For many Americans, the opportunity to achieve the American Dream is being hacked away by Tea Party politicians.

“… that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.” -American writer and historian James Truslow Adams in 1931 on The Epic of America.

Americans used to know that if they worked hard and played by the rules, they would be able to take care of their families, send their kids to college or technical school, and have a secure retirement.  The debt ceiling drama that unfolded with its cuts-only approach will result in many jobs lost, not to mention in more cuts to key government programs, like for example on making college education more accessible in our already-strained economy.  For many, the American Dream of having a job that can give their families a better future is simply becoming more and more out of reach-particularly for people of color and especially for Latinos that have been hit hardest by this economy.  It is incredible that working class families were asked to tighten their belts in this debt deal while Tea Party politicians like Eric Cantor simply refused to include in the deal provisions to have big corporations and the super rich pay their fair share of taxes to reduce the deficit.

“All hail the corporate masters of the Tea Party and screw America”-that seems to be subtext in all this.  The result? Even Wall Street recognized that the cuts-only approach is a BAD idea, as the stock market immediatly reacted negatively when the deal was approved by Congress because of the cuts-only negative impacts on whatever sliver of an economic recovery we were having.  The only solution at this point is to focus now on job creation and to do so immediately (something that we should’ve been doing all along anyway), otherwise our economy will tank.

Update: again, thank you Tea Party for destroying our economy with your holier-than-thou cuts-only NO-investment-in-jobs fetish.  Looks like their antics contributed to the wiping out of all 2011 gains in the stock market.  According to The Huffington Post:

A week’s worth of declines in the stock market erupted into an outright plunge as a stream of bad news kept coming: The American economy is barely growing; the federal government is preparing to slash spending; and a growing crisis in Europe increasingly threatens to send shock waves through the system.

TAKE ACTION ON TWITTER: go here and sign the act.ly petition on this.

petition @GOPLeader to stop Tea Party budget cuts that kill jobs &crash our economy http://act.ly/42j RT to sign

Update # 2: more on Eric Cantor (courtesy of The Young Turks)-putting people on notice that he and his Tea Party allies would rather take away Social Security and Medicare before they agree to have the super rich pay their fair share of taxes to balance the budget.