Republicans support the wealthy, the CEO's, the corporations; the worker is chopped liver. But Democrats are afraid: of the wealthy, the CEO's and the corporations--and enough are bought off, too.
Our two party system has been described as a duopoly, and when you look at the Obama/McConnell/Reid/Boehner compromise over "the fiscal cliff," you see that it is.
Remaining on the right, are the angry Tea Partiers, who distrust government in all its forms, though they're not unwilling to rip it off. Remaining on the left are forlorn progressives, who yearn for a government they can trust: they see one that's only protecting the "One Percent."
Both fringes attempt to push government more to their liking, but the duopoly has other plans: it's owned by the corporations: the banks, oil companies, media and more.
The anger among Tea Partiers is genuine, but the billionaire lobby, from astro-turf roots to media campaigns, to think tank creations, contrives its targets.
Anger on the left is at least as real, but its targets are scattered. Their anger focuses on exploitation, of, by and for the corporations, but also on government and military-style repression: they have little money behind them.
We don't have a Fourth Amendment any longer: unlawful search and seizure has been pushed aside by Terrorism and Drugs. All a local prosecutor, or enforcement officer, need do is to record everyone within electronic reach. Soon, I predict, all they'll have to do is apply to the NSA, or whatever Federal entity has become the repository, to access phone, email and Internet files on anyone "of interest." That's why everyone's online (and cloud) records are being recorded in the massive surveillance program initiated by the NSA. The justification: to intercept any terrorists before they act.
Stalin gained power by controlling information about everyone; people need to wrest that power back. And this is an issue where both fringes could/should collaborate. Tea Partiers hate the idea of government surveillance as much as lefties.
Unless "the fringes" can come together in resistance, there is no escape. Republicans and Democrats are equally implicated in the Surveillance State. Democratic Senator Feinstein and President Obama are as much a part of it as Bush II, Cheney and Senator McCain. The renewal--and strengthening--of the NDAA in December demonstrates this.
In the Fifth Century Empire, Roman Senators and German generals collaborated in controlling and repressing the humiliores.
With powers of surveillance and manipulation of information greater than Stalin ever dreamed of, the modern American state soon will leave no room for real dissent. That could be its downfall, just like the Stalinist state before it.
Like the USSR's failed New Lands wheat projects, the US plunges into fracking, oil sands and nuclear, while the rest of the world pushes ahead with solar, wind and bio-fuel alternatives.
We'll decline, driven by government-corporate induced blindness. Others will rise--if there is any livable environment left.
Showing posts with label fiscal cliff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiscal cliff. Show all posts
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Falling For The Cliff
The "fiscal cliff" was a contrivance Democrats and Republicans, Obama and Boehner/McConnell, all thought would work for them. It should have worked for Obama and the Democrats.
Obama won reelection convincingly, and his most salient deficit-cutting issue was raising taxes on the wealthy with incomes over $250,000. That was part of his proposal to reduce the deficit with proper balance between expenditure cuts and revenue increases. Polls showed high levels of support. So, why did he give in to Republicans at all?
Sure, the Biden/McConnell tentative agreement is an admission by Republican Senators that they are on the wrong side of the tax issue, unemployment insurance extensions and low-income enhancers like the Earned Income Tax Credit.
On the other hand, for Democrats, trying to avoid the 'fiscal cliff' was bad strategy, because allowing tax increases to go up temporarily would have increased Obama's leverage: the no-tax-hike GOP can be assailed for opposing tax cuts, if the deadline of the fiscal cliff really passes with no agreement. Isn't it more plausible that they'd vote for tax cuts to everyone with incomes below $250,000, instead of raising taxes on the wealthy? They wouldn't even break the Norquist no-tax-hike pledge. And people wouldn't blame them for a stalemate, which growing numbers of people--and financial rating institutions--will do if they don't go along.
But, no, Obama, after months campaigning on the $250,000 figure, opens his latest bid with raising the rate to $400,000, a position Speaker Boehner had taken less than a month before.
Obama has already sounded conciliatory about cutting Social Security benefits--through adjusting the Cost of Living--yet Social Security is self-funding and its surpluses have financed some of the deficits for a long time. He's tried out cuts to Medicare eligibility, but Medicare proponents--Democratic activists--through much pressure, have persuaded him to withdraw the proposal.
