December 2, 2012
BIG NEWS! John Boehner makes the biggest concession he could possibly make: put "revenue" on the table. IF enough cuts are made to "entitlements." Taxing the rich will damage the economy. Period.
How is this man not laughed off the stage? It is a very, very scary state of things that he is taken seriously, and by so many.
First of all, does no one else see the intrinsic hypocrisy in demanding that the debt be reduced without putting revenue on the table? I mean, how can that be a big deal? We're going to pay down the debt — without any additional revenue? Do people really not see how ridiculous and hypocritical that is?
Second of all, how can anyone with a heart — and especially, since they are the most vocal, a Christian heart — not laugh at the righteous indignation that he emanates as he speaks of the outrageousness of taxing the rich versus the oh so very righteousness of taking money from poor children who already don't get enough to eat. It's the utter scorn he is able to lace around the word "entitlements" that keeps people from realizing what he is talking about. The word "entitlements" has a pejorative connotation — it can easily be used to imply that people believe they are "entitled" but in fact they are not "deserving." It's easy to speak it with scorn. "Social security," on the other hand, is very difficult to speak with scorn. It has no pejorative connotation. "Social security" is old people, and disabled people, and even single moms on welfare. People who need security or they die. The "entitled," however, are a bunch of layabout rip-off artists, conning the government into giving them a free ride — that free ride being the very thing responsible for the fiscal cliff (according to them). The truth is that people need social security, and that is what entitlements provide. The truth is that the percentage of takers is roughly equal to the percentage of dishonest Americans out there. Their argument assumes that most Americans are dishonest. I'm sorry, Mr. Boehner, but I do not buy it. We are NOT a dishonest bunch of layabouts. You know what I bet? I bet the percentage of dishonest Americans out there out to screw their government is very small, and you will never convince me otherwise. I know people who are homeless. Who have, literally, no recourse. I know people who are disabled and don't have enough to pay their bills. I know people with HIV who will be simply and totally screwed if the federal funding is cut. I know families with multiple disabled members who have had their power and their water turned off without a qualm or recourse. I have known, in the course of my life, people with multi-million dollar incomes as well, and everything in between. In six decades I have known a LOT of people from every walk of life. Including many who needed the safety net. And guess how many of them were government freeloaders? Not one. There was not one person "on the dole" who wanted to be there. I knew someone who knew someone who had some kind of racket going, so I did hear about it happening once, in six decades. And yes, I have heard that there are places in this country where it has become a culture, but we all know those places are not representative of the average American-in-need. So how big a percentage of Americans, really, are out there to screw their government into giving them a free ride? No more than the percentage of dishonest Americans. And the Republicans are betting on Americans being predominantly dishonest. I say: not true. And never bet against the American people. It is absolutely heinous how Mr. Boehner uses the word "entitlements" to denigrate hungry children and elderly and homeless people and people on disability without power or water. That's a kind of low that is a way down deep dirty low. It is insulting and deceptive and it hurts a LOT of people. It is Orwellian newspeak kind of heinous. The truth here, Mr. Boehner, is that "entitlement reform" needs to ask the question: how can we pay for it? Not how much more can we suck out of the lives of our poor.
Besides, how many Americans, seriously, would ever say, "OK, we need more money, so, here's what we do: first of all, we let the rich keep all their money. Then we take money from the poor. Right, that's the ticket. We all know that letting the rich keep their money and taking it instead from the poor has, historically, always been good for the economy. I mean, look what happened the last time the republicans were in control and the rich got to keep even more of their money! History has proven that letting the rich keep their money is good for the economy!"???
OK. Republicans say it.
But they can say that all they want and it does not change the fact that what actually happened was that the economy CRASHED! Everything came crashing down around our heads. WE all lost over half of our savings and retirement funds and had our homes foreclosed and lost our jobs. THEY (the rich) got richer. And we are supposed to believe that letting the rich keep their money is good for the ECONOMY? It's good for the RICH, folks. Only the RICH, and don't let Mr. Boehner convince you otherwise. Please look at the historical record. The ACTUAL historical record, not the republican version of it, and show me evidence in the last 10 years that letting the rich keep their money is good for anybody besides the rich. You might find some. Whatever you find, put it up against the crash of 2008, and the 12 trillion dollar bailout and the million dollar bonuses and the repossessions and foreclosures and your own freaking retirement account, and then tell me which wins. . . . Think about it: according to the New York Times the total bailout tab is 12.1 trillion dollars. Let's say half of that was not bankers but industry that really did need to be saved for the sake of the jobs. That leaves 6 trillion dollars. There are roughly 312 million people in this country. 6 trillion dollars divided up among 312 million people is $19,391 each. And then, if you assume that this is distributed with attention to human values, and you eliminate everyone making $250,000 or more, and weight the distribution so that higher incomes get less and lower incomes get more, we could have given every poverty stricken family, every homeless person, every elderly person, every disabled person, all the people who really NEED money, could have gotten $25,000. $25,000 to every one of them. Now put the value of that $25,000 to each and every one of those people up against million dollar bonuses to people already making a hundred million a year. On what planet is the latter better? And no, I am not an economist, but I know this much: those people would not bank that money, they would spend it, it would change most of their lives, AND — in answer to the REAL question, according to Mr. Boehner, would it be better for the economy? — it would stimulate the HELL out of the economy. Economies are not just stimulated from the top down. Investment is not the only route to stimulation. Spending can start it at the bottom just as well. It creates demand which then creates industry to invest in. It doesn't take an economist to see that.
