Well….with all of the praise that Paul Ryan is getting for his budget proposals, you would think he was on to something new, since his plan has been deified in the right wing press as the heaven sent solution to all of our problems…okay, I made that last part up but I really think that has been the gist of the reaction from even mainstream media. To get a full explanation that is done better than I could do, check out Paul Krugman’s column in the NY times this morning…yeah, I know, I have been trying to not go there but it is hard to give up something that has been a part of my life for so many years. Now, back to the Ryan proposal, the cornerstone of this monstrosity is the re-invention of the voodoo economics of the Reagan administration; that is, that as you cut taxes, revenue to the government will rise…a theory that has been proven wrong every time it has been tried since the 80′s….if this stupid theory worked, the government would be awash in money and there would be no deficit problem since overall taxes are lower now that they have been on over 50 years. The only question that comes to my mind is prove it; where are all of these dollars they talk about?
The second thing that all of us should be quite concerned about is the inclusion in Ryan’s proposal to turn Medicare into a private insurance scam that would give insurance companies the ability to make trillions more profit off people that have no place else to go. How can he stand there with a straight face and say that it will save money to change a program that has a 9% overhead to one a private one whose overheard ranges from 20-30%. Just another plan to reward the rich insurance companies at the expense of you and me. Aren’t you tired of this crap yet? Geez….
Well….I do feel a little better so I thought I’d get this one out before I slink back to the couch to continue this slow, painful recovery. I have been having problems writing lately since it takes a lot out of me to be outraged all the time, and I do want to write about good news; there just hasn’t been any lately. That might not be completely true, there was an election in Wisconsin yesterday and the turnout by the people that want fairness restored to their political process was huge….maybe I was right that the repub thugs have overreached and misread the will of the people. No one but the rich could have voted for what gov Walker foisted on that state, or for what Paul Ryan is proposing on the federal level…that there will be no more social contract, that there will be no more shared responsibility, that the US will see the last 100 years of progress on social issues repealed. I just hope that we can keep up the outrage of the electorate now that the repubs have revealed their true selves….shame on us if we don’t…
Well….wonderful news out of Wisconsin that just shows how political cronyism is alive and well in that state…in case you didn’t get it, that was sarcasm…I know, it hard for me to get sarcasm across in writing…better writers can, but I’m still learning…yep, still learning in my 50′s. The news story goes like this…our friend gov. Walker, hires a non-college educated, double dui convicted son of a large political donor and lobbyist to head up his environmental and regulatory affairs department. This, from a governor whose stated goals are to gut all environmental and business regulation and is just another instance where you have the curtain peeled back on what the repubs want this country to look like…not promoted or hired on your merits or your hard work but on your connections no matter how unqualified you are…an extension of the GW Bush doctrine that you don’t have to be competent, just connected; one that Sarah Palin has used to great effect…yep, that’s the first mention of sister Sarah since Feb 1st….
The second part of this one I got from a column from Jay Ambrose in the Detroit News this morning…and I would like to say thank you Detroit News for so many easy targets for counterpunching. Mr. Ambrose goes on to equate the crazy assed birthers with those of us that constantly railed on about the actions of GW when he was in office. What he does not get is the core difference between the two groups…that the birthers are attacking who Obama IS, while we hated what GW DID to this country and the American way of life. This false equivalency runs through the repub talking points every day; where egregious hate of the tea party is compared to the workers of Wisconsin standing up for their rights and is therefore justified.
One last thing I wanted to talk about today is what I see as our country being lost, that there is no longer any place here for the dignity of the middle class and sharing of the fruits of our economy….I am loathe to suggest that since the normal avenues of redress in a democracy have been closed to us by the power of the money of the rich and business that we should use any method available….but I think that those who are greedily taking all they can get with little regard for the rest of us must start to think of the world that will be when the bottom 99% of us get fed up and use the last resorts they have left us…beware….
Well….a good bit of outrage has built up of the past few days reading the budget proposals that are coming out of the repubs, and Paul Ryan in particular…and I find it breathtaking that they think they can just steal 4 trillion more dollars from the country in the guise of “deficit reduction”. To put this whole idea in perspective, we only need to remember that without the Bush tax cuts for the rich, there would be no budget crisis…remember that, there would be no budget crisis if the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire. That is one of the things that these thieves don’t want you to know…one of the others is what they want to do to Medicare…they are back to their old scam of privatizing all of the safety nets that have kept older Americans out of poverty for 80 years and turning it into a private insurance con that would transfer more wealth into the hands of the rich and business. But this is not the only place these idiots want to attack while giving more to the rich…they want across the board cuts to every program that has any benefit to the middle class; saying it’s a needed sacrifice that the middle class needs to make…my question is: “where is the sacrifice from the rich?” Don’t waste your time looking….you won’t find it. What would have happened if Social Security and Medicare were privatized when the financial meltdown happened; perpetrated by the rich for the rich? All of us in the middle class would have lost everything while the bankers walked away with their millions and millions in bonuses.
Please, people, start paying attention and don’t let these liars take what is left of the country….geez….
