We are well into the era of Gopageddon. Money rules and anyone who is not filthy rich has no voice. The corporate toadies on the U.S. Supreme Court made sure of that with their decision in Citizens United. The GOP, the Grand Old Party is a sham; it is the party bought and paid for by the grand old plutocrats. “Government is not the answer,” they tell us. They want us to believe that it is useless to vote because government is evil. They are helping us decide not to vote by severely restricting voter registration in an effort to disenfranchise people who are most inclined to vote for Democrats. The Republicans are also proving their point about the government not being the answer by making sure the government is dysfunctional. They are starving the government of revenue by refusing to make the rich and the corporations pay their fair share of taxes. They are fighting to cut all programs that benefit the middle class, programs such as Medicare, Social Security and Unemployment Insurance. And the Republicans are blocking all efforts to get America back to work. They are opposing the jobs bill, which will repair crumpling bridges and roads and will create jobs. The Republicans even tried to deprive FEMA of the funds it needs to help repair the damage caused by hurricane Irene.
The Republicans actually want our government to fail and our economy to tank. They want the low information voters, who are not bright enough to pay attention to what is happening, to blame the majority party for everything. The Republicans are the anti-government party. They want uninformed voters to blindly lash out at the government or to stay home on election day. Wake up America! The middle class is under attack. More people have slipped into poverty than at any time since the great depression, and the Republicans are blocking all efforts to reverse that trend. Your enemy is the Republican Party. The only way you can survive Gopageddon is to end it! The middle class is in a war against the insatiable greed of the powerful few and the nihilism of the Republican Party. You cannot afford to lose that war. What is at stake here are all of the things that have made this country so great, including our democracy. You must not give in to a feeling of futility or blindly lash out at the scapegoats the Republicans want you to blame. President Obama is finally taking the fight to the streets by appealing to the voters for help. Let your representatives in congress and your senators know that you want to get this economy moving again. Let them know that they will pay a high political price for opposing the jobs bill. Let the Republicans in your state know that the right to vote is essential in a democracy and that they will pay a high political price for trying to disenfranchise people by making in so difficult to register to vote.
This is your country. Take it back. Get involved. Register to vote no matter how hard the Republicans make it to register, and sign petitions that oppose unreasonable restrictions on voter registration. Donate whatever time and money you can spare to Democrats running for the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. Support democrats running for state offices as well. End this vicious attack on our government and our democracy! The Republicans have the money. We have the majority of the people. The only way we can win is to counter the money with our numbers and our willingness to fight the good fight. Your vote matters and your influence increase when you get active!
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Policies and Talking Points
The Republicans are too predictable. Special interests write much of the legislation for them and right wing organizations write the arguments the Republicans use to promote the passage of that legislation or to block legislation the special interests oppose. Thus we have the Republican parrots mindlessly repeating talking points loaded with their favorite buzz words; words such as “Class Warfare,” “Producers,” “freeloaders,” and “entitlement programs.” The talking point du jour is that fifty percent of the adults in this country pay no income tax. In other words, fifty percent of the adults in this country are freeloaders! The Republicans say that not making those freeloaders pay income taxes while insisting that the “producers” pay more is class warfare.
Here are the facts:
We have a progressive income tax for a good reason. Under that tax structure people who are defined as being at the poverty level do not pay income taxes, but they do pay the payroll taxes that support things such as Social Security and Medicare. One of the definitions of poverty is a family of four with an annual income of no more than 20,000 dollars per year. Anyone that has tried to balance a household budget will tell you that with an income that small even a few dollars is the difference between skipping a meal or eating. The real problem, therefore, is not that fifty percent of adults in this country pay no income tax; the real problem it is that the earnings of fifty percent of the adults in this country have now sunk so low that they cannot afford to pay income taxes. The fact is that more people have sunk to the poverty level than at any time since the great depression. The Republicans, however, want to blame everything on “entitlement programs” such as Social Security and Medicare. “Those programs are too expensive,” they say. Simply do away with Medicare and Social Security and those freeloaders can afford to pay income taxes. What this argument ignores is that those “entitlement programs” are actually earned benefits programs. They are programs people have paid into and depend on in their old age, and the earned benefits from those programs make the difference between starving and eating for millions of people. But in the Ayan Rand world of the Republicans freedom means the freedom to starve. People who cannot afford to provide for their uncertain future or who do not have the knowledge to make wise investments and avoid the Bernie Madoffs of this world do not matter to the Republican Party: Make the freeloaders pay and let them eat cake.
