Despite thousands of Americans in hundreds of American cities protesting economic injustice, Republicans continued to scheme new ways of lavishing themselves and their wealthy cronies with even more and bigger tax breaks while brutalizing everyone else.
Despite Americans Occupying Wall Street, LA, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Des Moines, Denver, Orlando, Richmond, Oakland, San Diego, Austin, Sacramento, Las Vegas, Philly, Seattle, Madison, Atlanta, Phoenix, Tucson, Baltimore, Tulsa, Louisville, New Orleans and points in between, Republicans continued to plan new ways to soak the poor and middle classes to keep the champagne flowing and the private dancers dancing in so many corporate suites.
Flat Tax. 9-9-9 Tax. Fair Tax. Despite poll after poll confirming more than six in ten Americans wanted to raise taxes on the rich, close budget deficits, and shore up Social Security and Medicare, Republicans continued to figure out new schemes to lower taxes on the rich, soak the poor and middle classes, and plunder and dismantle Social Security and Medicare.
Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee even wanted to eliminate completely taxes U.S. corporations paid on overseas profits.
While poll after poll found Americans were fed up with the tax and fiscal polices that had concentrated 84% of America's wealth into the hands of 20% of America's wealthiest, Republicans schemed to transfer even more wealth to their rich cronies. While protests and marches and rallies across the nation decried economic injustice, Republicans schemed to pilfer the few sheckles the poor and middle classes had left to them.
GOP presidential hopeful and ex-pizza mogul Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan dumped the nation's tax code and replaced it with an across-the-board 9% income tax, 9% business tax, and 9% national sales tax. The independant Tax Policy Center found Cain's scheme would hike taxes on families making $10,000-$20,000 a year a mind-numbling 950%.
"It's very, very regressive compared to the current system, and that's largely because we're exempting capital gains, and we're taxing your spending with the sales tax," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the non-partisan Tax Policy Center. 'Regressive' meant it bitch-slapped the less well off.
Families making $10,000-$20,000 a year would suffer a $2,700 tax hike. Households making $40,000-$50,000 would suffer a $4,400 tax hike.
84% of Americans would suffer higher taxes under 9-9-9.
There were no bonus points for figuring out who made up the 16% that got a great big tax cut, with their marginal rate slashed from 35% to 9%, and their capital gains taxes eliminated altogether. But some of them were doubtless pizza godfathers.
Marginal GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman's tax plan schemed to coddle his rich buddies with a plan that eliminated all deductions and slashed rates to 8%, 14% and 23%. Like Cain's plan, Huntsman's scheme would deep-six the mortgage-interest deduction vital to middle-class homeowners, as well as the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Then, having thus raised taxes on most everyone, Huntsman wanted to funnel the money to his rich pals and big corporations by slashing corporate taxes and taxes on dividends and capital gains.
Which was, of course, a typical Republican view of reforming the tax code.
Floundering GOP presidential candidate and Texas Gov. Rick Perry Wednesday resurrected an old Republican favorite, the Flat Tax. He told a Republican gathering he intended to announce his scheme next week. Former minor GOP presidential candidate Steve Forbes, who in 1996 ran unsuccessfully on a national flat tax with no deductions, recently joined Perry's brain trust.
"I am going to give the American people a huge big old helping of unbridled truth," Perry drawled to demonstrate his folksiness. "That we can't continue to spend what we are spending, that we can't avoid entitlement reform because we are afraid of the third rail of politics."
In other words, Perry was committed to dismantling Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to fund more tax cuts to his rich cronies. In other words, Perry's flat tax was going to slash taxes for the rich and mega-corporations, and abandon the American people to poverty and destitution without retirement pensions or health care.
In other words, another typical Republican view of reforming the tax code.
Already, Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) disgraced 2012 Budget plan had tried to cut corporate taxes from 35% to 25%, dismantle Medicare, and force future seniors to buy pricey private insurance policies with scant 'premium support' the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office revealed wouldn't cover a third of health care costs. Of course, the rich loved the idea, as they coveted the tax break and the discount off the Cadillac health insurance policies they were buying anyway.
Senate Republicans already demonstrated their utter disdain for 99% of the American people by nixing President Barack Obama's popular jobs legislation, voting down an extension of Obama's middle class payroll tax holiday and rejecting a 5.6% surtax on millionaires and billionaires.
Instead, Republicans advocated replacing income tax with a national sales tax, which they considered a "Fair Tax" because it hit the poor and middle classes hard, while allowing the ultra-wealthy to skate on billions in ill-gotten gains. Instead, Republicans schemed to impose a flat tax or 9-9-9 scam to further coddle billionaires and further oppress the 99%.
House Ways and Means Committee Chair Dave Camp (R-MI) was even leading an effort to eliminate altogether taxes corporations paid on overseas profits.
"We also need to move, I think, to a territorial tax system so we can compete around the world," Camp said in June about his plot to join Japan and Great Britain in not taxing profits their corporations earned overseas.
In the words of Lenny Bruce, "What mean 'we,' Kimosabe?"
General Electric already managed to avoid paying any taxes on $14.2 billion in profits by juggling their books to emphasize overseas profits. As U.S. law currently stood, corporations owed taxes on profits they made anywhere they operated, but were allowed to delay paying taxes on overseas profits until they brought those monies into the U.S.
Camp and Republicans on his committee wanted to change the law so U.S. corporations would never be taxed on overseas profits.
Never mind that it was American taxpayers who'd provided the seed money and the subsidies and the research grants and the infrastructure and the support of the world's biggest economy that enabled those corporations to exist in the first place. Never mind that it was American schools and American innovation and American cops and American firefighters that created and grew and kept secure those corporations to begin with. Never mind it was American military might that made the world safe for capitalism.
Camp and Cain and Huntsman and Perry wanted to throw America under the bus to coddle their plutocrat masters. It was easy to imagine Camp and Cain and Huntsman and Perry and all the Republicans as a human centipede eagerly attaching themselves to corporate excess.
Showing posts with label Taxes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Taxes. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Unpopular Congress Nixes Popular Obama Jobs Plan
While Occupy Wall Street demonstrators railed against corporate greed and the injustices of a system that coddled the rich and debased everyone else, while real unemployment rose to 18.41%, while Americans from sea to shining sea gathered glumly around barren kitchen tables, a despised and disgraced Congress increasingly disconnected from its constituents and increasingly obsessed with wallowing in piles of K-Street lobbyist cash summarily dismissed President Barack Obama's popular jobs legislation.
By a 50-49 Tuesday vote in the Senate, Obama's $447 billion jobs package fell far short of the 60 votes needed to proceed. In a sign of how wretched this Congress was, no on was surprised the measure was defeated.
Two Democrats, Sen. Ben Nelson (NE) and Sen. Jon Tester (MT), joined every Republican in the Senate to defeat Obama's bid to fix 30,000 schools, hire teachers and firefighters and cops, extend a payroll tax holiday for middle class Americans, and slap a 5.6% tax surcharge on millionaires and billionaires.
It was no wonder a new Gallup poll revealed Congress continued to match its lowest-ever 13% approval rating, again tying a record for disgrace attained only twice before, in December 2010 and August 2011. Fully 81% disapproved of the job Congress was doing.
It was also no wonder that a new Washington Post/ABC News poll found the American people now trusted Obama to do a better job of creating jobs than Congressional Republicans, 49% to 34%. Just one month ago, Obama and Congress had been tied, 40% to 40%.
"If voting against another stimulus is the only way we can get Democrats in Washington to finally abandon this failed approach to job creation then so be it," crowed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Tuesday, denigrating the sort of stimulus every economist not getting fat checks from Rupert Murdoch and Fox News agreed the nation needed.
Republicans were only interested to coddling corporations and their wealthy cronies with more and bigger tax cuts and subsidies, empowering more and bigger mergers, acquisitions, layoffs, outsourcings, and offshorings. Republicans were only interested in compounding the supply-side, trickle-down, voodoo economics that had already concentrated 84% of America's wealth into the hands of 20% of America's wealthiest, and created the economic boom in their beloved China.
The 103,000 jobs the economy added in September failed to keep pace with the growth in the nation's workforce, which increased by 200,000. The official unemployment rate remained at 9.1%, while some measures of U-7 unemployment, which included full-time job seekers, a portion of part-time job seekers, the underemployed and discouraged workers, rose to 18.41% from 18.26%.
The number of people unemployed for 27 or more weeks rose from 6.03 million to 6.24 million.
Republicans were doubtless delighted, as they likely viewed a moribund economy as their ticket into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 2012. Republicans had an apparent vested interest in prolonging the nation's economic misery.
"Their strategy is to suffocate the economy for the sake of what they think will be a political victory," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said Tuesday. "They think that the more folks see Washington taking no action to create jobs, the better their chances in the next election."
The jobs plan Senate Republicans defeated had been a popular one among America's voters:
Apparently, by rejecting taxing the rich, the single most widely favored item on the checklists of the people they professed to represent, Congress was shooting for a perfect 100% condemnation.
By a 50-49 Tuesday vote in the Senate, Obama's $447 billion jobs package fell far short of the 60 votes needed to proceed. In a sign of how wretched this Congress was, no on was surprised the measure was defeated.
Two Democrats, Sen. Ben Nelson (NE) and Sen. Jon Tester (MT), joined every Republican in the Senate to defeat Obama's bid to fix 30,000 schools, hire teachers and firefighters and cops, extend a payroll tax holiday for middle class Americans, and slap a 5.6% tax surcharge on millionaires and billionaires.
It was no wonder a new Gallup poll revealed Congress continued to match its lowest-ever 13% approval rating, again tying a record for disgrace attained only twice before, in December 2010 and August 2011. Fully 81% disapproved of the job Congress was doing.
It was also no wonder that a new Washington Post/ABC News poll found the American people now trusted Obama to do a better job of creating jobs than Congressional Republicans, 49% to 34%. Just one month ago, Obama and Congress had been tied, 40% to 40%.
"If voting against another stimulus is the only way we can get Democrats in Washington to finally abandon this failed approach to job creation then so be it," crowed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Tuesday, denigrating the sort of stimulus every economist not getting fat checks from Rupert Murdoch and Fox News agreed the nation needed.
