Ineptitude and Greed

Would you hire the leader of the majority party in the House of Representatives to teach a class on government? Forget it. Republican leader, Eric Cantor, does not even know how a bill becomes law. He actually proposed a bill that would give the Senate a deadline to agree to a House bill. Mr. Cantor’s proposed bill actually states that the House bill would automatically become law if the Senate does not meet that deadline. The remarkable thing is that the news media did not even bother to report this absurdity. I guess the corporate sponsors of television networks do not want the public to know what a bad joke Mr. Cantor is.

Would you make Michele Bachmann chairperson of a committee on civil rights? Forget it. She is really the reincarnation of Joseph McCarthy in drag. Ms. Bachmann has actually stated that she thinks members of congress should be investigated for un-American activities. Regardless of this fact, I would not put it past the Republicans to give Ms. Bachmann such an appointment, particularly in light of the other committee assignments they have made.

Similarly, electing Republicans to solve our economic problems is like hiring Newt Gingrich to be your marriage counselor. Republicans are great at trampling on collective bargaining rights and the reproductive rights of women, but they either know nothing about economics or they are being handsomely rewarded for acting as though they know nothing about economics. They say that our greatest economic problem is the deficit, but balancing the budget will do nothing to create employment. What they are proposing is counter productive at best. The largest part of the deficit is caused by unemployment that deprives the federal government of the taxes working people pay. Furthermore, what the Republicans are proposing to deal with the deficit is absurd on its face. Their draconian cuts, such as doing away with Planned Parenthood, depriving the long-term unemployed of benefits, cutting the food stamp program, etc., will cut a mere thirty billion from the budget, and it does this by foisting the burden off onto the people who can least afford to bear that burden. Hell, the Democrats can cut the deficit by a lot more than that if the Republicans will let them. How about eliminating the subsidies to major oil companies? How about eliminating the subsidies given to companies for exporting jobs? How about eliminating the tax loopholes that gave huge refunds to companies such as General Electric on taxes those companies did not even pay? How about doing away with the outrageous tax cuts George W. Bush gave to the wealthiest individuals in the nation?

The excuse the Republicans give for not eliminating the Bush tax cuts for the rich, the subsides to corporations reporting record profits, and the tax loopholes for corporations reporting record profits is that those individuals and corporations provide jobs. This is like saying that if you hand a plumber a thousand dollars, wish him a cheery good morning, and walk away he will fix your leaking pipes. You would be fool to count on him doing it. Tax deductions tied to hiring more people are likely to create jobs, whereas tax cuts for multi-national corporations merely increase the profits of companies that are already handing out millions of dollars in bonuses to their top executives. Our economy is demand driven. Increasing the profits of corporations so that they can increase the already bloated bonuses they are paying their top executives does nothing to increase demand. Increasing the number of jobs paying living wages, however, does increase the demand for goods and services. This increase in demand then increases the number of jobs, and the deficit problem is solved because of the increase in the number of people paying taxes. Investing in education, infrastructure, and the creation of new industries will create jobs, and the cost of doing those things can be offset by an equitable tax system and the elimination of subsidies to companies who do not need those subsidies.

The Democratic Party has to make the choice clear to the American public. The Republican budget proposal will cost seven hundred thousand jobs during a deep recession. Furthermore, it will barely make a dent in the deficit. Because of the riders the Republicans have attached to their budget proposal, it will also trample on the rights of workers, women, and the middle class. President Obama and Harry Reid must stand firm on those issues. They must let the public know that they have an alternative that will preserve those rights, create jobs, and eventually solve the problem of the deficits. This is not the time to be timid. The ineptitude and greed of the Republican Party must be revealed. If the Republicans want to shut down the government in order to serve their rich masters at the expense of everyone else, they should be forced to do so at the expense of their political careers and at the peril of their party.

Beating The Drum

I watch MSNBC. I do this because they are the only legitimate news organization covering in depth the issues I care about. They are progressives or liberals if you prefer. They are very honest and up front about that. The one problem, of course, is that the situations they are reporting and the issues they are commenting on are not quickly resolved, which means that the coverage is often repetitive. I am afraid this blog is also repetitive for the same reason. That is regrettable. Even more regrettable are all the people who do not watch MSNBC, or read newspapers, or even blogs that present facts and cogent arguments rather than lies and ideological dogma. I do not know that I have much to add to the debate. I state my opinions. I try to base those opinions on whatever facts are available to me, but they are not facts I have gathered from independent research or investigation. I am really just an old man asking questions and trying to come up with answers.

