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Republicans and Democrats Both Want to Kill You!
Republicans and Democrats Both Want to Kill You!
What is happening to this country?
Robert Reich points out that, in announcing the Republicans’ new budget and tax plan Tuesday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said “We are sharpening the contrast between the path that we’re proposing and the path of debt and decline the president has placed us upon.” But the plan doesn’t do much to reduce the debt. Even by its own estimate the deficit would drop to $166 billion in 2018 and then begin growing again.
The real contrast is over what the plan does for the rich and what it does to everyone else. It reduces the top individual and corporate tax rates to 25 percent. This would give the wealthiest Americans an average tax cut of at least $150,000 a year. The money would come out of programs for the elderly, lower-middle families, and the poor.
"So what’s the guiding principle here?" asks Reich. "Pure social Darwinism. Reward the rich and cut off the help to anyone who needs it."
Most Americans who do have jobs continue to lose ground. New research by professors Emmanual Saez and Thomas Pikkety show that the average adjusted gross income of the bottom 90 percent was $29,840 in 2010 — down $127 from 2009, down $4,842 from 2000, and just slightly more than $29,448 in 1966 (all figures adjusted for inflation). Ryan says too many Americans rely on government benefits. “We don’t want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into lives of dependency.”
Well, I have new for Paul Ryan, says Robert Reich: Almost 23 million able-bodied people still can’t find work. They’re not being lulled into dependency. They and their families need help. Even if the economy continues to generate new jobs at the rate it’s been going the last three months, we wouldn’t see normal rates of unemployment until 2017.
I wish I could tell you that Ryan's Republicans made the most disturbing statement I've heard from Government officials recently - but they didn't. That honor goes to Obama's Attorney General, Eric Holder, who gave a lecture at Northwestern University outlining his three-part test for determining when it's "OK" to execute a US citizen without a trial. Steve Colbert explains it nicely:
Do you see a theme here? We are being de-humanized by both parties in our Government. They already took away your right to Liberty under the Patriot Act, and Paul Ryan and his cronies are making the Pursuit of Happiness a game for the top 1% only, and now we have Eric Holder saying that the right to Life is not so much a guarantee under the constitution as it is a sort of conditional privilege - as long as you don't piss off anyone in power.
At the moment, the people in power seem to be on our side so Yay!, I guess.
The NSDAP rose to power in Germany with a popular "war" against Communism in which they too lobbied to change the rules of due process to "expedite" the necessary pursuit of their enemies, who could be anyone - anywhere.
As they morphed into the Nazi Party, they took advantage of those "minor changes" to consolidate their power.
Soon the definition of who constituted a threat expanded to Gypsies, Jews, Black People, Homosexuals and anyone else who happened to disagree with them - BUT IT WAS ALL LEGAL! When did "never again" turn back into "maybe later"?
Again, we're not "one of those people" so we have nothing to worry about, right? Actually, we are right back to where we were in 2007, when I first began warning people that the ever-expanding wealth gap in this nation only served to make the top 10% (those of us who can afford to invest in the markets) THINK that things were going well - even as they were falling apart.
Even now, the infrastructure of this country is coming apart at the seams and Paul Ryan wants to cut 80% of the Government's discretionary budget over 8 years. It's not even a fantasy - it's a nightmare!
Obama has already cut Government spending more than any President since Bill Clinton and 600,000 Government employees have lost their jobs (making Obama's net job creation numbers seem much worse than they are) but no amount of cutting and gutting will ever satisfy the Republicans until our entire Government is outsourced to Corporate Interests.
You are probably thinking "Great - which ones so I can buy stock in them" but this is not a recipe for growth - this nothing more than a wealth extraction - draining America dry the same way business people drain the cash out of a near-bankrupt company by refusing to spend money and draining all of the cash flow until it dwindles away to nothing - at which point they default on the debts, lay off all the remaining employees (reneging on their pensions) while the top dogs parachute out and head off for the next fatted calf to slaughter (see SHLD).
15 Greek Billionaires rank among the World's richest men (an outsized number as their economy is 1/50th the size of ours) and they and the poorer 99% of the top 1% drained that country dry over the past few decades but they all get to walk away and leave the other 20M Greek citizens and their children and their grandchildren to clean up the mess they made.
You can see it in Greece because there was no interruption of the program between the Reagan/Thatcher/Kohl revolution of the 80s and today, while the US had 8 years of Clinton pushing some of the wealth back to the middle class - which bought us a little more time but, with a debt to GDP ratio now over 100% and rising fast - we're not very far behind.
As you can see from the chart above, since the 70's and especially since the early 80's, this country has done nothing but go massively into debt - JUST LIKE GREECE - and our wealth is being extracted by the top 1% - JUST LIKE GREECE - and they will throw the bottom 99% to the wolves when the bill comes due while the top 1% skate out of this country and leave it an ungovernable wasteland with no future - JUST LIKE GREECE. But, unlike Greece - there will be no EU to bail us out.