Republicans were only interested to coddling corporations and their wealthy cronies with more and bigger tax cuts and subsidies, empowering more and bigger mergers, acquisitions, layoffs, outsourcings, and offshorings. Republicans were only interested in compounding the supply-side, trickle-down, voodoo economics that had already concentrated 84% of America's wealth into the hands of 20% of America's wealthiest, and created the economic boom in their beloved China.
The 103,000 jobs the economy added in September failed to keep pace with the growth in the nation's workforce, which increased by 200,000. The official unemployment rate remained at 9.1%, while some measures of U-7 unemployment, which included full-time job seekers, a portion of part-time job seekers, the underemployed and discouraged workers, rose to 18.41% from 18.26%.
The number of people unemployed for 27 or more weeks rose from 6.03 million to 6.24 million.
Republicans were doubtless delighted, as they likely viewed a moribund economy as their ticket into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 2012. Republicans had an apparent vested interest in prolonging the nation's economic misery.
"Their strategy is to suffocate the economy for the sake of what they think will be a political victory," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said Tuesday. "They think that the more folks see Washington taking no action to create jobs, the better their chances in the next election."
The jobs plan Senate Republicans defeated had been a popular one among America's voters:
- 85% had approved of Obama's proposal for small business tax cuts and hiring incentives.
- 75% had approved of additional funds for more teachers, cops and firefighters.
- 73% had approved of tax incentives for hiring the long-term unemployed.
- 72% had approved of additional funding for public works projects like fixing up the 30,000 schools.
- 56% had approved of extending unemployment benefits.
- The Economist/YouGov Poll of Sept 24-27 revealed 68% favored raising taxes on families making $1 million or much, much more a year.
- The CBS News Poll of Sept 28-Oct. 2 found 64% favored raising taxes on millionaires to lower the deficit.
- The Harrison Group/American Express poll of Oct. 4 found 65% favored raising taxes on those earning $1 million or unspeakably more a year.
Apparently, by rejecting taxing the rich, the single most widely favored item on the checklists of the people they professed to represent, Congress was shooting for a perfect 100% condemnation.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Obama OK With Millionaire Surtax, Americans OK With Taxing Millionaires
Urging Congress to pass his $447 billion jobs legislation, President Barack Obama Thursday told reporters that he was "comfortable" with Senate Democrats' proposal to pay for his plan with a 5.6% surtax on millionaires.
The American people were probably comfortable with such a scheme as well, as poll after poll has consistently revealed that about seven in ten favored raising taxes on the wealthy and big corporations to pay the nation's debts or bolster Medicare and Social Security. The other three in ten were Republicans, who favored coddling the rich and big corporations with bigger tax cuts, breaks and subsidies paid for by slashing services everyone depended on.
A CBS News poll released Monday found 64% of all respondents wanted to raise taxes on millionaires to lower the federal deficit. 30% figured millionaires should get a pass. 83% of Democrats and 65% of Independents favored hiking taxes on millionaires, while 54% of Republicans wanted to let them skate.
An American Express/Harrison Group poll released Tuesday likewise found 65% of respondents supported raising taxes on millionaires.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans quickly moved to vote on Obama's jobs bill without the millionaire surtax, hoping to be able to claim the legislation, which in its original form was expected to be defeated by a wide margin, was unpopular with both parties.
Obama told reporters, "We're still going to need to reform this tax code to make sure that we're closing loopholes, closing special interest tax breaks," pushing for implementation of his 'Buffet Rule' to assure the wealthy paid taxes at least at the same rates as the middle class. "But in terms of the immediate action of getting this jobs bill passed, I'm fine with the approach that they're taking," he added, supporting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) proposal for the 5.6% millionaire surtax.
Republicans were quick to dismiss any notion of making their wealthy cronies pony up. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-OH) said, "Democrats would rather talk about partisan legislation that they know won't pass than about actually passing legislation we know would create jobs."
Apparently to McConnell, the wishes of 65% of the American people were deplorable "partisan" harangues.
McConnell and the GOP were only interested in lavishing more tax breaks and subsidies on big corporations and their wealthy cronies, along with dismantling Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and abolishing all business and industrial oversight to allow their cronies unfettered plundering.
Americans, meanwhile, were beginning to understand that slashing taxes for the rich had simply concentrated 84% of the nations wealth into the hands of just 20% of the nation's wealthiest, while 40% of the nation's poorest had to make do splitting just three-tenths of one percent of the nation's wealth. Americans were beginning to understand slashing taxes for the rich and big corporations simply encouraged mergers, consolidations, layoffs, union-busting, outsourcing, and offshoring.
Americans were beginning to understand slashing taxes for the rich empowered billionaires to use their accumulated fortunes as blunt instruments to bludgeon the American policy-making process with their armies of lawyers, lobbyists and fawning politicians. Coal magnates Charles and David Koch had $50 billion to fund their Americans for Prosperity schemes. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch had $7 billion to funnel into the Tea Party.
Which was why poll after poll revealed Americans wanted millionaires to pay more in taxes.
Just as slashing taxes for the rich in the years leading up to the Great Depression of the 1930s caused wealth to accumulate in the hands of the few and choked off economic growth, thirty years of slashing taxes for, and lavishing subsidies on, the rich sequestered vast sums of American wealth in arcane financial instruments and choked off economic activity.
"Karl Marx was right," New York University economist Nouriel Roubini ruffled feathers recently. "At some point, capitalism can self-destroy itself. That's because you cannot keep on shifting income from labor to capital without not having an excess capacity and a lack of aggregate demand."
Of course, any economist not getting fat paychecks from Rupert Murdoch and Fox News understood businesses weren't hiring in America because Americans weren't buying enough goods and services to warrant putting on extra shifts or building new plants. Americans weren't buying because they were tapped out from decades of stagnating wages and unemployment, mountains of consumer debt, and having to pay more for things that used to be free: Parking, tolls, museums, school supplies, personal security.
And, as demand wasn't coming from consumers, any economist not getting fat paychecks from Rupert Murdoch and Fox News understood the government should be acting as the consumer of last resort, and kick-starting demand by fixing the $2 trillion in infrastructure that needed fixing, or building a high-speed rail network, or bringing broadband access to all Americans, or putting solar panels on everyone's roofs.
And paying for it by taxing the millionaires, billionaires and big corporations Republicans kept referring to with hallowed reverence as Job Creators, but who weren't actually creating any jobs.
The American people were probably comfortable with such a scheme as well, as poll after poll has consistently revealed that about seven in ten favored raising taxes on the wealthy and big corporations to pay the nation's debts or bolster Medicare and Social Security. The other three in ten were Republicans, who favored coddling the rich and big corporations with bigger tax cuts, breaks and subsidies paid for by slashing services everyone depended on.
A CBS News poll released Monday found 64% of all respondents wanted to raise taxes on millionaires to lower the federal deficit. 30% figured millionaires should get a pass. 83% of Democrats and 65% of Independents favored hiking taxes on millionaires, while 54% of Republicans wanted to let them skate.
An American Express/Harrison Group poll released Tuesday likewise found 65% of respondents supported raising taxes on millionaires.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans quickly moved to vote on Obama's jobs bill without the millionaire surtax, hoping to be able to claim the legislation, which in its original form was expected to be defeated by a wide margin, was unpopular with both parties.
Obama told reporters, "We're still going to need to reform this tax code to make sure that we're closing loopholes, closing special interest tax breaks," pushing for implementation of his 'Buffet Rule' to assure the wealthy paid taxes at least at the same rates as the middle class. "But in terms of the immediate action of getting this jobs bill passed, I'm fine with the approach that they're taking," he added, supporting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) proposal for the 5.6% millionaire surtax.
Republicans were quick to dismiss any notion of making their wealthy cronies pony up. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-OH) said, "Democrats would rather talk about partisan legislation that they know won't pass than about actually passing legislation we know would create jobs."
Apparently to McConnell, the wishes of 65% of the American people were deplorable "partisan" harangues.
McConnell and the GOP were only interested in lavishing more tax breaks and subsidies on big corporations and their wealthy cronies, along with dismantling Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and abolishing all business and industrial oversight to allow their cronies unfettered plundering.
Americans, meanwhile, were beginning to understand that slashing taxes for the rich had simply concentrated 84% of the nations wealth into the hands of just 20% of the nation's wealthiest, while 40% of the nation's poorest had to make do splitting just three-tenths of one percent of the nation's wealth. Americans were beginning to understand slashing taxes for the rich and big corporations simply encouraged mergers, consolidations, layoffs, union-busting, outsourcing, and offshoring.
Americans were beginning to understand slashing taxes for the rich empowered billionaires to use their accumulated fortunes as blunt instruments to bludgeon the American policy-making process with their armies of lawyers, lobbyists and fawning politicians. Coal magnates Charles and David Koch had $50 billion to fund their Americans for Prosperity schemes. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch had $7 billion to funnel into the Tea Party.
Which was why poll after poll revealed Americans wanted millionaires to pay more in taxes.
- A Gallup Poll from September 20 found 70% favored increasing taxes on corporations by eliminating certain tax deductions, and 66% favored increasing income taxes on those making $200,000 or much, much more a year.
- The Economist/YouGov Poll taken Sept. 24-27 found 68% favored raising taxes on families making more than $1 million a year, and 55% favored raising taxes on families making more than $250,000 a year.
- An Aug. 9 Marist poll found 68% of Americans favored raising taxes on those making $250,000 or much, much more a year, and 60% favored eliminating subsidies for oil and gas companies.
- A CNN/ORC poll released Aug. 10 found 63% believed Congress should raise taxes on businesses and higher income Americans.
- A Washington Post/ABC News poll taken July 14-17 found 72% favored raising taxes on those making $250,000 or much, much more a year to reduce the national debt.
Just as slashing taxes for the rich in the years leading up to the Great Depression of the 1930s caused wealth to accumulate in the hands of the few and choked off economic growth, thirty years of slashing taxes for, and lavishing subsidies on, the rich sequestered vast sums of American wealth in arcane financial instruments and choked off economic activity.
"Karl Marx was right," New York University economist Nouriel Roubini ruffled feathers recently. "At some point, capitalism can self-destroy itself. That's because you cannot keep on shifting income from labor to capital without not having an excess capacity and a lack of aggregate demand."
