Category Archives: Government

Okay, Republicans, now what?

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You lied, cheated and spent your way into control of the House of Representatives.  You took control of more governors’ offices.  And you took control of 19 more state legislatures.

Much of your success was the result of massive corporate donations and your filibustering of legislation that could have helped turn this economy around – the economy that collapsed on your watch due to your lack of oversight and regulation.  Remember?

You blamed your mess on President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.  Then you talked about “taking your country back,” resorting to 2nd Amendment remedies, if necessary.

You won on promises of less government and lower taxes.  So what next?

Plan to cut the size of government?  Maybe you haven’t noticed, but the downsizing of state, county and local governments is one of the primary reasons our economy is so slow to recover.  We’re losing government jobs faster than private industry can add jobs.  Moreover, the lack of government oversight of Wall Street is one of the main reasons we’re in this predicament.

Plan to cut taxes by renewing the ill-conceived Bush tax cuts for the wealthy?  Then plan on adding $80 billion to our deficit over the next two years.  Want to repeal “Obamacare?”  Then plan on adding yet another $138 billion to our deficit over the next 10 years.  (Not to mention the fact that you’ll be denying health care access to more than 30 million Americans.)

Plan on cutting the deficit?  You could cut half of our bloated $663.7 billion defense budget (not including the Iraq and Afghan wars).  But what will you do about the defense contractor jobs you eliminate?

The most radical Republicans talk about eliminating or privatizing all “entitlements” such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.  They want to get rid of the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Science Foundation, as well.  All of that combined would save $1.48 trillion a year, completely offsetting the deficit and leaving us with a surplus of more than $200 billion each year (not including tax cuts for the wealthy, rising health care costs, increased military spending and increased border security).

But we’d have a nation of uneducated, unheathy children and heavily-armed, destitute senior citizens.  Try running on that platform in future elections.  Or will you do as some Tea Party candidates suggest, and limit voting to landowners or those already in office?

The Truth About President Obama And Congress.

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Out of more than 500 promises made by President Obama during the 2008 campaign, Politifact.com finds that 122 have been kept, 39 have been compromised, 238 are in the works, 82 are stalled (primarily in the Senate), and 3 have not yet been rated. A mere 22 promises have been broken and many of those were casualties of the economic disaster created by his predecessor.

The promises kept include a credit card bill of rights, expanded loan programs for small business, full funding of the Veterans Administration, removing combat troops from Iraq, closing the donut hole in Medicare prescriptions, requiring health insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, providing tax credits for those who need help paying health insurance premiums, requiring large employers to contribute to a national health insurance plan, and many other issues covered by the new health reform act.

In addition, he helped save the U.S. auto industry. And his policies have stemmed the bleeding of 750,000 jobs per month prior to his taking office, and led to the creation of millions of jobs in the private sector. 

That’s a lot of progress for less than two years in office. It’s even more impressive given the GOP’s record-setting use of the fillibuster to oppose his initiatives.

The inescapable conclusion is that when you voted for Obama, you got almost exactly the President you voted for. That begs the question of why there is so much voter anger and Democratic apathy this year. Likely, it’s a combination of impatience, misunderstanding and frustration.

For the past two years, Republicans, using their Fox Noise megaphone, have whined, complained and lied about every single Presidential initiative. They ginned up mock outrage over the lowest Federal taxes in 50 years. They labeled as “bailouts” loans to automakers that saved 10 million high-paying U.S. jobs. They labeled as “socialism” health care reform designed to provide health care access to 33 million Americans. They blocked and delayed legislation that would create jobs, help small businesses, improve the environment and take away tax incentives for large corporations that exported jobs overseas. And their corporate masters have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to attack Democratic Senators and Congressional Representatives who have dared to fulfill their own campaign promises.

Of course most Americans want to see an improved economy, reduced unemployment and reduced deficits! But voting for Republican teabaggers and the GOP’s disingenuous “Pledge to America” will not help. It will only make matters worse!

And if frustrated progressives fail to vote this November, they will only be contributing to the fiasco!

A Petri Dish For Wingnut Ideas.

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Since Janet Napolitano was selected by President Obama to head Homeland Security, the inmates in the asylum otherwise known as the Arizona Legislature have run wild.

Without adult supervision (and a strong Governor to veto their lunacy), legislators have unleashed a torrent of right wing legislation signed into law by Jan Brewer. In addition to the ill-conceived immigration law (SB1070), they banned classes on Latino cultural studies in public schools. They passed a law to fire teachers who have an accent. They made it legal for anyone to carry a concealed gun without a permit. They slashed spending on public schools (AZ now ranks 51st out of 50 states and D.C. in spending per pupil). They cut funding for highway rest stops and for state parks, forcing many parks to close, despite the fact that tourism is one of the state’s largest industries. And they voted to eliminate health care for children of low-income families until they discovered that the state would lose federal funding by doing so, which would cost the state more than it saved.

