Restore

A small word, that for some reason is difficult for politicians to say.

In 1963, President Kennedy proposed, but did not see passed,a tax cut meant to stimulate the economy. This was heresy to New Dealers, who had raised taxes, to mostly pay for WWII, and primed the pump of the economy with federal spending. Kennedy's tax cut proposal, was actually a tax level restoration to pre-WWII levels (especially marginal tax rates).

New Dealers had learned the hard way that recessions and depressions did not come from a lack of supply, but from a lack of demand.

Cutting taxes allegedly work on the supply side of the economy, especially when rich Americans get more money and invest it in production. This promised investment would then spur more hiring, and the benefits of tax cuts would trickle down to everyone, increasing employment. This had never worked in the past because rich American either don't invest (they hoard), or invest their tax cut stupidly (witness the housing bubble of 2003 to 2008).

In 2007, the Bush's tax cuts, caused a housing bubble (increased production), killed demand when the bubble burst because consumers could not afford the houses, and wham; right into the Great Recession!

A balanced budget, with tax increases and cuts in spending, was a recipe for disaster for FDR in 1936. The New Deal recipe was to increase taxes (especially on the rich whose wealth tended to concentrate and grow even in hard times) and increase government spending. FDR famously said that mistake in 1936, to balance the budget like a household budget, was the worst mistake he ever made.

Conservative revisionist historians love to repeat that the New Deal did not end the Great Depression, but WWII did. This has some historical credibility; except it also proves the basic tenant of the New Deal. Taxes certainly went up as WWII approached, bond sales were a voluntary form of taxation, and spending went through the roof. Full employment and a booming economy resulted from this; which continued in post war America: "Tax and spend" works.

Kennedy introduced the idea that a tax cut could also stimulate the economy. And that basic idea, unfortunately revitalized the Republican Party, who had been reduced to irrelevancy from 1932 to 1952.

President Reagan, coming from Prop 13 California, instituted "supply side" economics, promising economic growth as the result of tax cuts. Democrats were successfully depicted as "tax and spend" liberals, who allegedly damaged the economy. American forgot what worked, and were lured into the poison "medicine" of tax cuts.

So, cutting taxes became a spectator sport, both for Democrats and for Republicans. As time passed, "temporary" tax cuts, became permanent because "tax increase" became a political poisonous term. And herein we encounter the little word "restore".

The payroll tax rate has been at its present rate for decades, but, consistent with what has worked for Republicans, its restoration is now depicted as a tax "increase". The payroll tax is actually the social security and medicare premium; it is NOT as tax!

Look up restore in the dictionary. The basic idea is that restoring something puts it back where it was. There is no increase!

Democrats need to start using the word restore, or restoration more.

The Reagan Revolution was based on simple tax rate restoration. But, it couldn't stop, it continued actually cutting, not restoring lower rates, forever, while the government got involved in several wars, with defense spending exploding from even Cold War levels.

This resulted in an acute revenue shortfall, that got the country into the deficit mess we are in today.

Taxes, on local, state and national levels need to be "restored" to former levels, that are more in tune with economic and defense realities. History proves that restored tax levels, balanced and in tune with social needs, actually grow the economy (Eisenhower, Johnson, Clinton administrations saw almost balanced budgets).

Cutting social programs and reducing employment, because of low revenue levels caused by tax cuts, reduces overall economic demand and causes unending recessions (depressions).

The economy can survive with a balanced approach, increase revenue by restoring some tax levels, and simply allow defense spending cuts to occur from the withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan. That's it, there is no more to do.

But, a political party's future depends on depicting tax restorations as increases, it is the formula that has worked so well, and Republicans have no other real policy positions! Tax cuts are why the Republican Party still exists!

Just for fun, repeat after me, raise taxes, raise taxes (you get a dull unsettled feeling don't you?)

Now repeat after me, restore taxes, restore taxes (no feeling, nothing...you wonder restore from where to where..and you learn there is history to taxation that often is justified.

Restore tax levels, sounds better, and is HONEST!

The Consequences of Tax Cutting Madness

What follows is a response I wrote to Dan Walters, conservative columnist for the Sacramento Bee. His diatribe today was how California is overtaxed and get poor government anyway. This bullshit (pardon my language) has gone on for years by the wing nuts, who have blithely destroyed government. Right now, they are about to do it again, with the sequester mess in Washington. If you starve government, there are negative consequences, like losing wars,losing democracy, and depressions!

Where have you been for the past 40 years? Prop 13 has gutted the treasury of every city in the state. We idiotically passed a huge cut in vehicle license fees, cost a governor his job, and elected an idiot who spent more time banging his housekeeper than governing the state.