Of course, any economist not getting fat paychecks from Rupert Murdoch and Fox News understood businesses weren't hiring in America because Americans weren't buying enough goods and services to warrant putting on extra shifts or building new plants. Americans weren't buying because they were tapped out from decades of stagnating wages and unemployment, mountains of consumer debt, and having to pay more for things that used to be free: Parking, tolls, museums, school supplies, personal security.
And, as demand wasn't coming from consumers, any economist not getting fat paychecks from Rupert Murdoch and Fox News understood the government should be acting as the consumer of last resort, and kick-starting demand by fixing the $2 trillion in infrastructure that needed fixing, or building a high-speed rail network, or bringing broadband access to all Americans, or putting solar panels on everyone's roofs.
And paying for it by taxing the millionaires, billionaires and big corporations Republicans kept referring to with hallowed reverence as Job Creators, but who weren't actually creating any jobs.
Friday, July 8, 2011
As Debt Ceiling Struggles Peak, Obama Says, "Ich Bin Ein Republican"
Then, Benedict Arnold turned to Barack Obama and asked, "So, what are you in for?"
It's crunch time in the protracted, unconscionable hostage-taking of the normally pro forma raising of the nation's debt ceiling. Republicans have been using the federal government's need to raise its credit limit as an excuse to demand trillions of dollars in service cuts and tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy, and President Barack Obama has jumped on their bandwagon.
The federal government must raise its $14.3 trillion debt ceiling to continue funding operations, sending out Social Security and Medicare checks, and paying existing obligations. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has set an Aug. 2 deadline, after which the government will not be able to meet its obligations or roll over debt, sending the nation into default and global bond markets and financial systems into catastrophic cascade failure.
Meanwhile, slashing government spending, entitlements and eliminating stimulus will plunge the nation into a second recession.
During his address to the nation last weekend, Obama alarmingly embraced Republican boilerplate rhetoric on taxes, budgets and growth, saying, "Government has to start living within its means, just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can't afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing, and give our businesses the confidence they need to grow and create jobs."
Then, he turned around and horrified Democrats by blithely announcing he would slash $500 billion from Medicare, $250-$350 billion from non-health entitlements, and blend the myriad formulas used to figure federal and state Medicaid contributions to slash $100 billion from that program.
Princeton Economist and Nobel Prize Laureate Paul Krugman was appalled, and wrote:
Obama wants to make the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, slash corporate tax rates, and appears determined to slash core entitlements to pay for those tax expenditures.
If, instead of Neville Chamberlain, the British had sent Barack Obama to parlay with Hitler, instead of the "Peace for our time" speech, you would have gotten the "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech.
Chamberlain's heinous weakness was roundly and rightly denounced as the worst kind of appeasement. But Chamberlain never strapped on a swastika armband and gave the Luftwaffe clearance to land at Croydon.
Democrats and Independents were not amused.
"I have talked to some of my colleagues," said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT),"including some you might not expect, who say if (the Administration) bring to the Senate a piece of crap that comes down heavy on working families and children and the elderly and they expect me to matter-of-factly vote for it, they'll have another thing coming."
Sanders vowed the other thing would be a filibuster.
"I do worry the White House is misreading the Senate," said namesake Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). "There has not been enough communication to alleviate that misreading."
Obama's scheme to cook Social Security's cost-of-living adjustments would slash benefits by an average of $1,000 per year over twenty years, Sanders warned, and pointed out that candidate Obama had promised not to touch the COLA formula.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) met privately with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden Friday morning, then addressed her caucus. Pelosi had been frozen out of budget talks during this Spring's government-shutdown hostage drama, and wasn't about to let that happen again.
"The (Democrats) cheered Pelosi when she said she was not going to back up," said Congressional Black Caucus leader Emmanuel Cleaver (D-MO) of Pelosi's announcement that House Democrats had drawn a line in the sand on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
"I'm not really concerned about the political implications of entitlement cuts," Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) told The Politico. "I'm concerned about the real-life implications for hard-working Americans who depend on these programs."
"Social Security did not cause our deficit," agreed Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN). "It needs to be protected, not attacked so Republicans can preserve tax cuts for millionaires."
"Don't insult us," Pelosi told Obama budget director Jack Lew. "You don't know how to count."
"You need the Democratic Caucus to pass this," explained Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-VA), who figured Obama and his Republican cohort would need at least 100 Democratic Legislators to get any debt ceiling deal through the House. Pelosi and House Dems frozen out of this Spring's government-shutdown budget talks had been forced to vote for a deal they hadn't been consulted on just to bail out Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) when the Republican leader couldn't muster the 218 votes he needed. Obama and Boehner need Democratic votes again, since so many Republicans were so deluded they promised not to raise the debt ceiling under any conditions.
Tea Party brainiac and caucus leader Michele Bachmann (R-MN) vowed she "will not vote to increase the debt ceiling," a completely predictable position for someone who thinks nine-year-old John Quincy Adams freed the slaves.
But, even Michele Bachmann, or any other Republican, hadn't suggested cuts to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for a debt ceiling hike. Even those recidivist plutocrat-coddlers had been clever enough to steer clear of politics' third rails after poking a track with Rep. Paul Ryan's Medicare Couponization scheme and getting their hair frizzed by a sizzling jolt.
Obama thought up slashing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid all by his lonesome. With Friday's jobs report showing the economy adding a minuscule 18,000 jobs last month and unemployment rising to 9.2%, Obama thought up channelling Herbert Hoover as the way to prosperity all on his own.
"With all this money the private sector has," said Rep. John Larson (D-CT), referring to the nearly $2 trillion cash horde corporate America is already sitting on, "we keep hearing from the other side, 'We're going to cut our way to prosperity.' How has that helped this economy?"
It hasn't, and now that other side has Barack Hussein Obama.
It's crunch time in the protracted, unconscionable hostage-taking of the normally pro forma raising of the nation's debt ceiling. Republicans have been using the federal government's need to raise its credit limit as an excuse to demand trillions of dollars in service cuts and tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy, and President Barack Obama has jumped on their bandwagon.
The federal government must raise its $14.3 trillion debt ceiling to continue funding operations, sending out Social Security and Medicare checks, and paying existing obligations. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has set an Aug. 2 deadline, after which the government will not be able to meet its obligations or roll over debt, sending the nation into default and global bond markets and financial systems into catastrophic cascade failure.
Meanwhile, slashing government spending, entitlements and eliminating stimulus will plunge the nation into a second recession.
During his address to the nation last weekend, Obama alarmingly embraced Republican boilerplate rhetoric on taxes, budgets and growth, saying, "Government has to start living within its means, just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can't afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing, and give our businesses the confidence they need to grow and create jobs."
Then, he turned around and horrified Democrats by blithely announcing he would slash $500 billion from Medicare, $250-$350 billion from non-health entitlements, and blend the myriad formulas used to figure federal and state Medicaid contributions to slash $100 billion from that program.
Princeton Economist and Nobel Prize Laureate Paul Krugman was appalled, and wrote:
"No, government shouldn't budget the way families do; on the contrary, trying to balance the budget in times of economic distress is a recipe for deepening the slump. Spending cuts right now wouldn't "put the economy on sounder footing." They would reduce growth and raise unemployment. And last but not least, businesses aren't holding back because they lack confidence in government policies; they're holding back because they don't have enough customers - a problem that would be made worse, not better, by short-term spending cuts."Possibly, the extended hostage situation has given Obama a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome. Or not. Obama has long enjoyed the support of Wall Street and corporate America, and now openly cleaves to the Republican agenda: more tax cuts for the wealthy, paid for by more service cuts on everyone else.
Obama wants to make the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, slash corporate tax rates, and appears determined to slash core entitlements to pay for those tax expenditures.
If, instead of Neville Chamberlain, the British had sent Barack Obama to parlay with Hitler, instead of the "Peace for our time" speech, you would have gotten the "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech.
Chamberlain's heinous weakness was roundly and rightly denounced as the worst kind of appeasement. But Chamberlain never strapped on a swastika armband and gave the Luftwaffe clearance to land at Croydon.
Democrats and Independents were not amused.
"I have talked to some of my colleagues," said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT),"including some you might not expect, who say if (the Administration) bring to the Senate a piece of crap that comes down heavy on working families and children and the elderly and they expect me to matter-of-factly vote for it, they'll have another thing coming."
Sanders vowed the other thing would be a filibuster.
"I do worry the White House is misreading the Senate," said namesake Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). "There has not been enough communication to alleviate that misreading."
Obama's scheme to cook Social Security's cost-of-living adjustments would slash benefits by an average of $1,000 per year over twenty years, Sanders warned, and pointed out that candidate Obama had promised not to touch the COLA formula.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) met privately with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden Friday morning, then addressed her caucus. Pelosi had been frozen out of budget talks during this Spring's government-shutdown hostage drama, and wasn't about to let that happen again.
"The (Democrats) cheered Pelosi when she said she was not going to back up," said Congressional Black Caucus leader Emmanuel Cleaver (D-MO) of Pelosi's announcement that House Democrats had drawn a line in the sand on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
"I'm not really concerned about the political implications of entitlement cuts," Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) told The Politico. "I'm concerned about the real-life implications for hard-working Americans who depend on these programs."
"Social Security did not cause our deficit," agreed Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN). "It needs to be protected, not attacked so Republicans can preserve tax cuts for millionaires."
"Don't insult us," Pelosi told Obama budget director Jack Lew. "You don't know how to count."
"You need the Democratic Caucus to pass this," explained Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-VA), who figured Obama and his Republican cohort would need at least 100 Democratic Legislators to get any debt ceiling deal through the House. Pelosi and House Dems frozen out of this Spring's government-shutdown budget talks had been forced to vote for a deal they hadn't been consulted on just to bail out Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) when the Republican leader couldn't muster the 218 votes he needed. Obama and Boehner need Democratic votes again, since so many Republicans were so deluded they promised not to raise the debt ceiling under any conditions.
Tea Party brainiac and caucus leader Michele Bachmann (R-MN) vowed she "will not vote to increase the debt ceiling," a completely predictable position for someone who thinks nine-year-old John Quincy Adams freed the slaves.
