Well…I know I’ve talked about the way that the repubs in Wisconsin and other midwestern states are trying to rig the system by taking away union’s rights to collectively bargain, but there is an even more egregious attempt at rigging taking place in states that have large college populations. In those states, the newly elected repub governors are changing voting rules that will effectively take away the right to vote from any college student that does not own property in that state, or whose parents don’t own property in that state. All of this is being done under the fake old problems that the repubs love to use when they lose elections: voter fraud. You and I both know the real reason behind these moves is to limit the voting of a population that normally does not vote for repub candidates, and it has been tried in many other guises to try to limit the voting of minorities who also don’t normally vote for repubs. Should we expect anything different from a party whose members have used a rigged system in education, economics, and politics to get everything they have?
When are we going to wake up and see these thugs for what they are, the most undemocratic party that has ever infested our political landscape and who will stop at nothing to cling to the last vestiges of power and privilege they now hold. Geez….
Well…yeah, I know, I stole that from Al Gore but it does describe the situation here in Michigan where the misguided repubs are betting the future of job growth on tax cuts for business while raising taxes on everyone else. This idea came from a couple of columns I read this morning and caused some of the econ 101 memories to come back to the top of my head. One of the articles was by Brian O’Connor in the Detroit News…yeah, I know, with an article going against the repubs line, where is he going to go to work next? The article dealt with the repubs claim that tax cuts for business will cause the cost of labor to decrease so business will hire more people, and he used the example of a conversation with the owner of one his favorite pizza places; when asked the question, the owner wanted to know what corporation would be buying the extra pizzas he needs to sell to justify hiring new employees and expanding his business. With tax increases on everyone else, the first thing to go in discretionary spending is eating out, and without an increase in demand for his pizzas, no amount of tax cuts will make him hire even one more person.
This points to the inconvenient truth that the repubs don’t want anyone to think about…with tax cuts for business and increases for everyone else, demand is going to fall and no business is going to hire in the face of decreasing demand….gov Snyder might have made millions selling off Gateway, but he and his administration are acting like the truths of economics can be trumped by belief….a recipe for disaster for our state and country….geez…
Well…I just had to comment on the article by Rick Haglund in the GR Press this morning that supports my assertion (as do the numbers behind it) that tax cuts for business and for high income individuals do nothing to create jobs. But, as you know, I take it farther than that by following the money….that these tax cuts go directly to the bonuses of the ceos and board members and are paid by you and me by the increases in our taxes. The figures show that the tax burden for business has been falling for years in Michigan so where are the jobs? As I’ve said before, these tax cuts are ideology driven, not reality based as any economic policy should be.
The second thing I wanted to talk about this morning is the slap in the face to the repubs that came from the health insurance industry over the past couple of days. If you’ve been reading the news lately, you have seen that health insurance premiums have been skyrocketing over the past few months and the repubs have been trying to pin this cost increase on the healthcare law but the repubs had their legs cut out from under them when the industry tied the increases to increases in the cost of care instead. They went further to say that the increases would have been worse without the law. How do you feel about your buddies in the industry now repubs? So, any time you hear a repub talking about “Obamacare” and how it has increased costs, chalk it up to another lie from the liars…should we start doing a lie count everyday? Nope…the numbers would overwhelm me….
One last thing…when you hear any repubs talking about job growth and that cutting spending will create jobs…remember that the cuts they have proposed on the federal level have been projected to cost the country almost a million jobs in the first year….and that doesn’t take into account that these cuts are all politically motivated…do you see any cuts in the subsidies for business? Nope, you didn’t since they are not there….just cuts to the things that benefit the poor and middle class…can’t wait for 2012 to get here and we can send these idiots back to Fox news……geez…
Well…just needed to comment on one last thing for today….I’ll try to be a little more calm about this one since the absurdity of it makes me laugh….after the announcement this week that the justice department will stop wasting money and defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, the tanned one (John Boehner), has stated that the House will now take it upon itself to defend the act in court. He goes on to state that it is unconstitutional for the executive branch to make that decision. Really, John? the last I checked justice department is part of the executive branch and choosing to not enforce discriminatory laws has a long history in the US. In this time of record deficits caused by tax cuts for the rich and the worst recession in a hundred years, these idiots will spend yours and my money on this folly instead of focusing on getting the economy moving again. But, did you expect any different? The repubs only govern for their base and don’t care that the majority of Americans want to move forward away from this divisive issue….geez….
Well…after reading all week of the deficits that plague both state and the federal government and the efforts to cut spending to match the depressed tax revenues caused by the recession, I find one part of the puzzle missing…the direct cause of most of the deficits. It’s one that the repubs don’t want to talk about anymore: the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich. Of the 1.4 trillion dollar federal deficit, 1 trillion of that is caused by the extension of the tax cuts for the rich and if Obama and the dems had some guts, they would have said no to that compromise that put us on the path of “starve the beast” that the repubs have been preaching forever.