The EU bailout is merely and "extend and pretend" move by the wealth extractors to make the bottom 99% of the nations that haven't been destroyed yet think that business as usual is still OK and, meanwhile, let's borrow more money and lower those pesky taxes and eliminate those annoying regulations because "that will fix everything." It's like the plot to a dystopian fantasy only we're not merely living in it, we're playing the part of the unwitting masses whose lives are being sacrificed on the alter of profits for the puppet-masters.
THIS is why I am concerned about the "rally." I was right in 2007 but it took an entire year for the market to collapse. I don't think we have as long this time because our second assault on the Middle Class and the poor is akin to kicking them when they are already down. On the left we have a chart of gas sales in California - the bottom 99% simply don't have anything left to give us and if people like Paul Ryan are going to insist on bleeding them until they die (or revolt) - he's likely to get that wish a lot sooner than we all think.
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robert reich was the bad guy on wild wild west i remember him
dont trust him ileene(to the left)
You write an article that supposedly is about the party dichotomy being irrelevant, and then use this false pretense to push to a "left good, right bad" propaganda piece on me?
Article junked, you hypocrite and liar.
Robert Reich is blabbering the same nonsense as Krugman, only in a more oblique way.
Wow. Another 'expose' by Team Blue, attempting to sound 'objective' by throwing in the tyrant Holder in there for flavor. Obama CUT spending?! AYFKM?! Obama CUT 600,000 gubment jobs?! AYFKM?!
And once again...for the quintillionth time...we have to endure the incessant lunatic concept of 'tax cut for A' = 'paid for by B' logic. When Uncle Sugar steals less of your money, it is not because someone else cut you a check. It's because Uncle Sugar STOLE LESS OF YOUR MONEY. Tax cuts only have to be 'paid for' when they aren't tax cuts at all.....meaning Uncle Sugar spends the money he didn't steal from you anyway, either by borrowing it or printing it.
When Bush Jr. cut the taxes of everyone including the lowest earners.....why wasn't there all this 'concern' over how THOSE cuts would be 'paid for'? Why do only tax cuts for 'the rich' need to be 'paid for'?
P.S. Assumptions that I'm defending Bush in 3, 2, 1........
Robert Reich is on video at Berkeley advocating euthanasia for old people... to save money, so the government union employees can stay employed.
Obama didn't lay off anybody, the states cut back on their wasteful socialist ways and the fetid unions threw out the least senior... not a meritocracy. Cuba has just 11 million people.... and even commie Castro laid off 500K last year.
Coming for communists, socialists, unionists? But... Er, aren't they the TSA-like jackboots who are always coming for everybody else? Over 9000 documented cases of union violence in the last 20 years. Union boy Obama said Americans were enemies that needed to be punished.
Owebamacare has Critical Race Theory embedded in it. Example: Whites and Asians are going to get their respirator plugs pulled out by the beaurocrats until the actuarials are the same as blacks for disease morbidity and life expectancy -- by law. But the discrepancis are really due to things like lack of compliance with diabetic regimens, drugs, murders, and race specific problems such as sickle cell trait that have nothing to do with racism. This is just revenge killing of whites and Asians -- by law.
Before we resort to euthanasia and rationing of anyone's health care, Pelosi, Obama, and Reich and the other fascists in DC better be flying commercial coach first.
you want to spend millions of dollars on a 95 year old to keep her alive for another 5 years when she can't even enjoy much of her life?
look at Japan...thousands of old folks living into 115+ years.....shit gets old.
do you want to outlive your grandchildren, have nothing in common with people within 3 decades, seeing same bullshit year after year, wear diapers and live in a prison?
Robert Reich is short ugly man.....short man are usually smart because that's all they've got to offer.
I don't care how long you want to live, as long as you pay for it. If you get sick and are on the dying list, don't ask me to pay for it, I got my own troubles, I'm gonna be on that dying list too one day.
You must be tall and handsome.
Reich is currently Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at theUniversity of California, Berkeley.
The squid has many testicles.
Muppets of the world unite!
Yea, that's what I have been talkiing about for years now. They, Congress are just doing their job.
Government...job...
Isn't that like Jumbo Shrimp? Federal Reserve? Sound US money?
Oxymorons...
It's a one party state.
Sucking America dry by not spending enough? This article makes no sense - Obama's job creaion numbers are depressed by his slashing or gov't sector - you are kidding, right?
Peak corruption, then comes peak genocide.
Hey FuckTard Phil.....
Get over the Republican,Democrat thing,you sound like it makes a difference , the banks run....and own.... both fucking parties.....
stopped reading. this sucked fucking ballz.
I suggest that in this case it is the devil you know that is far more dangerous (and prepared) than the devil you do not.
Allowing Obama a second term is suicide.
