Compromise with the Rebel?

President Obama is continuing to do what he promised the American People he would do. And he is being slammed for it. It is almost as if Americans EXPECT that the elected President will not deliver or even address the issues that elected him.

President Obama promised post partisan politics. He has reached out to a Republican Party that is getting increasingly partisan and racially charged to its core.

This partisanship is reflected in a most disturbing statistic. The south is becoming almost completely Republican, both nationally and locally. This conservative strain is a direct reaction to the Civil Rights movement and the election of a Black President.

This year marks the 150 mark since the outbreak of the Civil War. I can remember 1960, which was the Centennial of the Civil War. In 1960 legal segregation still ruled the south. African Americans, in fact all of color, were kept from voting in the south. Racial segregation in housing and jobs existed throughout the country. “The south shall rise again”, was a common rallying cry.

What kept this from happening was that the south was almost exclusively in the Democratic Party. The reason for this was twofold: 1. Southern whites would not join the Republican Party of Lincoln and Grant, because they had defeated them in the Civil War. 2. Democrats in the south embraced the New Deal, because it fought against the Wall Street establishment and northern business community that had been such a critical factor in the Civil War.

In short, the Civil War, even though it was 100 years old, still directly affected American Politics in 1960. Southern Democrats were a vital part of the Democratic Party. And, some of those southerners were becoming more progressive in many ways, including race relations, because of the Democratic Party’s affinity for the labor movement. Moreover, the African American contribution to the nation during World War II and Korea had moved some southern Democrats to begin to entertain concepts of equal opportunity and the destruction of the Jim Crowe system in the south.

The 1960s changed all that. When Lyndon Johnson helped pass the Civil Rights Act and the Voter Rights Act; the hard core race haters in the southern democratic wing of Democratic Party left the party. They held their breath and moved into the party of Lincoln because the democratic party was beginning to not only fight for equal rights, but actually was courting African American voters; the progressive southerners stayed in the democratic party; the racists left.

Nixon’s southern strategy proved the seismic shift in politics. From 1968 on five Republican Presidents were elected, only three Democrats; and the last one was Black!

This has prompted another shift in American Politics. The south is becoming more reactionary in response to the election of Obama. Rural areas of the nation, including border states like Missouri and Kansas, are becoming more Red, as a racial reaction of white middle aged men ripples across the nation. The Tea Parties, who are almost exclusively white, are the vanguard of this reaction.

So, as we “celebrate” the 150 anniversary of the Civil War, that killed almost 500,000 people in a country of a few million and we again see the country dividing. What is amazing is race is again the catalyst, masquerading as a revolt against “big government”.

And the consequences of this? We hear from the Texas governor that his state may secede, because of the federal government (Black President). We hear southern Republican call for celebrations of the Civil War and leave slavery as a cause completely out of them. Then, when reminded about things like the Emancipation Proclamation, a strained apology is reluctantly offered.

These are the facts: the southerners who seceded from the Union were traitors. Under the Constitution of the United States (that conservatives like to use in its literal application) traitors were to be executed! The south seceded because the north would not allow slavery to expand, and the slave trade was finally condemned by the rest of the civilized world. The south was the only place in the world with such an extensive and lucrative system of slavery. Lincoln was elected with the promise to end slavery. Abolitionists were pushing the fledgling Republican Party to actually enforce what Lincoln campaigned on. The south seceded because the “peculiar institution” of slavery was being directly challenged. This institution had produced a life style comfort and privilege amidst incredible poverty. Essentially the rich plantation owners of the south motivated the poor whites to fight to the death to protect their immoral, and unjust economic system (sound familiar?).

So we witness the first African-American President, and his bi-racial background is a perfect definition of the term, grovel to the southern dictated Republican Party, reaching out to compromise.

And the compromise is allowing the richest Americans to continue a totally worthless tax cut, that is bankrupting the government. Once again, the rich, benefiting from an unfair and immoral system, are using southern racists to protect their interests.