But, even Michele Bachmann, or any other Republican, hadn't suggested cuts to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for a debt ceiling hike. Even those recidivist plutocrat-coddlers had been clever enough to steer clear of politics' third rails after poking a track with Rep. Paul Ryan's Medicare Couponization scheme and getting their hair frizzed by a sizzling jolt.
Obama thought up slashing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid all by his lonesome. With Friday's jobs report showing the economy adding a minuscule 18,000 jobs last month and unemployment rising to 9.2%, Obama thought up channelling Herbert Hoover as the way to prosperity all on his own.
"With all this money the private sector has," said Rep. John Larson (D-CT), referring to the nearly $2 trillion cash horde corporate America is already sitting on, "we keep hearing from the other side, 'We're going to cut our way to prosperity.' How has that helped this economy?"
It hasn't, and now that other side has Barack Hussein Obama.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Debt Ceiling Histrionics Reveal GOP Allegience To Norquist, Not America
In an ostentatiously choreographed grandstand play Thursday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) melodramatically announced he was scuttling high-level talks with Vice President Joe Biden over the normally pro forma raising of the nation's debt ceiling in what many have described as an especially vulgar display of pandering to right-wing uber-lobbyist Grover Norquist and his plutocrat-coddling plunderers of America's wealth.
"The reality here is that, until our Republican colleagues are more concerned about the need to reduce the deficit than they're worried about what Grover Norquist will say, we're going to have a really difficult time reducing the deficit," said Rep. Chris Van Hollern (D-MD), who had participated in the Biden talks to raise the nation's debt ceiling so the federal government could continue to fund operations, send out Social Security and Medicare checks, and pay off existing obligations.
Norquist and his Americans for Tax Relief syndicate have all but taken over the Republican Party, which has devolved into a special interest machine seeking ever more and greater tax cuts, tax breaks and tax subsidies for the ultra-rich, funded by ever more and greater spending cuts destroying Americans' ability to govern their nation.
"I don't believe now is the time to raise taxes," Cantor smirked despite the nation's critical revenue crisis.
Norquist and ATR don't believe anytime is the time to raise taxes. Norquist, a known confederate of convicted terrorists Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi and Dr. Sami Amen Al Arian, has vowed he would gut America and drown it in a bathtub, and his scheme to destroy America by transferring all its wealth to his international plutocrat cronies has found legions of supporters among rich tax-dodgers and the ignorant poor.
Al-Amoudi, convicted of illegal dealings with Libya and plotting to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, and Al Arian, guilty of conspiring with designated Palestinian terror groups, funded Norquist's so-called Islamic Institiute. Norquist famously palled around with convicted scammer Jack Abramoff, and the two of them, along with Faith and Freedom Coalition organizer Ralph Reed, have been scamming folks since their college days.
Cantor's grandstanding walkout broke up Biden's efforts to build a framework for a debt ceiling agreement.
"I know the frustration that he feels," said House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), "Democrat members continue to want to bring tax hikes into the conversation, and insist that we've got to raise taxes on the American people." Well, not exactly the American people, but ultra-wealthy trans-national plutocrats who like to reside in the United States and take advantage of its luxurious living standards without paying for them.
Van Hollern said Democrats had offered Republicans, "a menu of eliminating different kinds of special interest tax breaks and dealing with tax exemptions for the very wealthy."
"Yes, we do want to reduce tax subsidies for Big Oil," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). "We want to remove tax breaks for corporations that send jobs overseas, the list goes on."
Now that the Biden talks have collapsed, Pelosi insisted she be included in any deficit reduction talks going forward. Pelosi had been excluded from talks during the recent 2011 Budget-slashing deal-making when Republicans threatened a government shutdown. Having gotten $39 billion in spending-cut funded tax subsidies for their wealthy minders, Republicans still couldn't muster enough votes to pass their deal, and Pelosi had to bail Boehner out with Democratic votes on a budget deal she'd had no part in forging.
Pelosi now appeared determined to have a seat at the table, as numerous Republicans have pledged they'd nix any debt ceiling hike under any circumstances, and Norquist sycophants were intransigent even on eliminating loopholes on depreciation schedules for corporate jets, making Democratic votes for any deal a critical reality.
Pelosi wasn't impressed with Cantor's grandstanding and Republican intransigence. "Leader Cantor can't handle the truth when it comes to these tax subsidies for big oil, for corporations sending jobs overseas, for giving tax breaks to the wealthiest people in our country while they're asking seniors to pay more for less as they abolish Medicare," Pelosi told CNN's State of the Union.
"We cannot balance the budget solely on the backs of the middle class," said James Clyburn (D-SC).
Biden and President Barack Obama were to meet with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) separately Monday to resume horse-trading.
"In the Bush years, the Republicans said that tax cuts will produce jobs," Pelosi said. "They didn't. They produced a deficit."
Decades of coddling the ultra-wealthy with tax breaks have concentrated 84% of America's wealth in the hands of 20% of Americans. Norquist and the Republicans have their sights set on the rest.
"The reality here is that, until our Republican colleagues are more concerned about the need to reduce the deficit than they're worried about what Grover Norquist will say, we're going to have a really difficult time reducing the deficit," said Rep. Chris Van Hollern (D-MD), who had participated in the Biden talks to raise the nation's debt ceiling so the federal government could continue to fund operations, send out Social Security and Medicare checks, and pay off existing obligations.
Norquist and his Americans for Tax Relief syndicate have all but taken over the Republican Party, which has devolved into a special interest machine seeking ever more and greater tax cuts, tax breaks and tax subsidies for the ultra-rich, funded by ever more and greater spending cuts destroying Americans' ability to govern their nation.
"I don't believe now is the time to raise taxes," Cantor smirked despite the nation's critical revenue crisis.
Norquist and ATR don't believe anytime is the time to raise taxes. Norquist, a known confederate of convicted terrorists Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi and Dr. Sami Amen Al Arian, has vowed he would gut America and drown it in a bathtub, and his scheme to destroy America by transferring all its wealth to his international plutocrat cronies has found legions of supporters among rich tax-dodgers and the ignorant poor.
Al-Amoudi, convicted of illegal dealings with Libya and plotting to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, and Al Arian, guilty of conspiring with designated Palestinian terror groups, funded Norquist's so-called Islamic Institiute. Norquist famously palled around with convicted scammer Jack Abramoff, and the two of them, along with Faith and Freedom Coalition organizer Ralph Reed, have been scamming folks since their college days.
Cantor's grandstanding walkout broke up Biden's efforts to build a framework for a debt ceiling agreement.
"I know the frustration that he feels," said House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), "Democrat members continue to want to bring tax hikes into the conversation, and insist that we've got to raise taxes on the American people." Well, not exactly the American people, but ultra-wealthy trans-national plutocrats who like to reside in the United States and take advantage of its luxurious living standards without paying for them.
Van Hollern said Democrats had offered Republicans, "a menu of eliminating different kinds of special interest tax breaks and dealing with tax exemptions for the very wealthy."
"Yes, we do want to reduce tax subsidies for Big Oil," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). "We want to remove tax breaks for corporations that send jobs overseas, the list goes on."
Now that the Biden talks have collapsed, Pelosi insisted she be included in any deficit reduction talks going forward. Pelosi had been excluded from talks during the recent 2011 Budget-slashing deal-making when Republicans threatened a government shutdown. Having gotten $39 billion in spending-cut funded tax subsidies for their wealthy minders, Republicans still couldn't muster enough votes to pass their deal, and Pelosi had to bail Boehner out with Democratic votes on a budget deal she'd had no part in forging.
Pelosi now appeared determined to have a seat at the table, as numerous Republicans have pledged they'd nix any debt ceiling hike under any circumstances, and Norquist sycophants were intransigent even on eliminating loopholes on depreciation schedules for corporate jets, making Democratic votes for any deal a critical reality.
Pelosi wasn't impressed with Cantor's grandstanding and Republican intransigence. "Leader Cantor can't handle the truth when it comes to these tax subsidies for big oil, for corporations sending jobs overseas, for giving tax breaks to the wealthiest people in our country while they're asking seniors to pay more for less as they abolish Medicare," Pelosi told CNN's State of the Union.
"We cannot balance the budget solely on the backs of the middle class," said James Clyburn (D-SC).
Biden and President Barack Obama were to meet with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) separately Monday to resume horse-trading.
"In the Bush years, the Republicans said that tax cuts will produce jobs," Pelosi said. "They didn't. They produced a deficit."
Decades of coddling the ultra-wealthy with tax breaks have concentrated 84% of America's wealth in the hands of 20% of Americans. Norquist and the Republicans have their sights set on the rest.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Plutocracy in Action: Despite Polls, GOP Forges Ahead With Medicare-Busting
In a nation that's supposed to be a democracy, 78% would seem like a fairly major majority. After all, what big league ballplayer would want his batting average stuck around .220? Yet, Republicans figure 22% represents a majority, and are surging forward with their plot to dismantle Medicare, hand the Medicare money to their well-heeled insurance company cronies, and pawn off future seniors with coupons that won't cover a third of their health care costs.
A recent Washington Post/ABC News Poll revealed 78% of Americans oppose cutting Medicare to help balance the federal budget. Nevertheless, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), architect of the GOP scheme to gut Medicare while handing the richest Americans another 10% tax break, said his constituents were "Overwhelmingly supportive" of his budget plot.
"Oh, they are overwhelmingly supportive. Have you actually attended these meetings?" Ryan crowed. "The crowds are overwhelmingly supportive." During the Congress' spring break, Ryan had been booed at town hall meetings, and once had to be escorted by police to avoid hostile demonstrators.
In drawing his conclusion, it was not known whether it was because Ryan had keep his eyes closed with his fingers in his ears, or if the 22% approving gutting Medicare was the only constituency Ryan cared about.
Ryan's staff quickly highlighted a standing ovation at one town hall meeting as proof of Ryan's tsunami of support. It was not immediately known whether they'd thanked their parents for attending.
The same WaPo/ABC News poll found 72% approved raising taxes on Americans making $250,000 or more, as President Barack Obama had proposed.
