A Portrait of Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and stalwart champion of education for all Americans, made clear the need for a knowledgeable electorate. He warned us, that “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free . . . it expects what never was and never will be.” He explained that there is “no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society, but the people themselves,” and clearly stated the requisite condition for that depository, “Wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government.”

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to raise any argument against what Jefferson said on the matter. People simply cannot expect to make informed decisions if they are not well informed. Taken in this light, the stated mission of Americans for Prosperity, “educating citizens about economic policy and mobilizing citizens as advocates in the public policy process,” is in perfect alignment with, not only one of our nation’s most revered patriots, but also with the common sense of every American.

In performance of their mission, Americans for Prosperity, commonly referred to as AFP, launched their latest educational effort this past Thursday. Their campaign to “educate” Americans on “wasteful spending” is centered on a one minute video that will air in eight states, from Florida to Michigan toNew Mexico. According to AFP, the ad will “scrutinize wasteful use of taxpayer dollars,” and “hold President Obama accountable” — objectives sure to make Thomas Jefferson proud.

The AFP ad gets right down to business, opening with “Washington promised to create American jobs, if we passed their stimulus, but that’s not what happened.” It then presents the “FACT” to backup their claim — a quantum leap to “Billions spent on green energy,” that went to “jobs in foreign countries.” But wait a minute . . . their argument is that  the stimulus was $831 billion that didn’t create American jobs, and then they attempt to substantiate the claim with a Washington Times article about green energy?

Why the non sequitur? Can use of a formal fallacy to support an assertion really be viewed as an effective means of “educating citizens?” Obviously not; which means there’s likely a hidden agenda, but let’s not jump to conclusions.

What about the claim that the stimulus didn’t help with American jobs? According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the stimulus added as much as 4.5% to the GDP and increased domestic employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs. Mark Zandi, former economic advisor to John McCain, took issue with Republican claims on the matter and stated that, “Without the stimulus spending, instead of a 9.5 percent unemployment rate, we’d have an 11.5 percent unemployment rate.”

Okay, so the ad gets off to a bad start, making false claims about the stimulus, but what about those “billions” creating jobs overseas?

According to AFP, citing the same Washington Times article, “The Obama administration admitted the truth, that $2.3 billion of tax credits went overseas.” The graphic says, “$2.3 billion to jobs in foreign countries.” And the Times article states:

“The Department of Energy estimated that 82,000 jobs have been created and has acknowledged that as much as 80 percent of some green programs, including $2.3 billion of manufacturing tax credits, went to foreign firms that employed workers primarily in countries including China, South Korea and Spain, rather than in the United States.”

More clear “educational” content? Uh huh.

The $2.3 billion cited by both the Times and AFP, according to Russ Choma, the investigative journalist upon whose work the Times article was based, came from a 48C credit program that was launched specifically to create US manufacturing capacity for renewable energy technology. The money helped to fund domestic projects, and the credits were given out based on the number of domestic jobs to be created.

That said, there were stimulus funds spent through an entirely different program that did send significant funds to foreign companies. Mr. Choma’s original piece, in the Investigative Reporting Workshop, addressed issues regarding stimulus Section 1603 grants of up to 30% of the investment for renewable energy production capacity brought online by the end of 2010.

Choma’s investigative work concluded that a whopping $2.38 billion of the grant money went to foreign developers. Of course, the nature of the grant did ensure that $2.33 of private money was invested in domestic infrastructure for every $1 of federal funding. The real issue was lack of American manufacturing capacity, which was being simultaneously addressed through the 48C program, but not quickly enough. Due to lack of domestic capacity, only 46% of the $4.4 billion spent on wind farms went to domestic companies.

The interesting point, with respect to the AFP ad, is that through all of Choma’s work, he stated that just exactly where jobs were created was a bit murky. There are around 8,000 parts in the average windmill, and the supply chains are complex. Some foreign companies have domestic facilities and vice versa. Choma stated that “We simply don’t know where all of the parts were made,” and he was forced to conclude, “I can’t say how many of the turbines built by American manufacturers were overseas, and how many of the turbines built by foreign manufacturers were built here.”

So, why would an ad ostensibly created to “educate,” be so convoluted and misleading? Perhaps because the form of “education” intended isn’t the kind Thomas Jefferson had in mind. Maybe the goal isn’t a knowledgeable electorate at all, but perhaps a manipulated one.

After briefly associating the “green” foreign expenditures with “13 Million unemployed back home,” the video moves to $1.2 billion given to a “solar company that’s building a plant . . . in Mexico.” It is true that the money went to a solar company, one that’s based in Silicon Valley, CA. It’s even true that SunPower had plans to build a plant in Mexicali, but the $1.2 billion DOE loan guarantee was to build a plant in San Luis Obispo County.

Clever wording? Absolutely! A person viewing the AFP ad will naturally put 2 and 2 together and wind up with $1.2 . . . billion going to Mexico. But education? Maybe as a euphemism for pure propaganda.

From Mexico, the AFP ad travels quickly to where “Half a billion” went to an electric car company that “created hundreds of jobs” — in Finland. The company in question is Fisker Automotive, a California-based carmaker, and they did get $529 million in loan guarantees. The money was spent on engineering and design work in the US, but again because of lack of domestic capacity, the original manufacturing of the Fisker Karma will happen in Finland. According to the ABC News piece cited in the AFP ad, the company has plans to build “tens of thousands” of their Fisker Nina sedans at the old GM plant they purchased in Delaware. But it appears that company “plans” can only be used to smear a solar investment, not to defend a loan for electric cars.

AFP’s world tour of “wasteful spending” turns to Asia next, with claims of “Tens of millions of dollars to build traffic lights . . . in China.” The sums of money continuing to decline with each successive story line, AFP piques the viewer’s interest by invoking the spectre of the Red mennace. This particular claim is linked to $6.3 billion in stimulus funds given to cities and states to increase energy efficiency. The number cited, “tens of millions,” is necessarily vague, because nobody knows how much money went to China. What is known is that AFP’s wording isn’t as clever as that used with the Mexicali solar plant, since the signals were actually “built” in the US. Yet money for parts did go overseas, with some going to China, but once again the issue was the lack of domestic capacity — a lack that will never be addressed unless investment is made here — the very investment being spurred by the stimulus.

What’s telling is that all of the facts regarding the Fisker car loan and the traffic light issue were included in the articles AFP cited in their ad. If they had read the Pittsburgh Tribune piece, and had the desire to actually “educate,” they could have created a video that informed the public and left people to draw their own conclusions. But that was and is far from the goal of Americans for Prosperity.

The AFP ad closes with the accusation that President Obama “wasted $34 billion on risky investments . . . the result — failure.” The ad doesn’t state where that number comes from, although it matches the $34.7 billion total for the Section 1705 stimulus program to invest in renewables, power transmission and biofuels. The problem is that the reference doesn’t fit the narrative, as most all of the money was kept in the US, and with regard to “failure,” the DOE credits the program with creating 60,000 jobs. Of course, AFP does cite a supporting article, a piece in Investors Business Daily. It’s too bad all the report offers, besides yet another rip at the Solyndra deal, is an opinionated critique focused on how electric cars sales are lower then expected.

So, unless “education” is accomplished by feeding people jumbled up garbage intended to manipulate their understanding of a given situation, the AFP ad has nothing to do with the organization’s stated mission and everything to do with forwarding the political agenda that they’re forbidden to have as a tax-exempt non-profit.

The truth is that this should be no surprise for anyone familiar with AFP. They are clearly a front organization for Koch Industries, and their mission is to increase Koch profits in any way they can. The Koch fortune owing largely to the oil business, they’re dead set against anything “green.”

AFP, like Koch, is relentless in their efforts to bring down President Obama, keep America on the oil teat, destroy labor unions, and muddy every issue from climate change to tobacco and healthcare. They don’t care how deceptive their tactics or dishonest their statements. They do have a mission though — and if their latest ad is any indication — it’s not to “educate” but rather to keep citizens as ignorant as possible about economic policy.

Thomas Jefferson must be rolling in his grave.