For 15 years in a row, the Arizona Legislature has cut corporate taxes. So corporations now contribute just 9 percent to Arizona’s total tax revenue. At the same time, the Legislature refuses to close billions of dollars in tax loopholes available to corporations. To compensate for the lost revenue, the state has raised sales taxes which place a disproportionate burden on the poor (in my town, the sales tax is now more than 10 percent). Moreover, much of the legislation represents solutions in search of a problem. For example, they passed a law requiring candidates to produce a birth certificate (take note, President Obama). And they have challenged the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, spending tens of millions to defend legal challenges by the Federal government.

As a result of all this, Arizona now has one of the largest budget shortfalls in the nation along with one of the highest levels of unemployment. The Legislature and the Governor have driven more than 100,000 people out of the state, made up stories about kidnappings and decapitations in the desert and told the world that Arizona is too dangerous to visit.

But the wingnuts aren’t yet finished with destroying the state.

The upcoming election has even more wingnut ideas on the state ballot. Legislators want to cut a program for Early Childhood Family Education and sweep the money into the general budget. They want voters to pass an amendment allowing the state to opt out of the national health care program. They also want voters to pass a NRA-backed amendment making it unconstitutional for the DNR to restrict hunting, even for an endangered species.

If you’re unhappy with the bickering in Congress, it may be tempting to send a message by electing a bunch of angry, uninformed Tea Party candidates to Washington. You may even think that Congress couldn’t possibly get any worse with them in charge. If so, you don’t have to wait to see the consequences to our nation. Just look at Arizona.

The False Promise Of Privatization.

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Since Ronald Reagan, Republicans have promoted the privatization of government services as the solution to all economic problems. They have long wanted to privatize Social Security and Medicare as a method of killing these so-called entitlements. They would like to privatize the postal service. Under Republican administrations, they have already privatized prisons, much of the military, even intelligence-gathering operations. And, at the state level, they propose to privatize highway rest stops and state parks.

The belief is that corporations are always able to do things better, and for less cost, than the government.

Well, let’s examine the concept. Had Social Security been privatized in 2008, most people would have lost large portions of their investments with the crash of the stock markets. Private contractors for the military have bilked taxpayers out of hundreds of billions of dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And the recent escape by three murderers in Arizona occurred due to negligence at a for-profit prison.

Want more?

Then how would you feel about the sale of naming rights for the Grand Canyon or Yosemite? The sponsoring corporation could place its logo at the base of the canyon or the base of the falls. And why stop there? All park attendants could wear logos on their backs. There could be billboards for the corporate sponsors everywhere within the park borders. All highways and roads could become toll roads with a series of corporate logos replacing the white dotted center lines. Interstate rest stops could be turned over to fast food corporations and gas stations with pay toilets. All police squad cars could have corporate logos replacing the shields on the doors. And all 911 calls could be routed to call centers in India or the Philippines where the caller is put on hold for 20 minutes.

And once the corporations realize they have control of the business, prices will go up to pay six-or-seven-figure bonuses to the executives and dividends to shareholders.

The point is, corporations are in business to make money and they’re only responsible to their shareholders while government entities are non-profit and report to you. And, as for the claim that corporations are less bureaucratic than government, anyone who has ever worked for a large corporation or tried to get a claim paid by a large insurance company can tell you that’s simply not true.

Tax Cuts As An Economic Stimulus.

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It’s one of the most important issues that will be debated in the coming months. Democrats, including President Obama, want to let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of our population expire. They claim that we can no longer afford these tax cuts and letting them expire would reduce the deficit and create more fairness for the middle class.

Republicans, on the other hand, claim that the majority of those making $250,000 or more per year are small business owners and that raising their taxes would cost us thousands of jobs. Indeed, they would not only make the Bush tax cuts permanent. They would cut taxes even further as a stimulus for creating jobs.

There are a couple of things I find troubling with the Republican logic. Most small business owners make far less than $250,000 per year. And those who make more than $250,000 likely won’t spend the extra money on their businesses. As a small business owner, I know that’s just not how things work. While some will put the extra money back into their business, most will invest the money in securities, save it or spend it on themselves.

But don’t just take my word for it. Let’s look at how most economists view tax cuts as a form of stimulus: They estimate that tax cuts have a return of 32 cents of economic growth for every dollar spent. On the other hand, programs like food stamps (which many Republicans oppose) have much higher rates of return. It’s estimated that such programs generate $1.71 of economic growth for every dollar spent. And, according to Mark Zandi, John McCain’s economic adviser during the 2008 presidential campaign, those unemployment benefits that Republican teabaggers so oppose are estimated to generate $1.61 in economic growth for each dollar spent.