Obama should stop compromising with these rebels and follow the example of Lincoln.

Traitors are traitors, no matter which century they occupy.

Check the Rankings

If you want to see why the United States is truly in trouble go to this website: http://www.photius.com/rankings/.

The site has a variety of rankings of nations from general health to life expectancy. And, it appears the rankings are from reputable sources, the World Health Organization for example.

The results are shocking. In many categories measuring quality of life, the U.S. comes in 20^th or 30^th or worse. In government debt, we are not in the top third. What does that mean?

It means that we are not devoting enough of our national GDP toward things that enhance the quality of life, and even though our federal deficit is high, it is not high compared to other industrialized countries. Our tax burden, for example, is relatively LOW, while our quality of life is lower; what does that tell you?

You can also look up almost anything else you want to, including percentages of circumcised men!

The point is this. We have an entrenched political party in this country whose anti-tax and public investment policies are dropping us in almost every rank that means anything, from health care to education. And, we just put them in control of the House of Representatives.

We may make ourselves feel better with our small government is best and other insanities, but the record proves otherwise.

Check the site out, compare and contrast, and learn!

More Good News

Today more good news. The economy is expanding over 2.5 percent and corporate profits in the United States set a record for the past 60 sixty years these statistics have been kept.

So the economy is definitely rebounding, right?

Wrong! Unemployment still hovers over 10 percent in most states and worse in others. Extension of unemployment benefits are being held up by Republicans, allegedly because of deficit concerns. The Fed is frantically trying to find ways to spur employment because demand in the United States for goods and services are at all time low. Republicans keep saying no to any attempts to develop jobs, while saying they are for jobs; a classic P.R. trick.

A depression gets its name from depressed consumer demand and prices. The United States hovers on that precipice right now.

Meanwhile, newly elected tea party Republicans are taking pledges to not vote for a raising of the Federal debt ceiling in the spring. This will have the effect of putting the United States in financial default, not able to pay its bills, and shut the government down.

An immediate effect will be suspending Social Security payments, Medicare payments, payments to loans the United States has made with China; etc. This will mean large scale economic pain and suffering, especially for seniors. Republicans will offer to raise the debt ceiling in trade for massive permanent cuts to entitlements, Social Security and Medicare. They just might succeed.

If you want a preview of what this will mean for the world economy check out Ireland right now. Ireland is essentially in default, and is depending for its very economic survival on emergency loans made by other countries. The ripple effect of this, like Greece previously, has seriously damaged world financial markets.

If the United States does the same thing, thanks to the mindless tea party run Republican Party, the effect will be catastrophic. Ultimately, Wall Street financial gamblers could lose billions, as the financial system essentially grinds to a stop. That would be poetic justice, but for the fact that millions of Americans (senior citizens) will lose everything as well.

And the middle class, angry white voter, put these fools in office to punish the over-spending Democratic Party and the President who did not do enough for the unemployed.

What? Are you kidding me? What planet do these people occupy?

Read Wendell Potter’s “Deadly Spin” and the answer will become very apparent.

The middle class in the country has been "Public Relationed, or P.R. ed" to death.

It is all in the message. Republicans began this effort with the “Astro Turf” tea party movement, that never came from the grass roots, but was organized and financed by fat cat corporate conservatives. They were successful in discrediting the President during the Health Care “debate”. Actually there was no real debate. Republicans just said no, and did not even engage. For profit health insurance companies (I left out the word care because these companies do not worry about care, only profit), spent almost a billion dollars in a clever campaign, pretending to be for health care, while working hard to kill it.

The result was a law that is flawed enough that Republicans may even be able to repeal it. More importantly, the public was propagandized to the point that a majority still have serious concerns with the law, even though they know very little about it. In short, the public was massively fooled!