A poster for The Sorcerer revival. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Once upon a time in a land not far away there lived a mighty people. Together they worked, and everyone shared in the fruits of their labor. Life in their nation wasn’t perfect; there was inequality, but no matter a person’s station in life, as the nation prospered, so did they all. A sense of shared purpose united the people, and it seemed that nothing could stop their collective pursuit of a better life for one and all.

Sadly, one day trouble came to this prosperous land. The people still worked as hard as ever, but regardless of their toil and labor, the irresistible force of their combined will had come to meet an immovable object. The engines that drove their economy, the mightiest in the history of their world, had come to be chained to the whim of foreign kings.

It was the good fortune of the people that a man of unwavering faith and strength of character had been elected to lead them. Without regard for his own lot, the leader spoke to the people candidly. He shared the truth of their situation. Open and honest were his words; he warned them that they were at a crossroads, that there was only one path forward to true freedom. He sounded the alarm over their growing dependency on other nations, but he also shared his vision for the future. He called on all of the people to join together, to face their problems and embrace their common destiny.

The people understood that the road would be hard, that sacrifice was needed and more effort would be required of everyone. Only with a united public could the challenges be met. The nation was ready to rally behind their leader, but another man, a man of celebrity, would offer an alternative.

His voice was calming, and his words were clear; there was no need for sacrifice, he proclaimed. Dependency on foreign kings wasn’t the problem — the trusted leader and his oppressive institutions were at fault.

Beleaguered and struggling from before the trusted leader came to power, the people were eager for better days. Their very identity as a nation had become threatened, their confidence shaken. The words of the challenger fell like sweet music upon their ears.

The challenger stood tall. Strong and sure of himself, his scripted appeals hypnotized all who listened. He summoned the people to look back and recall the pride of their mighty nation. He assured them that the path directed by the trusted leader was the path to ruin, that the leader was soft and would surely bring them no good. He offered to relieve them of the hard choices expressed by the wise leader, to release them from the bonds of his “oppressive regime.” Prosperity was their birthright, he said, for they were truly exceptional and deserving. They could be certain that his was the superior path, for it promised resurgent glory, and did so without sacrifice.

Like those of days gone by who crowded around medicine shows, seeking miracle tonics and magic elixirs, the people were swept up by the promise of an easier, yet more rewarding path. The people believed the challenger would deliver the bright future he promised. They could see it already glimmering in the distance. With smooth talk and a calming voice, he had mesmerized the masses and cast his glimmer spell upon them. The people were unable to resist, and with arms wide open, they welcomed the Glimmer Man, overwhelmingly rejecting the trusted leader and refusing his sage advice.

Three decades and nearly two years have passed since that fateful day in November of 1980. The mighty nation was, of course, the USA. The trusted leader was Jimmy Carter, and the Glimmer Man was none other than Ronald Wilson Reagan.

It was July 15,1979 when President Carter gave his now famous “Malaise” speech. The nation had been struggling with increasing dependence on foreign oil for two decades, hitting a tipping point when domestic oil production peaked in 1970. Our energy independence gone, our nation was held hostage, first by the Arab nations that cut off our oil supply in 1973, and then again during the Iranian Revolution in 1979 — this time not only closing the oil spigot but literally holding 52 Americans hostage. By the time of Carter’s speech, nearly half the oil consumed in the US had to be imported.

Our long post-war economic expansion had faltered; the unity that had so tightly bonded Americans had been lost in the bloody rice patties ofVietnam, and our rose-colored glasses, spotted by the assassinations of the 1960s, were shattered by Watergate in 1972. We saw our first trade deficit in 1971 and began an unending series of such deficits in 1976. Inflation soared to double-digits, as did the prime interest rate. Wages were stagnating, and for the first time in our history, people believed the future would be worse than the past. Americans were desperate for a victory, for some light at the end of the tunnel, for anything resembling good news.

But Carter didn’t have good news to share; he offered instead a choice between two paths: one focused on self-interest, and the other on common purpose. He presented the unadulterated facts of our situation, labeling energy dependency a “clear and present danger,” and warned that to ignore this truth was “a certain route to failure,” one that promised a “mistaken idea of freedom.”

President Carter shared an alternative that he claimed would lead to “real freedom.” He called Americans to “seize control again of our common destiny” and advocated doing so by first solving our energy problems. Carter set forth bold steps in his energy policy. He called for a windfall profits tax on oil companies, for investment in public transportation, to build energy conservation into our homes, and to reach a goal of 20% solar power by the year 2000. Most importantly, the President’s speech was a call to arms on the “battlefield of energy,” where every act of conservation would be “an act of patriotism.”

Ronald Reagan, former actor, both theatrical and political, appeared on the scene with a quite different, and highly attractive, alternative for the American people: he would cut taxes while also balancing the budget and simultaneously address energy dependence without conservation. According to Reagan, oil production was the answer to our energy woes, and high taxes the cause of our economic problems. Reagan raised high the specter of the dark Soviet empire, painted Carter to be a weak leader, and sold the American people on the notion that “government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem.”

Telling the public exactly what they wanted to hear, Reagan easily won a popular majority, of which this author, a Democrat, was a member.

As president, he wasted no time attacking “the problem.” He moved to quickly implement the economic policies that his primary opponent and general election running mate, George H.W. Bush, had referred to as “voodoo economics.” Claiming that tax cuts for top income earners would “trickle down” for everyone else, Reagan’s Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 would cut the top marginal tax rate by 20% and drop the capital gains tax to 20% — the lowest level since the Hoover administration.

The net effect on federal revenues was a reduction of $268 billion over the next three years — as a share of GDP, the single largest cut in American history. In Reagan’s own words, he was treating the federal government like an “extravagant kid” who needed his parents to “cut his allowance.” By  Reagan’s second term, the “extravagant kid” prescription had become the signature political strategy of movement conservatism. Known as “starve the beast,” the plan would deprive government of revenue, which would then force spending cuts and the defunding of social programs.

Following a series of limited tax increases from 1982 through 1985, Reagan wielded his tax axe again during his second term. His Tax Reform Act of 1986 also earned it’s place in history as the only legislation, before or since, to simultaneously drop the top tax rate (from 50% to 28%) and raise the rate for the lowest income earners (from 11% to 15%). Not only was the beast to be starved, but so were millions of working Americans.

Unwavering in his faith in “trickle down economics,” Reagan was relentless in his support of the wealthy. Tax advantage was only one side of the ledger. Once the president of the Screen Actors Guild, where he was eventually pressured out of office in response to his pro-management positions, Reagan would wage a full scale war on labor during his presidency. Not only did he freeze the minimum wage and deal the most destructive blow ever delivered to American unions, when he fired 13,000 air traffic controllers in 1981, but he effectively changed the NLRB into an “Employer Relations Board” when he stacked the 5-member panel with a majority of management representation.

Of course, had the Reagan tax cuts been accompanied by corresponding cuts in spending, the American public might have been more aware of the toll taken by Reagan’s anti-labor polices.  But contrary to conservative myth, Reagan was as much spendthrift as tax slasher. He did cut funding for many social programs, including food stamps, education and the EPA. He hacked Medicaid and slashed federal assistance to local governments by 60%. But overall, Reagan was anything but fiscally conservative. During his two terms, federal spending would average 22.4% of GDP, well above the 40-year average of 20.7%, and the federal debt would swell to nearly $3 trillion, effectively tripling under Reagan’s fiscal leadership.

In retrospect, it’s rather obvious why so many people revere Ronald Reagan as such a great leader. With the entire nation suffering from some sort of collective amnesia regarding his record on the debt, what else could be expected when a president slashes taxes and simultaneously pumps trillions of dollars of federal stimulus into the economy? This is not to diminish his foreign policy record, where among other achievements, he must be given credit for his part in ending the Cold War.  But the real magic of the Reagan presidency came from his innate ability to capture the imagination of the American people, to lull them into believing what he wanted them to believe, regardless of the reality — with masterful stagecraft, to cast a spell and breathe life into an alternate reality that never really existed.

The harsh truth of Reagan’s legacy is that while the American people were under his spell, his actual handiwork was the crafting of a new form of politics that used the public’s natural patriotism and belief in the work ethic to gain the blind support of working people while giving all benefit to only the wealthiest among us.

