A Chicken in Every Pot

Campaign slogans/promises have been popular for ages. One of the great ones is the promise of a chicken in every pot. Most think it was Herbert Hoover who said this in 1920; he didn’t. But it was attributed to him and to each president who served between 1920 and 1936. The Republican party did use it in their 1928 campaign along with “and a car in every garage (or backyard).” Promises promises. [Remember in 1929 there was the stock market crash and the upper 1/10th of the upper 1% of the country control half the wealth just like now.]

The phrase actually comes from the 17^th century when Henry IV of France expressed the wish that all his peasants could have a chicken in his pot every Sunday. What a despotic softy.

It has been said that the Tea Party wants to take us back to the 19^th century where there was very little government regulation of the market and the markets leap up and down like children bouncing on a new mattress.

Perhaps Romney has his eyes set on the 17^th century, with even wanting two chickens in every peasant’s pot. Lowering the top income tax rate to 25% is certainly in a good step in the direction of the 17^th century.

Romney said during the debate that we are spending 42% of our economy on government. Now he thinks that is a bad thing. But I would actually like it to be much higher; more money spent on education, infrastructure, care of those in need, retirement programs, social safety nets, research and development of technologies to increase our productivity and make us better world wide competitors, guaranteed health care for each citizen and things of that nature. A chicken would be nice but I’d like a lot more beef. The way things are going the 1% are enjoying filet mignon, champagne, hummingbird tongues and other gastronomical delights while we look at a chicken once a week. Yep, good old 17^th century and Romney and his buddies think they are Henry IV and are having “peasants under glass.”