Category Archives: Economy

Putting The Party In Tea Party.

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The Tea Party began as a group of individuals who claimed to be aghast at runaway government spending.  To fight back, they promoted a number of candidates who ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility.

That was 2010.

Just a few years later, those so-called fiscal hawks have decided that federal spending is a good thing…as long as it’s used for a good cause, such as paying large bonuses to their staff and friends.  According to the website, www.LegisStorm.com, Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), who was defeated in his attempt at a Senate seat, used taxpayers’ money to increase his staff’s salaries 98.3% in the final quarter.

Many outgoing Democrats also gave large bonuses to their staffs, but the records show that Republicans were even more generous with taxpayers’ money.  Among the most generous were Tea Party Representatives Chip Cravaack (R-Minn.) and Allen West (R-Fla.), who ranked numbers 3 and 4 in giving pay increases to staff members.

In other words, these so-called deficit hawks are partying with our money as though it were 1999.

Moreover, if you think the Tea Party is any more serious about reducing the deficit than Democrats, compare the Paul Ryan budget, which was passed by the Teapublican-led House, to the People’s Budget proposed by the House Progressive caucus.

Both plans cut about the same amount from the federal budget.  But the Ryan plan does it on the backs of the poor and the middle class while cutting taxes for the rich and increasing the already bloated defense budget. On the other hand, the progressive plan cuts the defense budget, raises revenues by eliminating tax dodges for the rich, secures the future of Social Security and Medicare, and rebuilds our failing infrastructure.  And it does all this while reducing deficits by $5.6 trillion over the next decade according to the non-partisan Economic Policy Institute!

When you look past the Tea Party rhetoric and look carefully at its policies, you quickly discover that the teabaggers are more interested in self-interest, greed and ideology than principles, debt reduction and the future of our nation.

Most U.S. Problems Are The Result Of The 2000 Election.

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In some ways, those who predicted apocalyptic disaster as the result of Y2K were right. No, our computers did not stop working.  No, the millennium did not lead to the end of the world. But we did experience a disaster nonetheless.

Despite winning the majority of the popular vote, Al Gore was denied a recount in Florida and, as a result, the White House. Consider, for a moment, the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision to award George W. Bush the presidency.

That unpopular decision led to almost all of our most intractable problems.

Let’s begin with 9/11.  A Gore administration likely would have continued most of the policies of the Clinton administration, including its attempt to kill Osama bin Laden and destroy al Qaeda with a cruise missile (a strike derided by Bush as “sending a million dollar missile to blow up a camel tent”).  Unlike Bush, President Gore almost certainly would have listened to warnings by counter-terrorism experts of an imminent strike in the US using hijacked airliners.

And without 9/11, we wouldn’t have become mired in the 10-year war in Afghanistan which has cost us trillions of dollars.

Moreover, it’s highly unlikely that a Gore administration would have falsified evidence in order to justify the invasion of Iraq, leading to a second war costing trillions more dollars.

As for our economy, Gore would have continued the Clinton administration’s policies which led to budget surpluses – surpluses that were on track to eliminate the national debt by the end of 2012.  The Bush tax cuts, which added hundreds of billions of dollars to the debt, never would have happened (at least, not until the debt was nearly paid off).

As vice-president, Al Gore led the successful Reinventing Government Program that streamlined the federal government and cut wasteful spending.  He likely would have continued that program as president, continuing to down-size government.

Bush, on the other hand, oversaw the largest increase of the federal government in history!

Finally, Gore almost certainly would have led efforts to stem climate change at a time when smaller changes could have had great and lasting effects.  But thanks to Bush, Richard “The Dick” Cheney and all of their oil buddies, it now may be too late to avoid the predictable devastating effects of runaway carbon emissions.

Remember this the next time you hear Teapublicans complain about the budget deficit, the escalating national debt, and the cost of clean-up efforts following storms made worse by climate change.

Let’s Create A New Tax System!

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The US is a patchwork of federal taxes, state taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, capital gains taxes, gasoline taxes, tobacco taxes, etc. In addition, there are a myriad of tax loopholes allowing billionaires to pay lower tax rates than the secretaries who work for them. Worse yet, some of the world’s largest corporations are able to avoid paying income taxes, despite billions in profits.