And who wins: The insurance corporations who spent billions defeating an effort to provide decent health care to the American People. And remember, the United States ranks low in the actual quality of our health care system. Basically, the richer you are the better the care you can receive, with over 50 million uninsured. If you are poor, you can use the emergency room as President Bush so famously suggested. And, during the health care debate, the poor using emergency rooms was pointed to by the insurance corporations as a major reason for the increase in health insurance premiums. So, they blamed the poor for their greed and the middle class bought it!

Nancy Pelosi, a favorite whipping boy/girl of the conservatives, recently responded to a question about her taking responsibility for the conservative tide in the 2010 elections and she responded, “How would you do if 70 million dollars were spent against you?”

The comment went right by the media; most things do. The point was the Supreme Court’s decision that allows corporations to contribute unlimited amounts anonymously to political campaigns has irrevocably changed the political equation in the United States.

The P.R. efforts of the Health Insurance Industry, the P.R. efforts of the tea parties, are based on misrepresentation, lies and greed. Their collective efforts are having the effect of reducing the United States to Third World Status. The middle class has been so fooled, that they actually carry the signs and attend the rallies that are destroying them.

So we probably will see an extension of the Bush Tax Cuts, at least in the short run. This will be followed up with a refusal to raise the debt ceiling, which will lead to massive cuts in Social Security and Medicare, as a ransom by the Republicans. The Health Care law will be gutted, and we may be looking a Sarah Palin as President in 2012.

Along the way the United States will be in a full blown depression by 2012 (for the middle class and below), and if Palin gets in as President, nuclear war by 2013.

Oh, I forgot, if we do by chance happen to survive these things by incredible luck, within 25 years global warming will have decimated most of the civilized world, flooding vast areas, making other uninhabitable, because the Tea Party does not believe in it.

God help us!

And the United Stated insurance and other corporations will still be making record profits, shared with the top ½ percent of the people, the rest will be left literally in the dust.

I would close with a plea for people to wake up, but that has already been tried to no avail. We proceed as a sleepwalker toward the precipice.

Budget Madness

I couldn’t help commenting on a recent blurb in the Sacramento Bee, 11/19/2010: “BUDGET WATCH--Californians favor spending cuts to close the state's $25.4 billion budget hole, but they are not enthusiastic about slicing specific services, according to a new Los Angeles Times-USC poll. Two-thirds think the deficit should be resolved mostly or entirely by spending cuts. But only one in four would cut schools, and just over one-third would cut state universities.”

This is a consistent polled result locally and nationally. The cons have been so successful instilling the “anti-tax” reactions of the general public, but not so successful in what to cut.

The tragedy of this is that in California taxpayers have been presented with a menu of tax cutting propositions for over thirty years that mostly pass. The proposition system has no hearings, not much in the way of divulging cost and future impacts to the budget. This is in stark contrast to the legislature, where committees investigate a potential tax cut, its impacts and ramifications.

So, we in California have gleefully passed tax cut or restriction one after another. The most recent gaffe, was passing a 2/3 requirement for most fees. We also turned down an increase in the temporary tax to help balance a budget that is projected to be 25 billion dollars out of wack in 2011.

And the cuts continue. The pubic education system, including charter schools by the way, are under incredible cutting pressure. Thousands of teachers, many young talented and dedicated, are chopped. Sacramento is running a unemployment rate over 10%, with furloughs, cuts of salary; etc.

The impact on this to the private economy is remarkable. Even though there have been some signs of recovery, the relentless cuts in government, from the local fire station to the University of California have depressed any chance of recovery.

Meanwhile the cons, and their corporate allies, have shrunk back into the background, taking absolutely no lead in the cuts. They take credit for cutting taxes but are absolute cowards when it comes to laying off teachers. This is left to those citizens who really have civic responsibility.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association for example, is consistently coming out for more tax cuts, but when pressed for ideas for cuts, points to waste and then disappears.