Why doesn't he, or other Democrats, propose cuts to oil and coal subsidies? We have no business continuing to promote these polluters in the face of accelerating global warming.
Obama and "moderate" Democrats are either afraid of the money big oil, banks, etc. can wield against them, or they’ve been bought out by it. The same could be said of "defense" expenditures: no one spends anywhere near as much as we do on military and surveillance, yet neither Democrats nor Republicans see the mandated Pentagon cuts as an opportunity.
The US, through its dysfunctional politics and polarization, its obeisance to status quo interests and its fear of crossing capitalists, is leading the world to a violent conflagration brought on by increasingly disruptive climate change. Capitalists, said Lenin, will sell you the rope to hang them.
In fifth-century Rome, Senators even bought the rope, and applied it to their own necks.
Obama won reelection convincingly, and his most salient deficit-cutting issue was raising taxes on the wealthy with incomes over $250,000. That was part of his proposal to reduce the deficit with proper balance between expenditure cuts and revenue increases. Polls showed high levels of support. So, why did he give in to Republicans at all?
Sure, the Biden/McConnell tentative agreement is an admission by Republican Senators that they are on the wrong side of the tax issue, unemployment insurance extensions and low-income enhancers like the Earned Income Tax Credit.
On the other hand, for Democrats, trying to avoid the 'fiscal cliff' was bad strategy, because allowing tax increases to go up temporarily would have increased Obama's leverage: the no-tax-hike GOP can be assailed for opposing tax cuts, if the deadline of the fiscal cliff really passes with no agreement. Isn't it more plausible that they'd vote for tax cuts to everyone with incomes below $250,000, instead of raising taxes on the wealthy? They wouldn't even break the Norquist no-tax-hike pledge. And people wouldn't blame them for a stalemate, which growing numbers of people--and financial rating institutions--will do if they don't go along.
But, no, Obama, after months campaigning on the $250,000 figure, opens his latest bid with raising the rate to $400,000, a position Speaker Boehner had taken less than a month before.
Obama has already sounded conciliatory about cutting Social Security benefits--through adjusting the Cost of Living--yet Social Security is self-funding and its surpluses have financed some of the deficits for a long time. He's tried out cuts to Medicare eligibility, but Medicare proponents--Democratic activists--through much pressure, have persuaded him to withdraw the proposal.
Why doesn't he, or other Democrats, propose cuts to oil and coal subsidies? We have no business continuing to promote these polluters in the face of accelerating global warming.
Obama and "moderate" Democrats are either afraid of the money big oil, banks, etc. can wield against them, or they’ve been bought out by it. The same could be said of "defense" expenditures: no one spends anywhere near as much as we do on military and surveillance, yet neither Democrats nor Republicans see the mandated Pentagon cuts as an opportunity.
The US, through its dysfunctional politics and polarization, its obeisance to status quo interests and its fear of crossing capitalists, is leading the world to a violent conflagration brought on by increasingly disruptive climate change. Capitalists, said Lenin, will sell you the rope to hang them.
In fifth-century Rome, Senators even bought the rope, and applied it to their own necks.
Friday, December 21, 2012
US House: No One In Charge
Never raise taxes!
The GOP caucus in the House of Representatives will only be mollified if taxes on the wealthy are cut even more. Further, to reduce Government debt, they demand most cuts to the budget have to come from non-Defense spending, especially programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare and food stamps (SNAP) that benefit the middle class and poor, but are unnecessary to the wealthy.
No one seems to be in charge in the House. Speaker Boehner's odious "Plan B," which would have been unacceptable to Democrats and the President, was an attempt to mollify the right-wing extremists in the GOP; still, it didn't pass Boehner's own caucus: it raised taxes on millionaires.
No one is in charge. The President's re-election, an increase in the Democratic minority in the House and of its majority in the Senate, makes no difference within the Republican caucus. This is because the House majority won convincingly in their gerrymandered districts (drawn by state majorities won in the Republican landslide of 2010). Despite receiving fewer votes overall than Democratic Congressional candidates, GOP Congressmen fear, not Democrats--their districts were drawn to be majority Republican--but members of their own party "primarying" them from the right, if they don't follow an extreme right-wing agenda. That means cutting taxes on the wealthy and sticking it to the people Romney tried to stigmatize as the dependent 47% (more like 52%).
