Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Morally disabled far-right-wing?
It's truly remarkable that thirty-seven Republican senators voted against ratification of the international disabilities treaty yesterday. Considering that the Americans With Disabilities Act was the basis for the treaty, and the fact that the Act was put forward by Republican George W. Bush and championed by many Republicans, the rebuff by the right wing of the Republican party is a stunning and appalling demonstration of just how powerful the paranoia of the right can be. Claiming that somehow this treaty, which has been ratified by many other nations, would "damage American sovereignty," the nay-saying senators dishonored all those who have fought for our country and lost the use of one or another limb or faculty, as well as all the many others who live with a disability. Their disregard for the suffering and difficulties of others is nothing less than inhumane. One can't help wonder what strange blindness prevents them from seeing the humanity in others and extending simple human compassion that they themselves would surely crave if they themselves were disabled.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Republican Math: An Oxymoron?
Pau Ryan really is good. i can't think of anyone who can spin a tall tale as well as he does it. Every time someone interviewing him asks him whether he thinks the President has won a mandate, he says something like:
No. I don't think so. After all, we Republicans still hold the majority in congress. I think our economic message is a very popular one.
That's a sweet sentiment, but he has left out a few pertinent facts.
1) As mentioned in a previous post, Obama's margin of victory was almost 3%--very, very close to 3%, and considering the Republicans' vigorous efforts to suppress Democratic-leaning voters--the poor, hispanics, the elderly, African-Americans--that's a healthy margin.
2) While it's true that the Republicans still have a majority of the seats in the House of Representatives, it's a smaller majority than it was before this election. The Democrats have gained eight seats so far--there is at least one seat still not settled, in Arizona, where the vote count still isn't complete; so the House of Representatives now has 234 Republicans and 201 Democrats.
Sounds like the Republicans still have something of a mandate in congress, right? Well, consider the fact that:
3) because of the huge Republican gains in state legislatures in 2010, when the results of the census were determined, Republican legislatures were in charge of re-districting, and as good party workers, they did their best to isolate pockets of Democratic voters so that a minimum of Republican congressional seats would be endangered in the 2012 elections.
So while it is true the Republicans do still have a majority in congress, their majority is not necessarily a result of enormous voter enthusiasm. A number of districts were redrawn to favor retention of Republican seats. There is more than one way to win an election.
Mr. Ryan still has not explained, in a way that convinces non-partisan agencies such as the Congressional Budget Office, how his proposals for budgetary change would result in a balanced budget. In fact, the CBO has concluded his approach would significantly increase the deficit.
One fact remains that Mr. Ryan has yet to explain: the tax rates that obtain today, which are the same as the past ten years, are the lowest in decades. And they have not produced job gains until recently under President Obama. These very low tax rates, with a cap of 35% for the highest income bracket, should have given the people Mr. Ryan and other Republicans call "job creators" great incentive to create jobs . . . but they haven't really done so.
Therefore one has to ask why that would change under his projected budget.
On the other hand, when we had really large job gains under Clinton, and when we were recovering from the Reagan recession, tax rates were higher. Mr. Ryan must hate this fact, but it is a simple, if perhaps inconvenient truth: tax increases stimulate job growth.
Trickle-down economics, the Republican model, never has worked. That is another inconvenient truth for Mr. Ryan. And that's why I wonder whether the term "Republican math" is an oxymoron.
No. I don't think so. After all, we Republicans still hold the majority in congress. I think our economic message is a very popular one.
That's a sweet sentiment, but he has left out a few pertinent facts.
1) As mentioned in a previous post, Obama's margin of victory was almost 3%--very, very close to 3%, and considering the Republicans' vigorous efforts to suppress Democratic-leaning voters--the poor, hispanics, the elderly, African-Americans--that's a healthy margin.
2) While it's true that the Republicans still have a majority of the seats in the House of Representatives, it's a smaller majority than it was before this election. The Democrats have gained eight seats so far--there is at least one seat still not settled, in Arizona, where the vote count still isn't complete; so the House of Representatives now has 234 Republicans and 201 Democrats.
Sounds like the Republicans still have something of a mandate in congress, right? Well, consider the fact that:
3) because of the huge Republican gains in state legislatures in 2010, when the results of the census were determined, Republican legislatures were in charge of re-districting, and as good party workers, they did their best to isolate pockets of Democratic voters so that a minimum of Republican congressional seats would be endangered in the 2012 elections.
So while it is true the Republicans do still have a majority in congress, their majority is not necessarily a result of enormous voter enthusiasm. A number of districts were redrawn to favor retention of Republican seats. There is more than one way to win an election.
Mr. Ryan still has not explained, in a way that convinces non-partisan agencies such as the Congressional Budget Office, how his proposals for budgetary change would result in a balanced budget. In fact, the CBO has concluded his approach would significantly increase the deficit.
One fact remains that Mr. Ryan has yet to explain: the tax rates that obtain today, which are the same as the past ten years, are the lowest in decades. And they have not produced job gains until recently under President Obama. These very low tax rates, with a cap of 35% for the highest income bracket, should have given the people Mr. Ryan and other Republicans call "job creators" great incentive to create jobs . . . but they haven't really done so.
Therefore one has to ask why that would change under his projected budget.
On the other hand, when we had really large job gains under Clinton, and when we were recovering from the Reagan recession, tax rates were higher. Mr. Ryan must hate this fact, but it is a simple, if perhaps inconvenient truth: tax increases stimulate job growth.
Trickle-down economics, the Republican model, never has worked. That is another inconvenient truth for Mr. Ryan. And that's why I wonder whether the term "Republican math" is an oxymoron.
Monday, November 12, 2012
The 2012 Election results . . . and what is Grover Norquist?
President Obama, as everyone must know by now, has won a second term as president of the United States. And the Democratic Party has gained seats in both the U.S Senate and the House of Representatives. I thought the election was completely resolved by last weekend, but I was wrong--I just discovered--because there are still some elections for which not all the ballots have yet been counted. Most shocking is the case of Arizona, where as many as one-fourth of all the ballots cast have not yet been counted, a full week after the election.
Also, it is now well documented that in a certain number of states voters were forced to wait for many hours--as many as ten or eleven hours in some cases--to cast a vote. This may become a legislative issue, but whether or not legislation to enforce some sort of non-partisan, nationwide standards for the conduct of elections is enacted, there is no doubt that this has been an election cycle with a number of problems in the process.
It was mildly surprising to see some people proclaim that, first of all, the President's victory is not a mandate for his legislative agenda; and second, the President won because the Democratic Party suppressed voter turnout.
The first was surprising because, as Rachel Maddow noted last week, when George W. Bush won re-election with a more slender margin, he declared it gave him a mandate, and nobody seemed to complain about that.
The second was a bigger surprise, because if there was voter suppression in this election, the statistics would seem quite clearly to indicate that it was done by Republican governors in Ohio, Florida and Arizona, most egregiously.
But probably the strangest moment so far in the days since the election came today, when Grover Norquist, famous for telling conservative or Republican lawmakers to pledge that they will never, ever vote to raise income taxes, said that President Obama won in part because he, in Norquist's own words, "called Mitt Romney a poopie-head."
A poopie-head? Norquist,, to my mind, is something of an outlier, but a very influential one, because he has threatened candidates who violate his oat by saying their constituents will rebel against them by doing so. And I think his notion of "never" raising income taxes is simply unrealistic, besides being impractical and inimical to ecomomic growth. But having said what he said publicly about why the President won, Norquist has gone beyond being an outlier. His statement is simply bizarre, which is what makes me wonder not who he is, but . . . what he is.
I'm open to theories.
There are many other interesting developments resultant from the election, including the fact that there are now more women in the Senate than have ever before served there at once, twenty altogether. n the coming days I hope to discuss some of the more interesting developments.
Also, it is now well documented that in a certain number of states voters were forced to wait for many hours--as many as ten or eleven hours in some cases--to cast a vote. This may become a legislative issue, but whether or not legislation to enforce some sort of non-partisan, nationwide standards for the conduct of elections is enacted, there is no doubt that this has been an election cycle with a number of problems in the process.
It was mildly surprising to see some people proclaim that, first of all, the President's victory is not a mandate for his legislative agenda; and second, the President won because the Democratic Party suppressed voter turnout.
The first was surprising because, as Rachel Maddow noted last week, when George W. Bush won re-election with a more slender margin, he declared it gave him a mandate, and nobody seemed to complain about that.