The Republicans actually have the gall to tell us that doing away with Medicare and Social Security and/or taxing people who cannot afford to pay income taxes is not class warfare. According to Republicans it is only class warfare when you advocate raising the taxes paid by the producers. They define producers as large corporations and our country’s wealthiest individuals. By taking advantage of the tax loopholes the taxes paid by major corporations have dropped drastically and the wealthiest individuals in our nation are paying lower taxes than they have paid in over 20 years. Furthermore between 1980 and 2005, 80% of the total increase in income went to the top 1%, and our major corporations are now reporting their highest earnings ever. Yet here we have an unemployment rate of over 9%. So what the hell do the producers produce? Where are the jobs? On June 28, 2011 Ezra Klein posted on the Washington Post’s blog a chart that shows both the rate of taxation and the increase of jobs created. What this chart reveals is that the growth rate of employment was actually greater during the times that taxation was the greatest. This really destroys the argument that high taxes cause high unemployment. It shows beyond a doubt that enriching the rich does not work. To this the Republicans scream about “Regulations!” They tell us it is regulations that are killing jobs. Studies reveal that this is not true either. Doing away with regulations during the last twenty years did not increase employment. What doing away with regulations or not enforcing regulations brought about was the irresponsible behavior that resulted in the crash of 2007.
The disparity in wealth between the super rich and everyone else indicates that this is not a normal recession that has a negative impact on all of our citizens. When fifty percent of the adults in this nation have fallen into poverty something is seriously wrong with our economy. We are now caught in the Republican created catch 22. The Republicans claim we cannot afford to invest in bridges and roads even though this will create jobs and improve our transportation system. They claim our current deficit will not permit it. They claim we cannot deal with the deficit by taxing the job producers regardless of the fact that those “jobs producers” are not creating any jobs. The Republicans are ignoring the fact that our economy is demand driven, that demand stimulates the production that creates the jobs, and that it is the buying power of the middle class that creates the demand. Requiring the rich and the corporations, who can easily afford to pay higher taxes, to pay their fair share is not class warfare. Doing away with earned benefits programs or raising the taxes of those who can least afford to pay is class warfare. What we really need are jobs, and the Republicans are stifling the Democratic Party’s reasonable efforts to create jobs!
Getting this country moving in the right direction again is not going to be easy. It ultimately requires us to revive our manufacturing and return to a time when the wealth of this nation was distributed in a more equitable manner, thanks in large part to labor unions and a thriving industrial base. Setting things right again will require a decrease in the role money plays in our political system, an imaginative approach that does not create a trade war, and patience. What President Obama and the Democratic Party are offering with the jobs bill are baby steps, but they are at least steps in the right direction. What the Republican Party and its candidates are offering is a bigger ditch than the one we are now in. They want us to keep digging in the wrong direction when we have already come close to digging our way to hell as it is. To put it simply, prosperity is not a prize you will find in the bag of elephant brand fertilizer!
Here are the facts:
We have a progressive income tax for a good reason. Under that tax structure people who are defined as being at the poverty level do not pay income taxes, but they do pay the payroll taxes that support things such as Social Security and Medicare. One of the definitions of poverty is a family of four with an annual income of no more than 20,000 dollars per year. Anyone that has tried to balance a household budget will tell you that with an income that small even a few dollars is the difference between skipping a meal or eating. The real problem, therefore, is not that fifty percent of adults in this country pay no income tax; the real problem it is that the earnings of fifty percent of the adults in this country have now sunk so low that they cannot afford to pay income taxes. The fact is that more people have sunk to the poverty level than at any time since the great depression. The Republicans, however, want to blame everything on “entitlement programs” such as Social Security and Medicare. “Those programs are too expensive,” they say. Simply do away with Medicare and Social Security and those freeloaders can afford to pay income taxes. What this argument ignores is that those “entitlement programs” are actually earned benefits programs. They are programs people have paid into and depend on in their old age, and the earned benefits from those programs make the difference between starving and eating for millions of people. But in the Ayan Rand world of the Republicans freedom means the freedom to starve. People who cannot afford to provide for their uncertain future or who do not have the knowledge to make wise investments and avoid the Bernie Madoffs of this world do not matter to the Republican Party: Make the freeloaders pay and let them eat cake.