But how can he even ask that as he espouses Christian values? "Would it be better for the economy?" vs. helping every poor person in the country? I mean, what human with any kind of heart at all (yes I'm especially including you vocal Christians here) wouldn't LEAP at the opportunity to give $25,000 to every poor person in the country? . . . "But," you republicans say, "that's redistribution of the wealth. That's — gasp! — COMMUNISM!" No, Mr. Political Science Brain, it's STIMULUS. You would have us believe that giving money to bankers is saving capitalism but giving money to the people is changing everything to communism. No. We're still a capitalist economy, and giving money to the people rather than the bankers would not change that. Capitalist economies can be stimulated from the bottom up just as well as from the top down. Spending creates demand etc. We do not have to be a top-down capitalist economy. That's only necessary if you are centralized and controlled by gigantic corporations.
Which we are, you say.
But, I reply, we do not HAVE to be. "Too big to fail" is doomed to come crashing down. I'm sorry, there it is.
Here we come to a very important impasse. What we have is a centralized economy controlled by and for the benefit of a very few gigantic corporations that are too big to fail. What we need is an economy that works for people (and no, corporations are not people, sorry Justice Roberts, you're wrong about that, and we the people know on this one).
What we need is to get small.
We need to get smart. And then get small. The small, localized circles of capitalism need to get spinning again.
Which will not be easy. In fact, it will be very hard. Because the doomsayers about the fiscal cliff have it partly right: There will be massive failures and economic upheaval as this change happens. Possibly political and social unrest. Combined with the fact that the poles are melting, it promises to be messy.
But it is necessary. The alternative is to let the 1% rule the world.
And they still might rule the REST of the world, but this is America, damn it, and our American constitution begins with the words WE THE PEOPLE. And the people have the power to stop the takeover of our government by the rich.
But we have to be smart about it. We have a lot to deal with here. The moguls are trying to take over everything at the same time that nature is having a seizure. We are in the middle. It will be a challenge, to say the least.
But you know what? I'm optimistic. We know something big is going to happen soon, and I think that whatever it is will be better for us than it will be for them. It will be the beginning of the end of their way of doing things. When the too-big-to-fails go, it will be extremely difficult and disruptive for a time, but if we are smart, elect smart people and not shills for the rich, and get some local autonomy programs going now, the disruption will be minimized.
I should probably say, here, that I am not an idealistic idiot. Idealistic, perhaps, but not an idiot. I am not espousing a new stimulus where the government gives every poor person $25,000. It would have been a better investment than the one they made perhaps (certainly more humane), but it is true that America cannot afford any more massive influxes of debt. It is true that the debt incurred (however unwisely) must be paid off, somehow, and we must stop incurring more debt. It is true that many corporations are global now, and they will never get small. It is true that there must be some centralization. It is true that some goods will always have to be shipped in. But what has happened with globalization is that the furnace that fuels capitalism has been corrupted. In a balanced capitalist economy, there is a complete circle: spending creates demand which creates industry which creates jobs which create spending which keeps the circle going. But when you ship the jobs overseas you break the circle. The cheap overseas labor keeps prices low, but if your spenders have no jobs it makes little difference that the prices are low. They have created an economy that is dependent on giant box stores and plastic food chains, and they have us convinced that we must have their stuff to be happy and they have made us fat and happy — and then taken our jobs away. They have removed the local industry and replaced it with giant box stores, but they have forgotten that the people whom they have trapped in this system have to be able to work in the industry that feeds those stores in order to have money to spend in them.
It is a system that cannot sustain itself indefinitely.
And the solution to the problem of how we close that gap in the circle does not lie in keeping the rich rich and making the poor poorer.