This little tidbit comes from a front page article in the GR Press the other day where the Lt gov here in Michigan defended the budget proposals that give tax cuts to corporations by raising taxes on the poor and retired by saying “forget the present”…and put your belief in some vague future where tax cuts are supposed to spur business; never mind that they never have…never in history. What the problem with these guys is that they are saying trust us, trust that we know what we are doing and our budget process is not driven by ideology and lies. Well…Mr. Calley…the one thing that we are learning here in Michigan and across the country is that the repubs can’t be trusted…their entire reason for being is to transfer wealth from the middle class to corporations and the rich and to shred what little is left of the social safety net. What I want to ask you and your cronies is: “How much is enough?” Companies in the US have the highest retained profits in history…and they are not creating any jobs. So you propose to throw more money at them and say “pretty please, create some jobs”…you know where that extra money is going to go…right into the bonuses of the ceo’s…and you want the poor and retired to pay them? Geez….
Well…if you thought you’d heard it all from the crazy repub thugs in Wisconsin, yesterday brought us a level of crazy that even takes my breath away….and shatters their facade that they care about the constitution at all. The gist of yesterday’s outrage is that the repub controlled congress there is planning to pass a law that make it illegal for the dems that have fled the state to prevent the crippling of unions to stay away…yep, you’ve heard it right, the repub thugs there want to send the Wisconsin police across state lines to physically abduct the dem senators and force them by gunpoint, if necessary, to go back to Wisconsin and vote on the bill that will take away people’s right to collectively bargain. There are so many ways that this is unconstitutional that my jaw drops when I even think of it. What about the fourth amendment? These repub thugs now look like the leaders of any corrupt third world country that doesn’t get their way and are not above using force to change it. This idiot Walker should be recalled by the people of Wisconsin…I’m sure they didn’t vote for government by gunpoint…geez…
Okay…just read the latest in thuggery from the governor…he has threatened to lay off 1,500 workers if the dems don’t come back to the state….is this Wisconsin or Libya? Keep doubling down idiot….
I have to comment on the “elections have consequences crowd” that is casting the protest there as just sour grapes from the dems…I would agree with that if the repubs had not lied and covered up their real agenda, not to reveal it until after the electorate was duped into voting for them…the bait and switch that I talked about yesterday….
Well…I don’t know if I had an epiphany this morning or not…and I may have talked about this in earlier posts but I think it’s an important distinction that we have to keep coming back to…oh, I guess I just “buried the lead” like they say in newspaper business. What I’m trying to say is that we need to recognize the differences between the dems and repubs, and I think it can be boiled down to a few points…the number one being that the repubs are all about restricting peoples rights while the progressives and dems are all about enlarging them. It is odd that the repubs keep harping on limited government and individual rights on one hand, and then they always turn around and use the power of government to limit or even take away rights. We’ve seen this so many times in the past decade or so that I really don’t know why I have to keep bringing attention to these charlatans and their mendacity. Okay, I just love the word mendacity….look it up. While the rights of corporations have been on an arc of unlimited expansion with deregulation and the Citizens United decision, across the country the repubs are limiting the right of women to control their own bodies, limiting the right of association by making sure that unions have no power to represent people in negotiations, limiting the human right of loving and marrying whomever they choose…and the list goes on and on, and on.
The founders of this country envisioned that the rights of the people would continue to expand over time, and constructed a form of government that they thought would guarantee it….they always thought the greatest threat to the freedom of the people would come from within, when ignorant politicians and an uninformed populace would conspire by their action or inaction to bring us down…geez…
Well…I have to be heartened by the news here in Michigan and across the country that the electorate is starting to wake up to the odorous tricks that the repubs have used to get elected…specifically, the lies and obfuscations of the their true agenda that includes breaking all of organized labor and the continued transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich. Here in Michigan, the people bought into the “tough nerd” label that Snyder used in his campaign and elected him, only to be shown that he is no different from any repub out there; with his tax cuts for the rich being paid for by the poor and the middle class. His approval numbers have plummeted since he revealed himself for what he is…just another millionaire businessman who does not care one whit about the people of Michigan..just about rewarding his cronies.
This mirrors the national trend in the polls where the majority of people do not support the draconian cuts to social programs that the repubs propose, and they also don’t support the dismantling of unions, the environment, or regulations designed to rein in the worst of the financial thieves. So, where do the repubs get the idea that the majority supports their agenda? Oh, that’s right, they don’t care…the public doesn’t elect them, big money does….there is finally a glimmer that the majority of us want a reasonable country where there are protections for the ordinary famliy, not just for people that have money and connections. Can we hope?
Well…it just dawned on me that I made it through February without once mentioning sister Sarah and her traveling circus of crazy…it wasn’t easy…well…it really was since the repubs always have newer and crazier people that are constantly stepping up to the plate to amaze and astound me….along with the golden oldies like Rush, Rick Santorum, and any of the other “leadership” that passes for deep thinkers on the right.
So….everyone is fair game again and I will promise you that I will have some substance over the next couple of days….it has been a weird couple of days and I can’t remember being so busy…
Well…man, things just keep coming to me today and I am having one of those flashes of creativity that don’t happen often enough, so I’m going to take advantage of it while it lasts. If you’ve been reading the news lately, one of the repubs talking points has been that the government shouldn’t be picking “winners and losers” in business and they have been choking on the regulations that have given an advantage to fluorescent light bulbs over incandescents for their energy savings. Here in Michigan, I don’t think they’ve gotten the memo because gov Snyder is deeply in the process of picking winners by giving tax cuts to his constituent businesses while eliminating them for businesses he doesn’t like or get support from….just another instance of the inconsistency….no that’s not true, they are being completely consistent in rewarding their supporters just like some third world country where nepotism runs rampant….geez….