The second was a bigger surprise, because if there was voter suppression in this election, the statistics would seem quite clearly to indicate that it was done by Republican governors in Ohio, Florida and Arizona, most egregiously.
But probably the strangest moment so far in the days since the election came today, when Grover Norquist, famous for telling conservative or Republican lawmakers to pledge that they will never, ever vote to raise income taxes, said that President Obama won in part because he, in Norquist's own words, "called Mitt Romney a poopie-head."
A poopie-head? Norquist,, to my mind, is something of an outlier, but a very influential one, because he has threatened candidates who violate his oat by saying their constituents will rebel against them by doing so. And I think his notion of "never" raising income taxes is simply unrealistic, besides being impractical and inimical to ecomomic growth. But having said what he said publicly about why the President won, Norquist has gone beyond being an outlier. His statement is simply bizarre, which is what makes me wonder not who he is, but . . . what he is.
I'm open to theories.
There are many other interesting developments resultant from the election, including the fact that there are now more women in the Senate than have ever before served there at once, twenty altogether. n the coming days I hope to discuss some of the more interesting developments.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Please Vote for the President
I've been watching Rachel Maddow tonight, and she has been ticking off the accomplishments of President Barack Obama.Iit's actually rather impressive. One can't really judge this president on the basis of what he has not accomplished, because every presidency has unfinished business. And because of the legislative logjam engendered by the enormous efforts of the Republicans in congress, there is a lot of unfinished business that President Obama would have finished if he had been allowed by the people on the other side of the aisle in congress.
Seldom (not never, but very seldom) has a president had such determined and steadfast opposition to his legislative agenda as President Obama has had. When political ads claim that he has failed, that he has not kept his promises, that his economics don't work, they always omit the key fact that the congressional leadership of the Republican party stated publicly and planned privately from the very start of this administration in 2009, to use as their strategy in this election a policy of blocking every legislative initiative of the Democratic party that they could possibly block, in order to put a damper on the economic recovery from the Bush recession and the disaster of Fall 2008 from which we have been trying to recover--the housing market, jobs, and the stock market.
Interestingly, the stock market has quite nicely recovered. But you wouldn't know it to talk to Republicans. And there has been 32 months of jobs growth--more than 5 and a half million jobs created under this president . . . but you wouldn't know that to hear the Republicans.
He got us out of Iraq; and is getting us out of Afghanistan, and as Rachel Maddow noted, has NOT gotten us into any new wars . . . but you wouldn't know that to listen to Republican rhetoric.
Nor does the Republican rhetoric ever acknowledge their party's role in the difficulty we have had to get out of the economic hole that their president, George W. Bush, sent us tumbling into in the Fall of 2008. And the Romney campaign and his friends do not acknowledge in the slightest that their "change" --"big change" to get the country on the right track, as they say, is the exact same course as George W. Bush's policies . . . the failed, destructive, rich man's economic policies.
President Obama has also managed, despite all the opposition of the Republicans, managed to get a health-care reform bill passed. Not the best possible bill, but one that at least begins the process of taking back health care from the profiteers in the health insurance and big pharmaceutical industries that prey on the old and the ill, and which have for decades sucked money out of everyone who wants health care, and feathers the pockets of the heads of health-insurance companies with hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of people go without healthcare.
There are many other things this administration has accomplished, and to their credit, they have done it while being viciously opposed by the most expensive political campaign in history, fueled by unseen donors in the private sector who have contributed so much money to campaign against the Democratic party that the bill for all the political ads this election season total, according to an estimate I heard today, six BILLION dollars. That is the Citizens United bill at work for its sponsors. And let the Supreme Court justices who voted in favor of that decision explain in what way free speech for individuals should be extended to corporate entitles that don't exhibit any of the normal characteristics of actual human beings. Corporations do not get married, they do not breathe, they do not, officially, vote. Years from now i vouchsafe someone will wonder what temporary madness created this decision.
It's the same madness that ha kept the government from acting against global warming pollution: corporate greed. Different industries perhaps, though I would bet that oil and coal has had a lot to do with both causes on the Republican side.
It is sad to see so many people swayed by distortions of the recent legislative history of the federal and state governments. Only by ignoring the role of the "loyal opposition" can anyone pretend that President Obama is responsible for the economic problems we have faced. And only by ignoring that opposition's role can anyone even pretend that the policies of Mr. Romney and his Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan would improve our economic outlook.
So I urge you--any of you who can see past the basic distortions of Republican rhetoric to the truth of the struggle it has been for the Obama administration to govern effectively--to vote for this president, and for Democrats in general. I won't say Democrats are uniformly honest and upstanding and wonderful. But consider this: Republican-dominated states have acted to keep as many people from voting as they can. That is anti-American. We are a democracy, and in a democracy, we need to allow people to vote.
The Obama administration has kept its promise to work steadfastly for change, and to move the country forward in ways that are beneficial to the country. If you look closely at the legislative process we have had in the past four years, you cannot deny that it has been an arduous process. If nothing else, look at the great number of proposals that were originally Republicans' ideas . . . which, once President Obama embraced them, the Republicans opposed. There are quite a number of them. Looking at the record is like looking through the Looking Glass at a world gone mad. Because the Republicans have banked on making President Obama fail. And what they offer instead is simply more of what got us into this mess before he was president. So how is that "big change"? (Answer: it's not!)
So please vote!
Seldom (not never, but very seldom) has a president had such determined and steadfast opposition to his legislative agenda as President Obama has had. When political ads claim that he has failed, that he has not kept his promises, that his economics don't work, they always omit the key fact that the congressional leadership of the Republican party stated publicly and planned privately from the very start of this administration in 2009, to use as their strategy in this election a policy of blocking every legislative initiative of the Democratic party that they could possibly block, in order to put a damper on the economic recovery from the Bush recession and the disaster of Fall 2008 from which we have been trying to recover--the housing market, jobs, and the stock market.
Interestingly, the stock market has quite nicely recovered. But you wouldn't know it to talk to Republicans. And there has been 32 months of jobs growth--more than 5 and a half million jobs created under this president . . . but you wouldn't know that to hear the Republicans.
He got us out of Iraq; and is getting us out of Afghanistan, and as Rachel Maddow noted, has NOT gotten us into any new wars . . . but you wouldn't know that to listen to Republican rhetoric.
Nor does the Republican rhetoric ever acknowledge their party's role in the difficulty we have had to get out of the economic hole that their president, George W. Bush, sent us tumbling into in the Fall of 2008. And the Romney campaign and his friends do not acknowledge in the slightest that their "change" --"big change" to get the country on the right track, as they say, is the exact same course as George W. Bush's policies . . . the failed, destructive, rich man's economic policies.
President Obama has also managed, despite all the opposition of the Republicans, managed to get a health-care reform bill passed. Not the best possible bill, but one that at least begins the process of taking back health care from the profiteers in the health insurance and big pharmaceutical industries that prey on the old and the ill, and which have for decades sucked money out of everyone who wants health care, and feathers the pockets of the heads of health-insurance companies with hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of people go without healthcare.
There are many other things this administration has accomplished, and to their credit, they have done it while being viciously opposed by the most expensive political campaign in history, fueled by unseen donors in the private sector who have contributed so much money to campaign against the Democratic party that the bill for all the political ads this election season total, according to an estimate I heard today, six BILLION dollars. That is the Citizens United bill at work for its sponsors. And let the Supreme Court justices who voted in favor of that decision explain in what way free speech for individuals should be extended to corporate entitles that don't exhibit any of the normal characteristics of actual human beings. Corporations do not get married, they do not breathe, they do not, officially, vote. Years from now i vouchsafe someone will wonder what temporary madness created this decision.
It's the same madness that ha kept the government from acting against global warming pollution: corporate greed. Different industries perhaps, though I would bet that oil and coal has had a lot to do with both causes on the Republican side.
It is sad to see so many people swayed by distortions of the recent legislative history of the federal and state governments. Only by ignoring the role of the "loyal opposition" can anyone pretend that President Obama is responsible for the economic problems we have faced. And only by ignoring that opposition's role can anyone even pretend that the policies of Mr. Romney and his Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan would improve our economic outlook.