Lawrence O’Donnell has finally asked a question I have been asking for quite some time. “Who the hell keeps electing Michelle Bachman?” He examined the demographics of her district. Oddly enough those demographics are pretty much the same as the demographics of other districts where people elect reasonably sane and competent politicians to Congress. The only thing I can conclude, and I must admit this involves more than a little conjecture on my part, is that her district is in a community that has been under Republican rule for so long that all the mental health clinics have been deprived of funding for decades.

Rachel Maddow is also asking some questions I have been asking for quite some time. “Why are the network news organizations not pointing out that eliminating budget deficits and attacking a woman’s reproductive rights does nothing to create jobs? If it is about jobs why are the Republicans not concentrating on creating jobs rather than enriching the rich at the expense of everyone else and depriving women of the rights guaranteed to them by Roe v. Wade? And why are the network news organizations not reporting that that is what the Republicans are doing?” My answer to those questions does not require any conjecture at all. The networks have to please corporate sponsors who would rather not have people looking at what the Republicans are actually doing or asking such questions about what the Republicans are doing.

This inability or unwillingness of the networks makes it vitally important for President Obama to use the bully pulpit to keep the public informed. What I have been saying for a long time is that he has to start acting like Franklin Roosevelt rather than Casper Milquetoast. He has to stop letting the Republicans define the issues and set the agenda. He has to point out that the right wing Governors recently elected are giving huge tax breaks to corporations who have not and will not create jobs in spite of the outrageous profits they a raking in, and that those governors are doing this at the expense of their budgets and while attacking collective bargaining, wages, benefits and the education of middle class workers and the working poor. President Obama has to point out that it is to a great extent the greed of Wall Street speculators that is driving up the price of gasoline and other commodities. He has to point out that it is unemployment that is creating the government deficits and so much misery, and that the Republicans are not and will not do what is needed to create more jobs.

The declaration of war I want to see him take before Congress is the one that acknowledges the class warfare the Republicans have started with their attacks on everyone in this country who is not a multi-millionaire. It is high time for the Democratic Party to fulfill its traditional role of defending the middle class from such attacks. Doing this will undoubtedly cost him some campaign funds, but it is the right thing to do. There is also a political upside to doing the right thing. The disapproval ratings of those right wing governors have soared, and so have the approval ratings of the Democrats who oppose those governors. What is happening in states such as Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, etc. is not simply local politics. It is part of the national strategy of the Republican Party. It goes hand in hand with extending outrageous tax cuts for the super wealthy while attacking unemployment insurance and all other government programs that would help relieve some of the hardship caused by this Republican recession. It is not just the people in the states with right wing governors who think this strategy is outrageous. All President Obama has to do is fill in the dots and inform the public of what is happening. His approval ratings and those of Democratic Party will soar, just as Franklin Roosevelt’s approval ratings soared.

There is a hell of lot more of us than multi-millionaires. What we want is a champion who will defend our opportunities and the equitable economic structure our fathers and grandfathers fought so hard to obtain. What we want is a leader who will get us moving in the right direction again. In fact, we demand such a leader!

Natural Disasters

There have been a lot of natural disasters recently. Haiti, Indonesia, and now Japan spring instantly to mind. Earthquakes, Tsunamis and volcanoes are terrible reminders of how vulnerable we are. We can prepare for them. We can try to minimize the damage through construction, detection and early warnings, but we cannot stop them. No country was better prepared than Japan. Believe me, far more people would have died if it were not for Japan’s preparation and planning. But the one thing we had better learn to expect is the unexpected. No one prepared for the enormous magnitude of the earthquake or the Tsunami that followed that quake. The horrible wild cards are the nuclear power plants that now pose a very serious threat to far more people. There are some idiots, mostly Republicans, who smugly say it cannot happen here. They want to decrease what we are spending on early warning devices, and they want to ignore the safety regulations that would decertify many of the older plants we have. They also want to build more of those plants before we absorb the lessons we must learn from what is happening in Japan. Greed is their motive, and they are willing to unnecessarily place your life in peril for the profits of the companies who own or build those power plants. Doing this is insane. The Japanese are very meticulous and intelligent. If this tragedy can happen there, it can happen anywhere. This is a wake up call!

My heart goes out to the people of Japan. Even great nations can use some help when the devastation and the threat is this enormous. What must provide whatever aid we are able to provide. We must let them know they do not stand along. We must let them know we care and want to help. We must also learn from them and from what has happened there!

A Step Too Far

On Wisconsin! Go Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Florida! The battle has been joined. Demonstrators are in the streets and in front of the state houses of their capitals. You have to go back to a time that culminated in the great depression to find such a horrible economic situation and the egregious provocations that are causing the demonstrations. Deregulation nearly resulted the total collapse of our economy, and it caused the stubborn recession we are now in. Far from trickling down the wealth of this nation is being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. The policies of the Republican Party are enriching the rich while everyone else is getting poorer. The prices of food, gasoline and every other commodity are spiraling out of control partly because of the greed of the speculators on Wall Street. Since the Presidency of Ronald Reagan the attack on the middle class has been relentless and unabated. The exportation of so much industry and so many jobs has made it almost impossible for the labor unions to retain enough power to check the greed of the financial titans.