As the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center put it: ” The tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 provided much less stimulus to the economy than other policies of equal cost would have. The underlying reason is that although the tax cuts were well-timed to provide a short-run economic stimulus, they were poorly designed for this task.”

They did, however, provide a nice windfall for the wealthiest Americans while adding billions to our deficit.

If Democrats Renew Bush Tax Cuts, They Deserve To Lose Congress!

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Yesterday, on the McClatchy website, there was a story that many Democrats are leaning against repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. The reason? Despite the fact that renewing the tax cuts will add billions to the deficit, some Democrats are worried that it will make their re-election more difficult.

So they’d rather cause long-term damage to our nation than risk losing their seats in Congress? Really?

If that’s how they feel, it’s time for them to go! Their attitude only proves what many progressives have thought for some time. A large number of Democrats are gutless wimps who cower at the first challenge from a Republican. Yet these same Democrats speak in general terms about the damage conservative Republicans are doing to this nation.

Personally, I’m sick of it! I’m sick and tired of the Grand Old Party of Liars who represent big business. I’m sick of the Fox Noise machine. I’m sick of the “I’ve got mine, you can’t have yours” whiners otherwise known as the tea party movement. I’m tired of the greed and influence of large corporations. I’m tired of obscenely wealthy conservative puppet masters like the Koch brothers who attempt to control our elections through donations to “think” tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, Americans for Prsoperity, the Cato Institute, FreedomWorks, etc.

But most of all, I’m sick of the cowards who give the Democratic Party a bad name.

The Growing Underclass In America.

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There are currently 14.6 million Americans who are out of work, and that number likely doesn’t include millions more, such as the self-employed, who have seen their businesses diminish to virtually nothing. But before you blame the current Administration, take a look at the monthly unemployment claims beginning in January 2008. By the time President Obama was inaugurated, the new claims had grown to more than 750,000/month. Yet despite having to fight Republicans every step of the way, President Obama and Congress began to turn things around. In fact, in May of this year, we added 433,000 jobs.

The real question is, without enormous structural changes to our nation, what kind of jobs will be available?

Even before the Great Recession, most of our jobs were in the so-called service sector. And most of these jobs pay less than $25,000/year. The list includes fast food workers, restaurant workers, hosts and hostesses, dishwashers, cashiers, amusement park attendants, movie theater ushers and ticket-takers, farm workers, gaming dealers, bartenders, personal and home care aides, parking lot attendants, lifeguards, ski patrol, garment pressers, laundry & dry-cleaning workers, child care workers, maids, and elderly caregivers, receptionists, secretaries and maintenance “engineers”.

The result is that approximately 35 percent of the U.S. workers make $25,000/year or less! (The national poverty level is $21,756 for a family of four.) And many careers that were once considered good jobs, such as construction, don’t pay much better. Construction workers make only $11/hour to $15/hour.

Our nation has been bleeding relatively high-paying manufacturing jobs since the 1980s (7.7 million between 1986 and 2001). However, under the Obama Administration, the U.S. economy has actually begun to reverse that trend. New data shows that we have added more than 180,000 manufacturing jobs in 2010. Still, the majority of good jobs are in medicine, law and government. Indeed, of the top 15 highest paying jobs in America, 14 are in medicine.

Lowering taxes for corporations and the wealthy as Republicans demand won’t help create new higher-paying jobs. That will only ensure that the wealthy will make even more money and pay fewer taxes. It will also relegate even more of our citizens to the growing underclass.

A better option is to follow the path of FDR, Truman and Eisenhower – raise taxes on the wealthy and the “too big to fail” by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire then use the additional revenue to rebuild our infrastructure and to create energy alternatives to foreign oil. That would create opportunities for construction companies, manufacturers and suppliers of materials. It would also incentify our corporations to invest their hoards of cash, and it would encourage our banks to open their vaults and make loans to small businesses. More important, it would put people back to work.

Shirley Sherrod Story Reveals Much About Both Republicans And Democrats.

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When a right wing blogger edited a speech by a USDA worker describing an event that took place more than 20 years ago, he made it appear that she had committed a racist act against a troubled white farm family.

Of course, Fox Noise Channel and other right wing media megaphones jumped on the opportunity to make yet another charge that the Obama Administration favors blacks over the long-oppressed white majority (sarcasm intended).

When confronted with the Fox Noise story, Secretary Vilsack immediately asked for her resignation. Even the NAACP censured her. However, one day later, the unedited video was released showing that Ms. Sherrod had simply (and graciously) been using the story of her long ago, racist reaction to make an object lesson that racism against any group has no place in our society.