The House majority of a majority therefore refuses to compromise, because they'd lose next time round to right-wing challengers if they did. A more moderate majority--of Democrats and pragmatic Republicans--might exist in the House, in theory. However, the majority's leadership controls the House's business, and it's likely that Boehner would block a pragmatic bipartisan majority's proposals from a vote--unless he's willing to risk his Speakership for real statesmanship. That's unlikely.
Therefore, an ideological minority (the House GOP caucus majority) refuses, as of 12/20/12, to allow any tax increases on the wealthy and won't back down from demanding large cuts to social programs, either. So, we could start sliding down the fiscal slope.
Radical Republicans appear truly determined to replay what happened in the Roman Senate in 476, when Roman Senators refused to raise taxes on themselves, and preferred to allow the takeover of the German (Ostrogothic) palace guard. That precipitated the Fall of Rome.
In 2013, taxes will automatically go up--for everyone. Then, if Republicans don't agree to cut taxes on everyone but the wealthy, they will probably cause a renewed recession. Yet, they were the ones who demanded this so-called "fiscal cliff" to cut the debt. Under that default plan, there would be more cuts to the Pentagon than to domestic spending, and entitlements wouldn't be touched. That's why I hope there isn't a bipartisan "grand bargain," except on the above tax "cuts."
Either Republicans have slashed their own throats, or everyone else's as well: welcome to European-style austerity and recession.
The GOP caucus in the House of Representatives will only be mollified if taxes on the wealthy are cut even more. Further, to reduce Government debt, they demand most cuts to the budget have to come from non-Defense spending, especially programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare and food stamps (SNAP) that benefit the middle class and poor, but are unnecessary to the wealthy.
No one seems to be in charge in the House. Speaker Boehner's odious "Plan B," which would have been unacceptable to Democrats and the President, was an attempt to mollify the right-wing extremists in the GOP; still, it didn't pass Boehner's own caucus: it raised taxes on millionaires.
No one is in charge. The President's re-election, an increase in the Democratic minority in the House and of its majority in the Senate, makes no difference within the Republican caucus. This is because the House majority won convincingly in their gerrymandered districts (drawn by state majorities won in the Republican landslide of 2010). Despite receiving fewer votes overall than Democratic Congressional candidates, GOP Congressmen fear, not Democrats--their districts were drawn to be majority Republican--but members of their own party "primarying" them from the right, if they don't follow an extreme right-wing agenda. That means cutting taxes on the wealthy and sticking it to the people Romney tried to stigmatize as the dependent 47% (more like 52%).
The House majority of a majority therefore refuses to compromise, because they'd lose next time round to right-wing challengers if they did. A more moderate majority--of Democrats and pragmatic Republicans--might exist in the House, in theory. However, the majority's leadership controls the House's business, and it's likely that Boehner would block a pragmatic bipartisan majority's proposals from a vote--unless he's willing to risk his Speakership for real statesmanship. That's unlikely.
Therefore, an ideological minority (the House GOP caucus majority) refuses, as of 12/20/12, to allow any tax increases on the wealthy and won't back down from demanding large cuts to social programs, either. So, we could start sliding down the fiscal slope.
Radical Republicans appear truly determined to replay what happened in the Roman Senate in 476, when Roman Senators refused to raise taxes on themselves, and preferred to allow the takeover of the German (Ostrogothic) palace guard. That precipitated the Fall of Rome.
In 2013, taxes will automatically go up--for everyone. Then, if Republicans don't agree to cut taxes on everyone but the wealthy, they will probably cause a renewed recession. Yet, they were the ones who demanded this so-called "fiscal cliff" to cut the debt. Under that default plan, there would be more cuts to the Pentagon than to domestic spending, and entitlements wouldn't be touched. That's why I hope there isn't a bipartisan "grand bargain," except on the above tax "cuts."
Either Republicans have slashed their own throats, or everyone else's as well: welcome to European-style austerity and recession.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
The Fiscal Slope
It really isn't a cliff; most people don't pay taxes in January; Congress will have time to fix things after the first of the year and has often written tax and spending bills that are retroactive.