The Republicans actually have the gall to tell us that doing away with Medicare and Social Security and/or taxing people who cannot afford to pay income taxes is not class warfare. According to Republicans it is only class warfare when you advocate raising the taxes paid by the producers. They define producers as large corporations and our country’s wealthiest individuals. By taking advantage of the tax loopholes the taxes paid by major corporations have dropped drastically and the wealthiest individuals in our nation are paying lower taxes than they have paid in over 20 years. Furthermore between 1980 and 2005, 80% of the total increase in income went to the top 1%, and our major corporations are now reporting their highest earnings ever. Yet here we have an unemployment rate of over 9%. So what the hell do the producers produce? Where are the jobs? On June 28, 2011 Ezra Klein posted on the Washington Post’s blog a chart that shows both the rate of taxation and the increase of jobs created. What this chart reveals is that the growth rate of employment was actually greater during the times that taxation was the greatest. This really destroys the argument that high taxes cause high unemployment. It shows beyond a doubt that enriching the rich does not work. To this the Republicans scream about “Regulations!” They tell us it is regulations that are killing jobs. Studies reveal that this is not true either. Doing away with regulations during the last twenty years did not increase employment. What doing away with regulations or not enforcing regulations brought about was the irresponsible behavior that resulted in the crash of 2007.
The disparity in wealth between the super rich and everyone else indicates that this is not a normal recession that has a negative impact on all of our citizens. When fifty percent of the adults in this nation have fallen into poverty something is seriously wrong with our economy. We are now caught in the Republican created catch 22. The Republicans claim we cannot afford to invest in bridges and roads even though this will create jobs and improve our transportation system. They claim our current deficit will not permit it. They claim we cannot deal with the deficit by taxing the job producers regardless of the fact that those “jobs producers” are not creating any jobs. The Republicans are ignoring the fact that our economy is demand driven, that demand stimulates the production that creates the jobs, and that it is the buying power of the middle class that creates the demand. Requiring the rich and the corporations, who can easily afford to pay higher taxes, to pay their fair share is not class warfare. Doing away with earned benefits programs or raising the taxes of those who can least afford to pay is class warfare. What we really need are jobs, and the Republicans are stifling the Democratic Party’s reasonable efforts to create jobs!
Getting this country moving in the right direction again is not going to be easy. It ultimately requires us to revive our manufacturing and return to a time when the wealth of this nation was distributed in a more equitable manner, thanks in large part to labor unions and a thriving industrial base. Setting things right again will require a decrease in the role money plays in our political system, an imaginative approach that does not create a trade war, and patience. What President Obama and the Democratic Party are offering with the jobs bill are baby steps, but they are at least steps in the right direction. What the Republican Party and its candidates are offering is a bigger ditch than the one we are now in. They want us to keep digging in the wrong direction when we have already come close to digging our way to hell as it is. To put it simply, prosperity is not a prize you will find in the bag of elephant brand fertilizer!