Reagan appealed to our national vanity with his incantation of American exceptionalism, but did nothing to help the average citizen share in the prosperity. He nearly silenced the voice of organized labor, the movement that brought us the 40-hour workweek, the minimum wage and workplace safety. He abandoned Carter’s energy policy, the last to be adopted by any administration, and as a result relinquished control of our energy future to OPEC and other foreign nations. He put the pedal to the metal on military spending, skewed tax policy to advantage the rich, and tilted the economic playing field to such an extent that, as a nation, we may never recover.

All of what’s happened in the three decades since Reagan was elected cannot be blamed solely on his policies, but it goes without question that he is the creator-in-chief of the paradigm that made it all possible. He won election by contradicting the sage advice of Jimmy Carter and convincing the American people that no sacrifice would be needed, so long as we dealt with our “problems.” And then he did everything in his power to divert attention from both his budget deficits and the real “problem” — parasites of American wealth who use their influence to rig banking, trade and tax policy.

By conjuring up fictitious culprits, like his famous Cadillac-driving welfare queens, Reagan was able to sell a large segment of the populace on the notion that our economic woes were the result of lazy, untrustworthy miscreants, living large on the public dole. Sadly, the predisposition of many conservatives was justified by Reagan’s own messaging, and this particular blame-game became a form of muffled racism. Expressed mostly through dog whistle politics, the finger was pointed at all “others” — minorities of any stripe. It was this form of deceit that planted the fertile ground of economic hardship with the seeds of radical division that continue to grow today. Job losses, stagnant wages and a diminishing standard of living weren’t the fault of  profit seeking elites exploiting people and planet; it was all the fault of  “big government” supporting lazy loafers who milked the system.

In the time since Reagan was first elected, America has grown increasingly divided. With half of the population still under the Glimmer Man’s spell, believing that it isn’t poverty that’s “the problem” — it’s the poor, the scales continue to tip further and further in favor of the rich, and the toll is paid increasingly by working Americans, mostly by the vanishing middle class. Since 1979, two-thirds of all income gains have gone to the Top 1%. That exclusive group, which accounted for only 9% of all income in 1976, now rakes in a full 24% and claims more financial wealth than the bottom 95%. Meanwhile median household has remained essentially flat, and the United States has taken its place amongst the most economically unequal nations on the planet — worse than even Iran and China.

Is this unhealthy for an economy? Absolutely. When wealth becomes so overly concentrated, the middle class has insufficient funds to provide the demand for the goods and services that are essential for a consumer economy. Without sufficient demand, companies cut back, jobs are lost, demand weakens further, and the cycle repeats itself — a self-reinforcing death spiral without a bottom. If not for our serial economic bubbles, where lack of income was relieved with ever-increasing borrowing and debt, conservative voters might have been awakened from that glimmer spell cast all those long years ago. But such has not been the case. The bubbles have served to conceal the dire straits our nation must now navigate.

Following 30 years of shared prosperity, the Reagan era ushered in the age of extraction, where the rich get filthy rich and everyone else struggles to make ends meet. Ronald Reagan made the national debt a major campaign issue when he ran against Jimmy Carter —America needed a conservative to address this pressing issue. Yet, once elected, Reagan tripled the debt, and today it sits at over $15 trillion.

Carter warned us that we had to deal with dependency on foreign oil and set goals for energy efficiency and the implementation of wind and solar power. Reagan scuttled all plans for alternatives, and today we still import half of the oil we consume, while the planet sits at the precipice of global peak oil (the point at which total world oil resources go into terminal decline). The US has been without an energy policy since Carter, and today we waste nearly 60% of all energy produced through inefficiency, and we generate a whopping 4% of what we consume from wind, solar, hydro and geothermal combined.

Ronald Reagan may have ridden into Washington on a white horse, but what he was peddling was nothing more than snake oil. He sent us down the path Carter called “a certain route to failure,” and more than 30 years later, we’re still steaming full speed ahead into the abyss.

Three decades of blind support of business and dismantling of government has severely tilted the playing field and rigged the game against the average American. It was rigged banking that allowed Wall St. to bleed the American people for trillions of dollars of wealth. Rigged trade permitted the multinational corporations to send millions of jobs overseas. Rigged tax policy continually subsidizes the largest industries, requiring many to pay no income tax at all, and further enables massive concentration of wealth and power. Rigged elections ensure that the interests of the rich and powerful are always put in front of the wellbeing of our nation as a whole, and an increasingly rigged judiciary makes damn sure that the voice of average Americans is silenced.

As a result, our infrastructure is in disrepair and our education system is unable to meet our needs. Healthcare spending amounts to 17% of GDP,  with costs at more than double the OECD average and continuing to soar. Unemployment is still at rates almost unseen since the Great Depression. The debt is over $15 trillion. Upward mobility has been all but comepletely lost. Our unfunded liabilities are in the tens of trillions of dollars. We seem to be permanently at war. Gas prices are at $4 per gallon, and we have no solution for our energy problems.

Could this be the “mistaken idea of freedom” that Jimmy Carter warned us about?

One thing is certain: it’s hard to see how we could be worse off today had we listened to Carter’s sage advice. The issues that now plague our nation are reaching epidemic proportions, yet we’ve  become so polarized as a people that we’re entirely unable to work together in seeking real solutions. Discussion and analysis of our problems with the intent of identifying solutions isn’t even part of the conversation. We have become trapped in a partisan world controlled by the extremes, where positions are argued, but principles and values are trampled into the muddied ground of an ideological battlefield.

This division is the true legacy of the Reagan presidency. Where we were previously united in our efforts and earnestly sought after the common good, the Reagan doctrine taught that fragmentation and self-interest were appropriate responses to the issues we face. Win/win, shared properity, and an end to poverty were replaced with winners and losers, extraction and exploitation, Social Darwinism, and the survival of the most ruthless. Reagan gave those who needed someone to blame a target for their ire — anyone who’s different — and in so doing, drove an iron wedge into the American body politic.

Like a family that can’t deal with it’s problems, we’ve become a dysfunctional society. And as is typically the case, our dysfunction is rooted in our inability to effectively communicate. If we are to avoid further disaster, we must once again come together as a people, and the only way that happens is when we commit to an equal balance of inquiry and advocacy. We have to listen as well as speak, because it’s the only way to understand, and the only route to respecting our neighbors position is through understanding their perspective.

It’s time to be honest about the problems we face, time to stop arguing and start working together. It’s time to break the Glimmer Man’s spell, and in the words of Jimmy Carter, “seize control of our common destiny.” Most importantly, it’s time we recognize the greatest lie Reagan ever told: that “government is the problem.” The truth is that government is what we make it.

Government is the framework of rules we agree to live by and the vehicle with which we can achieve the otherwise impossible. Government is not “the problem” — the problem is broken government, and We the People are the solution.

The United States of America was founded on the principle of unity and of embracing the common good. “E pluribus unum” — out of many, one. This is the true source of our greatness. To the extent that we deviate from this principle, we work toward our own demise. We are the greatest nation in the history of our planet, but in order to remain great, we must sacrifice self-interest and embrace our common purpose, for this is the nature of true patriotism.

As state governments wrestle with massive budget shortfalls, a Wall Street giant is offering a solution: cash in exchange for state property. Prisons, to be exact.

Chris Kirkham, Huffington Post

Image via Wikipedia

Support the privateers and this is what you get. It starts with rigged banking, trade and tax policy that bleeds the average citizen and starves the government­. Once they’ve sucked enough wealth out of the general population and have government on life support, the privateers strike, offering their poisoned transfusio­n to save the dying body. These corporatio­ns and the people who support them are counter-pa­triots. They will sacrifice the wellbeing of our nation in order to line their pockets with the spoils of economic war.

Privateering is a parasitical process that’s grown increasingly prominent since the economic collapse of 2008. Seeking hosts that can be tapped and drained, predator companies prey upon weakened public entities with which they can strike their Faustian bargain. Roads, bridges, ports . . . even parking meters are on the auction block; private prisons just happen to be one of the most lucrative and fast growing targets of those who seek to exploit the commons for personal gain.