If all of that isn’t confusing enough, taxes in some states are higher than in others, leading to competition between states.

For decades, states have spent more time trying to coax companies from other states than helping their own entrepreneurs to create new companies. Low tax states such as Arizona and South Dakota try to lure away businesses (and jobs) from higher tax states like California and Minnesota where the businesses began and grew, likely because of tax incentives and other state-funded investments in those businesses.

This kind of nonsense has to stop!

Businesses are not created by low taxes.  They are created and nurtured in states which value education, innovation, technology, infrastructure, and quality of life.

If states like Arizona and South Dakota want more jobs for their citizens, let them invest in the things necessary to create them. Let’s stop the competition to see which state can cut taxes to the lowest possible rate at the sacrifice of everything else. Let’s level the playing field. Let’s eliminate the multiple layers of taxes. Let’s create a single, federal tax system in which each state charges the same tax based on income and cost of living. (I think we can all agree that a $250,000 salary in Wyoming goes a lot farther than the same salary in New York.) The money would then be parceled out by the federal government based on population and defined need.

This system would end the free ride for low tax states and encourage real development and innovation.

After all, why should Minnesota, Delaware, New York and New Jersey have to contribute far more taxes per person to the government than they get back? And why should states like Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, New Mexico and Wyoming get more out of the federal government than they pay in? And why should companies be encouraged to uproot their offices, production facilities and personnel just because another state offers a slightly lower tax rate?

Think about it.

The Treason Party.

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Following the fallout of the Watergate break-in, we learned that Richard Nixon was a crook. Thanks to a documentary by the BBC and the Rachel Maddow Show, we now know that he was also a traitor.

The Thursday before the 1968 presidential election, President Johnson announced that the allies had reached a peace agreement with North Vietnam. But since Nixon had run on a platform promising to end the war, he couldn’t afford to have Johnson end the war a few days before the election.

So Nixon used an intermediary to convince the South Vietnamese to back out of the peace agreement!

Recordings of Johnson’s phone conversations reveal that he knew about Nixon’s treachery, but since he learned of it as the result of illegal FBI wiretaps of the South Vietnam ambassador’s phone, LBJ couldn’t make the information public.

The treason helped Nixon win a close election over Hubert H. Humphrey.  It also caused the war to rage on for another 5 years, costing 15,000 more American lives!

Of course, Nixon isn’t the last Republican president to play fast and loose with the Constitution. Reagan created a shadow government to covertly arm Iran in exchange for money to finance the Contras of Nicaragua.  George W. Bush led us into war with Iraq on false pretenses.  And his administration violated international treaties by torturing captives.

More recently, Teapublicans have used every parliamentary trick in the book and a record number of filibusters in order to block President Obama’s appointments and his attempts to improve our economy.

Yet they have the audacity to wave flags and call themselves patriots!!!

Let Them Eat Horse!

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According to new studies, 1 in 3 Americans believe that hamburger tainted with horse meat should be given to the poor. In essence, they’re saying, “I wouldn’t eat it, but it’s good enough for the poor.”

Of course, in the minds of Teapublican deficit hawks, the poor are merely freeloaders who don’t deserve what the hard-working job creators enjoy. But why stop with horse meat? Why not subject the poor to other indignities?

For example, we could give them all of our outdated and spoiled food. Instead of paying rent for community food shelves, we could just throw the food in dumpsters and turn all of the poor into dumpster-divers.

Why waste perfectly good medicines on the poor? This is a perfect opportunity to get rid of expired medicines and avoid polluting the environment at the same time. And you know all of those medicines that have been deemed unsafe for consumption? If we gave those to the poor, we’d eventually have less poor – especially if we quit wasting money on MedicAid and hospitalization.

We could save even more money by throwing all of the poor out of public housing. And why waste money on educating poor children? If they learn too much, they’ll just call for class warfare. Finally, why not build a fence around our nation’s poorest land and let the poor create their own country (it worked for Native Americans). We could surround it with video cameras and broadcast it on a network channel as the hottest new reality show.

We could call it Les Miserables America.

Does Mitch McConnell Deserve The Title “Leader?”