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
A Dismal Field
I have to admit that I did not watch the debate of Republican presidential candidates. This is unusual for me. I grew up in a household where we watched both political conventions and any debates that were televised. We also paid close attention to what the competing candidates said during the campaigns. That, however, was back in the days when most Republicans were honest conservatives who had this strange notion that getting elected meant that they had a responsibility to help govern this great nation even when their party was in the minority. Those days are long gone. The Republican Party of today puts their party first and their country second. Republican politicians of today totally embrace the idea that winning elections is all that matters, and they are more than willing to harm the economy of this nation in order to accomplish that goal. I know that is a harsh statement, but let us look at the evidence:
From the very first day that President Obama was elected the Republicans have set out to create congressional gridlock in order to prevent the Democrats from passing any legislation regardless of how badly the country needs that legislation. The Republican leader in the senate, Mitch McConnell, has actually stated that the first priority of the Republican Party is to make President Obama a one-term president. Mr. McConnell actually brags about the Republicans using the filibuster to keep the senate from accomplishing anything. “It now takes sixty votes to pass anything,” McConnell says. Because of the filibuster and the threat of the filibuster the senate could not even consider the bills the Democrats managed to pass through the House of Representatives to create jobs, and President Obama could not get his appointments to vital government agencies or cabinet posts confirmed. Since 2008 the Republicans have even opposed measures they have traditionally supported; measures such as the government investing in bridges and roads, tax incentives to help start up businesses, and incentives for small businesses to hire more people. The Republicans are even opposing tax cuts for the middle class. The reason why the Republicans favored those measures in the past is because those measures worked. The work done on our roads and bridges during the great depression and Republican President Dwight Eisenhower’s massive road building program in the nineteen-fifties greatly improved the safety and efficiency of transportation, and it gave thousands of people meaningful jobs. Yet here we have the Republican Party disingenuously calling such projects failed policy!
The Republicans have become even more irresponsible since gaining control of the House of Representatives. They recently demonstrated that they do not care about our transportation system by refusing to pass a budget for the Federal Aviation Administration unless the unions in that industry are busted. They have also demonstrated that they do not care about our economy by refusing to approve the federal budget unless the government greatly reduced its spending during a recession. They even went so far as to threaten the economy of this nation and the world by holding the debt-ceiling hostage to their outrageous demands, which included extending Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. The Republicans have and still are greatly exaggerating the dangers of the deficit, and they are lying about what it will take to reduce the deficit. The most important thing we must do to reduce the deficit is to increase the number of people who are employed and are thereby paying taxes.
If you ask the Republicans to name a single job producing bill they have passed or even proposed since taking control of the House they will tell you they have prevented the Democrats from raising taxes on the job producers, meaning corporations that are reporting record profits and are not hiring anyone and wealthy individuals who are paying a lower percentage of their income in taxes than their secretaries are paying. The Republicans will also insist that they have helped to save jobs by preventing the Democrats from enforcing “job killing” regulations, meaning the regulations that are designed to prevent the irresponsible behavior that caused the crash of 2007 and the regulations that protect our air, our food, and our water. If enriching the rich and deregulating everything creates jobs why did we actually lose jobs during the administration of George W. Bush? Where are those jobs?
All that the Republican Party and its presidential candidates are willing to offer us is the same old trickle theory of economics that has failed time and again. The policies the Republicans advocate are the same policies they followed before the crash in 1929, and they are the same policies George Bush followed before the crash of 2007. The Republicans think we are foolish enough to believe that all we have to do is give huge tax breaks to the rich and let the giant corporations, the Wall Street speculators, the banks and the insurance companies do anything they want regardless of how harmful or exploitive their actions might be. The Republicans want us to believe that if we deregulate everything and continue to enrich the rich the job fairy will sprinkle us with magical prosperity dust and bless us all!
As you may have gathered I am not buying that Republican fairy tale. The reason why I did not watch the debates is because none of the Republican candidates have the intellect and/or the courage to offer anything but the same old crap that got us into this mess in the first place. Just take a look at who is running for their nomination.
Rich Perry: I won’t say, “this dog don’t hunt.” What I will say is that all he brings back are skunks. He calls Social Security a fraudulent ponzi scheme. He is in favor of the Ryan plan that would turn Medicare into a private voucher program. He even said that the progressive income tax is unconstitutional. These and other extreme right wing opinions are stated in his book “Fed Up.” That book was published a year ago, and any attempt to back away from those positions now will not be truthful.
Mitt Romney: He wants to run on his experience as a businessman, but his business was that of a professional job killer. He bought up companies, laid-off many of its employees, and then sold those companies or the assets of those companies for a huge profit. He also claims he is not a professional politician. If by that he means he is not very good at getting elected I will agree with him. If he means that he has not spent years trying to get elected to public office he is not telling the truth. He failed in his effort to win Edward Kennedy’s senate seat, and he did not run for another term as governor of Massachusetts because it was obvious that he could not win the election. He also failed at his first attempt to win the nomination as the Republican candidate for President.