But just like the proverbial poison apple, while these deals may seem to offer immediate relief for public budgets depleted of revenue in a stagnant economy, what they deliver is lethal venom for the public good.

Chicago residents learned this lesson the hard way, when their city officials made a pact with Morgan Stanley to lease rights to the city’s 36,000 parking meters. The deal that gave a largely foreign group of investors (a huge slice going to Abu Dhabi) control for 75 years, went for just over $1 billion. Surely a nice infusion of cash, but considering that the devil’s deal gave the new Chicago Parking Meters LLC complete control, including the ability to charge the city for any loss of revenue, the long term prospects for the city were far less rosy.

Indeed, the people of Chicago soon found parking rates previously set at $0.25 per hour were hiked to $1.00 and more. They also found that they were unable to close streets or perform maintenance without compensating the privateers who billed the city at rates that valued the billion-dollar lease at $5 billion. Late last year, the city received a $13 million invoice from CPM for “lost revenue from drivers who used disabled parking placards to get free parking at the city’s meters.”

The reality is that private company profits and the “general Welfare” for which our nation and public entities are constituted are often mutually exclusive goals. Numerous studies, looking at everything from schools and healthcare to security and military, have shown how cost-ineffective privatization can be. One recent study completed by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) concluded that “the government pays billions more annually in taxpayer dollars to hire contractors than it would to hire federal employees to perform comparable services.”

Hard facts consistently belie the arguments used to support privatization, and nowhere are the myth and reality more contradictory than when it comes to private prisons. Not only was the U.S. Department of Justice forced to conclude that the cost savings promised by private prisons “have simply not materialized,” but risks regarding incarceration rates, recidivism, rehabilitation and safety are also often made worse.

The bottom line is that privatization most often benefits only the privateers. It doesn’t take a nuclear physicist to understand that misaligned interests tend to result in divergent outcomes. As a society, we should seek to establish a system that maximizes our human resources by putting people to work in the most productive manner possible. That goal is naturally at odds with those who seek to profit from increasingly incarceration — the least productive of human activities.

If your doctor gave you a prescription to improve your health, and it made you deathly ill, would you follow said doctor’s orders to take ever-increasing dosages?

Of course you wouldn’t. You’d label the doctor either an incompetent quack or an unscrupulous shill for the pharmaceutical company; you’d stop taking medicine that was killing you, and you’d seek alternative treatment.

It’s all so obvious: you believe that something will be beneficial, so you give it a try, but once your experience proves that your faith was misplaced — you dummy up. You learn from your mistake and move forward a wiser person.

So, why is it that what seems so obvious in a healthcare scenario, and would also apply without exception if dealing with a mechanic, a lawyer, a contractor, or pretty much anyone else, somehow winds up being lost entirely in the world of politics?

More to the point: how is it possible, after experiencing the catastrophic results of conservative economic policy, that there’s a single American (who’s not either a Republican politician or some other member of the Top 1%) still willing to give the GOP Rx for the economy another nanosecond of consideration?

When King Solomon said that “there is nothing new under the sun,” he couldn’t possibly have done a better job at describing GOP economic policy. From the plans being offered by the illustrious ranks of Republican presidential candidates to those recently articulated by House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, their prescription is nothing but more of the same poison that crashed the American economy, blew unemployment up to historic levels, and fueled concentration of wealth not seen since the Great Depression.

The GOP Rx for the economy is ever-static and never works. Whether you’re talking decades ago or focused on today, it always consists of the same triple threat to the American people: cut taxes for the wealthy, deregulate, and privatize government along with the commons. They wrap their rhetoric up in a flag, label their plan as “job creating,” and somehow manage to sell the same warmed-over economic Vioxx time and again.

The truth of the matter is that we’ve already tried every element of the Republican plan, all to the detriment of the vast majority of Americans.

According to the GOP, we must lower taxes on the wealthy (a.k.a. the “job creators”) in order to address unemployment. Of course, tax rates today are at record lows with the total income tax burden at its lowest point since 1950 — a fact that begs the question, “Why don’t we already have the jobs?”

Well, the answer is that lowering taxes on the wealthy doesn’t create jobs. It never has and never will, yet whenever the opportunity arises, the GOP snake oil dealers come out of the woodwork offering the same poisonous tonic. Bush did it in 2001, promising 800,000 jobs from his Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act, but the $1.6 trillion tax cut, that gave fully half of the savings to the Top 1%, didn’t actually create any jobs. In fact, following the cuts, we lost 2.7 million jobs by May of 2003.

In contrast, Bill Clinton had the unmitigated gall to raise taxes on the rich, which if GOP prognosticators were right should have been a death knell for job creation. But instead of the Republican predictions of an apocalypse, of a market collapse and dire straits for the economy, we entered into the most prosperous peacetime economy in American history. BLS records show that 22.7 million jobs were created under President Clinton and a paltry 1.08 million under George W. Bush. It seems pretty obvious which president had the better prescription for the American economy.

Once all of the hype is pushed aside, it’s plain to see that tax cuts for the rich have little to do with job creation and instead achieve only the one thing that the average person might expect — they make the rich even richer. They lead to the banana republic style distribution of wealth that now has the U.S. ranking 98^th amongst 136 nations measured by the Gini index of income inequality — worse than Iran — worse than freaking China! But what can you expect when our top 1% now holds more financial wealth than the bottom 95% of the population?

So, maybe the GOP is wrong about tax cuts but right about deregulation. Maybe present calls to repeal Dodd-Frank to “free up Wall St.” are just the prescription for prosperity we need. Maybe there is validity in Michelle Bachmann’s claim that financial reform is “killing the banking industry.” And maybe Sarah Palin will actually run for president, there really is an Easter Bunny, and the GOP truly does give a fat flying flip about working Americans.

The deregulation story is actually scarier than the tax cut myth. It was deregulation that gave birth to the derivative market, allowed unfettered access to credit default swaps, tore down the barrier between investment and commercial banking, and created the Wall St. casino that bled the middle class for 30% of their combined wealth and sent unemployment to levels not seen since the last tax cutting, deregulating, military spending GOP buffoon, Ronald Reagan, sent the rate over 10%.

It was George W. Bush’s dismantling of the regulatory structure that gave us the housing bubble and subsequent economic collapse, allowed the Massey Mine disaster to kill 29 people, and laid the ground work of incompetence that led to the BP oil spill.

Republican style deregulation strips government of its power to carry out it moral mission to protect the people and replaces it with a charade of profit-focused companies pretending to police themselves. It assigns henhouse security to the fox by binding and gagging the farmer. It leads to companies monitoring safety requirements, as it did at Big Branch and in the Gulf, and leaves drug testing to the pharmaceutical companies, as was the case with Merck and their Vioxx pain reliever that caused tens of thousands of heart attacks and strokes, and killed nearly 3,500 Americans.

There are no doubt regulations that do place an unnecessary burden on businesses, and they should be addressed, but they are in the minority. Most regulations serve a vital purpose to protect the citizenry from those who would exploit people and planet in order to add to their bottom line.

Government regulation is as necessary as our system of criminal and civil law. It ensures the safety of our food, infrastructure, medicine, energy, transportation system, consumer products, water supply, and workplace — without regulation we cannot have a functional society. Regulatory reform may indeed be essential, but it must be accomplished intelligently and without compromise that sacrifices the moral mission in exchange for the profit motive. Such reform cannot be achieved through GOP “starve the beast” tactics, where funding for the FDA, SEC, FAA or FEMA and OSHA are indiscriminately cut, nor will it happen through attacks on unions, the NRLB or the EPA as proposed by Eric “Corporate Shill” Cantor and his ignorant mob of Tea Party ideologues.

The Republican plan for America is simple: starve government of necessary funding, cripple government by axing regulations, and turn whatever’s left of government over to private enterprise to milk for profits. They ignore the reality that our economy is stalled because of lack of demand stemming from concentration of wealth not seen since the Great Depression. They ignore science, clutching onto the desperate notion that 98% of climate scientists are wrong about global warming in order to justify their loyal support of fossil fuels. And they ignore the selfish drain on the economy presented by the Wall St. casino and fat-cat government contractors who provide services at rates averaging 183% of the costs to simply hire federal workers.

