Republicans: Friend of the Rich, No Friend to Seniors

Today's news says that Mitch McConnell (a Republican senator from Kentucky and the U.S. Senate majority leader) wants to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits. The reason? To alleviate the deficit in the US budget. And the reason for the deficit? Because Donald Trump's (and Republicans') tax cut has benefited corporations and the ultra-wealthy but reduced the government's income (i.e., worsened the budgetary deficit).

McConnell, not unreasonably, feels that the loss of revenue due to the tax cut should be made up somewhere, somehow. But it should be clear to anyone that cutting taxes on the very rich and corporations, if that loss of revenue has to be made up by cutting programs like Medicare and Social Security, is favoring the rich at the expense of the elderly for whom Social Security may be a chief, or only, source of income, and who also greatly benefit from Medicare.

The moral is this: If you are a recipient of Social Security and/or Medicare--or even if you are not but are simply someone other than a member of the "One Percent" (that is, the very richest in our society)--you should not be voting Republican, because you are not voting in accordance with your own interests.

The Republicans have long been the party of and for the rich. For people who have not seen that, it should be more obvious now.

If you're one of the One Percent, I'm actually going to tell you that you should vote Republican; it's in your interests. If you're not, remember that the Republican philosophy is help the rich and screw the poor. And, they have huge amounts of money with which to influence elections. So--support the other side.

Copyright © 2018

More on Kim Davis (Kentucky County Clerk Refusing to License Same-Sex Marriages)

A recent development in the (unfortunately) ongoing saga of Ms. Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who has been refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, is that she received a visit from Mike Huckabee, a former US state governor and currently a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States.
 

I think it is shameful and outrageous that Ms. Davis receives encouragement in her defiance of the law from a politician. This would seem to show that Mr. Huckabee has either no knowledge of, or no respect for, how the US system of government works. The US Supreme Court is just what its name suggests--supreme. As the Court's decision in the recent same-sex marriage case implies, there is no exception recognized for personal preference, even on grounds of "conscience"--even though many on the Religious Right have been arguing for, and trying to enact into state laws, exceptions on the basis of "religious freedom" which would simply mean license to ignore various anti-discrimination laws (for example, laws against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation)--and would thus translate to freedom to discriminate.

 

Mr. Huckabee, Ms. Davis, and others of their persuasion must realize that we live in a secular society. Our government is not one of religious law. They seem to wish for a government in the US which is based o n "Judeo-Christian" law and which thus would be a theocracy--even at the same time that they deplore theocratic societies and governments which are being established in Muslim areas of the world, such as ISIS, ISIL, boku haram, and so forth. The negative example which those authorities show us, of what theocracy means, seems to be a lesson lost to those who want a Christian theocracy in the US.

 

Copyright (c) 2015.

Government Shutdown

One hour ago the US government had to shut down, because a budget had not been passed by the Congress, and so there is no money to run the government and pay its employees

Most likely a great majority of Americans don't understand what the consequences of this are going to be. I am sure we will be hearing of new consequences every day that this goes on. One thing is certain, there will be a big impact on the economy. Today, the day preceding the actual shutdown, the US stock markets took a bit hit in anticipation of the government shutdown.

Let's look at why this happened. The immediate cause is that the US House of Representatives refused to pass a budget without a provision that would have delayed the implementation of "Obamacare" by one year; and the Senate would not accept a budget law that contained this provision.

So maybe, if an agreement could not be reached, you have to figure both sides were inflexible and would not compromise.

I think the House, and particularly the Republicans in the House, are to blame. There are many Republican congressmen, many of them allied with the Tea Party, who have been obsessively resolved to undo Obamacare. Forty-two times the House has voted—unsuccessfully—to repeal Obamacare. Should we admire their persistence? That might be a fit subject for debate.

My take on it is that the Tea Partiers will sacrifice the economic welfare of the country to their own ideology—they'd say "principles," I am sure—and are absolutely determined not to compromise at all.

Someone once said that politics is the art of the practical. That does not mean the art of absolute and uncompromising ideology, which is something quite different.

But you can step back yet one step and blame the people who elected the Tea Partiers, these well-nigh insane ideologues who would not accept the defeat of their 42 attempts to repeal Obamacare but instead were willing to maneuver the economic welfare of the US to the brink of a cliff, holding the raising of the debt ceiling, which would let the government continue to operate, hostage. You know the "game" of "chicken," where two young men drive their cars at one another until one loses his nerve and veers and thus avoids the collision? How many people have been killed in that "game"? Well now the same thing has happened with the US economy.

Copyright © 2013

The Party's Over

I heard a man named Mike Lofgren being interviewed on Bill Moyers' PBS TV program, Moyers & Company.

