, while cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans.”

The GOP plan boils down to this: Let rich tax cheats get away with not paying what they owe while redoing the entire tax system so the overwhelming burden will fall on those less able to pay. Genius! Well, if you are a Democrat running in 2024.

The plan is unlikely even to get a vote. But it is indicative of the utter lack of seriousness that pervades the GOP. They throw out one boneheaded idea after another, hoping to please some segment of their base or donors, with nary a care in the world for the needs of their constituents nor for the actual challenges we face.

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