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!