We drank the poison of tax cutters, who promised that lower taxes would mean a more robust economy, while we ruined the greatest public college institution in the world.

I could go on and on. Now, predictably, after a minuscule tax increase, limited in time, we hear that California is overtaxed and does not spend its money wisely.

Journalists like yourself "investigate" state bureaus who dared to save money in special accounts, so they could continue to provide services amidst the onslaught of tax cutter madness.

Meanwhile, although we produce as much oil as Libya, we have NEVER taxed oil profits, like every every government on the planet, including Texas!

I ran a couple school districts in my career. I heard everyday how we were "wasting money" on cafeterias, on counselors, on administrators, and ultimately on teachers. I designed master schedules, putting 40 into algebra classes, knowing full well the instructor could not possibly teach that many kids. But I knew it was that, or lay off the teacher.

And finally, just last night, while chairing the a Charter School Board, I heard how one of our new teachers was laid off from a local school after 15 years of experience. She is an excellent teacher, but the money ran out, because school budgets are run like a Russian Work Camp, only bread and water allowed; "efficiently"!?

Then I listened as our Director explained that the teacher was now working for $35,000 a year, "what a bargain" the Director explained.

A bargain, just like what you want from California's taxes, a bargain, with lousy results. A "bargain" that cut the teacher's salary by 1/3, so she spend less in our poverty ridden city, reducing demand even more, and spreading the pain.

I a couple weeks, "born again" Tea Partiers, will successfully plunge the country into another recession, by cutting spending with a meat axe (just like Prop 13). Demand will plummet, thousands will lose their job, their health insurance, their lives; and poverty will continue.

All so a bunch of ideological idiots, can run economic "Laffer Curve" forecasts, that have NEVER worked, always result in pain and poverty, and unbelievable riches for the top 1%.

We have "starved the beast" for forty years in this state, ruined the UC system, ruined public education, ruined water projects, ruined prisons, ruined the Highway Patrol, ruined local cities and counties; and you explain, like a true right winger, that California is overtaxed and poorly governed. And as a reward, we got Reagan, who closed the mental health hospitals, leaving the insane to run the streets, with the right wing insane.

What a legacy to leave for conservatives! They ruined democracy, they ruined the American Dream, the "wrecking crew" that they are, have "screwed" us all (both book titles you might try to read).

How does it feel to have helped in that wrecking process?

Sent from my iPad

Ripped Off

The following is a response I wrote to a conservative columnist, who wrote a piece in the Sacramento Bee about having his I-Mac Laptop stolen. He blamed the state prison system of course, made snide comments about the Prison Guard union (?), and said the "realignment" caused by prison overcrowding was the problem. I couldn't resist:


First, I am sorry you got ripped off. My daughter had her car almost stolen last weekend, the thieves badly damaged the steering column of her Honda, but luckily were scared off before they hot wired the vehicle. Pros would have had her car in five minutes.

She called in tears, feeling violated. The car was parked right outside her house.

It does not sound like parolees did the deed in your case. Likewise, the amateur attempt in my daughter's case, also indicates "pro"s were not involved.

But, statistics show a large number of state prison releases, on parole, in our communities. And, sure enough, crime is beginning to move up.

Remember, conservatives used the "law and order" brand, to push "three strikes and youare out", determinate sentences; etc., that caused the prisons to overflow in the first place. The Prison Guard Union power grew along with the growth of state prisons, NOT before it. The union grew in power because the state spent so much money on imprisoning almost everyone, did away with rehabilitation programs, and cut probation system in localities.

My stepson lived in Susanville, CA. The BEST jobs in the town were as prison guards, since the timber industry is in deep decline. He is a college graduate, but fought to get hired as an entry level guard; he didn't get the job.

Thanks to over thirty years of conservative dominance in criminal justice, we have the highest imprisonment per capita in the world. We imprison thousands for non-violent "drug" crimes. We then "get tough on crime" by gutting rehab programs, not hiring ex-felons, and creating more hardened criminals.

And, part of the political push you have so consistently encouraged, rehabilitation programs have been scrapped in prisons, giving way to punitive "get tough" policies.

This has resulted in minor criminals (like the kids that ripped you off) being jailed with career gangsters, who beat them into learning the "trade" so to speak. Moreover, since there is so little follow-up due to drastic cuts in probation officers, parolees are released into communities with no skills, many cannot read, with little monitoring.

And guess what, they resort to crime again, because they can't get jobs, and nobody is checking them. Recidivism is over 40% in most states. Our prison system is broken. Conservative "war on crime" and "war on drugs; just say no" did it. Yes, conservatives, there are consequences for stupid public policy!