I have said before that I do not have all the answers as to what we SHOULD do, but I (of course) have some ideas as to where we can find more revenue. It's a tough question, because we have a lot to do.
First of all, take the low hanging fruit: end the drug war, legalize marijuana, tax it, grant parole to all non-violent drug-only prisoners, and drop all marijuana possession litigation. I bet when you add it all up, the foreign programs, enforcement, the prison and litigation costs, we're looking at a BIG savings right there. There are estimates of direct costs out there in the 80 billion dollar range, so add to that prison and litigation costs plus tax income and it won't take a huge bite out of $12 trillion, but it's a hell of a good place to start. And yes I know a lot of people are going to wig about this, but folks, seriously now, this is serious business. We need to deal with what MATTERS here in a time of crisis, and whether or not people smoke pot just does not MATTER in any way. The attempts to stop it have created WAAAAAAAY more evil than smoking pot EVER did. Thank you Colorado and Washington for speaking out. Please, Mr. Obama, let it go. Leave it up to the states. Get the government out of the petty drug business. Save a BUNCH of money.
Second, get the freaking insurance companies out of the ACA (Obamacare). It was SUCH a good idea, and you were SO close to pulling it off, and we understand that the only way you got it past the republicans at all was to cut the insurance companies in on the deal, but that was what corrupted it. That required the "personal mandate" and left the people on the bottom, who will never have money for insurance, exactly where they were before, still relying on emergency rooms, only now a penalty will make their lives even worse by adding more debt at the end of the year. It has to be single payer, and the government has to be that payer. This, too, I know is very complicated, and I can only see the big picture, but here's what it looks like to me: The insurance companies got a windfall, everybody HAS to be a customer, and they take 20% profit off the top. The people on the bottom are still left out. And this is another bit of newspeak: now the insurance companies are "health providers." No. They're not. They are insurance companies. They provide no health. They have never provided any health. They are not in any way requisite for health provision. They move money. They stand between the patient and the provider, and all the money goes through them. That's all they do. And when they lose the health business, it will hurt their profit margin for a short bit, but they will barely stagger because they have their paws in so many other pies it won't matter in the long run. Health providers. Right. All this propaganda brouhaha about how if the government runs healthcare then the government will get between the patient and the provider is just a crock of sh*t. The insurance companies are not only incredibly intrusive into our lives, they actually DID have "death panels" that decided when your coverage would end, and they did not give a crap whether you died or not. It took the ACA to stop them from just dropping people and letting them die. And these are the guys we're cutting in for the big bucks? Please consider this: I cannot find a number for how much money the insurance companies are taking out of healthcare, but we are not just talking about profit here, we are talking about ALL the money that goes to insurance companies. Whatever that number is, it is big. So if we get them out of the picture, then that very large number is no longer part of the cost of healthcare. These guys talk about how healthcare costs are going up because of Obamacare as if it's Obama's fault, but the fact is, THEY were the ones that insisted the insurance companies be cut in. Without the insurance companies, the whole website/signup/pool thing becomes completely unnecessary. Cut them out, and then healthcare becomes part of the same pool that includes medicare and medicaid, and with a graduated tax that is half what the average cost of annual health insurance is, I'll bet we've closed the income gap entirely. This is anathema to everything the Republicans stand for because it takes PROFIT out of the system. It means that no one could get rich off people's illnesses. They will call it Socialism. They will kick and scream about redistribution of income and communism and they will never admit that it's really all about being able to take someone's property away from them because they got sick. All that insurance company money should be gone, and single payer would make it possible to include everyone — it would be "universal" in actuality and not in name only. No, Mr. Boehner et al, passing a law that forces everyone to give money to insurance companies does not universal healthcare make.
Third, the tax rates on the rich have got to change. Yes it's complicated, but I mean, what a bunch of spoiled brats! They got their ice cream from W. and now they want to swim in it. I was alive when the tax rates on the rich were 90%. After the industrial revolution met the new deal it went that far. So they've been working very hard to get those rates lowered — understandably, 90%, OK, I'll grant you that's a little high — and they have succeeded to the point where their average tax rate now, according to the Washington Post, is 30%. But they get all kinds of breaks. Their rate was 50% as recently as the mid 1980s, so a return to the Clinton-era 40% would not be unreasonable at all. Provided all those loopholes are closed as well. And no, Mr. Republican television advertiser, taxing dividends for the rich does not mean that the dividends of the elderly have to be taxed at the same rate. It's called "graduated taxation."
