Category: Money

Here’s what I know as fact about the fiscal cliff negotiations: President Obama offered to limit tax increases to households earning more than $400K a year. The Democrats agreed to spending cuts, not quite as draconian as the Tea Party demanded, but they also indicated there was room for negotiation on the cuts. Speaker of the House Boehner went back to the Tea People controlling the House and tried to put together a plan that would lift the tax increase threshold to $1 million a year.   They realized that was going nowhere in their party and attempted to shift negotiations towards using the adjusted CPI for Social Security.  John McCain, now considered a moderate, said “it won’t look good if we are advocating tax increases and social security cuts”.  Again, no movement and surprise… The Tea Party obstructed.  Which part?  All of it.  They want across the board, draconian spending cuts and NO tax increases on anyone. Again, realistic, intellectual thinking at it’s finest. Meanwhile rank and file GOP conservatives can do nothing. Their party is still held hostage by the radical faction in their ranks.

Grover Norquist will be proud of these obstructionists for hold their ground on their tax pledge. The majority of Americans will not.  50% of Republicans agree with the Presidents approach to revenue according to a Dec. 7th Bloomberg poll.  Staunch Tea People will make these arguments:

1. The federal deficit is solely a spending problem.  It is not.  Every merited, non-biased, international economist on the planet has acknowledged it is a spending AND revenue problem.  This is where the GOP fails.  They do not want to acknowledge that revenue is required.  Specifically they do not want to acknowledge that revenue is required from top earners.   Their claim that revenue should come from “the 50% of Americans who pay no federal income taxes” is juvenile and hollow.  Why do people rob banks?  That’s where the money is.  Why should the wealthy pay an increased and proportionate percentage of taxes on their income (i.e. pre Bush tax rates)?  Same reason.
2. Raising taxes on millionaires will kill their ambition and discourage them from working.  Never mind it didn’t discourage them prior to the Bush cuts they now enjoy.
3. Raising taxes on the wealthy will punish successful people for being successful.  Just like they were punished via bullwhip during the Clinton Administration.
4. Raising taxes will stop “job creation”.  You know, it will put a stop to all the job creation they have embarked on during the last six years they’ve enjoyed these tax cuts.   This lie is starting to tell itself.
5. And finally they will argue “It’s Obama’s fault”.  One of the things I get the best chuckle out of is reading the GOP remarks calling Obama and obstructionist.  This is a clear indication you are reading or discussing the fiscal cliff negotiations with someone who is not paying attention and/or is loaded with bias.  Democrats have offered concessions and offered to negotiate further spending cuts.  The GOP has been able to offer nothing thanks to lack of agreement within their own ranks.   Many of those on the far right will not agree with Obama on any initiative simply for the sake of posturing and obstruction.

The worst part of this for the GOP is the comments I’m hearing from those claiming to be lifelong conservatives.  They do not recognize their own party anymore and are prepared to change their voter registration cards.  Sad they are being forced to leave their party because it has been hijacked by Libertarians who refuse to acknowledge their true political identity for the sake of compounding ideological influence.  Today the GOP as we know it will be dead as moderate Republicans will no longer have a voice.   Just like Democrats and the majority of legislation over the past six years they have been stifled by the group known as the Tea Party.  I will always refer to them as Tea People or Tea Baggers because they are in fact not a registered political party.   They did not ride in on the coat tails of true Republicans.   They tore them off and stole them.

Public protests in objection to Wall Street seems to be working well.  In Oct. the DJIA had it’s highest recorded gains during a single month in history.   Republicans and their laughable, reality TV style debates are the most popular thing on every week.  Yep, the Occupy protesters are taking action!  They took time off protesting to go buy an iPhone 4s.   That’ll learn ’em.  Greedy Apple.

Sad part is I agree with a lot of what they’re protesting but the methods have been so ineffective that Wall St. is chuckling and moving on.  Things taking place in Europe are having far more effect on the markets than the Occupy movement.   If these protestors really wanted to “take action” against greedy corporations they’d act with their wallets.  No Starbucks, cancel the smartphone contract, stay out of Wal-Mart, park the car, no cable or satellite TV, close the bank account….*gasp* real sacrifices?

But no. The protestors continue to pay the evil corporations for these invaluable products.  Americans sure are spending a lot of money to be so poor and stepped on.  So yes please Occupy… but don’t forget to pay your bills first.