This polling found 84% of Americans opposed converting Medicare to a voucher program. Ryan's scheme would nix Medicare for folks under 55. When they reach retirement, instead of getting Medicare, which pays doctors and hospitals for services provided to seniors, they would get vouchers they could use toward the purchase of private insurance. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office figures by 2030, those coupons, probably glossy affairs featuring Paul Ryan's smiling mug, would only cover 32% of the cost of premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and other expenses. Rich people would love them. They were going to pay cash at exclusive hospital resorts anyway, so a 30% off coupon for nips and tucks and implants and nefarious secret organ and body fluid transfers from screaming kidnapped 12-year-olds sounds pretty good.
For the rest of Americans, having to pay 68% of health care costs out of pocket sounds pretty much like selling your house, emptying your bank account, then, when the money runs out, dying horribly and miserably as anguished loved ones look on helplessly.
You can see why 22% of Americans are "overwhelmingly supportive" of Ryan's plan. That proportion's just about the combined total of the ultra-rich, wannabes and toadies, and brain-sucking zombie vampires.
Republicans, the party of the ultra-rich, wannabes and toadies, and brain-sucking zombie vampires, are lining up squarely behind Ryan. Except Susan Collins (R-ME), who draws the line at brain-sucking zombie vampires.
While 72% support higher taxes on the rich, approval for Obama's handling of the economy remained only plurality-ish. This may be an indication that Americans want the rich to pay more than just the amount repealing the Bush-era tax cuts, as Obama proposed, would yield. Americans would be right on that score. The rich need to pay much more to balance the federal budget, which is out of whack primarily because they've been dodging paying their fair share for thirty years and have accumulated a truly overwhelming proportion of America's wealth. 20% of Americans own 84% of all the wealth in the country.
Ryan must mean his overwhelming support is in the form of the dollars his well-heeled overlords can wield.
What America really needs is the kind of progressive income tax schedule that shifts the burden of running the nation from the poorest 80% of Americans, the bottom half of which only splits a mere three-tenths of one per cent of the nation's wealth to begin with, to the top tiers where all the money is (see sidebar).
Lacking a progressive income tax, seeing how the richest 400 Americans have as much as the lowest half of Americans, perhaps we should put those 400 folks on a new reality show, Survivor Billionaires. Every week, Americans could vote somebody off the island (or, actually, onto an island, which would be barren, icy, and surrounded by sharks) and the nation could take over all their wealth, since they stole it from us in tax giveaways, leveraged buyouts, asset liquidations, payroll downsizing, off-shoring, outsourcing, and all manner of funny money Wall Street accounting schemes.
That way, Americans could get to fire Donald Trump, instead of the other way around.
A recent Washington Post/ABC News Poll revealed 78% of Americans oppose cutting Medicare to help balance the federal budget. Nevertheless, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), architect of the GOP scheme to gut Medicare while handing the richest Americans another 10% tax break, said his constituents were "Overwhelmingly supportive" of his budget plot.
"Oh, they are overwhelmingly supportive. Have you actually attended these meetings?" Ryan crowed. "The crowds are overwhelmingly supportive." During the Congress' spring break, Ryan had been booed at town hall meetings, and once had to be escorted by police to avoid hostile demonstrators.
In drawing his conclusion, it was not known whether it was because Ryan had keep his eyes closed with his fingers in his ears, or if the 22% approving gutting Medicare was the only constituency Ryan cared about.
Ryan's staff quickly highlighted a standing ovation at one town hall meeting as proof of Ryan's tsunami of support. It was not immediately known whether they'd thanked their parents for attending.
The same WaPo/ABC News poll found 72% approved raising taxes on Americans making $250,000 or more, as President Barack Obama had proposed.
This polling found 84% of Americans opposed converting Medicare to a voucher program. Ryan's scheme would nix Medicare for folks under 55. When they reach retirement, instead of getting Medicare, which pays doctors and hospitals for services provided to seniors, they would get vouchers they could use toward the purchase of private insurance. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office figures by 2030, those coupons, probably glossy affairs featuring Paul Ryan's smiling mug, would only cover 32% of the cost of premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and other expenses. Rich people would love them. They were going to pay cash at exclusive hospital resorts anyway, so a 30% off coupon for nips and tucks and implants and nefarious secret organ and body fluid transfers from screaming kidnapped 12-year-olds sounds pretty good.
For the rest of Americans, having to pay 68% of health care costs out of pocket sounds pretty much like selling your house, emptying your bank account, then, when the money runs out, dying horribly and miserably as anguished loved ones look on helplessly.
You can see why 22% of Americans are "overwhelmingly supportive" of Ryan's plan. That proportion's just about the combined total of the ultra-rich, wannabes and toadies, and brain-sucking zombie vampires.
Republicans, the party of the ultra-rich, wannabes and toadies, and brain-sucking zombie vampires, are lining up squarely behind Ryan. Except Susan Collins (R-ME), who draws the line at brain-sucking zombie vampires.
While 72% support higher taxes on the rich, approval for Obama's handling of the economy remained only plurality-ish. This may be an indication that Americans want the rich to pay more than just the amount repealing the Bush-era tax cuts, as Obama proposed, would yield. Americans would be right on that score. The rich need to pay much more to balance the federal budget, which is out of whack primarily because they've been dodging paying their fair share for thirty years and have accumulated a truly overwhelming proportion of America's wealth. 20% of Americans own 84% of all the wealth in the country.
Ryan must mean his overwhelming support is in the form of the dollars his well-heeled overlords can wield.
What America really needs is the kind of progressive income tax schedule that shifts the burden of running the nation from the poorest 80% of Americans, the bottom half of which only splits a mere three-tenths of one per cent of the nation's wealth to begin with, to the top tiers where all the money is (see sidebar).
Lacking a progressive income tax, seeing how the richest 400 Americans have as much as the lowest half of Americans, perhaps we should put those 400 folks on a new reality show, Survivor Billionaires. Every week, Americans could vote somebody off the island (or, actually, onto an island, which would be barren, icy, and surrounded by sharks) and the nation could take over all their wealth, since they stole it from us in tax giveaways, leveraged buyouts, asset liquidations, payroll downsizing, off-shoring, outsourcing, and all manner of funny money Wall Street accounting schemes.
That way, Americans could get to fire Donald Trump, instead of the other way around.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Americans Want Budget Compromise, But Congress Seeks Only Cuts
The vast majority of Americans don't want Congress to cut Social Security, Medicare and vital government services, and believe the Bush-era tax breaks for those earning more than $250,000 a year should be reversed, according to a recent national Bloomberg Poll. Americans do not want a government shutdown. Congress, however, remains focused on ever greater tax subsidies for the wealthy, and Republicans are threatening to shut down the federal government unless they get cuts to Social Security as a first step toward their long-coveted dream of handing the Social Security trust funds over to their Wall Street pals.
Americans would rather see cuts to defense spending than to Social Security and Medicare, but spending on defense, or more specifically, spending on defense contractors, is the only cow sacred to Congress, especially Congressional Republicans.
The poll found most Americans understood the government had to find additional revenue and opposed extending Bush-era tax subsidies for the rich. This was consistent with an earlier NBC/WSJ poll which found nearly all Americans approved of a tax surcharge for those making more than $1 million a year. In Congress, however, tax reform is off the table, out of the room, down the street and drowned in a canvas sack at the bottom of the Potomac.
Beltway politicians in their current iteration are all about coddling trans-national plutocrats by plying them with billions of dollars in taxpayer money. At every turn, Republicans want to hand over ever-greater chunks of America's wealth to corporations and plutocrats through tax breaks, loans, guarantees and subsidies, and Democrats hem and haw for a few minutes before giving in.
Republicans have demanded $61 billion be cut from this year's budget, and, having been foiled in getting the cuts in one chunk, are now holding the government hostage to a shutdown unless they get $2 billion in cuts every week. Considering the fiscal year runs another half a year, that comes out to just about $60 billion. The Republicans want to cut every part of the discretionary portion of the budget, which amounts to just 12% of total government outlays, slashing everything from Head Start to PBS to the EPA to programs for the elderly and sick. All these cuts are ostensibly to eventually balance the budget, but in fact, will just make life miserable for ordinary Americans so the very rich can continue to add to their collections of private jets, or yachts, or embroidered panties from young female private service contractors.
Americans want Congress to compromise on cuts and taxes, but Congressional Republicans seek only to cut vital government functions. By eliminating funding for the EPA, bank regulators, food safety inspectors, and every public watchdog agency, the budget cuts very conveniently benefit big corporate interests by eliminating oversight and enforcement of the rules and regulations designed to insure the public's safety and well-being. While Americans want real compromise balancing cuts and taxes, when Congressional Democrats say "compromise," they just mean they're giving the Republicans what they want.
Americans don't want to spend $159 billion this year on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and considering how American presence in the region appears to just be adding futile misery to a region roiled by new, more relevant turmoil, one can hardly wonder why. However, Defense Secretary Robert Gates can only talk of avoiding premature withdrawal, as though repeating a mantra he'd heard somewhere, perhaps in a different context.
And all of this should take into consideration that only 29% of those polled believed that deficit and spending was the nation's top problem. 43% cited jobs and unemployment as the top priority.
Of course, slashing the budget and crippling the government would be the top priority for anyone who wanted to get rid of America's ability to curb illegal, unethical, and dangerous business practices. Slashing the budget and crippling the government would be the top priority for those who believe ordinary Americans should suffer every indignity so the rich can cannibalize the nations' strength in favor of their own excesses. Slashing the budget and crippling the government would be the top priority for right-wing lunatics from the annals of the Southern Poverty Law Center's hatewatch pages who dream of overthrowing the United States and restoring some hazily-envisioned antebellum white supremacist regime.
Now, where are those right-track, wrong-track numbers?
Americans would rather see cuts to defense spending than to Social Security and Medicare, but spending on defense, or more specifically, spending on defense contractors, is the only cow sacred to Congress, especially Congressional Republicans.
The poll found most Americans understood the government had to find additional revenue and opposed extending Bush-era tax subsidies for the rich. This was consistent with an earlier NBC/WSJ poll which found nearly all Americans approved of a tax surcharge for those making more than $1 million a year. In Congress, however, tax reform is off the table, out of the room, down the street and drowned in a canvas sack at the bottom of the Potomac.