So I urge you--any of you who can see past the basic distortions of Republican rhetoric to the truth of the struggle it has been for the Obama administration to govern effectively--to vote for this president, and for Democrats in general. I won't say Democrats are uniformly honest and upstanding and wonderful. But consider this: Republican-dominated states have acted to keep as many people from voting as they can. That is anti-American. We are a democracy, and in a democracy, we need to allow people to vote.
The Obama administration has kept its promise to work steadfastly for change, and to move the country forward in ways that are beneficial to the country. If you look closely at the legislative process we have had in the past four years, you cannot deny that it has been an arduous process. If nothing else, look at the great number of proposals that were originally Republicans' ideas . . . which, once President Obama embraced them, the Republicans opposed. There are quite a number of them. Looking at the record is like looking through the Looking Glass at a world gone mad. Because the Republicans have banked on making President Obama fail. And what they offer instead is simply more of what got us into this mess before he was president. So how is that "big change"? (Answer: it's not!)
So please vote!
Friday, November 2, 2012
Where Mitt Romney's Heart Really Is
As we come down to the last few days before the Presidential election, I am still struck by the fact that Mitt Romney's recent ads and stump speeches seem to have convinced a great number of people that he is not the same person he has been for most of his adult life, in business the past few decades.
I refer to the fact that he has very clearly proven himself to care passionately . . . about money. He took the money he inherited from his family and has grown the family fortune by a considerable degree by expert stewardship of Bain Capital, and also by making extremely canny investments and sheltering those investments from United States income tax.
Most particularly striking is something he said during one of the debates: "You can get a pretty clear indication of where a man's heart is by where he puts his money."
What's so striking about that statement is the fact that Mr. Romney has put his money in a lot of different places, among them investments in Chinese businesses, and also, more to the point, in the Cayman Islands and in Swiss banks. When he has been asked about his taxes--particularly about the fact that he pays a lower tax rate than people who earn a tiny fraction of his yearly income, he has consistently stated that he pays the amount of tax that is required by the law--no more and no less.
And that is not entirely true. Some of his offshore investments take advantage of loopholes in the federal income tax code that have expired. And other investments he has in the Caymans, a tax haven which shelters income from United States income tax, run into more than one hundred million dollars.He has, as reported in various mainstream media, failed to completely report on his Cayman Island investments, some of the tax-sheltered investments, which run into more than one hundred million dollars.
When reporters or people at other events have been critical of his investment choices, he has sometimes responded by asserting that pretty much everyone has some investments in China or the Caymans, because Mutual Funds and 401-Ks will invariably put some of their assets into such venues. But while that is probably true, there are two key differences. Most people don't have tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in anything. When Mr. Romney talks about the "middle class" he is fond of talking about what "most people" do with their money--"their investments" . . . but most people don't really have investments. With the increasing disparity of income between the most wealthy and everyone else over the past ten years, the middle-class has been squeezed so that most people have less disposable (or investable) income, not more.
And secondly, Mr. Romney, being, as he has said many times, very experienced in business for the past several decades, knows exactly how and where to invest his money for the greatest possible return. Which is very nice for him and his family . . . but which isn't necessarily so nice for people who work for companies in which he invests. He can make a lot of money--and often, quite a bit more money than by other means--when he sells a company, or when he outsources its production or other facilities to an offshore location where overhead--especially labor--is less costly than it is in the United States. He is noted as a pioneer in the art of outsourcing manufacturing to offshore sites such as China. Especially China. But while this can be extremely lucrative for him, it causes the loss of jobs in the United States.
And that is the point. Business and government are not, no matter what Mr. Romney claims, the same. What is good for investors, Mr. Romney's most typical role, is not necessarily best for the people whose livelihood depends on their actual labor in a business. Making money by one's own labor, as opposed to making money by investing in businesses, requires one to have a job. And when Mr. Romney outsources companies to make investment gains, jobs for Americans go away.
Even more distressing is the fact that when he outsources the labor force of a company that was employing American workers, his customary policy has been to leave those American workers high and dry, offering only minimal severance packages, and leaving them to fend for themselves for jobs and healthcare.
When he says "where a man puts his money is a good indication of where his heart is," this suggests that his heart is not really in the United States, but rather is instead in the Cayman Islands. I can't imagine how a person who has that kind of focus--on building his personal fortune by any means possible, pushing the limits of investment ethics and tax advantages to their maximum while ignoring the human consequences of those whose jobs are left behind--can act as an ethical, compassionate and responsible steward of the common welfare of the United States.
I only hope that voters will see past Mr. Romney's blithe, vague claims of "big change" and creating millions of new jobs and helping the middle class . . . to his true, long-held agenda of amassing great personal wealth, and pursuing a tax and economic policy that aids people in his income bracket at the expense of the middle class. When he talks about his tax policy, and he speaks of closing loopholes, he doesn't talk that much about eliminating the estate tax . . . but that is part of his agenda. And that's something that affects nobody but people who have at least $250,000 to pass on to each of their heirs. Eliminating that tax wouldn't save the middle-class any money. It would save a lot of money for those who already have a lot of money, though.
That's just one example of just how different his focus is from the focus of most people in this country, who are just trying to make a living. Do you have investments in the Caymans? Do you have more than a quarter-million dollars to pass on to each of your children? And what if you did? Would you really refuse to pay a percentage of your income that is as no lower as people making much less money pay?
Do you think it is fair that the rich should pay less than the poor and middle class pay, relative to their income?
Don't decide by watching the artfully produced ads and full-color cardboard mailers. Just think about who Mitt Romney really cares about, and where his heart really is. And please, if your heart is here, in the U.S., and you care about this country, tell your friends.
I refer to the fact that he has very clearly proven himself to care passionately . . . about money. He took the money he inherited from his family and has grown the family fortune by a considerable degree by expert stewardship of Bain Capital, and also by making extremely canny investments and sheltering those investments from United States income tax.
Most particularly striking is something he said during one of the debates: "You can get a pretty clear indication of where a man's heart is by where he puts his money."
What's so striking about that statement is the fact that Mr. Romney has put his money in a lot of different places, among them investments in Chinese businesses, and also, more to the point, in the Cayman Islands and in Swiss banks. When he has been asked about his taxes--particularly about the fact that he pays a lower tax rate than people who earn a tiny fraction of his yearly income, he has consistently stated that he pays the amount of tax that is required by the law--no more and no less.
And that is not entirely true. Some of his offshore investments take advantage of loopholes in the federal income tax code that have expired. And other investments he has in the Caymans, a tax haven which shelters income from United States income tax, run into more than one hundred million dollars.He has, as reported in various mainstream media, failed to completely report on his Cayman Island investments, some of the tax-sheltered investments, which run into more than one hundred million dollars.
When reporters or people at other events have been critical of his investment choices, he has sometimes responded by asserting that pretty much everyone has some investments in China or the Caymans, because Mutual Funds and 401-Ks will invariably put some of their assets into such venues. But while that is probably true, there are two key differences. Most people don't have tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in anything. When Mr. Romney talks about the "middle class" he is fond of talking about what "most people" do with their money--"their investments" . . . but most people don't really have investments. With the increasing disparity of income between the most wealthy and everyone else over the past ten years, the middle-class has been squeezed so that most people have less disposable (or investable) income, not more.
And secondly, Mr. Romney, being, as he has said many times, very experienced in business for the past several decades, knows exactly how and where to invest his money for the greatest possible return. Which is very nice for him and his family . . . but which isn't necessarily so nice for people who work for companies in which he invests. He can make a lot of money--and often, quite a bit more money than by other means--when he sells a company, or when he outsources its production or other facilities to an offshore location where overhead--especially labor--is less costly than it is in the United States. He is noted as a pioneer in the art of outsourcing manufacturing to offshore sites such as China. Especially China. But while this can be extremely lucrative for him, it causes the loss of jobs in the United States.
And that is the point. Business and government are not, no matter what Mr. Romney claims, the same. What is good for investors, Mr. Romney's most typical role, is not necessarily best for the people whose livelihood depends on their actual labor in a business. Making money by one's own labor, as opposed to making money by investing in businesses, requires one to have a job. And when Mr. Romney outsources companies to make investment gains, jobs for Americans go away.
Even more distressing is the fact that when he outsources the labor force of a company that was employing American workers, his customary policy has been to leave those American workers high and dry, offering only minimal severance packages, and leaving them to fend for themselves for jobs and healthcare.