Sadly, none of this matters to the GOP. When facts get in their way, they just invent another marketing phrase, regurgitate more of their distorted talking points, and spin their poison in populist labels like “liberty” and “freedom.” But in spite of their flag waving and lip service for working Americans, the truth of the GOP is that their core mantra remains “government is the problem,” and they will stop at nothing to deliver on their self-fulfilling prophesy.

Make no mistake about it, the GOP Rx is effective. The problem is that the America it’s intended to serve is comprised of only the top 1 to 2% of Americans. The strength of our nation depends upon both a strong democracy and a healthy capitalist economy. Sadly, the Republican Party is willing to trample the rights of the People and decimate that democracy in order to feed the greed of the economic elite.

Americans need to wake up before it’s too late. They need to smell the burning apple pie, and realize that the parasitic capitalist machine is killing its host. Republicans may still talk about jobs and small business, but it should be obvious to the most casual observer that high unemployment and the lower wages it brings are nirvana for GOP strategists, and real small business is anathema for their vision of an American corporatocracy.

The GOP Rx for our economy deserves a grade of “D” for “Death” of the American Dream. And any working American who subscribes to their prescription and believes that the policies that are destroying the middle class will somehow magically start producing a different result deserves a great big “F” for “Fucking Insane!”

September 11, 2001

As I look back on that day, tears well up in my eyes. I still feel the shock and the pain, for though I did not directly experience loss, I feel as though I was personally attacked. The assault was not waged upon my person, but at my beliefs, upon an integral part of who I am. I believe that most Americans feel this way. We will forever carry the sadness of that day in our hearts, but because of what happened afterward, it will always share its place with a sense of national pride. We did come together as a nation.

But now, ten years later, much has changed. We live in the aftermath of an economic collapse that would have left our nation’s largest banks insolvent if not for a massive government bailout. Our jobless rate is at levels not seen in nearly 30 years. We continue to amass virtually unimaginable levels of national debt, and we still have thousands of American troops deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, fighting the “War on Terror.” Things have changed drastically since 2001. For most Americans, those changes have been for the worse — the worst in my lifetime. That realization begs the question: “Have we allowed the terrorists to win?”

The sense of unity that spread across our great nation in the aftermath of 9/11 is all but completely lost. In its place is a growing division of the people that threatens to destroy the very soul of our country. How has this happened?

Sure, it’s in part a sign of the difficult economic times, but I fear it’s more than that. Even in the most desperate times, American democracy has endured, always upheld by our standard of honest debate and open discussion. But our national “conversation” has changed. Dialog, moderation and compromise have become vestiges of the past. Rancor and vitriol are now the staples of the day, and the only rule of conduct seems to be that there are no rules.

Indeed, the political climate in America today increasingly rewards those who don’t follow any rules, those who will twist the facts, ignore the truth and otherwise do whatever’s required to advance their positions . . . and their careers. Sadly, thoughtful response and honest deliberation are rapidly becoming liabilities. You no longer need to understand the complexities of any given situation; all that’s required is a scatter gun of incendiary rhetoric and the willingness to indiscriminately pull the trigger.

It may have been foreign terrorists who initially set the wheels in motion, but we need not look beyond our shores for those who are to blame for the forces tearing our nation apart. What ails us today is not fear of foreign aggression but rather the internal politics of fear. George W. Bush was quick to seize the day — he positioned himself as the great protector and leveraged the 9/11 attack to justify all manner of aggression and indiscretion. In the process, America lost a significant part of its identity. As Benjamin Franklin once suggested, those who would give up liberty to gain safety will lose both and deserve neither. Today, there is little debate that the “Land of the Free” has given up much of its liberty.

Most regrettable is the fact that we might have come away from this great tragedy a stronger nation, but instead the power of fear was evoked . . . and sadly — it worked. As a result, we learned the wrong lesson. American citizens sat in silent acceptance while fictitious evidence of WMDs was fabricated to justify an imperialistic invasion of Iraq. We collectively bowed as our civil liberties were torn asunder by the Patriot Act. Even today, while demanding spending cuts that place hardship on working Americans, politicians on the right vehemently defend a bloated defense budget that’s more than doubled since that fateful day in 2001. Fear of terrorists, fear of further economic collapse, fear of government overreach, fear of the “other,” the politics of fear are effective and their use accepted by far too many Americans.

In no way do I want to diminish the significance of what happened on 9/11 or to ignore the horror of violent terrorism. But I am compelled to suggest that the politics of fear will bring far more devastation than any overt terrorist plot. As I’ve written in other posts, America is in dire fiscal straits; we are threatened on many fronts, but instead of working with the current administration, the Republican Party has veered so far to the right that it has lost any semblance of legitimacy. They are guilty as charged of being the “Party of No,” the party that will sacrifice the economy and the wellbeing of the American people in order to regain power. Their politics of greed inflict severe harm upon our nation, but of much more serious consequence is the fact that they’ve become the Party of Fear.

Once the upholders of legitimate conservative views, the Republican Party has been taken over by self-serving opportunists who don’t so much as blush when they twist the most flimsy shred of truth into patently false assertions, accusations, and indictments. For them, the truth matters no longer; the SOP for the GOP has become: saying whatever it takes to instill fear into their loyal conservative following. They prey on hard working Americans, fill their heads with nonsense designed to elicit a fearful response, and thus gain their misinformed support.

It doesn’t seem to matter to these individuals that their lies and distortions are destroying our country, that the hate they work to spur clouds the issues and prevents the dialog needed for resolution. Did Michele Bachmann really not understand the destructive  impact of suggesting that the Democrats were moving toward “mandatory service” for America’s youth, where they would be forced into political “re-education camps?” Who did Sarah Palin serve when she insisted upon the validity of her claim that the health care legislation would bring “death panels” — that it was “evil?” When House Republican Leader, John Boehner’s claimed that the health care bill would bring “Armageddon” and “ruin our country,” was he just trying to make a substantive point? Was it just an honest mistake when Senator John Kyl stood and lied about Planned Parenthood, stating that abortion was “well over 90%” of what they do?

Is there any moral justification for spreading Islamofobia, for shouting “government takeover” at any attempt to contain rampant corporate profiteering, for targeting public employees as the enemies of those with “real jobs?” When all efforts to close corporate tax loopholes, raise federal revenue, or enforce regulations that protect people and preserve the planet are labeled “job-killing,” the politics of fear are at work. Is any of this hyperbole appropriate?  Is fear mongering really an acceptable form of intelligent exchange?

Make no mistake about it, regardless of your philosophical goals, when fear is your primary tactical method for achieving your short term objectives — you are a terrorist. The current cast of Republican politicians has cast their lot; from the falsehoods offered in opposition to healthcare and banking reform to their lies and distortions regarding the Stimulus, from their refusal to support anything that will help create jobs to their overt hostage taking on the extension of the Bush tax cuts and the raising of the debt ceiling . . . they’ve chosen their tactics and must now wear the mantle associated with their actions — they are political terrorists.

While the GOP form of terrorism may appear more sanitary than the bloody world of suicide bombers, it is actually far more dangerous. Their methods are destructive, their process deceptive, and their results are insidious. Republicans have driven a wedge into the American populace. They’ve used fear as a vehicle to divide the people and advance their agenda to dismantle government and destroy any hopes that our democracy might once again control the excesses of our capitalism. They’ve become truly adept at scaring Americans into believing that there must be winners and losers — that we’re not all in this together — and as a result, they’ve persuaded half of the population to fight against its own best interest.

When we were threatened by Islamic terrorists, calls went up from liberals and conservatives alike asking where Muslin moderates were, why they had not spoken up to decry the radical rants of their religion’s extremists. Today I wait to hear those voices of moderation rise amongst American conservatives. When will they speak up and demand that their party cease the inflammatory politics of fear, return to the table, and once again engage in meaningful conversation. If those voices remain silent, then although we survived the 9/11 terrorist attack, we may not survive the political terrorism of the Republican right, and we will have “let the terrorists win.”