Beltway politicians in their current iteration are all about coddling trans-national plutocrats by plying them with billions of dollars in taxpayer money. At every turn, Republicans want to hand over ever-greater chunks of America's wealth to corporations and plutocrats through tax breaks, loans, guarantees and subsidies, and Democrats hem and haw for a few minutes before giving in.
Republicans have demanded $61 billion be cut from this year's budget, and, having been foiled in getting the cuts in one chunk, are now holding the government hostage to a shutdown unless they get $2 billion in cuts every week. Considering the fiscal year runs another half a year, that comes out to just about $60 billion. The Republicans want to cut every part of the discretionary portion of the budget, which amounts to just 12% of total government outlays, slashing everything from Head Start to PBS to the EPA to programs for the elderly and sick. All these cuts are ostensibly to eventually balance the budget, but in fact, will just make life miserable for ordinary Americans so the very rich can continue to add to their collections of private jets, or yachts, or embroidered panties from young female private service contractors.
Americans want Congress to compromise on cuts and taxes, but Congressional Republicans seek only to cut vital government functions. By eliminating funding for the EPA, bank regulators, food safety inspectors, and every public watchdog agency, the budget cuts very conveniently benefit big corporate interests by eliminating oversight and enforcement of the rules and regulations designed to insure the public's safety and well-being. While Americans want real compromise balancing cuts and taxes, when Congressional Democrats say "compromise," they just mean they're giving the Republicans what they want.
Americans don't want to spend $159 billion this year on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and considering how American presence in the region appears to just be adding futile misery to a region roiled by new, more relevant turmoil, one can hardly wonder why. However, Defense Secretary Robert Gates can only talk of avoiding premature withdrawal, as though repeating a mantra he'd heard somewhere, perhaps in a different context.
And all of this should take into consideration that only 29% of those polled believed that deficit and spending was the nation's top problem. 43% cited jobs and unemployment as the top priority.
Of course, slashing the budget and crippling the government would be the top priority for anyone who wanted to get rid of America's ability to curb illegal, unethical, and dangerous business practices. Slashing the budget and crippling the government would be the top priority for those who believe ordinary Americans should suffer every indignity so the rich can cannibalize the nations' strength in favor of their own excesses. Slashing the budget and crippling the government would be the top priority for right-wing lunatics from the annals of the Southern Poverty Law Center's hatewatch pages who dream of overthrowing the United States and restoring some hazily-envisioned antebellum white supremacist regime.
Now, where are those right-track, wrong-track numbers?
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Convenient Untruths Propel GOP Budget Charade
Republicans scream that unless they get a $61 billion tax subsidy for their rich cronies, they will shut down the U.S. government. They want to cut $61 billion in services vital to every American because their billionaire buddies don't want to pony up their fair share for maintaining the nation that has blessed them with the greatest wealth in human experience.
The Republicans claim that all these services must be cut or the nation will drown in debt. In fact, the $61 billion in cuts is aimed at the discretionary spending portion of the federal budget, which represents a mere 12% of total government expenditures, and will have a negligible effect on paying down the federal debt.
The Republicans' hysterical shrieking over cuts to balance the federal budget is just one of their very convenient untruths.
The cuts would not reduce the debt, but they would destroy millions of American lives. Millions will lose access to medical care, hot meals, and education. Of course, the Republicans, spendthrifts who put two foreign wars on the nation's credit card and bankrupted an entire global financial system for grins, don't care one whit about government debt. Their avowed goal is to ruin the Obama presidency, and destroying America is just icing on their plutocratic cake. In fact, the $61 billion in cuts has something for every plutocrat. The cuts would effectively shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, allowing GOP oil barons unlimited Deepwater Horizon disasters, along with the belching of unlimited veils of greenhouse gases and the dumping of unlimited torrents of toxic sludge. The cuts would effectively shut down all federal banking and financial oversight, allowing unlimited pyramid accounting schemes, along with unlimited bank fraud rackets and unlimited credit trading scams. The cuts would devastate education, effective creating unlimited legions of Republicans thugs out of poor whites home-schooled on hate and misrepresentations of the Bible.
The cuts would eliminate PBS, effectively preventing anyone from seeing unbiased news, science or arts programming. Republicans will do anything to keep people ignorant and fearful.
None of the $61 billion in cuts has anything to do with balancing the federal budget, and has everything to do with destroying America's ability to protect its people from the depredations of the GOP's plutocrat masters.
The real reason for America's debt and budget shortfall is the result of another of the Republican's convenient untruths: that lowering taxes for the wealthy is the best way to create jobs. No budget balancing will come from raising taxes on the Republicans' beloved plutocrats, because to do so would destroy jobs and any prospect for creating jobs.
This convenient untruth has been bandied about for generations, and is based on a partial truth. Lowering taxes on lower- and middle-income people creates jobs, because lower- and middle-income families who get to keep a larger portion of their income would spend the money to buy food, and rent, and school supplies, and clothes for work, and a new car to get there. The greater demand cranks up the economy, creating more jobs, creating more wage earners, and so on.
Lowering taxes on corporations and the wealthy, especially the very wealthy, has the opposite effect. It incentivizes companies to exaggerate the bottom line by slashing payrolls and combining operations. The grossly overgenerous profit margins means more money to be divvied up among ever more investors, encouraging mergers and acquisitions that seek to create even larger paper profits with even more cost cutting layoffs. Jobs that can't be eliminated entirely are off-shored to the lowest bidder. Manufacturing and services are shipped out of America. Millions are idled, and the idle rich grow richer.
Once all the real jobs are gone, the very wealthy can then go to work on just making up imaginary profits with exotic financial instruments. Billions of imaginary dollars are traded to real suckers who believe there's real money somewhere in all the chaff. The money changers grow rich, and a global economic system is crashed.
The convenient untruth that tax subsidies for the wealthy somehow creates jobs is the Republican's greatest boondoggle. Everyone wants to believe not paying taxes is a good thing. No one realizes Republicans only care that the rich not pay any taxes. Most Americans pay far too much in taxes, eroding their buying power, while the rich pay far too little, eroding the nation's business and industrial base.
The clear solution is to raise taxes on the wealthy, the top 2% or 5% of Americans, and to cut everyone else's taxes. Taxing the GOP's plutocrats would reverse the job-slashing layoffs and off-shoring, and, along with some prudent international trading rules, bring vital jobs back to America.
But that's an inconvenient truth, and we know how Republicans feel about those.
The Republicans claim that all these services must be cut or the nation will drown in debt. In fact, the $61 billion in cuts is aimed at the discretionary spending portion of the federal budget, which represents a mere 12% of total government expenditures, and will have a negligible effect on paying down the federal debt.
The Republicans' hysterical shrieking over cuts to balance the federal budget is just one of their very convenient untruths.
The cuts would not reduce the debt, but they would destroy millions of American lives. Millions will lose access to medical care, hot meals, and education. Of course, the Republicans, spendthrifts who put two foreign wars on the nation's credit card and bankrupted an entire global financial system for grins, don't care one whit about government debt. Their avowed goal is to ruin the Obama presidency, and destroying America is just icing on their plutocratic cake. In fact, the $61 billion in cuts has something for every plutocrat. The cuts would effectively shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, allowing GOP oil barons unlimited Deepwater Horizon disasters, along with the belching of unlimited veils of greenhouse gases and the dumping of unlimited torrents of toxic sludge. The cuts would effectively shut down all federal banking and financial oversight, allowing unlimited pyramid accounting schemes, along with unlimited bank fraud rackets and unlimited credit trading scams. The cuts would devastate education, effective creating unlimited legions of Republicans thugs out of poor whites home-schooled on hate and misrepresentations of the Bible.
The cuts would eliminate PBS, effectively preventing anyone from seeing unbiased news, science or arts programming. Republicans will do anything to keep people ignorant and fearful.
None of the $61 billion in cuts has anything to do with balancing the federal budget, and has everything to do with destroying America's ability to protect its people from the depredations of the GOP's plutocrat masters.
The real reason for America's debt and budget shortfall is the result of another of the Republican's convenient untruths: that lowering taxes for the wealthy is the best way to create jobs. No budget balancing will come from raising taxes on the Republicans' beloved plutocrats, because to do so would destroy jobs and any prospect for creating jobs.
This convenient untruth has been bandied about for generations, and is based on a partial truth. Lowering taxes on lower- and middle-income people creates jobs, because lower- and middle-income families who get to keep a larger portion of their income would spend the money to buy food, and rent, and school supplies, and clothes for work, and a new car to get there. The greater demand cranks up the economy, creating more jobs, creating more wage earners, and so on.
Lowering taxes on corporations and the wealthy, especially the very wealthy, has the opposite effect. It incentivizes companies to exaggerate the bottom line by slashing payrolls and combining operations. The grossly overgenerous profit margins means more money to be divvied up among ever more investors, encouraging mergers and acquisitions that seek to create even larger paper profits with even more cost cutting layoffs. Jobs that can't be eliminated entirely are off-shored to the lowest bidder. Manufacturing and services are shipped out of America. Millions are idled, and the idle rich grow richer.
Once all the real jobs are gone, the very wealthy can then go to work on just making up imaginary profits with exotic financial instruments. Billions of imaginary dollars are traded to real suckers who believe there's real money somewhere in all the chaff. The money changers grow rich, and a global economic system is crashed.
The convenient untruth that tax subsidies for the wealthy somehow creates jobs is the Republican's greatest boondoggle. Everyone wants to believe not paying taxes is a good thing. No one realizes Republicans only care that the rich not pay any taxes. Most Americans pay far too much in taxes, eroding their buying power, while the rich pay far too little, eroding the nation's business and industrial base.
The clear solution is to raise taxes on the wealthy, the top 2% or 5% of Americans, and to cut everyone else's taxes. Taxing the GOP's plutocrats would reverse the job-slashing layoffs and off-shoring, and, along with some prudent international trading rules, bring vital jobs back to America.
But that's an inconvenient truth, and we know how Republicans feel about those.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Republicans Are Autocrats for the Plutocrats
Another day, another poll showing Republicans blustering and bludgeoning their way toward a GOP plutocrat Nirvana in defiance of the American peoples' will.