Perry and Romney are the front-runners but the speculation about other politicians entering the race makes it clear that many Republicans are not real happy with any of the people who have declared their candidacy.
Sarah Palin: There is always a lot of speculation about her running, and there are Republicans who are foolish enough to vote for her. The problem is that she has been spraying like a dog for four years now, and she still has not been able to claim enough territory to be a viable national candidate.
Chris Christy: The Republicans have been touting him for all they are worth, but the New Jersey bully is even losing his luster in New Jersey. His austerity program has really hurt the middle class and is not very popular. This is particularly true of his efforts to bust the public employee unions. Apparently the voters like cops, firemen, and teachers.
Jon Huntsman: He might be the one candidate who could appeal to a broader audience. He is an old fashioned conservative who tries to be reasonable. He is highly critical of the Republicans in congress for holding the debt-ceiling hostage. He even thinks that scientific facts are more important than the blind faith that makes religious fanatics reject those facts. It is no wonder that he cannot gain any traction in the Republican Party. His economic policies are seriously flawed, but he is at least someone I respect.
Other Candidates: They are not worth mentioning unless there is a drastic change in the polls. I only mentioned Huntsman because his low standing in the polls during a year when all the Republican candidates are dismal is a clear indication of just how intellectually bankrupt the Republican Party has become.
Since I started writing this post the Republicans have started objecting to President Obama’s job bill. As expected they are saying we cannot afford it. They are also saying that closing the tax loopholes corporations exploit and raising taxes on the rich is not acceptable. There is absolutely no doubt that they will kill the bill, and the employment situation will become worse. The Republicans are obviously counting on low information voters expressing their frustration by simply voting against all incumbents, including President Obama, in 2912. That strategy worked during the mid term elections, but will it work now? As frustrated as I am with the idiocy of low information voters, I am still optimistic enough to think that what the Republicans are doing will bite them this time around.
From the very first day that President Obama was elected the Republicans have set out to create congressional gridlock in order to prevent the Democrats from passing any legislation regardless of how badly the country needs that legislation. The Republican leader in the senate, Mitch McConnell, has actually stated that the first priority of the Republican Party is to make President Obama a one-term president. Mr. McConnell actually brags about the Republicans using the filibuster to keep the senate from accomplishing anything. “It now takes sixty votes to pass anything,” McConnell says. Because of the filibuster and the threat of the filibuster the senate could not even consider the bills the Democrats managed to pass through the House of Representatives to create jobs, and President Obama could not get his appointments to vital government agencies or cabinet posts confirmed. Since 2008 the Republicans have even opposed measures they have traditionally supported; measures such as the government investing in bridges and roads, tax incentives to help start up businesses, and incentives for small businesses to hire more people. The Republicans are even opposing tax cuts for the middle class. The reason why the Republicans favored those measures in the past is because those measures worked. The work done on our roads and bridges during the great depression and Republican President Dwight Eisenhower’s massive road building program in the nineteen-fifties greatly improved the safety and efficiency of transportation, and it gave thousands of people meaningful jobs. Yet here we have the Republican Party disingenuously calling such projects failed policy!
The Republicans have become even more irresponsible since gaining control of the House of Representatives. They recently demonstrated that they do not care about our transportation system by refusing to pass a budget for the Federal Aviation Administration unless the unions in that industry are busted. They have also demonstrated that they do not care about our economy by refusing to approve the federal budget unless the government greatly reduced its spending during a recession. They even went so far as to threaten the economy of this nation and the world by holding the debt-ceiling hostage to their outrageous demands, which included extending Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. The Republicans have and still are greatly exaggerating the dangers of the deficit, and they are lying about what it will take to reduce the deficit. The most important thing we must do to reduce the deficit is to increase the number of people who are employed and are thereby paying taxes.