So why not use Ms. Sherrod’s story as an object lesson for 21st century politics?
It is, after all, very revealing about our weaknesses. It reveals the mean-spirited and deceptive practices of the right wing. It reveals the lack of journalistic standards being practiced by Fox (and the much higher standards of CNN and MSNBC). It reveals the weak knees of Democrats whenever they are confronted by right wing charges. And it reveals the human tendency to believe the worst about someone even before we know the facts.

We should all vow to do better in the future.

AZ now stands for Assinine Zealots.

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For the past 15 years, Arizona Republicans have cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy in an attempt to intentionally bankrupt the state. At the same time, they’ve transferred funds through tax credits to private and parochial schools while hacking away at public school funding. And as the state’s population blossomed, they did little to expand the economy, choosing to rely instead on home building and tourism.

So what are they doing now that both industries have collapsed? In addition to raising sales taxes (in my locale, the current rate is 10.5 percent on all purchases) and further slashing funding for public schools (funding that already ranked 51 out of 50 states), they’re blaming our problems on illegal immigrants.

For centuries, oppressive regimes around the globe have deflected criticism by blaming minorities. Of course, illegals are in no position to defend themselves. They have no ability to vote. By necessity, they don’t even want to admit their status.

So instead of trying to create new jobs in Arizona or even eliminate government waste, the Republican–dominated Legislature and Governor Jan Brewer deflect attention from their abysmal performance by villainizing illegals. Even the wannabe teabaggers, John McCain and Jon Kyl have gotten into the act. They falsely claim that Phoenix ranks 2nd in the world for kidnappings. They falsely claim that most of the undocumented workers are drug dealers or mules. They falsely claim that the Obama administration refuses to take action to seal the border. And they falsely claim that undocumented workers contribute nothing to the state’s economy while flooding social services.

The truth is that undocumented workers contribute a great deal to the state’s economy through hard work, purchases and taxes. Many pay income taxes, Social Security taxes and Medicare taxes despite the fact that they will never benefit from them. All rent or purchase homes. They also pay sales taxes on purchases of cars, appliances, furniture, clothing and food. And now that SB1070 has been passed into state law, those contributions are fleeing the state putting even more stress on the state’s economy. Home values continue to drop. Owners of apartment buildings report record vacancies. Employers in numerous industries report that they are having difficulty filling jobs. On top of that, thanks to SB1070, cities and groups around the country have cancelled meetings and conventions in our state. Even if they aren’t directly boycotting Arizona, many don’t want to become embroiled in the controversy.

Of course, there are angry, old white people from other states who have organized a few “buycotts” in Arizona. Indeed, a group from Texass recently sent a busload of rednecks to Phoenix in support of SB1070. They spent a day touring the city admiring the soutwestern architecture and culture ending with a rally in, of all places … a Mexican restaurant.

America, Right or Wrong?

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When I was in college at the height of the Vietnam “War”, I was considered an unpatriotic “Commie” for simply questioning U.S. military involvement in a land on the other side of the globe that had not attacked or threatened our nation. I was told, even by my parents, that it shouldn’t matter to me; that I should be proud to fight for our flag no matter how I personally felt about our nation’s actions. Ironically, the only family members who seemed to understand my point of view were those who had served heroically in WWII.

Remembering that ugly period in our nation’s history (and in my life) recently caused me to look at today’s political debate in a new way. I realized that there are many issues that separate liberals from conservatives – education, taxes, greed, religion and the circumstances of our childhoods, to name a few. But the notion of so-called American “Exceptionalism” may be the most divisive of all of the issues that separate us.

Most often, those on the political right believe that patriotism can only be demonstrated by supporting our nation’s every action (of course, the exception is whenever a Democratic President is in office). They could care less about how our nation is viewed globally. They despise the United Nations. They take offense at criticism from other nations. And they’re even more angered by criticism from within. They believe America’s Founding Fathers were Christian saints, and that the Constitution was obviously created through divine providence.

On the other hand, those on the political left are more likely to think globally. We find it difficult to accept bullying, dishonesty and greed – from our nation or any other. We despise poverty. We cherish education. We care about human rights. We’re willing to admit when our nation and its corporations are wrong. Instead of being angered by criticism, we try to understand the opposing viewpoint and change our own if necessary. We believe that it’s the duty of a patriot to call attention to our nation’s errors; to speak truth to power. We understand that the Constitution is a living, breathing document that was flawed (given its denial of voting rights to women and African-Americans) and can be improved. And we believe the Founding Fathers were generous, caring, insightful and prophetic men. But we accept the fact that they were mortals nonetheless.

These contradictions, I believe, are at the very heart of most of our political disagreements. Unfortunately, these beliefs are so firmly entrenched, there’s little we can do to change them. All we can do is to try to understand them and, as progressives, try to frame our arguments keeping these differences in mind.

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