Well….I have been thinking about my idea of proposing solutions to Michigan’s problems and it’s much harder than just bitching…so I’m not sure how long it’s going to take to get something that makes sense….one thing I would like to see is a progressive income tax here…one thing that the repubs don’t want you to know is the fact that even with tax rates that were twice what they are now, we had huge periods of growth and job creation…along with balanced budgets. During that time, the interstate road system was built, good schools were everywhere, and there were possibilities that we could be better. Where are we now? Tax rates are lower than they have been in 50 years and there is still no job creation…so when the repubs say they want more of the same, my jaw drops with the stupidity of that stance.
Okay…I promised, so I’ll change tack here….I heard a news show on MSNBC today and I just about lost my lunch…these people were bitching that ceo’s are being hurt by the recession, too…with the admonition that we shouldn’t pick on them since they were taking a hit along with the rest of us….yep, I couldn’t believe it either….these poor guys are only making 800 times what their workers make…down from 900 times….I’m going to cry a tear for them and their hard times…geez…
One last thing….there may be a budding revolt going on in the repub ranks here in Michigan over the draconian cuts in school funding while giving all that money to business in the form of tax cuts….yay…
Well….it has struck me, thinking over the last couple of weeks, that the only thing the repubs are good at is taking away peoples rights or preventing classes they don’t like in gaining the rights that the rest of us enjoy. I know I’ve talked about this before, but this same old silliness has taken over the repubs like never before….let’s take away the rights of people to bargain, let’s take away the rights of people to be let alone (i.e. the Patriot Act), and let’s prevent gays from having the rights they deserve. My larger question here is what does this nonsense have to do with creating jobs and helping repair the middle class that has been destroyed over the past 30 years? The quick answer is nothing…but that’s what the repubs do, talk, promise, and lie, then give more to the rich. Their latest trick to silence their critics? They are now using the Freedom of Information Act to go on fishing expeditions to try to find innocuous e-mails that can be twisted in their latest smear campaign…and are they asking for those of the right-leaners…of course not…I’ve told you before these folks are just a bunch of thugs and this is just another example that they will stop at nothing to destroy anyone that does not agree with them.
Okay…are you getting tired of me bitching about this? Yeah, I am too…but you can see how difficult this is to keep fresh….I am going to keep trying, and trying, and trying….
Well…to hear the repubs talk, the reason there are no jobs being created here in the US is the “fact” that corporate taxes are too high and this taxation is driving companies overseas. Really? they are still saying this after the news that came out about G.E. yesterday? In case you didn’t hear, one of our largest corporations, General Electric, paid no taxes last year…yep, you’ve got it, the company that is being held up as the shining example of success here figured out a way to not pay any taxes…but more than that they figured out how to steal 3.2 billion dollars of your and my money in the form of a tax refund…and that figures to a negative 60% tax rate. Where is your overtaxation now repubs? The second fact that these tax cutters don’t want you to know is that over 60% of American corporations paid little or no taxes last year. When was the last time you or I paid little or no taxes? These guys should be ashamed of taking advantage of the infrastructure that you and I pay for to make obscene profits and then twisting the knife by taking food out of the mouths of our poor. How many people could be fed with the 3.2 billion dollars that G.E. didn’t deserve? Geez….
Well…this is going to be a shorty since it is just a short thought on my part…it came from a quote from our gov Rick Snyder that I read in the papers a couple of days ago, when asked if he is concerned that his approval ratings and the polling on his agenda is moving steadily downward, this moron (or republican…today the terms are pretty much interchangeable) said that the only thing that counted was the result of the election that put he and his repub co-conspirators into office….he just doesn’t care that 66 percent of the people of Michigan do not like or want the direction he has taken with raising taxes on individuals and giving more tax breaks to business, along with the undemocratic laws that have been passed by his legislature that will allow him to remove elected officials and replace them with his cronies. I think the people are finally waking up to the shenanigans of this new crop of repubs and their anti middle class agenda once it was revealed for what it is…stealing more from the working class to give to the richest…governor, you are supposed to govern for all of the people of Michigan…not just your country club buddies…geez…
Well…I know I’m late, and I also know that most of you read this after you get back from lunch…and I’ve tried to write to the statistics of my site and make sure there is one here for you then…today has just been crazy with too many things happening for me to keep the schedule…I did get the car back already and I hope thy have fixed it…they better have for 300 bucks.
Now to get to the topic….I’ve been seeing really heartening developments when I look at the recent polls on what the repubs have been doing in Wisconsin, Ohio, and other states, including my own great state of Michigan….the only way these guys got elected was to lie and conceal what they were truly going to do and now that it has been revealed, all of the independents that voted for them are gone…and even some of the repubs are bailing on these idiots because some repubs still have a sense of fairness and I say to them, come on over, the waters fine on the thinking side…can’t wait for 2012….
Well….this one just popped into my head a few minutes ago and I wasn’t even thinking about it….to preface this one, you just have to remember how the repubs have been screeching and screaming about how public employees are overpaid leeches sucking the life out of our state and something must be done to cut their pay and benefits. But then, in comes the new governor and pays his top aides significantly more than the outgoing administration, saying that you have to pay more to get people to take government jobs. You see the inconsistency, don’t you? It’s okay to pay the top people (like the ceo’s and vice presidents) whatever they want, but the regular workers that take public jobs are not top, qualified, people but are just lazy, greedy folks that don’t really want to work. Just more of the same class warfare crap where the people at the top take as much as they can…where’s the “shared sacrifice” governor Snyder? Geez….