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On the eve of the Republican presidential debate, there was one GOP candidate who spent a good deal of time making the circuit on liberal political shows. His name is Buddy Roemer. A former congressman and governor of Louisiana, Roemer is an affable guy who shoots straight and interacts with the likes of Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow with ease. He handled “gotcha” questions, like “Why won’t they include you in the debate” with honesty and a smile, and he honed in on America’s most pernicious political problem — money in politics — with the laser focus of SEAL Team 6.

Pretty much a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, as I watched Roemer engage, first with Maddow and later with Stewart, I found myself thinking, “Might I actually vote for a Republican?” I am in total agreement with Governor Roemer’s argument that the corrupting effect of money in politics is our nation’s #1 political problem. Listening to Roemer speak so clearly on the issue, “You can’t tackle the jobs problem, the budget problem, the tax problem . . . without tackling the first problem,” I was starting to feel a lot like I did when then Illinois State Senator Obama took the podium at the 2004 convention. When Roemer labeled the system “institutionally corrupt” and continued with, “Corporations have never made more money than they are right now. They wrote the tax code, and they really don’t give a damn about the rest of America,” I was consumed with but one thought — finally, a politician willing to fight the beast.

The impact of hearing a politician speak so honestly about the cancer that permeates every corner of our political system was unnerving; the effect was more than surprise or glee; it was physiological. Money in politics is the shadow system that the kabuki theater is designed to hide — it is the freaking elephant in the room. More than $4 billion was spent on the 2010 campaign, and 2012 is expected to run a tab of over $6 billion. Large corporate contributors, like those in the financial sector, which spends more than any other and tops President Obama’s donor list, don’t donate out of patriotism. Their campaign contributions are investments — investments that pay far better returns than what the market can offer. And make no mistake, they don’t care about jobs or people or America. They are singly focused on one item and one item only — profits.

So, might a candidate who’s willing to take on our nation’s most crippling political problem deserve my vote — even if he is a Republican? Heck, Roemer’s even to the left of many Democrats on the issue of trade with China and the job-killing effects of policies labeled “free” trade. Well, as it turns out, while Buddy Roemer is an anomaly — a Republican who doesn’t contend that tax cuts and deregulation will fix everything short of curing cancer — he really is still a Republican.

Roemer wants to reduce federal spending to 18% of GDP, while “significantly lowering the marginal tax rate for both individuals and corporations,” a position that sounds a whole bunch like feed the wealthy and starve the beast. He appears to be a hawk who still believes that we need to “strengthen national defense” and views the lingering military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan as real wars, instead of the nation-building efforts that they are. He supports the typical GOP claptrap about “domestic sources of energy,” placing emphasis on oil, coal and natural gas, while paying lip service to alternatives. His energy policy actually calls for the elimination of the Department of Energy. Sadly, he also joins in lock-step with the repeal Obamacare crazies — even resorting to the inane “government takeover of healthcare” line.

Damn it! I knew it was too good to be true. Still, if the corruption of a bought government were to be addressed, all of our elected officials would be once again free to act on behalf of the people. But would that gain be worth voting for somebody with whom you disagree on most other issues?

The situation begs many questions: how much would legislation actually change? Why can’t we have a Democrat who will take on money in politics? Where the hell is Obama on the issue? I’d be absolutely giddy to hear the President say, “America, we can’t get anything done because your government has been purchased by special interests.” It’s such a no-brainer to win popular support that you’d have to ask yourself why no sitting politician or candidate (besides Roemer) will take it on . . . if you didn’t already know the answer.

In the end, I’m afraid I can’t vote for Roemer, but the man has earned my respect. He may differ from me on an ideological basis, but he’s certainly not one of the talking-point-without-substance, corporate puppet, GOP politicians who dominate the field today. The man is a considered conservative, the type that once led the Republicans and did hold country over party. He may not get my vote, but I will contribute to his election campaign. I think he’s exactly what the GOP needs to pull it back into the ranks of the politically sane.

This is one very skewed take on the federal debt issue presented by a very large global investment company with a seriously vested interest, including a major presence in China. While the slideshow pretends to be non-partisan, in reality, it’s a propaganda tool that emphasizes all GOP talking points and glosses over any mention of opposing views.

If you agree with the KPCB take, then the main problem with the U.S. economy is entitlement spending. The slideshow emphasizes this point over and over, throughout the presentation. It also distorts the truth about tax revenue, demonizes government employees, minimizes the impact of defense spending, and makes a series of unfounded comparisons backed by equally illegitimate half-truths.

The following are some specific criticisms:

They assault the growth in government spending by charting the growth starting with the Great Depression: it’s up to 24% of GDP following a 3% trend line prior to 1930 — no shit it grew — there was no prior safety net and no future for anyone but the robber barons and banksters. That’s why we had the Great Depression! The New Deal paved the way and the ensuing period of time following WW2 was the greatest sustained economic expansion in our history — all under a system of shared prosperity brought about through government programs and regulation.

They use the GOP favorite, a family example, as comparison to show what the government should do. Of course it fails to illuminate any of the distinctions between the two very different groups. You know, like one can actually address trade rules, modify tax structures, and print freaking money — or that one is focused on its own wellbeing and the other is supposed to be focused on the wellbeing of ALL the people.

They claim that entitlement costs are rising “exponentially,” which is, of course, true, but still a means of somewhat overstating the issue. Even in today’s sad state of economic affairs, our GDP is presently growing “exponentially” — at a rate of 1.6%, which is pathetic. But the fact that few Americans understand exponential growth provides an open opportunity to exploit their ignorance and make the situation sound as bad as possible. FYI, even the Heritage Foundation estimates claim that entitlement spending will “double” by 2050. I guess “double” just doesn’t sound scary enough.

They label the growth in entitlement spending as a “runaway freight train,” comparing it to the increase in tax revenues, claiming that the former has grown at 2 times the rate of the latter over the past 10 years. Of course, they conveniently leave out anything about the Bush Tax Cuts and the fact that tax rates are at their lowest mark in more than 50 years. Are low taxes really evidence of “runaway” entitlement spending?

They emphasize how large our entitlement spending is by comparing it to the GDP of India, the “world’s 9^th largest economy, but they never state that India’s GDP is only $1.38 trillion, or less than 1/10^th the size of our own.

They attack the entitlements, but they completely glaze over defense spending. They list it as only 20% of the total and $656 billion. Of course, the truth is that when looking at all defense spending, not just the department of defense, the number is over $1 trillion, and is pushing 30% of overall spending.

They chart a picture where defense spending is actually below the statistical average since 1948 as a portion of GDP. Based on said chart, they assert that we’re actually not spending that much on defense. Of course, they chose a period of time that does include the spike for the Korean war and also the Viet Nam war years, but conveniently omits WW2, when spending peaked at 42% of GDP, and they made sure they stopped the chart in 2003 — eliminating the final $300 billion in Bush increases, not to mention Obama’s own.

They also never make any distinction in what might be considered appropriate defense spending between peacetime/wartime, nor do they address differences between wars of necessity versus wars of choice. They also fail to mention that defense spending has actually tripled since 1997, and they leave out entirely the true financial costs of war — those which echo through many facets of the economy and include a huge portion of federal interest payments and are in total estimated to be more than three times the direct costs.

They do mention defense cuts but only the most low hanging of fruit, like the extra engine for the F-35, and certainly nothing like actually ending the wars.

They show the future unfunded costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, $35, $23, and $8 trillion respectively, but fail to mention (except in the fine print) that this is over the next 75 years. They also give nothing for comparison, like the fact that at the present rate, defense costs of over $1 trillion each year, which are taken from general revenue, would amount to more than $75 trillion over the same period.

They talk about healthcare costs and results but give only lip service to any real reform that might be made. They make no mention of soaring insurer and pharmaceutical profits, or of the fact that Medicare is prohibited from negotiating drug prices, nor do they mention the 3-6% administrative costs for Medicare as compared to the 12-30% for private insurers. They even understate total healthcare costs at 8.2% of GDP when it’s actually running over 17%.