A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll revealed 60% of Americans feared the Republicans' rampant budget-slashing would harm their families. While most respondents expressed concern about federal budget deficits and growing debt, Americans oppose Republicans cutting education, Social Security and Medicare.
This comes a day after another NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showing 77% of Americans support Wisconsin state workers' right to collective bargaining, while Republicans blitz to strip those rights away
Despite the clear message that Americans oppose the GOP plutocrats' agenda, the Republicans are pushing ahead with their heinous schemes.
While 74% of Americans (including one former Shell Oil Company CEO, John Hofmeister) oppose extending tax subsidies for the oil and gas industries, Republicans voted unanimously to extend those tax subsidies. 76% of Americans want to ax unnecessary weapon systems, but lavish giveaways to their defense industry cronies is one of the few sacred expenditures Republicans will not touch.
And the 81% who favor raising taxes on the very rich would probably make some Republican death list, if the Republicans hadn't already decided the very rich would never be taxed, and people who think they should be are simply nonentities.
Oblivious to the hew and cry rising across the nation, Republicans continue to loudly drone their mantra of more tax subsidies for the wealthy, and more service cuts for everyone else. Republicans lecture one and all that public sector workers unions are the cause of states' budget woes, even though it is obvious that the culprit is the Republicans' ever-spiralling tax giveaways to GOP plutocrats for their ever-expanding fleets of private jets and mega-yachts.
Republicans, like all autocrats, specialize in ear-splitting harangues completely dissociated from facts. They say they want to address budget shortfalls and create jobs while pushing an agenda that would devastate the nation's economy and annihilate tens of thousands of jobs. They stand smugly before TV cameras and continue to spout lies as obvious as Muammar Khadafy's claim that all Libyans love him, and that there are no protests in his country.
Clearly, Republicans are unconcerned about dictating policies contrary to the electorates' wishes. Their actions would indicate they consider themselves above the democratic process. Their actions are consistent with those of autocrats who feel no need to act on behalf of their citizens. Are Republicans ready to do away with the electoral process altogether, or do they just know the voting machines have been rigged by their cronies at Diebold?
The Republican juggernaut careens ahead unimpeded, busting unions, crippling government, and devastating the environment certain that the wealthiest and most ruthless have absolute dominion over the world and all its people.
A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll revealed 60% of Americans feared the Republicans' rampant budget-slashing would harm their families. While most respondents expressed concern about federal budget deficits and growing debt, Americans oppose Republicans cutting education, Social Security and Medicare.
This comes a day after another NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showing 77% of Americans support Wisconsin state workers' right to collective bargaining, while Republicans blitz to strip those rights away
Despite the clear message that Americans oppose the GOP plutocrats' agenda, the Republicans are pushing ahead with their heinous schemes.
While 74% of Americans (including one former Shell Oil Company CEO, John Hofmeister) oppose extending tax subsidies for the oil and gas industries, Republicans voted unanimously to extend those tax subsidies. 76% of Americans want to ax unnecessary weapon systems, but lavish giveaways to their defense industry cronies is one of the few sacred expenditures Republicans will not touch.
And the 81% who favor raising taxes on the very rich would probably make some Republican death list, if the Republicans hadn't already decided the very rich would never be taxed, and people who think they should be are simply nonentities.
Oblivious to the hew and cry rising across the nation, Republicans continue to loudly drone their mantra of more tax subsidies for the wealthy, and more service cuts for everyone else. Republicans lecture one and all that public sector workers unions are the cause of states' budget woes, even though it is obvious that the culprit is the Republicans' ever-spiralling tax giveaways to GOP plutocrats for their ever-expanding fleets of private jets and mega-yachts.
Republicans, like all autocrats, specialize in ear-splitting harangues completely dissociated from facts. They say they want to address budget shortfalls and create jobs while pushing an agenda that would devastate the nation's economy and annihilate tens of thousands of jobs. They stand smugly before TV cameras and continue to spout lies as obvious as Muammar Khadafy's claim that all Libyans love him, and that there are no protests in his country.
Clearly, Republicans are unconcerned about dictating policies contrary to the electorates' wishes. Their actions would indicate they consider themselves above the democratic process. Their actions are consistent with those of autocrats who feel no need to act on behalf of their citizens. Are Republicans ready to do away with the electoral process altogether, or do they just know the voting machines have been rigged by their cronies at Diebold?
The Republican juggernaut careens ahead unimpeded, busting unions, crippling government, and devastating the environment certain that the wealthiest and most ruthless have absolute dominion over the world and all its people.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Republican Attack on America Abetted By Democrat Collaborators
The Republicans are poised for their final push to destroy America. The Republican agenda seeks to dismantle all government oversight of business and industry and plague the world with toxic pollutants and useless, dangerous products; to hand over government buildings and infrastruture to GOP plutocrats like the Koch brothers; to plunder Social Security and Medicare for private gain; to strip workers of their right to organize and redress grievances; to wreck any chance of economic recovery by slashing the nation's investments and unleashing a $5 gas attack.
Every step of the way, the Republican plutocrats and their white supremacist minions have had insidious help among the Democrats. It is not just that Democratic politicians also sought to curry favor with the GOP's plutocrat masters. It is not just that President Barack Obama styled himself a progressive when he was in fact a tool of corporate plutocracy. It is that Americans abdicated their role as informed, engaged participants in the democratic process and allowed a fringe of Tea Party extremists, racist sociopaths and plutocrats with visions of godhood to hijack the democratic process.
Take Barack Obama. Remember when Hillary Clinton was supposed to be the shoo-in for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008? Then, a blitz by corporate media raised Obama, out of nowhere, to frontrunner status. The corporate media gave some weak excuse about Obama's grassroots organization, but in fact it was the unrelenting drumbeat on the newsnets that kept Obama atop the 24-hour news cycle and foremost in the minds of Americans. Then, progressive white Americans committed the intellectual crime common to all progressive white Americans: they assumed that because Obama was black, he must also be a progressive.
Yet, it was obvious throughout the campaign that he was solidly to the right of Hillary, who is herself a centrist. That the corporate newsnets were relentlessly pushing Obama while disappearing Hillary was a clear signal that Obama was their dog in the fight.
So, now, while the Republicans offer Americans the choice between a total government shutdown or a government so crippled it cannot function, Obama and Congressional Democrats only bicker about the size of the cuts and the severity of the crippling, rather than bringing the fight to the plutocrats by addressing vital revenue reform to eliminate the plutocrats' reign of terror. While Republicans destroy the American workforce with layoffs, offshoring, and union-busting, Obama and the Congressional Democrats stand aside offering only muted support for labor ideals. While Republicans scheme to plunder Social Security and Medicare, Obama and the Democrats mumble about finding bipartisan solutions. Anyone who believes it is a good idea to hand the Social Security trust funds and Medicare accounts to GOP plutocrats in exchange for worthless IOUs and vouchers simply has rocks in his head.
The Republicans took thirty years to destroy America. They dismantled the nation's public school system, the cornerstone of democracy, so that, while the wealthy could send their kids to private schools, poor whites would homeschool their children on misinterpretations of the Bible and racist hatred. They crippled the nation's ability to insure safe food and water, to curb unfettered investment and banking frauds, and to forestall industrial environmental disasters. They eviscerated the nation's manufacturing and service economies with gratuitous mergers, layoffs and offshoring. They did all this by fostering a tax code that enabled them to accumulate unprecedented wealth and power and incentivized profiteering at the expense of the economic security and physical well-being of the American people.
And, every step of the way, Democrats enabled, abetted and ignored the GOP onslaught.
The final Republican push is at hand. Unless the GOP is stopped at any cost, the cost will be your freedom.
Every step of the way, the Republican plutocrats and their white supremacist minions have had insidious help among the Democrats. It is not just that Democratic politicians also sought to curry favor with the GOP's plutocrat masters. It is not just that President Barack Obama styled himself a progressive when he was in fact a tool of corporate plutocracy. It is that Americans abdicated their role as informed, engaged participants in the democratic process and allowed a fringe of Tea Party extremists, racist sociopaths and plutocrats with visions of godhood to hijack the democratic process.
Take Barack Obama. Remember when Hillary Clinton was supposed to be the shoo-in for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008? Then, a blitz by corporate media raised Obama, out of nowhere, to frontrunner status. The corporate media gave some weak excuse about Obama's grassroots organization, but in fact it was the unrelenting drumbeat on the newsnets that kept Obama atop the 24-hour news cycle and foremost in the minds of Americans. Then, progressive white Americans committed the intellectual crime common to all progressive white Americans: they assumed that because Obama was black, he must also be a progressive.
Yet, it was obvious throughout the campaign that he was solidly to the right of Hillary, who is herself a centrist. That the corporate newsnets were relentlessly pushing Obama while disappearing Hillary was a clear signal that Obama was their dog in the fight.
So, now, while the Republicans offer Americans the choice between a total government shutdown or a government so crippled it cannot function, Obama and Congressional Democrats only bicker about the size of the cuts and the severity of the crippling, rather than bringing the fight to the plutocrats by addressing vital revenue reform to eliminate the plutocrats' reign of terror. While Republicans destroy the American workforce with layoffs, offshoring, and union-busting, Obama and the Congressional Democrats stand aside offering only muted support for labor ideals. While Republicans scheme to plunder Social Security and Medicare, Obama and the Democrats mumble about finding bipartisan solutions. Anyone who believes it is a good idea to hand the Social Security trust funds and Medicare accounts to GOP plutocrats in exchange for worthless IOUs and vouchers simply has rocks in his head.
The Republicans took thirty years to destroy America. They dismantled the nation's public school system, the cornerstone of democracy, so that, while the wealthy could send their kids to private schools, poor whites would homeschool their children on misinterpretations of the Bible and racist hatred. They crippled the nation's ability to insure safe food and water, to curb unfettered investment and banking frauds, and to forestall industrial environmental disasters. They eviscerated the nation's manufacturing and service economies with gratuitous mergers, layoffs and offshoring. They did all this by fostering a tax code that enabled them to accumulate unprecedented wealth and power and incentivized profiteering at the expense of the economic security and physical well-being of the American people.
And, every step of the way, Democrats enabled, abetted and ignored the GOP onslaught.