There is waste of course. But it only makes up a tiny fraction of local and state budgets. One man’s waste is another’s reading program. For example, many school districts have cut remediation progams and combined them into “independent study” programs (that are much cheaper to run), with disasterous results for at-risk students. And, the result is a drop out rate over 30% and climbing, as the poor and the disadvantaged have their educational programs reduced to little more than warehousing projects.

School segregation, for example, in California has reached 1960s levels, as affluent whites escape into Charter Schools leaving once proud suburban schools systems to rot. Everyone is running from everyone in California.

And, the cons continue the con going, with Meg Whitless’s recent proposal to eliminate all capital gains taxes in some kind of effort to spur economic growth. This would have put the deficit ay bankrupcy levels.

So, California doesn’t have the money to fix its freeways, fix its schools, build mass transit, lure businesses; do anything to progressively move the state in building a future.

Of course there is no place to go. We stand facing the Pacific Ocean, wanting to go further west to escape the disaster we have wrought, and face China whose economy is killing ours. So what do we do, we put the gun of tax cuts to our heads and pull the trigger?!

I live in Redding California, a conservative hotbed for the past forty years. We have a very conservative congressional representative, Wally Herger, who has done absolutely nothing to build any kind of economy in the area. The longer this area has remained red, the poorer it has become, with poverty rates running well over 30%. Economic “leaders” have developed an industrial park that is empty, that is over ten miles from the railroad tracks. That may not seem like a big deal, but forecasts of peak oil, point to railroads re-emerging as the freight movers of the future. And our totally empty industrial park stands empty many miles from the rails that could serve it!

Redding gets as much sunshine as Phoenix, but the city has decided to base its energy source on natual gas, with no investment in solar panels. You cannot get a rebate or other incentive, because Redding’s natural gas run electricity is right now cheaper than P.G. and E’s. So, we import more “cheap” natural gas, while ignoring a resource that is free and plentiful. Why don’t we try it? Because the cons are owned by the fossil fuel lobby.

The city council is pushing, led by the conservative mayor who was treated to an all expense trip by the mall developer (he said he paid it back) to Washington D.C., to seek funds to build yet another shopping mall in the northern outskirts of the city. We have the highest retail space vacancy rate in northern California, but we still need to build the mall. A couple years ago, the same band of fools, almost committeed the city to a new auto mall, again on the outskirts of the city, sprawling the city center dozens of miles in diameter. Luckily the citizens in the targeted area sued and stopped the madness. A few months later the economy tanked, G.M. and Chrysler went bankrupt, and thousands of dealerships, some in Redding, closed. We almost built an auto mall at considerable public investment with nobody to occupy it. When challenged on this, the cons response is to shrug their stupid shoulders and go on the the next “project”.

The stupidity continues. The cons have convinced everyone, that staying poor is good, that having no medical insurance is good, that closing schools is “cleansing”. Of course, of late they are claiming that unemploymet insurance and payments somehow increase unemployment, and are voting against extensions of benefits, arguing that this will force people to go back to work. The idiocy of this is beyond belief.

So cry for us California. We are showing the nation what mindless tax cuts can do. We are a laboratory of what is so wrong with tax cuts as stimulus; it doesn’t work! Our children are suffering, our economy is in tatters, and we persist doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. And the answer to how much longer we continue this lies in the lead in to this piece; forever!

Finally a story that is on point: When Proposition 13 was being “sold” to California, I was a young government teacher and coach in Shasta High School. I spoke out forcefully about the potential disaster this would be to public education, as did most educators in California. Property taxes provided a consistent, though at that time limited, source of revenue for local school districts, supplemented by about 20% in state and federal aid. The cuts that Prop 13 would bring would have devastated education.

A older, white conservative(is there any other kind?) , who was pushing Prop 13 told me at the end of a public hearing on the issue, that I should not worry, because if Prop 13 passed, “We will be here to help the schools find other forms of funding”. Prop 13 passed, and I never saw the guy again! Of course, the state did step in, flipping the formula for school support upside down, switching majority funding from property taxes to volatile income taxes: hence the present crisis in funding.