They present a terrible view of the increase in Medicaid recipients, showing that in 1965 only 1-in-50 people relied on the program compared to 1-in-6 in 2007. Of course they present this as if it were solely an issue associated with program rules and say nothing about the impact of increased cost of living and falling median income and loss of benefits.

They present the only choices to “fixing” Social Security as increasing the retirement age to 73, increasing payroll taxes to 14.3% or reducing benefits by 12%. This paints a pretty bleak picture. But it may not be so bleak when you consider that the tax increase could come largely from lifting the salary cap, or the benefit reduction could apply only to those who are wealthy — or a combination of the two. They also never mention that the program is 100% solvent through 2037, or that it will still be able to pay 78% of benefits beyond that period without any program changes —but then that wouldn’t serve their purpose.

They also make the argument that life expectancy has increased in the U.S. by 26% since the inception of Social Security while retirement age has only gone up by 3%. Now that doesn’t seem very balanced, but of course when you consider that those who actually perform physical work are barely living any longer at all, and that the real increase in expectancy applies mostly to the high income earners who need Social Security the least . . . well, I guess it depends for whom you’re advocating.

They make assertions in pursuit of the GOP agenda item to divert attention from the impact corporate profits and reduced taxation of the economic elite have had on the economy, and they attempt to place the blame on government workers and unions. They actually choose to paint a picture that blames GM’s economic problems chiefly on retiree benefits, and then claim that the company’s recovery was achieved by removing employee healthcare benefits and focusing on quality. Oddly, they never mention the government bailout.

They assert that if a corporation fails to balance its books, they are forced to go out of business, but they neglect to say a word about Too Big To Fail — the socialization of Wall St. debt , the $16 trillion in loans made by the Federal Reserve to the nations biggest banks and corporations at near-zero rates, the auto industry bailout, or any of the billions of dollars in corporate subsidies, which were estimated by the conservative Cato Institute at $92 billion in 2006 alone.

They depict the debt picture in the U.S. by comparing it to other nations and using our gross public debt number, which unlike other nations has the added factor of including inter-government and state-issued debt, neither of which is typical of most other countries. The combination of these two categories is about 30% of the total, which puts the 86% number in a considerably different light. And BTW, even though they chose to use government spending trends from 1930, they fail to mention that the debt to GDP ratio was 122% after WW2 — a number that we paid down with economic expansion and higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

They totally distort the tax picture by placing blame on the 51% of Americans who didn’t pay taxes and never mention that the number increased because Wall St. had literally stolen trillions in middle class wealth and crashed the economy in the process, sending 8 million people to the unemployment lines and creating a situation where it was necessary for the Obama administration to extend $288 billion in further tax cuts as part of the much maligned stimulus program.

They assert that the number of people paying 50% of taxes had dropped by 60% between 1965 and 2005. All true, but what they don’t say is that the slice of people making enough money on which to live has also been dropping — that the share of income gouged by the top 1% had grown from 8% in the mid-1970s to 23.% in 2007, and that the median wage fell for the first time in decades under G.W. Bush. They also fail to mention that the corporate share of taxes also dropped from 20% of the total in the 1960s to under 9% in 2010 — from 4% of GDP in 1965 to 1.3% in 2009, which is the lowest of all OECD nations except Iceland.

They present an absurd picture of addressing the debt with tax increases by isolating such measures as a single-solution response. In so doing, the picture they paint is that income tax rates would have to double. Of course, they conveniently ignore any combined solution of spending cuts and tax increases; they completely skim over the potential for eliminating tax loopholes and tax havens, instead offering only the possibility of either taxing healthcare benefits or eliminating the home mortgage deduction — both obviously targeted at raising alarm in working Americans. They also leave out any possibility of limiting the increased tax rates to millionaires and billionaires — you know, like the hedge fund managers, many of whom rake in over $1 billion in a single year and are able to treat their income as capital gains, paying only 15%, while a single person making $35K has to pay 25%.

They speak about government action where “nearly all” Americans will share in the sacrifice, but they don’t want you to consider that what they really mean — when the bottom 98% of us pay the entire price, that is “nearly all” Americans.

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

What do you call people who use their power to line their own pockets by taking from people who can’t protect themselves?  “Bullies?” “Thieves?”

What if they also lie about it and attempt to cover their tracks with irrational nonsense that would make Jabberwocky seem like a reference manual? Would they be “liars?” “Thieving liars?” How about “lying, thieving bullies?”

Judging by what’s happening today in American politics, the answer is inescapable . . . we’d all be forced to just call them Republicans.

Congressman Paul Ryan, the new chairman of the House Budget Committee recently released the Republican budget for 2012, and it subsequently passed through the House with all but four Republican members voting in its favor. Labeled the “Path to Prosperity,” the Ryan plan is touted to cut $6.2 trillion from President Obama’s budget over the next decade. But while this may sound promising on the surface, even a cursory look at the details leaves a person asking, “To whose prosperity does this path lead?

According to Ryan, the Republican proposal is “guided by the timeless principles of the American idea,” but unless he was referring to the principles upheld by the Robber Barons of the 19^th Century, Ryan must be talking about another America. If the congressman was indeed talking about the United States, a nation that was founded on the notion of a government empowered by the “consent of the governed” to “form a more perfect union” that would “promote the general welfare,” then the only explanation is that the man is either ignorant of the facts of our founding, or he’s just an unethical self-serving liar!

The fact of the matter is that Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” is a full frontal assault on working Americans. It makes a mockery of our Constitution by subverting the federal government for the benefit of the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. In short, the proposal that Ryan refers to as the “new House majority’s answer to history’s call,” will end Medicare as we know it, replace Medicaid with block grants, make the Bush tax cuts permanent, and lower both the top individual and corporate tax rate to 25%.

Indeed, Ryan and the other social cannibals of the Republican Party like to talk about being adults while paying lip service to shared sacrifice, but as is evidenced by their budget proposal, the truth of their actions is a different matter. The Republican plan not only attempts to slash social programs to pay on the debt created by years of excess military spending, tax cuts for the rich, and banker bailouts, but it does so by first making matters worse.

In what has become SOP for the GOP, the Ryan plan will trim the tax bill of the wealthy by 29%, bringing it to its lowest level since 1931, and it will attempt to cover the loss in revenue by hacking at the discretionary services  relied upon by everyone else.

So, the Republican plan is to address spending by gutting education, allowing our infrastructure to further decay, and slashing $1.6 trillion total from domestic discretionary spending, while shifting the burden for the high costs of healthcare onto seniors instead of addressing the root causes, and also ripping the heart out of Medicaid, which expends 87% of its costs to serve children, the elderly and the disabled. All told, the Ryan budget will reduce spending by $4.3 trillion over 10 years, but even though the justification for all of these draconian cuts is based on the deficit, Ryan and the snake oil peddling Republicans will actually give $4.2 trillion of that total back in tax cuts.

That’s right, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Ryan plan will reduce the deficit by all of $155 billion over 10 years. But what the heck, the deficit is really nothing but a policy bludgeon created and used by Republicans anyway. Since Ronald Reagan took office, the Republicans have been dedicated to increasing military spending, while cutting taxes, and as a result consistently ignoring the deficit and adding to the debt. The Ryan budget is no exception.

Just why the beltway press has referred to Ryan as “courageous” for proposing what appears to be standard fare for the Republican Party is more than a little curious. The truth of the matter is that the release of the Ryan plan may have been much more “careless” than it was “courageous.” Like the realtor who inadvertently reveals that the field behind that bargain-priced Tudor is slated for a chemical factory, the Ryan budget leaves no doubt regarding the true motives of the Republican Party.

Fortunately, this time around, people are paying attention. Blinded by their own lack of integrity, Republicans evidently believed that by grandfathering everyone 55 and over into the traditional Medicare system, they wouldn’t receive much pushback at their attempt to screw everyone else. But they were wrong. As it turns out, seniors who have learned that the Ryan plan will replace Medicare with a voucher system that will cause future retirees to reach into their own pockets for an estimated $12,500 each year for insurance, have reacted as if the change affected them personally.