And we privatize prisons in some states. And we continue to "get tough on crime", following the same old prescriptions that YOU have pushed for years.

Try this, I dare you. Follow those young men who allegedly stole your laptop (not physically), but follow them through the criminal justice system. Find out how it works, and doesn't work. Visit a prison, talk to the guards (they might be union but they won't bite).

You will discover a system that actually manufactures criminals from amateurs. You will find a system that imprisons over 25 percent of African American males under the age of 30. You will find a system that is creating much of the decline of America.

You got ripped off plain and simple. You are another statistic, just like my daughter, and me (when my new Prius had its window smashed out and my wife's purse stolen; that sent us into identity theft hell).

And your twisted political philosophy is what is made the situation so bad!

Always

Always they are there, always.  The conservatives believe, they so earnestly believe that the homeless could not possibly be victims.

Rather, the homeless are shiftless people who have chosen their fate.

They are to blame.  They are irresponsible loafers, who, as our police chief  famously claimed, collect $500 a day.  

He never explained why the very next day, the same people are on the street corner begging again.  I guess five hundred dollars doesn't go as far as it used to.

Always, we hear the negative, hateful reaction.  "Get a job you bum",  the common response to the dirty, skinny, hopeless people, holding a sign, looking embarrassed they are begging.

And, empirical evidence must be ignored: the homeless are not mentally ill (many are), they are not veterans (many are), they are not children (many are); the right adopts the same attitude they do with climate change, with evolution:  it doesn't exist...

And the homeless numbers keep going up.

The economy is about to come under a  huge attack, from conservatives who are dead set to drastically cut government spending, which they know might spark another recession, and give them a chance to gain Congressional seats.

Cons do not give a damn.  Cons care only about their ridiculous ideology, that has failed constantly.

We in California saw Prop 13; and when the Great Recession hit, property values plummeted, and so did local government.  Widespread layoffs of city workers, teachers; etc., still fuels the California recession.  We in California saw the "Law and Order" campaign, "cracking down" on criminals (peace demonstrators at the time), forcing judges to give determinate sentences, the "war on drugs" that filled prisons with non-violent "criminals", whose only crime was enjoying some weed; and mindless tax cuts, that ruined the best public university system in the world.  The list of conservative "ideas" that resulted in ruining the economy is practically endless.

And what do they now blame for our recession?  Government spending and taxes of course!

We were supposedly  left in California  with a supposed "anti-business" climate, that has spawned countless technology innovative businesses.

Recently, Governor I can't remember three things Perry, of Texas, ran an ad in California trying to get entrepreneurs to move to Texas.

Texas shares one thing with California, years of conservative leadership has broke it.  There are jobs there supposedly, mostly minimum wage.  Texas is becoming a hell-hole (always was in my opinion), and a conservative "show place" of leading rates of poverty, high school dropouts, and misery.

Move to Texas Perry pleaded, and starve to death.  The tragic  thing is  that  climate change is already destroying Texas with droughts, hurricanes, and tornadoes.  And, it will only get worse.  Fracking has polluted the water, drought has destroyed millions of square acres (yet another con idea).

So, as always, the poor go hungry, the number of poor increases, and the cons now are eager to cut government spending, so more can go without, more can suffer.

Always..  

Just Build A Fence

Charles Kats-my-hammer (sic) just published the critical comment from the conservatives about the recent efforts to finally do something about real immigration reform.

Predictably, he says "'enforcement first, legalization second". This is the same thing cons have been saying for years. This is the same thing that is reducing the Republican Party to an afterthought in California, cost the Republicans the 2012 election, and is ruining their future.

California is already a white minority state, and is slated to become a real white minority state in 20 years. This is a big deal, since California is the largest, richest, and most prominent state in the union.

And the cons are still talking about building a stupid wall. That's right, Kats-my-whammer, is again calling for a wall from California to Texas!

A wall! A trillion dollar wall, that will take eons to build, as schools lay off teachers, as the recession comes back, we build an idiotic wall.

This would happen as the immigration from Mexico has actually slowed to a trickle, in fact many are going back to Mexico, since its economy is actually growing faster than ours. That's right, Mexico is not the hell hole most idiot cons think it is.

So, as Latinos grow in power, and numbers, Republicans say build a wall then we grant citizenship. That dog will not hunt!

Of course, restricting citizenship keeps people from voting. But it does NOT keep Latino U.S. citizens from voting angry, in great numbers, walling off Republicans from power. And, those fair minded Americanos, are also turning on the Grand Ornery Party.

If you don't think that voter reaction works, look at California!