As usual, the con cut the taxes then disappeared, leaving real citizens to try to clean up their mess.

Finally, have you ever wondered where our prosperity went? Have you ever wished we could go back, when only one family member had to work, when we could all afford to enjoy the American Dream? Those days are gone, and started to disappear in 1976 when Prop 13 was passed, and in 1980 when Reagan became President; as he so famously stated, “Are you better off now than then?” The 50s, 60s and 70s don’t look that bad when we compare them to the hell hole we live in today…

The Art of the Blindside

The Art of the Blindside

Today we read that the “New Start” arms contol treaty with Russia has been stopped by Senator Kyl (one person can do this in our “democracy Senate”). The White House evidently was “outraged” by the blindside. Evidently, Obama believed that Kyl was going to work with the administration to have the Senate ratify this treaty.

The treaty would have curbed an expensive arms race with Russia, at the same time America’s economy is reeling from massive deficits. This is also at the same time that America is still fighting two wars, with trillions of dollars in costs. So, the New Start treaty had the potential to allow America to turn its attention to unemployment and building what amounts to a new economy. Senator Kyl effectively stopped this.

Let’s pursue this a bit further. It is accepted political/economic history that the main reason the Soviet Union failed was the withering arms race with the United States over a forty year period. This culminated with the disasterous Afghanistan invasion, which essentially pushed the corrupt and broke Soviet regime over the edge. President Reagan was deified by the conservatives for this, but not given additional credit for the economic damage the arms race did to America.

America sits at exactly the same crossroads today. We are embroiled in two wars that continue to contribute billions to the national debt because the last President decided to have a massive tax cut while fighting two wars. The damage in ruined lives, emotionally crippled veterans, and other unforseen impacts in incalculable. For example, after the Vietnam War America endured almost a decade of run away inflation. Later, Vietnam Vets strained Veteran Hospitals with PTSD, drug addiction; etc. And, the Vietnam veteran still haunts our politics, distrusting government, lashing out at those who disagree with them, and hoarding guns. (I am not painting all Vietnam veterans this way, but the impact of war’s destruction to the human psych is just now becoming a topic for scientific study).

The veterans of the Civil War affected United States history for decades, including building an isolationistic movement that delayed our entry into World War I and II that nearly lost both wars.

In short, warfare, and the preparation for warfare (arms races) distort politics, society and the entire human condition. Mostly these distortions are not good for the regime in power; for example, the Weimar Republic in Germany from 1920 to 1932. Democracy barely had a chance because of the massive debt Germany was forced to pay off, essentially paying for World War I for all of Europe. The depression and inflation of the 1920s gave way to the political disaster of Hitler, and eventually cost over 50 million lives in the conflageration of World War II.

So, there is massive historical evidence that arms races and the conflicts they lead to, ultimately destabilize and destroy social, economic and political human organizations.

Enter Senator Kyl, a veteran Republican Senator from Arizona. There is not any doubt why he switched and now opposes the New Start Treaty, effectively killing it. It plays into the Republican play book to oppose everything President Obama tries to accomplish, no matter what the cost, to win the ultimate prize of Republican control of all branches of government in 2012. Republicans have shown they have absolutely no concern for the millions of unemployed and poor in this country, nor do they worry about the depression era economic conditions that are getting worse, they just want to beat Obama.

A similar time was President Wilson’s second term, when the President, in failing health, tried to get the Senate to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and later the League of Nations. Both were bitterly opposed by Republicans, whose real motives were to destroy the Democratic President. They succeeded, ushering in over a decade of Republican governmental control that lead the nation into the Great Depression. Again, no concern for suffering, no concern for the lead in to World War II.

If there ever was a better example to President Obama why he should stop trying to compromise with the Republicans I can’t think of it! He should follow President Roosevelt’s lead, who during his second term actually invited Republican scorn and hate, and spoke continually to the American people about what really concerned them. Roosevelt was elected four times because he gave the Republicans back what they gave, no compromise, and standing for what served the people the best.