Lofgren held a position in government. He had been a Republican but has switched parties to become a Democrat.

He has recently published a book entitled The Party Is Over: How the Republicans Went Crazy, The Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted. As you might guess from the book's title, both the Republican and the Democratic parties come in for criticism from him.

He talks about how very wealthy individuals (as well as corporations) have been contributing very heavily to the Republican party. I have written about this. Both individuals and corporations are currently able to contribute unlimited amounts and remain anonymous at the same time. When PACs and foundations and other groups have complex and interlocking structures, it is frequently difficult to trace the ultimate source of much of this money.

I can add—this is not a number from Mr. Lofgren—that 89% of corporate contributions go to the Republican Party and only 11% to the Democratic Party.

Wealthy individuals hope to "buy" lower taxes on themselves. Corporations and Wall Street hope to influence government regulations such that regulations will fail to be enacted, or will be weak or otherwise favorable to these business entities.

As I have theorized in previous blog postings, Republicans and other right-wing interests have managed to gain support from many people who are not among the "one percent" by taking conservative stances on social issues; for example, they know they can win the support of the Religious Right, evangelicals, and other social conservatives by having right (in both senses) stances on issues such as same-sex marriage. Lofgren called these issues or the appeal to these voters "rube bait." But this is how a definite non-majority—the very wealthy--has been gaining wider support.

Lofgren explains how people, when they define issues as being a matter of good or evil (for example, according to or against their religious notions), will see any compromise as giving in to evil. This is why our government has been deadlocked on many of the vital issues before Congress. This can have effects such as when, in the stalemate over debt-limit-extension legislation a year ago, the delay necessitated a lot of shuffling of the books which in turn cost our country $1.3 billion.

Lofgren says that much of what has been going on on our political scene has been the result of one over-riding goal on the part of Mitch McConnell (the Senate Minority Leader): to make Obama a one-term president; but that most likely has been apparent to many people.

Mr. Lofgren also blames Democrats who, he says, have also become "corporatized." Bill Clinton greatly contributed to the economic crisis of 2008 by repealing the Glass-Steagall Act, which had been enacted during the Depression to separate investment banking from consumer banking; and deregulating derivatives. Obama, by giving in to the interests of the pharmaceutical industry, has made the Health Care Reform Act ("Obamacare") considerably more expensive than it needed to be.

Copyright © 2012

More Thoughts on the Republican Convention

Once upon a time, party national presidential nominating conventions were interesting, because they genuinely nominated the candidate. The delegates could spread their votes among several competing candidates, often requiring several ballots until one candidate got the required number of votes. Now these votes are merely a formality and a rubber stamp: who the candidate is going to be is known in advance, so there is no longer a real, meaningful ballot.

So to the people, if the whole thing is kind of ho-hum, that's understandable.

However, some interesting things are going on. Ann Romney, wife of Republican nominee Mitt Romney, is to make a speech. Interestingly, they say she was "involved in crafting her speech." [emphasis added] Of course that implies that hers was not the sole role. I wonder who—what media, political, or PR professionals--had the rest of the role in writing her speech.

Also, Mrs. Romney will read her speech from a TelePrompter. So I for one do not expect real and genuine feeling from Mrs. Romney when she tells us what a wonderful man her husband is.

For more on Mrs. Romney, see my March 21, 2012 blog posting, "Mrs. Romney."

This convention is seeing the ultra-wealthy and corporate lobbyists, who pull the strings, fly into Tampa on their private jets. And they are sponsoring—that is, paying for—events for the delegates which include lavish entertainment. Maybe these wealthy donors and lobbyists cannot hide who or what they are; but the news media have been excluded from these events sponsored for the delegates. What are the wealthy sponsors and organizers trying to conceal?

One lobbyist, who was interviewed on camera, said that these donors and lobbyists are going to expect a payback. Just as one example of who we're talking about: the health care industry, which has an interest in what health-care legislation might be passed—or repealed--is represented by such companies as AFLAC and Blue Cross/Blue Shield. The TV news commentator mentioned our country's almost total lack of limitations on political contributions, which of course is the key to the things I'm talking about. The delegates are usually state and national elected politicians, so their votes in their respective legislatures can be bought by these lobbyists.

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein

Republicans and Their Convention

I was hoping that Hurricane Isaac would completely blow away the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida.

I know that's nasty of me. But consider that the likes of Pat Robertson have tried to blame hurricanes and natural disasters on gays. Supposedly they're God punishing the US for tolerating (?) gays.

So maybe if the supposed wrath of God struck Republicans and conservatives, they'd have to view it in a different way. At least, I'd presume, if they really thought it was God's actions, they'd have to wonder about the particular target God chose.