The greed of the wealthy knows no bounds. The marching orders to the Republican Party by the Koch brothers and other powerful financial interests are to destroy the remaining labor unions by abolishing collective bargaining and passing right to work laws. Karl Rove and Jim Demint have admitted that this is an arrogant and cynical attempt to dry up the funding of the Democratic Party. If they succeed they will have served their greedy masters by removing the last impediment to total economic Darwinism. The Republican governors and legislators carrying out those orders are trying to justify their actions by proclaiming an economic emergency. They are using the deficits to justify lowering the wages of the middle class and destroying collective bargaining while giving still more tax breaks to the powerful corporations and the wealthiest individuals of their states. Almost all labor unions recognize the larger threat and they are joining the teachers, the nurses, the fire fighters, the police officers and other public employees who are mounting a defense against this outrageous attack on the two party system and the equitable economic structure that has made this country so great.

The battle in Wisconsin has become a symbol for the larger war the Republican Party is waging against the unions, and it is capturing the attention of the entire nation. Governor Walker has let the cat out of the bag. The members of the public employee’s union agreed to a reduction in their wages and their pension plans, but this was not enough for Governor Walker. He still insisted on greatly reducing their collective bargaining rights. There was no economic reason for him to do this given the concessions the union made. The Democratic senators responded to Governor Walker’s unwillingness to negotiate by leaving the state in order to deprive the Republicans of the quorum they needed to pass a budget bill that severely restricted the collective bargaining rights of state employees. This is when the impact of the demonstrations came into play. The public was soon siding with the union. In desperation, Governor Walker and the Republican members of the state senate resorted to stripping the collective bargaining restrictions out of the budget bill, claiming that collective bargaining was not a budgetary issue. The state senate then passed a separate bill restricting the right to collective bargaining. Governor Walker and the Republican Party cannot have it both ways. If collective bargaining is not a budgetary issue he cannot justify gutting the unions on budgetary grounds. This fact is not lost on his constituents.

The voters in Wisconsin, and hopefully the rest of the nation, realize how unfair the Republican Party’s attacks on the unions are. The disapproval rating of Governor Walker and his Republican henchmen have soared as the demonstrations and debates on this issue have drawn the attention of the public. Wisconsin has the recall and petitions to recall eight of the Republican senators are being circulated. There is little doubt that petitions to recall Governor Walker will be circulated in two thousand and twelve when he is eligible to be recalled. If there is any justice the efforts of those wonderful people who are demonstrating and gathering signatures on those recall petitions will further educate the public as to the injustices causing so much grief for the vast majority of this nation. It is time for the public to realize how unfair it is to absolve the corporations and the wealthiest individuals of this nation from the duty of sharing the sacrifices necessary to deal with deficits they caused while the middle class is required to sacrifice so much. It is time for the public to realize who is responsible for stealing their livelihoods and exporting them. It is time for the public to realize who is responsible for setting their houses on fire with toxic loans.

In typical fashion, the Republicans are trying to convince us that Governor Walker is a bright, rising star when it has become all too evident that the brightness they are pointing out is nothing more than the glare of a falling, flaming turd. But he is only a small part of the story. The Republicans have chosen to serve as the army of the wealthy and the greedy rather than serving as representatives of the people who voted for them. Even if the people and the unions who have done so much to create the middle class survive this battle the real war must continue. The middle class must stop this destruction of their jobs, their wages, their houses, and their dreams. They must recognize their enemies and fight them. It is not the hard working people of this great nation who started this class war, but it is they who must win it if this country is to survive as an economic power. You will know that the voters finally understand what is at stake if in two thousand and twelve they hand the Republican Party the greatest defeat any party has suffered in the history of our nation. You will know the voters finally get it if they insist that the Democratic Party use the power gained from those elections to pass and enforce the regulations needed to reign in the insatiable greed that his nearly brought this nation to ruin. You will know that the public understands the issues when they insist on the rich paying their fair share of the taxes and they give the Democratic Party a mandate to preserve and create jobs.

I know that some will say such an overwhelming mandate would also be detrimental to the two party system, but nothing could be more detrimental to that system or our country than what the Republican Party is and has been doing. When one of the major parties has acted so irresponsibly that it has suffered a political eclipse in the past it has changed its ways and regained respect or another party has replaced it. That is what must happen now. The middle class must recognize the enemy and win the war the Republican Party is waging against it.