Truman did the same thing. Wilson did not, or could not, and was destroyed.

Kyl lied to the President. He promised he would give the New Start Treaty a fair chance and then double crossed the administration. He did that because he is following the Republican play book, beat Obama at any cost. An arms race that saps the remaining economic strength of America is exactly what the Republicans want. The ends justify the means.

And why aren’t they concerned with the pain this causes for a vast majority of Americans? Look at the statistics that reflect who is really suffering through this economic downturn. The middle class and the poor are getting destroyed. The upper class, Wall Street not main street, and doing just fine. In fact, their real incomes are actually increasing! These are the Republicans’ benefactors. If you look at the incomes of Republican Senators and Congressmen, you see quickly that their class is not feeling the recession at all.

I tell my conservative friends when I argue about this neglect of the poor and middle class (including them by the way) is that the rich simply DO NOT CARE if children starve and people lose their homes. They are protected in their gated communities.

So, not ratifying an arms control treaty fits into the plan. The Republican Senators who voted down the treaty ending World War I, did not care if it started another war. They were typical aristocrats, standing above the commoners, and DID NOT CARE what the consequences would be.

President Obama needs to read Harry Truman and Franklin Roosevelt’s biographies and adopt their aggressive and non-compromising stance with the Republicans. You cannot compromise with people who are bent on destroying you. You cannot. The American people do not support wimps.

So, allow the Bush tax cuts to expire or veto any bill that tries to continue them. Veto every Republican sponsered bill that gets to you (most won’t). Then campaign on the “do nothing” Congress and the patricians that occupy the Republican Party from this day on. And don’t worry that by doing so people will ge harmed. The only people who might lose just a little, are the rich, who are insulated anyway. The tax cuts they currently enjoy, they don’t need, and didn’t use to stimulate the economy (the past eight years prove that).

That is our country’s only chance. Otherwise, we are looking at another catastrophe that will make World War II look like a picnic!

Compromise...Right!

Compromise is the genius of the American Constitution. Beginning history and government students are always amazed by hard it is to move a bill into a law in the United States. Successful legislation is very difficult to enable. Bipartisan legislation is almost impossible to enact unless both sides legitimally agree to work together and even then a small minority (even of one in the Senate) can block a bill.

In the 2010 midterm election the American People once again split power in Congress. The House is Republican, the Senate and the Presidency Democrat. This has happened numerous times in American history, often in times of national stress, with the hope that the danger will cause the two sides to work together.

Polls show that independent voters, who are becoming a majority, want both parties to work together. A frequent complaint is the bitter partisanship that exists. That is a big reason why incumbents were defeated in the election.

So, what do our conservative friends do? They are allowing compromise all right, but only on their terms. The do nothing Republicans the past two years have been the party of “no”. They successfully blocked hundreds of bills, short circuited the Health Plan into one enfeebling part after another, cut the stimulus bill in hopes it wouldn’t work, blocked energy legislation; etc. Senate Republicans set a record for fillibusters. Any they were REWARDED!

Now, a deeply divided Republican Party will take control of the House, and are dictating to the President what THEY want; when they can agree on what that is. Oaths are forced on congressmen, promising to not raise taxes, promising to be loyal to the conservative “tea party” principles at all costs. Already, threats are being made to punish anyone who really reaches out to the other side.

This is hardly the spirit of compromise or bipartisanship. Effective legislation does not have a chance in this atmosphere.

The election of 2010 was a disaster for the country. The radical conservatives were rewarded for their intransigence and see no reason to change. Two more years of radicalism, of attack, and the Presidency and the Senate may be theirs. That is their aim. Win at all costs with no compromise!

The American People, in good faith, are attempting to do what they have done in the past; try for compromise and a middle path to deal with pressing issues.