When he says "where a man puts his money is a good indication of where his heart is," this suggests that his heart is not really in the United States, but rather is instead in the Cayman Islands. I can't imagine how a person who has that kind of focus--on building his personal fortune by any means possible, pushing the limits of investment ethics and tax advantages to their maximum while ignoring the human consequences of those whose jobs are left behind--can act as an ethical, compassionate and responsible steward of the common welfare of the United States.
I only hope that voters will see past Mr. Romney's blithe, vague claims of "big change" and creating millions of new jobs and helping the middle class . . . to his true, long-held agenda of amassing great personal wealth, and pursuing a tax and economic policy that aids people in his income bracket at the expense of the middle class. When he talks about his tax policy, and he speaks of closing loopholes, he doesn't talk that much about eliminating the estate tax . . . but that is part of his agenda. And that's something that affects nobody but people who have at least $250,000 to pass on to each of their heirs. Eliminating that tax wouldn't save the middle-class any money. It would save a lot of money for those who already have a lot of money, though.
That's just one example of just how different his focus is from the focus of most people in this country, who are just trying to make a living. Do you have investments in the Caymans? Do you have more than a quarter-million dollars to pass on to each of your children? And what if you did? Would you really refuse to pay a percentage of your income that is as no lower as people making much less money pay?
Do you think it is fair that the rich should pay less than the poor and middle class pay, relative to their income?
Don't decide by watching the artfully produced ads and full-color cardboard mailers. Just think about who Mitt Romney really cares about, and where his heart really is. And please, if your heart is here, in the U.S., and you care about this country, tell your friends.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Disaster response and Mitt Romney's complaint
I'm lucky tonight, sitting at home in Wisconsin, watching the terrible, terrible aftermath of the enormous storm that has wreaked havoc on the Eastern seaboard from North Carolina up through Connecticut. Literally millions of people on the East Coast--and people as far inland as Pittsburgh, and Youngstown, Ohio (and elsewhere, as far south as West Virginia, as far north as upstate New York in the Adirondacks) are not nearly so lucky.
I work for a company that is headquartered in Manhattan. I've been working as I usually do, from my office in Wisconsin. Normally I would be on the phone and emailing with people in the New York headquarters. But nobody has been able to work in our headquarters, because of the flooding in Manhattan, the loss of electrical power to the building, and who knows what else they have had to deal with. It is difficult to encompass the scale of the destruction in New York, New Jersey, and everywhere else affected by the storm.
But even as the mind reels from the vast scope of this monster storm's effects, which even now continue to be felt as the floodwaters still cover large tracts of land, I also see and hear people in the affected areas talking about the recovery efforts, and how determined they and the tens of thousands of people working to get the water back where it should be and repair what has been destroyed or damaged are to get this fixed. Some of them are even talking about making this disaster into an opportunity to improve the infrastructure of affected areas so that the next time a huge storm hits, the country will be better able to deal with something like this.
Someone--I believe it was Connecticut's Governor Dannel P. Malloy--said that in the past year, more or less, his state has had to deal with not one but three major natural disasters in the form of storms. He, or someone else who was interviewed tonight, said that we are now seeing storms that we would have thought of as once-in-a-lifetime storms are becoming a once-every-couple-of-years storms. "The new normal," one said. The reason for such storms can be debated, though one meteorological scientist said that it really is connected to global warming. i don't doubt that, because for several decades it has been apparent to climate scientists who aren't in the pay of the fossil-fuel industry that carbon emissions have vastly increased the "greenhouse effect" that retains heat in the atmosphere, raising the overall temperature of the planet. The rising temperature of the planet extends to the temperature of the oceans as well as the rest of the world, and as snow and ice melt--exposing previously snowbound mountains, greatly reducing the size of the world's glaciers, shrinking the arctic icecap and visibly melting large chunks of antarctic ice and snow that were solid for at least ten thousand years if not longer. And this liberates more water and water vapor, as well as providing storms with more energy when they are over warmer ocean waters. Extreme weather events have long been predicted by climatologists who have studied weather patterns and the logical results of global warming.
But for right now, whether we can somehow manage to persuade congress that dealing with the problem of global warming is a clear and present necessity that will before very long save the country an enormous amount of money in smaller disaster-relief costs, we are faced with dealing with the current crisis. And that is something that is done by many local and state agencies, and by FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency that failed so terribly during Hurricane Katrina, but which before the George W. Bush administration, and during the current administration, has been extremely effective in helping communities all over the country deal with disasters of all sorts.
There has been some discussion about the need for an agency like FEMA. At one point during the long series of Republican Presidential debates Mitt Romney stated that what FEMA did would be better done by the states--and even better if it was done by the private sector.
I understand that Mr. Romney feels that business is better suited to deal with a lot of what the federal government does. And he spoke of the federal deficit as a reason for taking money spent on something like FEMA and instead having private business deal with what FEMA does.
He misses the point completely. First of all, the federal deficit is driven not by services like FEMA, but by the tax policy under which we have struggled since George W. Bush cut the tax rate for the wealthiest people in the country, and led us into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at the same time. Back in 2003 when we went into Iraq it was noted by some news media, most particularly Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, that never in the history of the United States had an administration reduced taxes while the country was engaged in a war. But putting aside the question of deficits and their cause there is a bigger issue.
The issue I refer to is a very basic one. What is government for, after all? Thom Hartmann talks about the purpose of government on his daily show. He talks about the basic mandate set forth in the constitution, in the words, in the very first sentence of the Preamble: . . . provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity . . .
Those goals: promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity--not our personal welfare, not the welfare of various individuals, but the general welfare--they are all about the social contract between the government and the individual. As citizens we give up certain things so that we can get the benefits of things the government can do, which would be literally impossible for any single business or individual to accomplish.
This is where the progressive idea comes from. Living in Wisconsin, it was striking to me in the past two years to see how literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people came together when Governor Scott Walker began his assault on rights that the people of Wisconsin had fought to gain, rights that were inspired by the progressive movement that saw its birth in this stat and gave us: the forty-hour work week; the right to belong to a labor union; the right of fee assembly --guaranteed by the Bill of Rights but often challenged by those who would discourage protest when the government over-reaches--and protections that the progressive movement has encouraged or sponsored, such as protection of people in the workplace from hazardous conditions, and other governmental oversight that protects the people against exploitation or worse by private commercial interests.
Mr. Romney is supported by the vast contributions of businesses that stand to benefit hugely if he is elected President. His big backers seem to care not one whit about the general welfare, whenever it threatens the welfare of their business's bottom line profits. James Inhofe, senator from Oklahoma, can deny global warming until he is blue in the face, but his patently false argument against global warming are simply nothing more than that: lies. He says these things in the service of the oil interests in Oklahoma that provide huge contributions to his re-election campaigns (and doubtless, large amounts of money to advertising by Super-PACS in opposition to his opponents and Democratic candidates in general.
The general welfare is something that Rachel Maddow talks about when she does promotional spots for MSBC, and also when she discusses such issues on her nightly show. And she is exactly correct: when she stands in front of what I believe is the Hoover Dam, and talks about how such massive public-works projects are the sort of thing that only the federal government can accomplish, that is a conversation about the common welfare. It is one of the things government is supposed to do. The idea that we should stop maintaining the nation's infrastructure, or outsource FEMA's job to the private sector to reduce the deficit is simply wrong. It is a wrong-headed argument.
In fact, if we did hire some for-profit company to manage disaster relief, it would cost the cocuntry far more than it costs to have the federal government's non-profit agency do the job.
Instead of advocating privatizing disaster relief--and other federal agencies-- people who already benefit from what the government can offer all its citizens--the people who currently benefit the most should contribute a more reasonable, fair share toward supporting the general welfare. As many progressives have pointed out, as President Obama has said many times in the course of the current election campaign. those who earn a hugely disproportionate amount of money and yet contribute a smaller percentage of their income to the general welfare than those at the top of the income scale have contributed in more than fifty years, are simply not contributing their fair share. They, like everyone else, benefit from the services of the government. And yet, the percentage of their contributions in the form of income tax has shrunk because of the George W. Bush tax cuts. No matter the rationale for this: call them "job creators"--they have not been creating jobs since their taxes went down. And their corporate profits have soared . . . while income for most people in the country has actually declined.
The tax cuts for the wealthy have been absorbed by the middle class and poor people, who pay a higher percentage of their income on taxes. Not just income tax, but also sales tax and gasoline tax and other taxes they can't avoid. So let's not kid ourselves about who pays taxes. When Mr. Romney says that forty-seven percent of the people in the country don't pay tax, he was utterly wrong. Even if someone doesn't earn enough money to pay income tax, he or she still pays all those other taxes, and payroll and social security and medicare taxes.