If you ask the Republicans to name a single job producing bill they have passed or even proposed since taking control of the House they will tell you they have prevented the Democrats from raising taxes on the job producers, meaning corporations that are reporting record profits and are not hiring anyone and wealthy individuals who are paying a lower percentage of their income in taxes than their secretaries are paying. The Republicans will also insist that they have helped to save jobs by preventing the Democrats from enforcing “job killing” regulations, meaning the regulations that are designed to prevent the irresponsible behavior that caused the crash of 2007 and the regulations that protect our air, our food, and our water. If enriching the rich and deregulating everything creates jobs why did we actually lose jobs during the administration of George W. Bush? Where are those jobs?
All that the Republican Party and its presidential candidates are willing to offer us is the same old trickle theory of economics that has failed time and again. The policies the Republicans advocate are the same policies they followed before the crash in 1929, and they are the same policies George Bush followed before the crash of 2007. The Republicans think we are foolish enough to believe that all we have to do is give huge tax breaks to the rich and let the giant corporations, the Wall Street speculators, the banks and the insurance companies do anything they want regardless of how harmful or exploitive their actions might be. The Republicans want us to believe that if we deregulate everything and continue to enrich the rich the job fairy will sprinkle us with magical prosperity dust and bless us all!
As you may have gathered I am not buying that Republican fairy tale. The reason why I did not watch the debates is because none of the Republican candidates have the intellect and/or the courage to offer anything but the same old crap that got us into this mess in the first place. Just take a look at who is running for their nomination.
Rich Perry: I won’t say, “this dog don’t hunt.” What I will say is that all he brings back are skunks. He calls Social Security a fraudulent ponzi scheme. He is in favor of the Ryan plan that would turn Medicare into a private voucher program. He even said that the progressive income tax is unconstitutional. These and other extreme right wing opinions are stated in his book “Fed Up.” That book was published a year ago, and any attempt to back away from those positions now will not be truthful.
Mitt Romney: He wants to run on his experience as a businessman, but his business was that of a professional job killer. He bought up companies, laid-off many of its employees, and then sold those companies or the assets of those companies for a huge profit. He also claims he is not a professional politician. If by that he means he is not very good at getting elected I will agree with him. If he means that he has not spent years trying to get elected to public office he is not telling the truth. He failed in his effort to win Edward Kennedy’s senate seat, and he did not run for another term as governor of Massachusetts because it was obvious that he could not win the election. He also failed at his first attempt to win the nomination as the Republican candidate for President.
Perry and Romney are the front-runners but the speculation about other politicians entering the race makes it clear that many Republicans are not real happy with any of the people who have declared their candidacy.
Sarah Palin: There is always a lot of speculation about her running, and there are Republicans who are foolish enough to vote for her. The problem is that she has been spraying like a dog for four years now, and she still has not been able to claim enough territory to be a viable national candidate.
Chris Christy: The Republicans have been touting him for all they are worth, but the New Jersey bully is even losing his luster in New Jersey. His austerity program has really hurt the middle class and is not very popular. This is particularly true of his efforts to bust the public employee unions. Apparently the voters like cops, firemen, and teachers.
Jon Huntsman: He might be the one candidate who could appeal to a broader audience. He is an old fashioned conservative who tries to be reasonable. He is highly critical of the Republicans in congress for holding the debt-ceiling hostage. He even thinks that scientific facts are more important than the blind faith that makes religious fanatics reject those facts. It is no wonder that he cannot gain any traction in the Republican Party. His economic policies are seriously flawed, but he is at least someone I respect.
Other Candidates: They are not worth mentioning unless there is a drastic change in the polls. I only mentioned Huntsman because his low standing in the polls during a year when all the Republican candidates are dismal is a clear indication of just how intellectually bankrupt the Republican Party has become.
Since I started writing this post the Republicans have started objecting to President Obama’s job bill. As expected they are saying we cannot afford it. They are also saying that closing the tax loopholes corporations exploit and raising taxes on the rich is not acceptable. There is absolutely no doubt that they will kill the bill, and the employment situation will become worse. The Republicans are obviously counting on low information voters expressing their frustration by simply voting against all incumbents, including President Obama, in 2912. That strategy worked during the mid term elections, but will it work now? As frustrated as I am with the idiocy of low information voters, I am still optimistic enough to think that what the Republicans are doing will bite them this time around.
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