The problem is that conservatives have no reason whatsoever to compromise. This was verified when Senator McConnell slipped and said the main goal of his party in the next two years was to make President Obama a one term president. This is during a depression/recession, with an unemployment rate over 10%!

No mention of job creation, or help for people who are losing their homes and lives, no, McConnell calls for a two year effort to discredit the President. I imagine how this affected the President.

Gridlock is what the independents insured for the next two years. This happens when America can ill afford inaction. Moreover, the promise is to repeal the Health Care Plan, before it can even be partly implemented. We are told by the pundits that this effort is mostly rhetorical, but plans are devulged to not fund the plan which will kill it.

Conservatives are committed to repeal a Health Care plan that will eventually insure 30 million Americans and save billions of dollars. Of course, the insurance companies are behind their repeal efforts. They are not bluffing, they never bluff.

Meanwhile, America suffers. The economy is probably in worse shape than we know. Over seven million jobs have been lost, probably permanently. It will take years to rebuild the economy.

And what do the conservatives plan for? They want to continue the tax cuts for the richest Americans that have proven to have no stimulative property for jobs or economic health. They want to cut government spending, which will only serve to deepen the economic downturn. They want to cut Social Security, which is financially solvent, and rip into Medicare that is a life line for our seniors.

They do this because they were rewarded for their extreme negative political behaviors in the 2010 election. They have no reason to compromise or work with the President. They keep talking about how a wave of change has come over the country, when really what has happened is negativity and the failures of the Bush administration have been resurrected.

The promise for America is negated by voters who rewarded irresponsible and defeatist behaviors. Effective legislation, that is difficult to enact anyway, is effectively impossible.

Of course, in 2012, what is left of the Democratic Party will block the Republicans in hopes for the same result. The country meanwhile slips into oblivion.

You get the government you deserve.

A Simple Spreadsheet

A simple spreadsheet. Or any basic home budget sheet is all that is needed.

Now that we have a Republican “landslide” that has taken over the majority of the House of Representatives, the tax cutters and spending cutters are in charge. The “American People” have spoken.

Except of course for the Senate and the Presidency. Except for several governorships and countless local and state election results. The “seismic shift” is more like a hiccup.

But, the “con budget” math is back in charge we are told.

So, take out the budget sheet and put income (revenue) at the head of one column, outgo or expenditures (spending) at the head of the other column, and balance to the right and at the bottom of the outside right column.

Now in the expenditures (spending) column put 4 trillion dollars for tax cuts, 1.5 trillion for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, 30 billion for prescription program, 600 billion for stimulus plan; etc. In the income column put …way less. Hit return and watch all the negative numbers. Now, for government to still function, pay for the army and navy for example,the government has to borrow which stifles the economy, sucks up credit and depresses wages and employment.

You get my drift I hope. Regardless of what any politicians say, tax cuts are not income…they are essentially spending. Another way of putting it, is they are minus numbers in the income column, if you feel better in the right column. No pun intended.

Ok, let’s keep it even simpler. You have a job that pays you $8000 a month. Your boss comes into your office and tells you that he has to cut your salary by $2000 a month. Does this increase your income? Now think real hard here, supply economics is at work here; does your income (revenue) go up its source (your salary) is cut? Ok, if your revenue is cut, you buy less, you cut back, and less money is in the economy. Government is a big spender and keeps local, state and national economies going everywhere. Cut it and you cut the economy. So where does the cut go? What about all those “savings” if taxes are cut.

Now comes the clincer of this madness. Let’s say Richie Rich (remember him), gets a tax cut of 5% . Does Richie notice it? Probably not. Does Richie go right out and spend it. He makes millions remember? Of course not. What does he do with it. Probably nothing.

Now let’s take Clark Kent (remember him). Clark makes a modest salary as a reporter for you know who. Now give Clark a $30 a month tax cut. Remember Clark has “other duties”. Will Clark notice the extra $30 a month? Probably not. Will he run right out and spend it. No, because he only gets it with his income tax return. How many of us run right out and immediately spend any surplus income tax return when we are fighting to make our house payment and make ends meet on unemployment.