But my point is that the common welfare is really what government is al about. And FEMA is an agency that benefits everyone who needs it. Not just businesses; not just the wealthy, but everyone, the wealthy and the poor; the healthy and the ill; the able and the disabled. It is the epitome of the promise government implicitly makes to its citizens when we agree to be citizens. Give up your autonomy to dot things that benefit you but might adversely affect others . . . in return for the benefits the government provides for all.
I fear that Mitt Romney, and his fellows on the Conservative Republican side of the aisle, especially his running-mate Paul Ryan, whose role model, Ayn Rand's "Objectivism" preaches that we should do first for ourselves, and that a government that in any way inhibits the free enterprise of individual entrepreneurs is evil, simply don't get it. Ayn Rand, born and raised in the repressive, totalitarian Soviet Russia after its revolution, understandably was leery of any government that threatened individual rights. But the federal government of the U.S., when it acts to restrain the unbridled greed of businesses that exploit their workers by trying to prevent them from bargaining through unions or by imposing unsafe working conditions . . . or when it acts to limit the power of Wall Street by keeping investment banks separate from consumer banks . . . is merely fulfilling its mandate to promote the general welfare of the people.
Romney, Ryan and others on the far right seem to have forgotten what government is supposed to do, and have confused corporate welfare with the general welfare of the nation's people.
Big projects, like those achieved by FEMA when it deals with disaster relieve, and other governmental agencies that enable the country to build and maintain infrastructure, or to provide education, fire-protection and police protection that affect all of us, are very properly the province of government, and to suggest that for-profit business should instead deal with such matters is simply a disingenuous claim designed to steer resources to the private sector because they would benefit some business. And whether or not Mitt Romney has a direct interest in a potential disaster-relief company (as Dick Cheney had in Halliburton when he, as Vice-President, recommended that company as the "perfect fit" to perform the kind of support services the army needed in Iraq and Afghanistan), it has been shown time and again that the government can manage such matters just as well if not better than private agencies.
I don't know for sure what Mitt Romney really believes. What I do know is that his rhetoric about the federal deficit simply won't hold water as long as he refuses to acknowledge that the tax policy that he espouses is one of the biggest causes of the growing deficit. But more importantly, he does not seem to understand that when he talks about leadership, the real question for Mr. Romney remains: when he says we need leadership, does he mean the kind of leadership that shows its colors by being selfless and acting in the interests of all the people, or does he mean the kind of leadership that really seeks to benefit the few at the expense of the many? Until I see Mr. Romney clearly advocate policies that don't merely claim to benefit the whole country but demonstrably actually would do that, I cannot have any faith in his blithely optimistic claims about creating millions of new jobs and lowering middle-class taxes.
And when he--the man who was a pioneer in out-sourcing, and who, having said that you can tell where a man's heart is by where he puts his money, turns out to put tens of millions of dollars of his money in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland--approves an ad that claims Chrysler is sending all their manufacturing to China, when in fact they are increasing their workforce in Ohio and merely manufacturing cars for China in China . . . I don't see why anyone should trust his charmingly endearing but fact-free ads.
His actions do not bespeak someone seriously invested in promoting the general welfare.
I work for a company that is headquartered in Manhattan. I've been working as I usually do, from my office in Wisconsin. Normally I would be on the phone and emailing with people in the New York headquarters. But nobody has been able to work in our headquarters, because of the flooding in Manhattan, the loss of electrical power to the building, and who knows what else they have had to deal with. It is difficult to encompass the scale of the destruction in New York, New Jersey, and everywhere else affected by the storm.
But even as the mind reels from the vast scope of this monster storm's effects, which even now continue to be felt as the floodwaters still cover large tracts of land, I also see and hear people in the affected areas talking about the recovery efforts, and how determined they and the tens of thousands of people working to get the water back where it should be and repair what has been destroyed or damaged are to get this fixed. Some of them are even talking about making this disaster into an opportunity to improve the infrastructure of affected areas so that the next time a huge storm hits, the country will be better able to deal with something like this.
Someone--I believe it was Connecticut's Governor Dannel P. Malloy--said that in the past year, more or less, his state has had to deal with not one but three major natural disasters in the form of storms. He, or someone else who was interviewed tonight, said that we are now seeing storms that we would have thought of as once-in-a-lifetime storms are becoming a once-every-couple-of-years storms. "The new normal," one said. The reason for such storms can be debated, though one meteorological scientist said that it really is connected to global warming. i don't doubt that, because for several decades it has been apparent to climate scientists who aren't in the pay of the fossil-fuel industry that carbon emissions have vastly increased the "greenhouse effect" that retains heat in the atmosphere, raising the overall temperature of the planet. The rising temperature of the planet extends to the temperature of the oceans as well as the rest of the world, and as snow and ice melt--exposing previously snowbound mountains, greatly reducing the size of the world's glaciers, shrinking the arctic icecap and visibly melting large chunks of antarctic ice and snow that were solid for at least ten thousand years if not longer. And this liberates more water and water vapor, as well as providing storms with more energy when they are over warmer ocean waters. Extreme weather events have long been predicted by climatologists who have studied weather patterns and the logical results of global warming.
But for right now, whether we can somehow manage to persuade congress that dealing with the problem of global warming is a clear and present necessity that will before very long save the country an enormous amount of money in smaller disaster-relief costs, we are faced with dealing with the current crisis. And that is something that is done by many local and state agencies, and by FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency that failed so terribly during Hurricane Katrina, but which before the George W. Bush administration, and during the current administration, has been extremely effective in helping communities all over the country deal with disasters of all sorts.
There has been some discussion about the need for an agency like FEMA. At one point during the long series of Republican Presidential debates Mitt Romney stated that what FEMA did would be better done by the states--and even better if it was done by the private sector.
I understand that Mr. Romney feels that business is better suited to deal with a lot of what the federal government does. And he spoke of the federal deficit as a reason for taking money spent on something like FEMA and instead having private business deal with what FEMA does.
He misses the point completely. First of all, the federal deficit is driven not by services like FEMA, but by the tax policy under which we have struggled since George W. Bush cut the tax rate for the wealthiest people in the country, and led us into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at the same time. Back in 2003 when we went into Iraq it was noted by some news media, most particularly Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, that never in the history of the United States had an administration reduced taxes while the country was engaged in a war. But putting aside the question of deficits and their cause there is a bigger issue.
The issue I refer to is a very basic one. What is government for, after all? Thom Hartmann talks about the purpose of government on his daily show. He talks about the basic mandate set forth in the constitution, in the words, in the very first sentence of the Preamble: . . . provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity . . .
Those goals: promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity--not our personal welfare, not the welfare of various individuals, but the general welfare--they are all about the social contract between the government and the individual. As citizens we give up certain things so that we can get the benefits of things the government can do, which would be literally impossible for any single business or individual to accomplish.
This is where the progressive idea comes from. Living in Wisconsin, it was striking to me in the past two years to see how literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people came together when Governor Scott Walker began his assault on rights that the people of Wisconsin had fought to gain, rights that were inspired by the progressive movement that saw its birth in this stat and gave us: the forty-hour work week; the right to belong to a labor union; the right of fee assembly --guaranteed by the Bill of Rights but often challenged by those who would discourage protest when the government over-reaches--and protections that the progressive movement has encouraged or sponsored, such as protection of people in the workplace from hazardous conditions, and other governmental oversight that protects the people against exploitation or worse by private commercial interests.
Mr. Romney is supported by the vast contributions of businesses that stand to benefit hugely if he is elected President. His big backers seem to care not one whit about the general welfare, whenever it threatens the welfare of their business's bottom line profits. James Inhofe, senator from Oklahoma, can deny global warming until he is blue in the face, but his patently false argument against global warming are simply nothing more than that: lies. He says these things in the service of the oil interests in Oklahoma that provide huge contributions to his re-election campaigns (and doubtless, large amounts of money to advertising by Super-PACS in opposition to his opponents and Democratic candidates in general.