Fourth, re-evaluate the defense budget based on it being a DEFENSIVE budget as opposed to an OFFENSIVE budget. And in case you haven't figured it out yet, the greatest threat to our national security is the melting poles, guys, not terrorists. Please keep that in mind. I believe we are talking about huge savings here — but we must keep in mind that disaster preparation must be beefed up at the same time that we are reducing our offensive military objectives (but food stocks are a hell of a lot cheaper than tanks). Oh, and I guess I forgot to remind you: no offensive military operations, period. This is a time when we need to look to our own more than ever before in history (not to mention the human values involved in offensive military operations). PLEASE be smart about this.
Fifth, remove the policy of giving tax breaks for taking industry overseas. Instead, tax them MORE. Change a drain on our income and economy into a source of income that stimulates the economy.
Sixth, nix those 12 nuclear reactors that are planned. They will create some jobs in localized areas for a short period of time, and then they will plug into an already overloaded and shaky grid. When the sh*t hits the fan, they won't do anybody any good, and could in fact make a bad situation into a disaster, like Fukushima did. They are a VERY BAD IDEA. Instead, take all that money and invest it into clean neighborhood and rooftop power, which will create an entire industry that will be spread throughout the country. It will not only create jobs nationwide, but it will be the first big step towards local autonomy. The first big step towards getting small. It will stimulate genuine small business industry while taking all that power and putting it where people will be able to access it when the grid fails. There is no down side to this, folks. You spread your power source out into thousands of little ones that can feed on each other or work independently, and you build disaster aversion into your infrastructure. You create an entire industry's worth of jobs. You reduce what you have to come up with when disaster strikes. Your people take the first step to breaking their reliance on your oh so very fragile infrastructure, and become more able to take care of themselves, ultimately reducing government's responsibility. It serves the people in every way. Jobs. Power. Disaster preparedness. And the scary part, when you think about it, is that it will happen. Either we start doing it now, while it's easy, or we wait till the grid crashes and we have to come up with something or die.
I don't know how much help this last will be for the fiscal cliff, because it will take time for this investment to provide returns, but returns will definitely be seen well before 12 nuclear plants could be built. Once they get the bureacracy set up, rooftop solar panels and wind turbines could be going online in pretty short order. We've got to be smart about this, and more centralized power is a Bad Idea to start with, but NUCLEAR REACTORS? We just saw the best laid plans create a disaster of epic proportions, we KNOW that nature is, shall we say, having a bad century, and you want to build more of them NOW? Bad Idea. Not the smart solution. Rooftop and neighborhood power. People will get behind this, Mr. Obama, and it could really get people going in a big way. Give them the stakes. The poles are melting. Here's what we're doing: we're putting power on your roofs and in your neighborhoods. We need local businesses to help us. Do it right, and we will be all over it.
Seventh, why in the hell have we not initiated a Manhattan-style project to replace oil? Well. It's not even on the table. Instead, what we're doing is raping our natural resources with the dirtiest oil there is, piping it thousands of miles, and risking our groundwater with fracking, literally, everywhere there's shale. The feeding frenzy for the last drops of oil has begun, and the oil companies are raking in gargantuan profits while they are literally destroying our homeland. Even more shockingly, we are letting them do it. People: the poles are melting. We are in the middle of the Sixth Great Extinction. We know now that the industrial revolution is primarily, if not solely, responsible. And we are letting them pillage our beautiful country to continue in the very practices that are responsible for melting the poles in the first place! Just imagine, a hundred years down the line, after the world has recovered from whatever is about to happen, and people have adjusted to a warmer world with reduced land mass, when historians look back at this time. "They knew," they will say, "They knew what was happening. They knew why it was happening. And yet they not only changed nothing, they MADE IT WORSE!" It is already too late to stop the poles from melting. Some day we will wise up. The first step will be to initiate a Manhattan-style project to replace oil. If we put Big Oil on notice, exert some control over their rampant excess, eliminate subsidies and take 30% of their profits, many of our current fiscal issues would disappear.
Finally, I know that a great deal of savings is possible just simply cutting back pork, and this must be done, but be careful: repairing somebody's bridge will be called "pork" by its opponents, but, in fact, the infrastructure must be restored. Be smart about these cuts. There's more that can be done that I don't know, for sure, but we have to agree to be reasonable about this. This is a time when we need to come together as a people. Remember at all times: the objective is to work for the people, not for the rich.