One of the advantages of delay is that a "tax increase" on Dec. 31st, i.e. not extending Bush tax cuts, becomes an opportunity for "tax cuts" on January 1st. The Obama/Democratic program of maintaining the lower tax rates for the middle class, becomes "tax cuts" in January. The higher rates, for those with incomes over $250,000, does not become a tax increase: it would simply remain as part of the agreement reached between Congress and the President, as part of the bargain to cut the deficit and debt. The Republican House agreed to this as the fall-back position for cutting the deficit.
This whole "cut the deficit" mania came from the Tea Party caucus in the House: it's miss-timed. The Great Recession has driven most of the current deficit by stimulus and aid to people in distress, and collecting less revenue because fewer people are working.
The whole mechanism of government spending more in a recession in order to ameliorate misery, despite revenue shortfalls, was an innovation of the New Deal. It's not surprising that reactionary Republicans want to repeal the practice.
Consider what would have happened if we'd adopted the balanced budget amendment long advocated by "fiscal conservatives": as revenue went down in the financial collapse of 2008, government would have been required either to raise taxes on those still working, and/or to cut expenditures--on food stamps, schools and everything else, even Defense. The result would have been an ever deeper, broader and self-reinforcing hole in the economy and mass misery. Today we'd still be in a deep depression with no way to dig ourselves out. We'd be in worse shape than Europe.
Once we've spent enough to create jobs (and hopefully to restructure the economy), then is the time to raise taxes on those who currently can't afford it, or to find other ways to balance the books: now is not that time; the economy is still too fragile and too many people are still out of work.
However, to avoid the so-called cliff, to begin to reduce the deficits in ways the nation can afford, raising taxes on high income earners makes sense. They do not "create jobs," from their rising incomes. The corporations they own will hire when there is demand for the goods and services they produce. Not before. High-income earners have garnered almost all the increased wealth since the start of the Great Recession: they are largely sitting on it, or investing it elsewhere.
The Republican insistence on lower tax rates for the wealthy is like the Roman Senate in 476 refusing to raise their taxes to pay the Ostrogoth palace guard. That action precipitated the "fall of Rome."
One of the advantages of delay is that a "tax increase" on Dec. 31st, i.e. not extending Bush tax cuts, becomes an opportunity for "tax cuts" on January 1st. The Obama/Democratic program of maintaining the lower tax rates for the middle class, becomes "tax cuts" in January. The higher rates, for those with incomes over $250,000, does not become a tax increase: it would simply remain as part of the agreement reached between Congress and the President, as part of the bargain to cut the deficit and debt. The Republican House agreed to this as the fall-back position for cutting the deficit.
This whole "cut the deficit" mania came from the Tea Party caucus in the House: it's miss-timed. The Great Recession has driven most of the current deficit by stimulus and aid to people in distress, and collecting less revenue because fewer people are working.
The whole mechanism of government spending more in a recession in order to ameliorate misery, despite revenue shortfalls, was an innovation of the New Deal. It's not surprising that reactionary Republicans want to repeal the practice.
Consider what would have happened if we'd adopted the balanced budget amendment long advocated by "fiscal conservatives": as revenue went down in the financial collapse of 2008, government would have been required either to raise taxes on those still working, and/or to cut expenditures--on food stamps, schools and everything else, even Defense. The result would have been an ever deeper, broader and self-reinforcing hole in the economy and mass misery. Today we'd still be in a deep depression with no way to dig ourselves out. We'd be in worse shape than Europe.
Once we've spent enough to create jobs (and hopefully to restructure the economy), then is the time to raise taxes on those who currently can't afford it, or to find other ways to balance the books: now is not that time; the economy is still too fragile and too many people are still out of work.
However, to avoid the so-called cliff, to begin to reduce the deficits in ways the nation can afford, raising taxes on high income earners makes sense. They do not "create jobs," from their rising incomes. The corporations they own will hire when there is demand for the goods and services they produce. Not before. High-income earners have garnered almost all the increased wealth since the start of the Great Recession: they are largely sitting on it, or investing it elsewhere.
The Republican insistence on lower tax rates for the wealthy is like the Roman Senate in 476 refusing to raise their taxes to pay the Ostrogoth palace guard. That action precipitated the "fall of Rome."
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