The final Republican push is at hand. Unless the GOP is stopped at any cost, the cost will be your freedom.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Progressive Tax Reform Would Fix Budget Ills
During the French Revolution, the populace, fed up with the corruption and excesses of a super-wealthy ruling class, took power into their own hands and executed the ruling elite. Americans today are engaged in a sort of anti-French Revolution. Urged on by Fox News and plutocrats like the Koch brothers, Americans, fed up with the corruption and excesses of a super-wealthy ruling class, are demanding that the ruling elite be granted more power and wealth, and are clamoring to thrust their own heads into the guillotine.
The GOP must be astonished that the American electorate simply doesn't understand that there is no need for the vast majority of Americans to pay as much in taxes as they do, when reasonable taxation of the super-wealthy would provide all the government services and oversight everyone might need.
It is no wonder that the GOP and their captive media spend every moment screaming about budget deficits, government shutdowns, privatizing Social Security, eliminating Medicare, busting unions, and machine-gunning protesters. They cannot believe the American people don't see that raising taxes on a few rich people would solve all the nation's fiscal problems. They are sure they have to keep yelling as loudly and threateningly as possible, lest anyone notice the income tax code is pathologically screwy.
Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich has put forth the following simple schedule that would balance the nation's budget and eliminate deficits:
The Republicans keep screaming because they can't understand why anybody with a functioning brain wouldn't implement Reich's tax schedule. Instead, the budget debate is about which vital services will be cut, threatening the lives and well-being of millions of people.
They've got to feel like Marie Antoinette standing around the edge of the Place de la Revolution, dressed in a silk gown, sipping champagne, nibbling caviar, and wondering why the peasants are fighting each other to be first to thrust his or her head into the guillotine.
"Kill me first!" cries a farmer.
"No, me!" cries an accountant.
"No, kill my baby first!" cries a washerwoman.
Marie fingers her lace fan and frets that sooner or later, someone just has to notice her standing there.
And yet, the GOP continues to get away with distracting the electorate with their continuous harangue for more tax breaks for the wealthy, deeper service cuts for everyone else, eliminating labor unions, and stealing the Social Security Trust Fund.
The GOP must be astonished that the American electorate simply doesn't understand that there is no need for the vast majority of Americans to pay as much in taxes as they do, when reasonable taxation of the super-wealthy would provide all the government services and oversight everyone might need.
It is no wonder that the GOP and their captive media spend every moment screaming about budget deficits, government shutdowns, privatizing Social Security, eliminating Medicare, busting unions, and machine-gunning protesters. They cannot believe the American people don't see that raising taxes on a few rich people would solve all the nation's fiscal problems. They are sure they have to keep yelling as loudly and threateningly as possible, lest anyone notice the income tax code is pathologically screwy.
Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich has put forth the following simple schedule that would balance the nation's budget and eliminate deficits:
- $0-$50,000: 0 taxes (that's right, zero)
- $50,000-$90,000: 10%
- $90,000-$150,000: 20%
- $150,000-$250,000: 30%
- $250,000-$500,000: 40%
- $500,000-$5 million: 50%
- $5 million-$15 million: 60%
- $15 million on up: 70%
The Republicans keep screaming because they can't understand why anybody with a functioning brain wouldn't implement Reich's tax schedule. Instead, the budget debate is about which vital services will be cut, threatening the lives and well-being of millions of people.
They've got to feel like Marie Antoinette standing around the edge of the Place de la Revolution, dressed in a silk gown, sipping champagne, nibbling caviar, and wondering why the peasants are fighting each other to be first to thrust his or her head into the guillotine.
"Kill me first!" cries a farmer.
"No, me!" cries an accountant.
"No, kill my baby first!" cries a washerwoman.
Marie fingers her lace fan and frets that sooner or later, someone just has to notice her standing there.
And yet, the GOP continues to get away with distracting the electorate with their continuous harangue for more tax breaks for the wealthy, deeper service cuts for everyone else, eliminating labor unions, and stealing the Social Security Trust Fund.
Monday, February 21, 2011
America Isn't Broke
From Capitol Hill to state houses across America, one hears the refrain, mostly from Republicans, that "America is broke." We need draconian cuts to services because America is broke. We need to privatize Social Security and Medicare because America is broke.
Folks, America isn't broke. The Koch brothers are not broke. Rupert Murdoch isn't broke. I'm sure John Boehner has a couple of platinum cards in his wallet. America isn't broke. The U.S. government just hasn't sent out a proper billing statement for running the richest, most powerful nation in history.
America doesn't have a deficit problem. America has a revenue problem.
As former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich pointed out in his column Sunday, President Barack Obama's framing the budget debate on where and how much to cut just lets the Republicans set the propaganda goalposts for this debate.
Focusing on cuts creates the impression that cuts could somehow result in some sort of solution to our budget shortfalls. In fact, no amount of cutting can extricate the nation from dire straights. Either the cuts would be insufficient to address the problem, or too great for the nation to survive intact.
The solution lies only in finding more revenue. The top corporations and richest individuals are awash in countless billions in cash. A simple, reasonable progressive income tax, with rates that would actually be lower for nearly all Americans and higher for a tiny sliver of wealthy plutocrats, would solve any budget problem. There would be no need to abolish unions, destroy collective bargaining or to resort to free prison labor. And the capitalists most staunchly opposed to their taxes being raised would benefit from a more prosperous nation with a healthy economy.
But revenue is off the table. Only cuts will be discussed. Entitlements must be abolished.
The stage is set for the privatization of Social Security, and Wall Street can't wait to get their hands on the Social Security Trust Fund. The plutocrats see trillions of dollars within their reach.
Of course, there is no hope a bunch of Wall Street money changers could keep the nation's retirement savings secure. These yahoos will blow the whole wad on booze and hookers before the ink is dry on the last dollar bill.
Who would believe guys who tank the economy at a pace of once per presidential administration would be trustworthy guardians of your retirement? Fortunately, the plutocrats running this game own all the media and marketing outlets on the Earth, so they're pretty confident they can pull off their con.
And if the televised talking heads soft peddling social security privatization don't get the job done, the perps have their thugs in the wings as well.
The Republican Party has increasingly devolved into a a smal cadre of ultra-rich trans-national plutocrats and their hangers-on teamed with a motley collection of assorted Neo-Confederates and white separatists from the annals of the Southern Poverty Law Center's hatewatch pages. In the latest round of union busting in Wisconsin, we see the Koch brothers sending tea party enthusiasts as counter demonstrators against the grass roots protesters fighting to keep collective bargaining rights for state employes. It's pretty clear Republicans can just as easily tap the vast pool of racist extremists, anti-government militias, and Neo-Confederate revisionists at their disposal. Think Mubarak sending his thugs into Liberation Square, with the Koch brothers as Mubarak and the extremists as the thugs. GOP Rep. Paul Ryan was quoted in Paul Krugman's column Sunday saying, "It's like Cairo moved to Madison."
With Obama having framed the nation's budget debate on cuts instead of revenue, and having put Social Security on the table with his statement that Democrats and Republicans must come together to discuss entitlement reform, the field has been cleared for the plutocrats to grab the Social Security trust fund.
And Americans will lose their retirement money while America slips ever deeper into a chasm of debt created by the systematic plundering by rampant plutocrats.
Folks, America isn't broke. The Koch brothers are not broke. Rupert Murdoch isn't broke. I'm sure John Boehner has a couple of platinum cards in his wallet. America isn't broke. The U.S. government just hasn't sent out a proper billing statement for running the richest, most powerful nation in history.
America doesn't have a deficit problem. America has a revenue problem.
As former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich pointed out in his column Sunday, President Barack Obama's framing the budget debate on where and how much to cut just lets the Republicans set the propaganda goalposts for this debate.
Focusing on cuts creates the impression that cuts could somehow result in some sort of solution to our budget shortfalls. In fact, no amount of cutting can extricate the nation from dire straights. Either the cuts would be insufficient to address the problem, or too great for the nation to survive intact.
The solution lies only in finding more revenue. The top corporations and richest individuals are awash in countless billions in cash. A simple, reasonable progressive income tax, with rates that would actually be lower for nearly all Americans and higher for a tiny sliver of wealthy plutocrats, would solve any budget problem. There would be no need to abolish unions, destroy collective bargaining or to resort to free prison labor. And the capitalists most staunchly opposed to their taxes being raised would benefit from a more prosperous nation with a healthy economy.
But revenue is off the table. Only cuts will be discussed. Entitlements must be abolished.
The stage is set for the privatization of Social Security, and Wall Street can't wait to get their hands on the Social Security Trust Fund. The plutocrats see trillions of dollars within their reach.
Of course, there is no hope a bunch of Wall Street money changers could keep the nation's retirement savings secure. These yahoos will blow the whole wad on booze and hookers before the ink is dry on the last dollar bill.
Who would believe guys who tank the economy at a pace of once per presidential administration would be trustworthy guardians of your retirement? Fortunately, the plutocrats running this game own all the media and marketing outlets on the Earth, so they're pretty confident they can pull off their con.
And if the televised talking heads soft peddling social security privatization don't get the job done, the perps have their thugs in the wings as well.
The Republican Party has increasingly devolved into a a smal cadre of ultra-rich trans-national plutocrats and their hangers-on teamed with a motley collection of assorted Neo-Confederates and white separatists from the annals of the Southern Poverty Law Center's hatewatch pages. In the latest round of union busting in Wisconsin, we see the Koch brothers sending tea party enthusiasts as counter demonstrators against the grass roots protesters fighting to keep collective bargaining rights for state employes. It's pretty clear Republicans can just as easily tap the vast pool of racist extremists, anti-government militias, and Neo-Confederate revisionists at their disposal. Think Mubarak sending his thugs into Liberation Square, with the Koch brothers as Mubarak and the extremists as the thugs. GOP Rep. Paul Ryan was quoted in Paul Krugman's column Sunday saying, "It's like Cairo moved to Madison."
With Obama having framed the nation's budget debate on cuts instead of revenue, and having put Social Security on the table with his statement that Democrats and Republicans must come together to discuss entitlement reform, the field has been cleared for the plutocrats to grab the Social Security trust fund.
And Americans will lose their retirement money while America slips ever deeper into a chasm of debt created by the systematic plundering by rampant plutocrats.
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