The general welfare is something that Rachel Maddow talks about when she does promotional spots for MSBC, and also when she discusses such issues on her nightly show. And she is exactly correct: when she stands in front of what I believe is the Hoover Dam, and talks about how such massive public-works projects are the sort of thing that only the federal government can accomplish, that is a conversation about the common welfare. It is one of the things government is supposed to do. The idea that we should stop maintaining the nation's infrastructure, or outsource FEMA's job to the private sector to reduce the deficit is simply wrong. It is a wrong-headed argument.
In fact, if we did hire some for-profit company to manage disaster relief, it would cost the cocuntry far more than it costs to have the federal government's non-profit agency do the job.
Instead of advocating privatizing disaster relief--and other federal agencies-- people who already benefit from what the government can offer all its citizens--the people who currently benefit the most should contribute a more reasonable, fair share toward supporting the general welfare. As many progressives have pointed out, as President Obama has said many times in the course of the current election campaign. those who earn a hugely disproportionate amount of money and yet contribute a smaller percentage of their income to the general welfare than those at the top of the income scale have contributed in more than fifty years, are simply not contributing their fair share. They, like everyone else, benefit from the services of the government. And yet, the percentage of their contributions in the form of income tax has shrunk because of the George W. Bush tax cuts. No matter the rationale for this: call them "job creators"--they have not been creating jobs since their taxes went down. And their corporate profits have soared . . . while income for most people in the country has actually declined.
The tax cuts for the wealthy have been absorbed by the middle class and poor people, who pay a higher percentage of their income on taxes. Not just income tax, but also sales tax and gasoline tax and other taxes they can't avoid. So let's not kid ourselves about who pays taxes. When Mr. Romney says that forty-seven percent of the people in the country don't pay tax, he was utterly wrong. Even if someone doesn't earn enough money to pay income tax, he or she still pays all those other taxes, and payroll and social security and medicare taxes.
But my point is that the common welfare is really what government is al about. And FEMA is an agency that benefits everyone who needs it. Not just businesses; not just the wealthy, but everyone, the wealthy and the poor; the healthy and the ill; the able and the disabled. It is the epitome of the promise government implicitly makes to its citizens when we agree to be citizens. Give up your autonomy to dot things that benefit you but might adversely affect others . . . in return for the benefits the government provides for all.
I fear that Mitt Romney, and his fellows on the Conservative Republican side of the aisle, especially his running-mate Paul Ryan, whose role model, Ayn Rand's "Objectivism" preaches that we should do first for ourselves, and that a government that in any way inhibits the free enterprise of individual entrepreneurs is evil, simply don't get it. Ayn Rand, born and raised in the repressive, totalitarian Soviet Russia after its revolution, understandably was leery of any government that threatened individual rights. But the federal government of the U.S., when it acts to restrain the unbridled greed of businesses that exploit their workers by trying to prevent them from bargaining through unions or by imposing unsafe working conditions . . . or when it acts to limit the power of Wall Street by keeping investment banks separate from consumer banks . . . is merely fulfilling its mandate to promote the general welfare of the people.
Romney, Ryan and others on the far right seem to have forgotten what government is supposed to do, and have confused corporate welfare with the general welfare of the nation's people.
Big projects, like those achieved by FEMA when it deals with disaster relieve, and other governmental agencies that enable the country to build and maintain infrastructure, or to provide education, fire-protection and police protection that affect all of us, are very properly the province of government, and to suggest that for-profit business should instead deal with such matters is simply a disingenuous claim designed to steer resources to the private sector because they would benefit some business. And whether or not Mitt Romney has a direct interest in a potential disaster-relief company (as Dick Cheney had in Halliburton when he, as Vice-President, recommended that company as the "perfect fit" to perform the kind of support services the army needed in Iraq and Afghanistan), it has been shown time and again that the government can manage such matters just as well if not better than private agencies.
I don't know for sure what Mitt Romney really believes. What I do know is that his rhetoric about the federal deficit simply won't hold water as long as he refuses to acknowledge that the tax policy that he espouses is one of the biggest causes of the growing deficit. But more importantly, he does not seem to understand that when he talks about leadership, the real question for Mr. Romney remains: when he says we need leadership, does he mean the kind of leadership that shows its colors by being selfless and acting in the interests of all the people, or does he mean the kind of leadership that really seeks to benefit the few at the expense of the many? Until I see Mr. Romney clearly advocate policies that don't merely claim to benefit the whole country but demonstrably actually would do that, I cannot have any faith in his blithely optimistic claims about creating millions of new jobs and lowering middle-class taxes.
And when he--the man who was a pioneer in out-sourcing, and who, having said that you can tell where a man's heart is by where he puts his money, turns out to put tens of millions of dollars of his money in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland--approves an ad that claims Chrysler is sending all their manufacturing to China, when in fact they are increasing their workforce in Ohio and merely manufacturing cars for China in China . . . I don't see why anyone should trust his charmingly endearing but fact-free ads.
His actions do not bespeak someone seriously invested in promoting the general welfare.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Voodoo Economics Returns:The Reality of Mitt Romney's Economic Plan
When George H. W. Bush was contending for the Republican nomination for president against Ronald Reagan in 1980, he referred to Reagan's economic plan, which Reagan referred to as "supply side economics" as "Voodoo Economics."
He was right. The only way Reagan's economic policies could have worked was in a fantasy world where magic works.
This is all too relevant today, as Mitt Romney has managed, by clever ads, the bullying tactics he used in the first presidential debate, and by making vague promises based on utterly specious arguments, to make the current election for President much closer than it should be.
It is fascinating in a rather appalling way, to see (according to polls) millions of Americans who were underwhelmed by Mitt Romney for at least a year while he was campaigning for the Republican nomination and even after he won the nomination now being swayed by his feel-good ads and speeches, and by his fact-free attacks on President Obama's performance.
The facts are this: Mitt Romney has always promised, no matter how he dresses it up, to bring back voodoo economics. Call it supply-side economics, or call it what many people have called it for decades: trickle-down economics. It is the same thing. And it doesn't work. It has never worked. It didn't work for Ronald Reagan; it didn't work for Herbert Hoover; it didn't work for George W. Bush. And when I say "bring back voodoo economics" that isn't really true. Because as long as the Bush tax cuts continue in force, we are still operating on a voodoo economics system, thanks to our Republicans in Congress.
Voodoo economics works for the people who are already wealthy. Which suits Mr. Romney and his base--the very wealthy--just fine.
Recently, he has decided, in a brilliant campaign strategy, to claim that he represents "Change." Not just change, but big change. Which might be humorous if it wasn't so utterly false and self-serving.
In fact, what he proposes is not change at all. He proposes more of what has gotten us into the economic doldrums since the Bush tax cuts. He wants more tax cuts. For everyone. And he makes it sound as if his plan would benefit the middle class. Whereas in fact, the way he has structured his tax cut, the people who would benefit the most are the people who have already been benefitting from the George W. Bush tax cuts: the very wealthy, and it would actually end up costing middle-class people because the loopholes that would be closed and the deductions that would be eliminated would cost middle-class people more than they would save from his announced across-the-board 20% tax cut.
His tax cut would decrease the amount of money that would be available for essential government programs, while giving yet bigger tax breaks for the very wealthy.
Moreover, part of his plan calls for eliminating deductions and loopholes. He would eliminate tax deductions that would hurt the middle class more than they hurt anyone else. I'm referring to deductions like the deduction for interest payments people make for their mortgage. Also, deductions for college tuition payments would be eliminated. And deductions for charitable contributions. I haven't seen any more specifics about deductions he would eliminate, but one thing that is clear is that Romney's tax plan would still benefit the very wealthy.
I'm writing this blog partly because I saw Bill Clinton's video about Romney's $5 trillion tax cut plan --which is the core of his economic plan. I recommend that video. It is a cogent and clear explanation of the problem with Romney's plan. If you have seen my facebook post last night about that video, you know something about this already. But it is important to put his plan in historical perspective, in perspective relative to his campaign for the Republican nomination, but most importantly, in perspective relative to the George W. Bush administration's economic policies.
What is so unnerving about hearing Mr. Romney saying that he is for Big Change is that his change, as noted above, is to, as Rachel Maddow would say, to simply double-down on the same basic economic policy as George W. Bush. Bush's mantra was that we needed to cut taxes for the very wealthy people at the top of the income scale, the "job creators." And they in turn would use that tax cut to hire more people for their businesses. Republicans continue to this day to use the "job creator" mantra when referring to the people with vast wealth in the country.