I heard Friday (11/30) that Mr. Boehner had declared that the president's offers weren't serious so we are nowhere on the fiscal cliff negotiations. I have a final word for Republicans, and for Mr. Boehner in particular: Word to the wise? Get off the "don't tax the rich but do steal from the poor" bandwagon. You're definitely backing the wrong horse there. The venal hypocrisy of it is absolutely horrifying, and it shames every decent American. Especially since you also claim to be the party of "Christian values." It may represent Christian values on the planet Republicanus, but not here on planet Earth.
Please become an activist. Talk about these things. Talk to Republicans. Their cause isn't dead without the rich to support. Conservative principles can be applied to the people (I think). If nothing else, read Truthout.Org and follow Democracy Now! Seek and spread truth. And VOTE at every opportunity.
We will no longer support that which is plundering our lives.
December 10, 2012
So Saturday (Dec. 8) the talking heads were going on about the $16 trillion debt, and how young people are beginning to understand that this is the MOST important thing and they're already understanding that they're going to have to do without entitlements(!). And that we should stop worrying about who is RESPONSIBLE for that debt and stop trying to tax our way to a solution and put our minds to REDUCING that debt. And the only way we are going to reduce that debt is to get serious about reducing SPENDING, of which social security ("entitlements") is the biggest and must be cut the most.
The way I see it, we HAVE to look at who is responsible for this monstrous debt, so we make sure we don't make the same mistakes that got us here. Because another round as big as the newest round will bankrupt us, and then we all have to start learning Chinese (OK, that's an exaggeration, but not much of one). We have to remember that these guys work for US — and what employer would not examine an employee's record beside his proposal? So right now the debt is roughly $16 trillion. According to the New York Times, the bailout cost us $12 trillion. Now basic arithmetic tells us that BEFORE the bailout the national debt was $4 trillion. AFTER the bailout the debt was $16 trillion.
WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE NEED FOR A BAILOUT?
No, ladies and gentlemen, it was not hungry children. It was not single moms on welfare. It was not homeless people. It was not the families still standing in line at the emergency room for basic health care. It was not even the fault of the people who had been sold mortgages that they could not begin to sustain.
It was the RICH. It was the top 2%. And maybe not ALL of the guys taking actions that caused the need for a bailout were in that group — but the ones who were not were taking orders from the ones who were.
The top 2% are singularly responsible for $12 trillion of our $16 trillion debt!
And now the republicans, dutifully shilling for their rich buddies, would have us believe that it is MORE important NOT to tax that very same 2% of our population than it is to feed our hungry children! Better we should reduce the incomes of the OTHER 98%. It is more important that we should reduce the incomes of 98% of the population, holding half of the income, than that we should tax the 2% holding the other half of the income. Even though THEY were the ones who quadrupled our debt! That is INSANE!
Where is the OUTRAGE?
People. We must SHAME these republicans into shutting up. They have pumped enough money into their propaganda machine to feed every hungry kid in this country, and it has taken them years and years and years but they have twisted our brains to the point where we hear these absolutely ridiculous arguments and we don't laugh our asses off. They work systematically to use the government to benefit their own interests, and we have let them hijack things so far that Mr. Boehner can not only do this, but he — and a crapload of other people up there — take it seriously. As if serving the rich really has become, somehow, serving the people. Folks, it is time to wake up and to START laughing our asses off. We have to laugh these guys off the stage. They should be publicly humiliated!
Please write not only to your congressmen and women, but to every shill who spouts this nonsense. If enough of us swamp the email and call lines with our outrage, they will, eventually, get the point. And please write to President Obama and let him know that in this battle we are behind him.
Look at any political battle anywhere. Wisconsin. The oil pipeline. Fracking. Clear cutting. Public education. Entitlements. Everywhere you look we, the people, are being openly and ruthlessly screwed, and we don't even see it happening. We give our PERMISSION for it to happen. The mindset that even makes this a legitimate argument is a mindset that assumes we will let ourselves be screwed. Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for us to let these idiots know what the game is REALLY about. The People. Not your gajillionaires and mega-corps. This government is ours, and we need to think of it that way. We are stuck in an us/them mindset. Let's get "them" the f*ck out of there, and start making this government US.
Write to every shill. Ten times. Get your friends to. Get your relatives to. Get their friends to. Have interventions with your republican friends and relatives. Don't call it "climate change." The poles are melting. That is a fact. We, the people, want our government to prepare us for that . . . NOT to turn it into a profit machine for the now proven irresponsible rich, to hell with the people and the planet, just as long as they get their gajillions off the paupers. They think they can propagandize us into GIVING it to them. Screw THAT!
Truth. Spread truth.
Copyright © 2012. May be reproduced and distributed without alteration. This site has a companion site, An American Manifesto for 2010, which describes in considerably more detail my take on the challenges facing the American people.