It’s only a matter of time now.  Republican’s have officially turned their back on the last of their thinning constituency, Baby Boomers and retirees.  The Paul Ryan call to meddle in Medicare and the ensuing support some of the party bestowed upon him for such a move was nothing less than political suicide.  Personally, I think the party line got painfully confused by the 2010 mid terms.  Sure, they took back control of the House when the Tea Party movement turned out by the bus load at the polls.  I suppose this lead the entire party to believe that the Republican base is comprised of fiscal conservatives on a dangerous mission.  The truth is the “fiscal conservative” argument from the Teabag factions was a ploy.  It was just political maneuvering to get into power so they could push a failing hyper-conservative ideological agenda.   Everyone knows it: Ban gay marriage, end abortion, ID badges declaring which church you attend.

If the Tea Party (note: They are not really a “Party” because there are so many disputing factions) were really interested in relieving the nation debt they would be interested in more than just spending cuts.  They would be interested in revenue generation.  Yes, evil taxes.  People rob banks for the same reason we should remove the tax breaks, shelters and loopholes the wealthiest now enjoy:  That’s where the money is.  By now we all realize the stale argument for trickle down economics is no less than a failure, at worst a lie.  Rich people don’t create jobs.  They create wealth by eliminating jobs for American workers under the rightful justification of profits.  Let’s end that debate once and for all.  I know, a pipe dream when arguing with so many people in politics and business benefiting from the current arrangement.  The real problem emerging is that corporations may now be turning to countries and currencies outside of the US and away from American consumers.  This, combined with wage and job loss for American workers will decimate the middle class.

Another real and growing problem for the party is a super majority of young Americans are not buying the Republican side of the argument.  Not one bit.  They are not fooled by the right wing corporate social agenda for continuous wealth aggregation at the peril of the middle class.  Government intervention in the form of legislation and subsequent regulations to add value to the American worker and protect America jobs is long overdue.  Immigration enforcement and off-shoring should both be on the table.

Now that Mitch Davis said he will not run for President in 2012 the only adult left in the room at the Republican party is exiting stage left.  Truth is the Republican party still has a candidate who could beat Obama in 2012.  It will never happen because they will not nominate Ron Paul for the ballot.  I am not staunch Ron Paul supporter but he does have genuine grass roots support and appeals to young people.  The rejection of Paul by Republicans because he does not support their ideological wedge issues and continuous funding for the military industrial complex is more evidence of how out of touch the party has become with main stream Americans.

It is hard to imagine how Republicans in Washington still believe that reducing retirement benefits while supporting never ending military engagements, continuous tax breaks for the wealthy, oil and agricultural subsidies for companies making billions in profit are what middle class Americans desire from their representation.  In some other worldly dimension there may be rational to justify their social agenda but not in this reality.  It’s an agenda being rejected by main stream Americans young and old leaving the Republican Party on the brink of irrelevance.

All this would be bad enough and then….Trump.  Donald, you should not kick a party when it’s down.

Time to TAX THE CHURCHES.  It’s long overdue they pay for their meddling in politics.

We are in a period of time when I think this puts our democracy in jeopardy. We are seeing newsrooms having smaller staffs. Mainstream media is diminishing and along with that, investigative reporting is diminishing. So, there are fewer watchdogs, journalism watchdogs, than there used to be. We don’t have a Walter Cronkite anymore. People can self select. They can go to Fox News if they’re conservative and have their world view reinforced, or MSNBC on the other side of the political-ideological spectrum. So you don’t have as much of a middle as you used to. At the same time as you’re seeing newsrooms shrink, you’re seeing corporate power increase. You see a lot of reporters who used to work for newspapers go into PR. I did that several years ago. There are far, far, far more PR in America than there are newspaper reporters or reporters of any kind. So, you’re seeing a shift that troubles me. You’re seeing a rise of corporate power when there are far fewer watchdogs watching over what’s going on. – The Hartford Courant

Wendell Potter was a top PR rep for the Cigna and Humana insurance companies until he realized the error of his ways.

Brought to you by the United Corporations of America: Of the money, by the money, for the money.

Retiring Sen. Jim Bunning said he doesn’t oppose extending the programs — he just doesn’t want to add to the deficit.

via Lone senator blocks unemployment benefit extensions – CNN.com.

Why is it that many Republicans have no problem running up the meter to fund illegal and unnecessary wars of aggression but have an issue with increasing the national debt to help fellow Americans?