There is only one problem with this logic. As stated before, it doesn't work. If it did work, we would not have had the Great Depression; if it did work, Reagan would not have gotten us out of the recession in his administration by raising taxes (and raising taxes did help the economy.) If it did work, we would not have had such a low rate of job creation during George W. Bush's administration, and--because the Republicans, by their extreme intransigence in legislative matters--during the present administration. Luckily, President Obama has been able to pass some legislation, despite the Republicans' attempts to block everything he proposes. There was a stimulus in 2009--which Republicans reviled, and which they have unfailingly taken credit for when they go home to their constituencies. The stimulus, which Republicans in Washington always refer to as the "failed stimulus," was not nearly as much stimulus as Obama and the Democrats would have liked. In a desperate attempt to get Republicans to vote for it, the Democrats cut the amount of money actually going to stimulus and instead included tax cuts as part of the legislation.
When Romney talks about change, he gets a certain amount of traction with people who want to believe that voting for him will make things better for them. And lots of people would like things to get better--I think we would all like things to improve. Let's face it: it is taking a long time to recover from Bush's tax policies. But while Mitt Romney blames the slow economic growth on President Obama and his policies, it is not President Obama's fault. It is the fault of the Republican Congress that has blocked almost all of the President's proposed legislative initiatives that are intended to create jobs: transportation bills; farm bills; job-training bills; infrastructure bills . . . there are others, but I'm not trying to list every one, just a few examples.
I apologize in advance for repeating the following, but it is extremely relevant: Republican Senator and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said publicly in 2009 that his most important goal during President Obama's presidency was to insure that the President would be a one-term president. What I didn't say the last time I wrote those words was that there was also a meeting of key Republican congressional leaders after the 2008 election, in which those leaders --as reported by Sam Stein, based on Robert Draper's book Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives--met on the night of Obama's inauguration to set a direction for their legislative agenda during his presidency.
According to Draper, the guest list that night (which was just over 15 people in total) included Republican Reps. Eric Cantor (Va.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Paul Ryan (Wis.), Pete Sessions (Texas), Jeb Hensarling (Texas), Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) and Dan Lungren (Calif.), along with Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Ensign (Nev.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.). The non-lawmakers present included Newt Gingrich, several years removed from his presidential campaign, and Frank Luntz, the long-time Republican wordsmith. Notably absent were Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) -- who, Draper writes, had an acrimonious relationship with Luntz.
Thus was born the policy that led to the filibusters and threats of filibusters; the challenging of every legislative initiative; the attempts to discredit or otherwise diminish the legislative clout of various Democratic members of congress. As noted by Stein in his article and Draper in his book, some opposition to the Democratic agenda was undoubtedly genuine idealogical disagreement. But the now-tiresome proclamation of "legislative gridlock" since the election of President Obama is undeniable evidence of the determination of the Republican leadership to keep Obama from succeeding. In Draper's book he asserts that the Republicans at that inauguration-night meeting was to do everything possible to make Obama fail, specifically so that they could defeat his re-election bid in 2012.
And that is where we are right now. But that will only happen if all the independents who have to decide whether they can believe Romney's claim that he will improve the lot of most Americans are swayed by the virtual avalanche of advertising that paints him as a benevolent, effective leader, despite the reality--that his tax and economic policy are simply an extension of George W. Bush's tax and economic policy.
A few brief facts that also apply here:
Another part of Mr. Romney's tax plan entails eliminating the Estate Tax. That is the tax on money left by someone who dies to his or her heirs. Currently, there is an exemption on the first $250,000 that someone might inherit. I don't know about you, but most middle-class people are not seriously affected by this tax. And George W. Bush tried repeatedly to eliminate this tax. It is a tax on the very wealthy.
Yet another part of Mr. Romney's tax plan calls for eliminating the Capital Gains tax. In a speech he has given recently, and in one of the debates as well, Mr. Romney mentioned very briefly that his tax plan would ease the burden on the middle class, partly by eliminating the tax on their capital gains. I am sure Mr. Romney must think of himself as the typical American. Certainly for him, eliminating Capital Gains tax would be very helpful to his fortune. But how many middle-class families really have to worry about tax on their capital gains. On their investments. He's not talking about the middle class. He's talking about the wealthy--those who already have enough money so that they can afford to invest money that can grow from capital gains, that is an increase in the value of stocks and bonds that they already hold. Once again, as is true of so many of his proposed policies, he is thinking of what he would benefit from, but not what will benefit most Americans. It is all part of his Conservative philosophy, and Paul Ryan's philosophy, which is informed by the writings of Ayn Rand--the greatest influence over Ryan's political philosophy, as he stated on more than one occasion, until the Catholic Church criticized him for espousing policies that were not at all Christian in their effects on those who most need help in the world. Ryan then renounced Ayn Rand, denying he had ever espoused her "godless," "atheistic" philosophy. But he has not really renounced it. He still requires all his legislative aides to read her works. Her philosophy, "objectivism" basically says that one must think first of oneself in order to to the most good in the world. This is not a precept that agrees with the concept of the United States which has enabled people to rise from poverty into the middle class and become productive members of society. It is a philosophy that is beneficial to those who already have what they need. For all others, this philosophy says, effectively, "Sorry. I got mine. If you would just try harder, you'd get yours, too." It's a philosophy that is appealing to the haves of the world. Like Mitt Romney, who famously, when talking about his cars, spoke blithely of his cars, and his wife Ann's cars. She only has a couple Cadillacs.
In what world do most couples have at least four cars, two of them Caddys?
Romney also has claimed that he would save Medicare, and that President is destroying Medicare. For the record, Obamacare calls for savings to Medicare that come from increased efficiency, not from reduced benefits to patients, while Romney's plan--really Paul Ryan's plan, but one must assume that if they win, it will be Romney's too--would change Medicare by introducing vouchers that would be given to seniors annually, approximately $8000, with which the seniors then would have to purchase private health insurance from insurance companies.
This policy would essentially, for everyone who is currently younger than 55 years old, end Medicare as we have known it for the past decades. No matter what Romney says, that is what his plan means.
The differences between Romney and Obama are so huge it is terrifying to me that so many people have been so ensorcelled by his propaganda that they no longer can see how destructive his policies would be to their lives. I am reminded of the very funny, very sad Onion headline from just after Election Day, 2004: "Millions re-elect Bush, Voting Against Their Own Best Interest." That may not be an exact quotation, but that was the gist. It would be tragic if the same happened this year, if Mitt Romney wins. Millions tricked into believing he is for them would rue the day as soon as he was able to get any legislation passed.
And lastly: Not only did Ronald Reagan abandon his "supply-side" economics in favor of tax increases to stimulate the economy and to attempt to balance the budget. His budget director, David Stockman, repudiated the policy years after the Reagan administration.
It just doesn't work.
He was right. The only way Reagan's economic policies could have worked was in a fantasy world where magic works.
This is all too relevant today, as Mitt Romney has managed, by clever ads, the bullying tactics he used in the first presidential debate, and by making vague promises based on utterly specious arguments, to make the current election for President much closer than it should be.
It is fascinating in a rather appalling way, to see (according to polls) millions of Americans who were underwhelmed by Mitt Romney for at least a year while he was campaigning for the Republican nomination and even after he won the nomination now being swayed by his feel-good ads and speeches, and by his fact-free attacks on President Obama's performance.
The facts are this: Mitt Romney has always promised, no matter how he dresses it up, to bring back voodoo economics. Call it supply-side economics, or call it what many people have called it for decades: trickle-down economics. It is the same thing. And it doesn't work. It has never worked. It didn't work for Ronald Reagan; it didn't work for Herbert Hoover; it didn't work for George W. Bush. And when I say "bring back voodoo economics" that isn't really true. Because as long as the Bush tax cuts continue in force, we are still operating on a voodoo economics system, thanks to our Republicans in Congress.
Voodoo economics works for the people who are already wealthy. Which suits Mr. Romney and his base--the very wealthy--just fine.
Recently, he has decided, in a brilliant campaign strategy, to claim that he represents "Change." Not just change, but big change. Which might be humorous if it wasn't so utterly false and self-serving.
In fact, what he proposes is not change at all. He proposes more of what has gotten us into the economic doldrums since the Bush tax cuts. He wants more tax cuts. For everyone. And he makes it sound as if his plan would benefit the middle class. Whereas in fact, the way he has structured his tax cut, the people who would benefit the most are the people who have already been benefitting from the George W. Bush tax cuts: the very wealthy, and it would actually end up costing middle-class people because the loopholes that would be closed and the deductions that would be eliminated would cost middle-class people more than they would save from his announced across-the-board 20% tax cut.