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Following President Obama’s dinner with Senate Republicans, the invitees were asked to comment on the evening. All said it was productive and one stated that he was surprised to learn that the president had previously offered a variety of spending cuts to prevent sequestration.

Really?!!!

This is surprising on a couple of fronts. First, the president’s proposed budget cuts have been chronicled in the national media for many months. They even have been listed on the White House website for anyone with enough curiosity to read. Second, it would appear that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is guilty of sabotaging the budget negotiations by failing to communicate with members of his own party.

How can the president hope to negotiate deficit reduction when the Minority “Leader” fails to lead?

Of course, McConnell’s failure should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed his “leadership” the past four years. In the days immediately following the election of President Obama, McConnell famously stated that his number one priority was to assure that Obama would be a one-term president.

Try as he might, McConnell even failed at that.

Despite a record number of filibusters, stonewalling, caterwauling, and every other form of obstruction, President Obama was re-elected in a landslide. Now it seems McConnell has even failed to keep his budget sabotage secret.

McConnell’s failures should not only assure defeat in his own re-election efforts. He should be locked out of any further negotiations. By ignoring McConnell and Speaker John Boehner, Congress might actually get something done.

Tax Cuts For The Rich, Budget Cuts For The Poor.

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Following are a few numbers that clearly show the results of more than 40 years of Republican economic policies:

1 percent of Americans now control more than 40 percent of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 40 percent of Americans control 0.2 percent of the wealth.

46.2 million Americans are living in poverty. 3.9 million working Americans are paid at or below the minimum wage. 12 million Americans are unemployed. 650,000 Americans are homeless. 50 million Americans, including 17 million children, don’t know where their next meal is coming from. 48.6 million don’t have health insurance.

Naturally, Teapublicans in Congress want to protect these people from further harm. I’m referring, of course, to the 1 percent! Even though taxes for the wealthy are at historic lows, Teapublicans believe they’re overtaxed. They absolutely refuse to consider asking these people to pay one more cent of their enormous wealth.

Those other people, according to Teapublican leaders, are merely the freeloaders who rely on the federal government for assistance. 

Is it any wonder, then, that Congress is locked in a budget standoff with the president? The austerity cuts resulting from sequestration will cut 9 percent from unemployment checks and $175 million from energy assistance for the poor. Sequestration will cut rental assistance to 125,000 low-income families. It will put 100,000 previously homeless back on the streets. It will cut 70,000 kids from Head Start. And it’s projected to cost up to 750,000 jobs.

But these cuts are less cruel than the Teapublican demands to end sequestration. They want to cut SNAP food assistance for the poor. They want to cut Medicaid health assistance for children and low-income families. They want to cut Medicare, Social Security and more.

But don’t worry about the poor. They’ll get by. After all, they still own 0.2 percent of our nation’s wealth.

The Real Hunger Games.

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What’s your definition of a third world country?

When I was a child (far too long ago) third world countries were defined as those that didn’t produce enough food for their own citizens. I remember photographs of these faraway places…photos of people with blank stares and bellies bloated by starvation. If I failed to clean my plate, I was reminded that children in China were starving. (I never quite understood how my cleaning a plate helped the Chinese, but I felt sorry for them anyway.)

Today, many of those going hungry are right here…in the United States!

According to the directors of a new film, A Place at the Table, 50 million (1 in 6) Americans, including 17 million children, don’t have reliable sources of food. 1 in 2 American children will need food assistance in their lifetimes.

These aren’t the lazy layabouts who suck off the government teat that Teapublicans want you to think they are. More than 80 percent are from working families. The parents simply don’t earn enough to pay for rent, for clothes, for day care, for school books, for transportation and for food.

How is this possible in America?

It’s made possible by politicians who continue to cut taxes for the wealthy and powerful; by corporations that pay millions to CEOs and poverty level wages to workers; by politicians who refuse to raise the minimum wage even though it has lagged far behind inflation; by politicians who believe in corporate welfare but not human welfare; by politicians who want to balance the budget by cutting food stamps and access to medical care rather than our bloated defense budget.

We can change this.