Maybe that is the best choice?
Seriously, this bomb is clearly going off anyway.
I'm not going to cooperate. I accept that most likely will.
Destruction and suffering, pain and sacrifice, weed out the less capable and ultimately will likely benefit our species................On a long enough timeline.
It's evolution bitchez!
Pain is the greatest teacher.
Who is Tyler Durden? Corporations are not people, my friend.
"but this is not a recipe for growth"
It always comes down to this ASSUMED correct premise, doesn't it?
Sorry, perpetual growth on a finite planet ISN'T possible. Championing for growth only speeds up the point where we meet the end of the road, the cliff's edge (and, no doubt, will be goaded to continue to seek "growth" and step right over).
You get NOWHERE unless you start out with a valid premise. Clearly TPTB's puppets have no interest in us engaging in any debate about what the correct premise should be, lest it eliminate Their positions of power.
Here's whats a gonna happen. An uprising is going to breakout this year against Govt and banking terrorism. Smart lawyers and hopeful politicians are going to begin legal actions with the backing of 99% of the people to throw those guilty of treason and financial terrorism into prison. New politicians will be put into office and the distribution of the wealth that the Rockefeller's the Bushs, the Rotheschilds and so on, have stolen, will be redistributed as part of the implementation of a financially viable open source monetary system. Not to worry.
Mssrs. Ryan et al: its Xmas in March:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUFfeTjuPeg
too bad the rest of the fish pond is ignorant
Ahhh....nice! Thanks Etch a Sketch
I've been lookin' for a good thread and post to lock me into the "Left/Right Paradigm"
"Knobs with a Purpose"
(a sort of 'rebels without a cause' for politicos)
“Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.”
What about a "Don't Re-Tool" graphic for Mittens?
WB7illiant as always.
Tricky Mitt!!!!!
Tricky Willard!
Need to start calling him by his REAL birthname...
You see much. What do Mormons call bealzubub?
Obama
If you're referring to "Beelzebub," um... Mitt?
damitt(ens)!
sp
Please shake that thing FAST.....you're scaring me!!!
I can't believe Robert Reich is being quoted on here as a legitimate source. That guy is as communist as Chairman Mao.
This article reads like a piece of Soviet Agitprop.
-10 points of credibility to Zero Hedge for even posting this.
At least ryan recogizes that you cannot pay half the country to sit on their asses. Our unfunded liabilities(rarly mentioned) are going to bring this whole fantasy to a very unpleasent end.
Seriously?. In a fiat currency paradigm, funding the liabilities is a matter of CNTL P and given the bailouts, the REAL liabilities concerning those conjurers of currency are quite funded indeed.
Or was that just a talking point?
Nice try at obfucation.
"Obama has already cut Government spending more than any President since Bill Clinton and 600,000 Government employees have lost their jobs (making Obama's net job creation numbers seem much worse than they are) but no amount of cutting and gutting will ever satisfy the Republicans until our entire Government is outsourced to Corporate Interests. "
You feckin paid shrill ......
Rage, rifles, and rope - We gonna need all three.
You are forgetting the tar and feathers. It just won't be any fun without tar... and feathers.
"Corporations are people my friend" Mitt Romney on the campaign trail, 2012.
In which case they should also be subject to the death penalty for (convictions of) premeditated murder.
Saw DK's many times, one the best bands ever! Kalifornia, Uber Alles!
That was a great song, written in the long ago days before the American left became slavish apologists for the iron hand of centralized government.
Jello Biafra types- Question Authority!
American leftist circa 2012- How dare you question my authority you traitor! Burn the witch! Silence them!
I have a lot of trouble working up a good head of worry (and I am a worrier) about losing government jobs. I could probably tolerate zero in government employ before I started to think..."hey, maybe we should have a few judges, cops and even a general".
Returning to real money will financially starve the buggers first.
The real reason you pay an income tax, is for the privilege of using a private currency.
Also known As A: Federal Reserve Note
Demand from your bank, lawful money and the tax goes away, with a tax exemption on lawful money, all of your money is yours.
http://www.21silver.com/?show=merrill&read=federal_reserve_act_remedy
http://stormthunder.com/federal-reserve-act/
Tax Exemption: http://stormthunder.com/federal-reserve-act/#ixzz1pOYzDgEm
Web search these two different phrases
Redeemed in Lawful money Pursuant to Title 12 USC §411 or
deposited for credit on account or exchanged for
non-negotiable federal reserve notes of face value
Agreed. Since so many government jobs were added in the last three years, plenty can be lost before I start to lose any sleep about them. I'm pretty sure they aren't spending much time worrying about the rest of us.
Sorry pal, you should research before you bloviate, over 500,000 government jobs have been lost since Obama was elected.
er maybe not........http://www.opm.gov/feddata/HistoricalTables/TotalGovernmentSince1962.asp