His tax cut would decrease the amount of money that would be available for essential government programs, while giving yet bigger tax breaks for the very wealthy.
Moreover, part of his plan calls for eliminating deductions and loopholes. He would eliminate tax deductions that would hurt the middle class more than they hurt anyone else. I'm referring to deductions like the deduction for interest payments people make for their mortgage. Also, deductions for college tuition payments would be eliminated. And deductions for charitable contributions. I haven't seen any more specifics about deductions he would eliminate, but one thing that is clear is that Romney's tax plan would still benefit the very wealthy.
I'm writing this blog partly because I saw Bill Clinton's video about Romney's $5 trillion tax cut plan --which is the core of his economic plan. I recommend that video. It is a cogent and clear explanation of the problem with Romney's plan. If you have seen my facebook post last night about that video, you know something about this already. But it is important to put his plan in historical perspective, in perspective relative to his campaign for the Republican nomination, but most importantly, in perspective relative to the George W. Bush administration's economic policies.
What is so unnerving about hearing Mr. Romney saying that he is for Big Change is that his change, as noted above, is to, as Rachel Maddow would say, to simply double-down on the same basic economic policy as George W. Bush. Bush's mantra was that we needed to cut taxes for the very wealthy people at the top of the income scale, the "job creators." And they in turn would use that tax cut to hire more people for their businesses. Republicans continue to this day to use the "job creator" mantra when referring to the people with vast wealth in the country.
There is only one problem with this logic. As stated before, it doesn't work. If it did work, we would not have had the Great Depression; if it did work, Reagan would not have gotten us out of the recession in his administration by raising taxes (and raising taxes did help the economy.) If it did work, we would not have had such a low rate of job creation during George W. Bush's administration, and--because the Republicans, by their extreme intransigence in legislative matters--during the present administration. Luckily, President Obama has been able to pass some legislation, despite the Republicans' attempts to block everything he proposes. There was a stimulus in 2009--which Republicans reviled, and which they have unfailingly taken credit for when they go home to their constituencies. The stimulus, which Republicans in Washington always refer to as the "failed stimulus," was not nearly as much stimulus as Obama and the Democrats would have liked. In a desperate attempt to get Republicans to vote for it, the Democrats cut the amount of money actually going to stimulus and instead included tax cuts as part of the legislation.
When Romney talks about change, he gets a certain amount of traction with people who want to believe that voting for him will make things better for them. And lots of people would like things to get better--I think we would all like things to improve. Let's face it: it is taking a long time to recover from Bush's tax policies. But while Mitt Romney blames the slow economic growth on President Obama and his policies, it is not President Obama's fault. It is the fault of the Republican Congress that has blocked almost all of the President's proposed legislative initiatives that are intended to create jobs: transportation bills; farm bills; job-training bills; infrastructure bills . . . there are others, but I'm not trying to list every one, just a few examples.
I apologize in advance for repeating the following, but it is extremely relevant: Republican Senator and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said publicly in 2009 that his most important goal during President Obama's presidency was to insure that the President would be a one-term president. What I didn't say the last time I wrote those words was that there was also a meeting of key Republican congressional leaders after the 2008 election, in which those leaders --as reported by Sam Stein, based on Robert Draper's book Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives--met on the night of Obama's inauguration to set a direction for their legislative agenda during his presidency.
According to Draper, the guest list that night (which was just over 15 people in total) included Republican Reps. Eric Cantor (Va.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Paul Ryan (Wis.), Pete Sessions (Texas), Jeb Hensarling (Texas), Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) and Dan Lungren (Calif.), along with Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Ensign (Nev.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.). The non-lawmakers present included Newt Gingrich, several years removed from his presidential campaign, and Frank Luntz, the long-time Republican wordsmith. Notably absent were Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) -- who, Draper writes, had an acrimonious relationship with Luntz.
Thus was born the policy that led to the filibusters and threats of filibusters; the challenging of every legislative initiative; the attempts to discredit or otherwise diminish the legislative clout of various Democratic members of congress. As noted by Stein in his article and Draper in his book, some opposition to the Democratic agenda was undoubtedly genuine idealogical disagreement. But the now-tiresome proclamation of "legislative gridlock" since the election of President Obama is undeniable evidence of the determination of the Republican leadership to keep Obama from succeeding. In Draper's book he asserts that the Republicans at that inauguration-night meeting was to do everything possible to make Obama fail, specifically so that they could defeat his re-election bid in 2012.
And that is where we are right now. But that will only happen if all the independents who have to decide whether they can believe Romney's claim that he will improve the lot of most Americans are swayed by the virtual avalanche of advertising that paints him as a benevolent, effective leader, despite the reality--that his tax and economic policy are simply an extension of George W. Bush's tax and economic policy.
A few brief facts that also apply here:
Another part of Mr. Romney's tax plan entails eliminating the Estate Tax. That is the tax on money left by someone who dies to his or her heirs. Currently, there is an exemption on the first $250,000 that someone might inherit. I don't know about you, but most middle-class people are not seriously affected by this tax. And George W. Bush tried repeatedly to eliminate this tax. It is a tax on the very wealthy.
Yet another part of Mr. Romney's tax plan calls for eliminating the Capital Gains tax. In a speech he has given recently, and in one of the debates as well, Mr. Romney mentioned very briefly that his tax plan would ease the burden on the middle class, partly by eliminating the tax on their capital gains. I am sure Mr. Romney must think of himself as the typical American. Certainly for him, eliminating Capital Gains tax would be very helpful to his fortune. But how many middle-class families really have to worry about tax on their capital gains. On their investments. He's not talking about the middle class. He's talking about the wealthy--those who already have enough money so that they can afford to invest money that can grow from capital gains, that is an increase in the value of stocks and bonds that they already hold. Once again, as is true of so many of his proposed policies, he is thinking of what he would benefit from, but not what will benefit most Americans. It is all part of his Conservative philosophy, and Paul Ryan's philosophy, which is informed by the writings of Ayn Rand--the greatest influence over Ryan's political philosophy, as he stated on more than one occasion, until the Catholic Church criticized him for espousing policies that were not at all Christian in their effects on those who most need help in the world. Ryan then renounced Ayn Rand, denying he had ever espoused her "godless," "atheistic" philosophy. But he has not really renounced it. He still requires all his legislative aides to read her works. Her philosophy, "objectivism" basically says that one must think first of oneself in order to to the most good in the world. This is not a precept that agrees with the concept of the United States which has enabled people to rise from poverty into the middle class and become productive members of society. It is a philosophy that is beneficial to those who already have what they need. For all others, this philosophy says, effectively, "Sorry. I got mine. If you would just try harder, you'd get yours, too." It's a philosophy that is appealing to the haves of the world. Like Mitt Romney, who famously, when talking about his cars, spoke blithely of his cars, and his wife Ann's cars. She only has a couple Cadillacs.
In what world do most couples have at least four cars, two of them Caddys?
Romney also has claimed that he would save Medicare, and that President is destroying Medicare. For the record, Obamacare calls for savings to Medicare that come from increased efficiency, not from reduced benefits to patients, while Romney's plan--really Paul Ryan's plan, but one must assume that if they win, it will be Romney's too--would change Medicare by introducing vouchers that would be given to seniors annually, approximately $8000, with which the seniors then would have to purchase private health insurance from insurance companies.
This policy would essentially, for everyone who is currently younger than 55 years old, end Medicare as we have known it for the past decades. No matter what Romney says, that is what his plan means.
The differences between Romney and Obama are so huge it is terrifying to me that so many people have been so ensorcelled by his propaganda that they no longer can see how destructive his policies would be to their lives. I am reminded of the very funny, very sad Onion headline from just after Election Day, 2004: "Millions re-elect Bush, Voting Against Their Own Best Interest." That may not be an exact quotation, but that was the gist. It would be tragic if the same happened this year, if Mitt Romney wins. Millions tricked into believing he is for them would rue the day as soon as he was able to get any legislation passed.
And lastly: Not only did Ronald Reagan abandon his "supply-side" economics in favor of tax increases to stimulate the economy and to attempt to balance the budget. His budget director, David Stockman, repudiated the policy years after the Reagan administration.
It just doesn't work.
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