We can donate to food shelves. We can volunteer to help those in need. We can support government programs to help raise families out of poverty. We can make certain that anyone who is willing to work can afford a roof over their heads and food on the table. We can demand that our politicians prioritize people over corporations. We can demand that they put people above partisanship; children above debt reduction.

We can end hunger in America. 

Since Most Americans Want Compromise, Why Elect Those Who Don’t?

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A variety of polls show that the overwhelming majority of Americans want their elected officials to compromise. Yet the US House of Representatives is controlled by those who view compromise as a weakness.

Speaker Boehner can’t even bring himself to say the word!

As a result, President Obama was forced to sign an order implementing the most ill-advised, ham-handed budget cuts in history. $89 billion will be indiscriminately cut from every federal program except critical national defense and Social Security. If allowed to stand, these cuts will have devastating effects on our nation – especially those who are out of work, the working poor and others struggling to survive.

These cuts have been made because traditional Republicans are afraid of the Tea Party nitwits within their own party. They’re afraid to end tax loopholes that allow multinational corporations to stash money offshore. They’re afraid to end tax loopholes for the wealthy who are enjoying tax rates that are near historic lows. They’re afraid to compromise with the president for fear of being “primaried” and replaced by even more teabaggers. 

Although, I admit the prospect of even more angry teabaggers in Congress is frightening, it’s time for traditional Republicans to grow a pair.

It’s not that President Obama hasn’t reached across the aisle to avoid sequestration. After stabilizing our economy in the first year of his administration, the president has cut the deficit each year. In fact, we have already seen the largest deficit reductions since the years immediately following World War II. Yet that isn’t enough for the extreme wing of the Republican Party. Teapublicans have refused offers of $2 to $3 in cuts for every $1 of revenue created by eliminating tax loopholes.

Still there is no compromise from the radical right. They refuse to negotiate with the president and they refuse to listen to the American people. Of course, they won’t suffer as the result of their actions. We will.

I hope voters remember that next election.

Supreme Attack On Voting Rights.

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Today, the Supreme Court took up a challenge to the Voting Rights Act of 1964 which was renewed in 2006. If you’re not familiar with the Act, it was passed by Congress to prevent many of the states of the old Confederacy from denying African-Americans representation and the right to vote.

For many years, in the Jim Crow South, blacks were denied the vote through a combination of literacy tests, poll taxes, outright violence and intimidation. To end, or at least reduce, those practices, Congress demanded that southern states present any changes in voting procedures and redistricting to the Department of Justice for prior approval. Frustrated by the restrictions, Shelby County, Alabama challenged the law in court with the backing of the Republican Party.

It’s no surprise that Republicans would want to repeal the Voting Rights Act so they can better gerrymander congressional districts and suppress minority votes. After all, African-Americans voted overwhelmingly for President Obama.

Why wouldn’t they? Barack Obama is the first president with African-American heritage in our nation’s history. Moreover, since the Republican Party embraced the Southern Strategy, it has consistently supported policies that discriminate against minorities. GOP economic policies have been particularly damaging to minorities.

According to a new study by the Brandeis Institute on Assets and Social Policy, the wealth gap between blacks and whites has accelerated since the early days of Trickle Down Economics in 1984. Over a 25-year period, the median net worth of white households has grown to $265,000 compared to just $28,500 for black households!

If Justice Scalia has his way in deciding the Voting Rights Act, things are bound to get worse.

During oral arguments before the Court, Scalia said the act represents the “perpetuation of racial entitlement!” Say what? Exactly how does this pompous right wing apologist think African-Americans are entitled? Entitled to less representation than they already have? To be denied the right to vote? To even less wealth?

After hundreds of years of slavery and discrimination, it is likely to take many more generations of protections for African-Americans to level the playing field. At the time of emancipation, very few were literate and most had no property or assets of any kind. They were denied adequate wages for back-breaking jobs. They were segregated into slums with inferior schools. They were denied the right to vote. More recently, they have seen multinational corporations ship their jobs overseas.

Unfortunately, African-Americans and other minorities still need help to end the cycle of poverty and violence. They still need help achieving equal representation. And they need help to fend off win-at-any-cost politicians from marginalizing their representation and denying them the right to vote.

What they don’t need is a fat white man in a robe making insensitive and racist comments before voting to limit the few protections they have.