Hurray for American seniors! In one town hall meeting after another, Republicans returning to their home constituencies are getting an earful about their illicit attempt to stuff their pockets with money gained by throwing future retirees to the wolves that run the profit-rich medical insurers.

Of course, the big-money Republican damage control apparatus is already underway trying to spin the dismantling of Medicare. Spending millions on bullshit television ads, the voucher system that Paul Ryan euphemistically refers to as “premium support,” is now being presented as a Republican attempt to “preserve Medicare.” Sadly, that preservation would be in name only, preserving the program in much the same way as a classic car is preserved by sending it through a car crusher. But hey, in the Bizarro World of Republican spin doctoring — rhetoric is reality.

So, where does this go from here? Nowhere. There is absolutely zero chance that the Ryan plan will pass the Senate and be signed by the president, which makes it all the more painfully obvious how ridiculously disconnected the Republican Party is from the reality of life in America. Why House Republicans would actually reveal their true agenda, knowing that it would never become law, is anybody’s guess. It’s like a thief giving his victim advanced warning — in writing. But be that as it may, the genie is out of the bottle, and he’s got “Republican doom” tattooed on his forehead.

Milwaukee’s ordinance requiring businesses to provide paid sick leave would be voided under a bill Assembly Republicans sent Gov. Scott Walker on Tuesday.

Walker said he is likely to sign the measure. The city’s sick leave ordinance was overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2008 but has never gone into effect because of legal challenges. The Assembly voted 59-35 to ensure it would never be implemented.

Patrick Marley, Journal Sentinel

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

So let’s see, Milwaukee voters use the rights given them in an American democracy to effect legislation. The initiative is passed and then immediately subjected to judicial review and is left standing, so it becomes law. But then the “small government” Republicans in Madison decide that they don’t like the law, so they scramble to pass legislation that will effectively nullify the will of the people . . .

Isn’t democracy grand?

We presently live in a nation where the “haves” have everything. They don’t worry about paying rent or putting food on the table; they have healthcare; they have the wealth, with the top 1% having more than the bottom 95%. If they happen to get sick, they’re not concerned — they will likely be paid for the time away from work, and if not they have the resources to weather the storm.

But for the 98% of Americans who are the “have nots,” those of us who essentially live month to month, the story is quite different. Our incomes have been stagnant for more than 30 years; millions of us are unemployed or underemployed, with real rates currently over 22%; there are presently 52 million of us without healthcare insurance and millions more who are covered but still can’t afford treatment. When we get sick, we are worried about any loss in pay because we need every cent earned just to make ends meet.

So, the good people of Milwaukee, Wisconsin take the initiative to use their democracy to pass a law that would at least provide a solution for one of the many issues pressing on the working people of our nation. They didn’t fight for higher pay or even for healthcare; they didn’t ask for paid time for leisure — no, they just want to be paid when they get sick, but even that’s too much too ask for in the Bizarro World of profits-over-people American conservatism.

As stated by Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee), “This [Republican] bill is a slap in the face to the people of the City of Milwaukee.” But alas, Darth Walker and his hoard of Republican stormtroopers don’t really give a flying flip about the people, about their democracy or about anything resembling ethical behavior. They have the power, so they will assert their rule of the land. The will of the people be damned! The aristocracy has spoken.

All working Americans will be well-served to pay close attention to what’s going on in Wisconsin and other states being overrun by newly elected Republican majorities. They all talk about small government and pay lip service to jobs and workers, but at every opportunity they use the power of government to trash the rights of the many for the benefit of the elite few.

Wake up America! Wake up and learn that in the Republican vernacular, “small government” simply means government that serves a very “small” minority. 

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Read the entire Article at the Journal Sentinel  

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Do you think there are many great athletes amongst those who don’t care for sports? How about capable accountants who don’t like numbers? Surgeons who are turned off by blood or teachers by kids?

Regardless of a person’s profession, in order to excel, in order to even become competent, there must be some interest on the part of the individual that will motivate them to perform. Great musicians love music; great scientists are inspired by science; engineers find reward in design and creation, nurses in providing care, and programmers in writing clever code. In order to have effective government, it’s absolutely essential that our elected officials are motivated to “govern,” because those who can’t govern — politic.

This sad truth is the real story behind the cavalier attitude held by the House Republican majority now pressing for a shutdown of the federal government. They have abandoned their constitutional responsibility to fund the government in favor of seizing an opportunity to forward their political agenda, and they’re holding millions of Americans hostage in the process.

As required by legislation, President Obama fulfilled his duty and presented the Congress with a budget for fiscal 2011 in February of 2010. That budget was supported by Democrats in Congress but was blocked by Senate Republicans who would not agree to pass long-term funding. When the new fiscal year started in October of 2010, the government had to be funded or else face shutdown, and the response was bipartisan agreement to pass emergency funding in the form of a “continuing resolution” or CR.

Since that time, the federal government has been funded through a series of CRs, six in all, with the last remaining in effect until midnight tonight. A great outcome for Republicans, who appreciate the fact that the CRs essentially freeze spending at 2010 levels and prevent the implementation of the new healthcare law and financial reform bill. But for the state and local agencies that don’t receive funding under the temporary measures, or for anyone else interested in a functional government, it’s indicative of a failure to govern.

So, with time running out, the debate has surrounded the depth of spending cuts to be passed. The Republicans responded to the President’s $3.64 trillion budget proposal, with a proposal of their own that contains $61 billion in cuts all coming from the $441 billion slice of the budget consisting of non-defense discretionary spending. These cuts are all directed at programs that benefit the needy and the nation as a whole. From billions in cuts to education and HUD and more than $3 billion from the EPA, to nearly $1 billion from energy efficiency efforts, over $1 billion from FEMA First Responders, and nearly $2 billion from job training. Over half ($33 billion) of the Republican’s planned cuts are at the expense of  labor and transportation/housing.

Desperate for a compromise solution, President Obama and the Democrats have countered the Republican proposal with an additional $33 billion in heavy spending cuts to social programs. According to Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, they even upped the ante to $38 billion, in exchange for Republicans dropping all policy riders (i.e. specific policy positions, like cuts to EPA, etc.). But Republicans, led by Speaker John Boehner are still refusing to compromise, with the last remaining bone of contention apparently the $317 million in federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

Of course, Boehner still contends that the debate is over “spending.” So, according to his map of the world, the $23 billion difference in spending cuts, a whopping 6-tenths of 1% of the federal budget, is worth shutting down the government of the United States.

A shutdown would mean disruption of government services, including pay for military personnel. It would delay processing of applications in several federal programs, close national parks and museums, and require furloughs for 800,000 federal workers. Nobody knows how much a shutdown would cost American taxpayers, but the toll of closing the parks alone is estimated to be $32 million per day, with the lion’s share impacting small businesses in local economies.

So, whether you buy Boehner’s spin on the divide or not, the fact of the matter is that there will be a price to pay for a shutdown, and regardless of the Speaker’s true motivation, the rider to defund Planned Parenthood is still in the mix.

Republicans, and especially Tea Partiers, have painted a target on Planned Parenthood as the national bastion for abortion. According to Senator John Kyl (R-AZ), abortion services amount to “well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does. The truth is that they actually account for only 3% of services, with the other 97% being centered on preventative assistance. The real focus being reproductive care for women who can’t afford alternatives, Planned Parenthood provides millions of breast exams, Pap smears and other services to a population where 75% of those treated live below the poverty level.

In the end, if there’s any legitimacy in Boehner’s claim that “the big fight is over the spending,” then the Republicans need to end their assault on Planned Parenthood. Federal law has prevented the use of federal funds for abortion since 1976 anyway, and $317 million of the federal budget is less than we spent in a single day bombing Libya.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has already rolled out the Republican proposal for the 2012 budget. That’s where the fight on spending cuts needs to move. After all, fiscal 2011 is already half over.

Right now, Republicans need to drop their “government is the problem” position and pretend for a minute that they’re actually interested in governing. They need to recognize that the Democrats have already compromised to the tune of 62% of what’s been demanded. They need to understand that good governing isn’t based on winner-take-all.

They really need to set aside their partisan agenda long enough to put the wellbeing of our nation ahead of their political gain.