So, while we are being constantly reminded that tax cuts stimulate the economy they do not. They just don’t. The only ones that ever did, during the Reagan Revolution were cuts that reduced what had been decades long rates, and even then there is litte evidence they stimuated anything. The economy moved up some, then plunged into yet another recession.

I listened and winced as a democrat Senator commented that the “middle class tax cuts’ had to be maintained because of their “stimulative” value. The day before, an analysis of the Republican landslide, quoted a study that showed a majority of the middle class did not think they had received any tax cut from President Obama’s policies. That’s right, a majority did not know they had received the tax cut Obama promised in the 2008 election. So where is the stimulative property when people don’t even KNOW they got a tax cut. How can you spend money you don’t even know you have?

Malarky. That what it is, malarky. Tax cuts only serve to make the rich, richer. And, they are so thinly spread among the rest of us that we don’t notice. The only thing they do is make the red ink (deficit) of the federal government larger and push for more cuts to government programs, like Social Security, that the far right has always hated. The con is starve government, cut programs and make the rich fat cats richer.

Small businesses will not close if the Bush tax cuts are ended. In fact, if the federal government (and states that stop this tax cut madness) spend more, hire more workers, start more infrastructure work; etc., THEN the economy will be stimulated and grow and small businesses will begin to prosper.

Small businesses are starving because people are broke and out of work. How will continuing tax cuts to them, if they make more that $250,000 a year possibly increase their customer base? Think about it.

The lack of customers is why small businesses are not hiring, not what their tax bill is. Think about it. A restaurant in Detroit sees their lunch count drop by half. That cuts their income. What does a tax cut on the owner’s income have to do with how many waitresses he employs? That’s right, when the lunch count goes down, because people are broke, he doesn’t keep people, he cuts them, and pockets his tax cut. How many businesses do you know that keep employees if there is no work for them to do? None. Therefore, tax cuts for the small business owner in no way will increase their customer base. That is why the Bush Tax Cuts, have been in effect while millions of jobs have been cut. Tax cuts have nothing to do with job growth. Customers cause job growth. And, when you have removed the middle class an an economic base, you have no customers.!

Regardless of this simple math and econ 1, the con continues; unfortunately, by both Republicans and Democrats. Cutting government spending, especially in a recession, is much, much worse than raising taxes (especially on the rich who have been largely untouched by the recession). What has happened is the distribution of wealth has been concentrated more and more in the top 1%, while the rest of us are left with the scraps. This has damaged the economy badly by destroying the middle class consumer. To continue that same mistake will kill any chance of economic recovery.

If the Republican wave is allowed to do its work, this country will be in a full blown depression within a year. Of course that won’t happen, because the Senate and the President won’t let that happen. Then, in 2012, the Republicans will run on the platform that the President and Senate refused to cut spending and ruined the economy, while in actuality their damn tax cuts are ruining the economy. That’s right, tax cuts damage the economy more than they help it. If you doubt that, come to California, where we have cut taxes, fees; etc, reducing revenue to state and local government, and building prisons we can’t pay for and a k-16 educational system our children can’t afford.

Tax cuts damage the economy. Obama, if he loves his country, should tell the American People the truth and allow ALL the tax cuts, including the middle class tax cuts to expire. It may make him a one term President, but it will save the economy.

This all happened in 1936, plunging the nation back into the depression, turning America from the world, and opening the door for Hitler. Cutting taxes and cutting spending is economic suicide.

People, the reason the cons continue this sham is that is all they have. They have no real solutions to anything, except paying back the corporate billionaires who bankrolled their elections with tax cuts that kill your jobs and your future. The rich get richer and you get nothing.

And still the middle class (except in the blue states) continue to lap the Fox News B.S. charade.

Stoopid!