I want to say one good thing about Reince Priebus (the chairman of the Republican National Committee): He has a cool name. Otherwise, of course, I'd be diametrically opposed to everything he believes and says.

Yesterday the news contained the results of a poll that said that 63% of Americans believe that the Republican party is the party of the wealthy. That's pretty reassuring: the American people either are starting to catch on, or they're a little more savvy than I'd been giving them credit for.

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein

American Manufacturing: The Picture Is Really Not So Bleak

Republicans and others who wish to impugn President Barack Obama and blame him for everything claim that he is responsible for loss of American jobs, especially manufacturing jobs. We see pictures of shuttered factories and impoverished areas in "Rust Belt" cities, and hear much about the rate of unemployment.

The peak year for employment in American manufacturing was 1979. Jobs declined continually since then—up until 2009, when they actually began to increase--and this turnaround point was, of course, during Obama's presidency.

Not that Obama gets all the credit for any increase, any more than he deserves the blame for 30 years of decline.

But let's look at some facts. The current number manufacturing jobs is quite a bit below its all-time peak; but, on the other hand, the value of American manufacturing has increased.

It's not simply a story of outsourcing of American jobs to China, Mexico, and other countries where labor is cheaper (although I have tended to feel that the American worker has priced himself out of the world labor market). Greater efficiency—automation, use of industrial robots, and so forth—has meant that the production of American factories can be achieved with fewer workers. So, if you want to, blame the robots for declining unemployment in American manufacturing.

But this means that American ingenuity has permitted goods to be produced with less labor—and thus lower labor cost, which of course is important in world competitiveness.

So, the situation of American manufacturing is much more salubrious than some people would have us believe.

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein

Two More Wars in the Offing?

It's no secret—or should not be any secret—the Republicans and conservatives like war. Well, maybe that's not a way of phrasing it that they'd agree with. How about, they are more prone to favor the use of military force?

That is why we've been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, with a loss of over 4000 American lives—arguably in both cases for at best a very unclear purpose. Supposedly America is always trying to export "freedom"—meaning, presumably, its brand of democracy—to other countries, whether they want it or not. Iraq is not and is not going to be a democracy after the American model, and heaven only knows what can be accomplished in Afghanistan, where we cannot even free the country from the influence of war lords.

Anyway, those are wars that commenced, and that fact cannot be changed. I must acknowledge that the US has supposedly largely exited from Iraq, thanks to a Democratic president—whether or not we have left the country any better off. (For one thing, I'd like an update on whether the Iraqi people yet have reliable, 24-hour electrical service, or whether they feel secure outside of their homes.)

So really, there is only a point in talking about the future. Currently Republicans and other "hawks" (we don't hear that word much, anymore) want the US to attack Syria and Iran. President Obama evidently is not very keen on doing either one; but if a Republican gets elected president in November, we may indeed find ourselves in the midst of yet another war.

The US has an all-volunteer military services. I don't understand why young American men want to join the military and go and fight. Evidently they feel they are being patriotic and "serving their country"; but when America has not been clearly attacked by these countries; and when the connection between these wars and America's welfare is similarly not clear; I have to think they may be misguided. (Remember, George W. Bush sold us on the Iraq war by falsely claiming that Saddam Hussein was developing "weapons of mass destruction." Many other wars, such as the Vietnam War, were also based on lies.) Those in Iraq who were attacking American troops did not view Americans as their saviors but as foreign invaders.

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein

Yet Another Issue to Divide Americans

There is a transportation-funding bill before the US Congress. US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has called it "the worst transportation bill in 35 years." (LaHood, it should be pointed out, served in the previous administration of President George W. Bush and thus was not originally an Obama appointee, and is in fact a Republican.)

A Republican spokesman defends the bill as providing for improved roads and bridges, and also implies that it will provide jobs and lower the cost of gasoline.

US roads and bridges are deteriorating and need improvements, but the bill will cut funding for urban mass transit in cities like New York and Chicago.

Thus the bill pits the big cities against the suburbs and rural areas—the mass transit riders and the car owners. This should not be surprising and might even be a deliberate intent of the bill, because the cities have tended to be liberal and Democratic, while rural and suburban areas are more often Republican. Thus the Republicans, who currently control Congress, are aiding those they consider their supporters and penalizing those they feel would most likely oppose them in any election.

The US is becoming proverbially polarized, into Red and Blue states. Now one more divisive and polarizing issue has been found.

Update, February 9, 2012.
I have been corrected in a comment (which see): Transportation Secretary LaHood was in fact appointed by Obama.

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein

Get God into Government?

As American politics approach the famous or infamous "Iowa caucuses," of course that is very much in the news. One particular item of comment concerned which candidate so-called Evangelical voters are going to favor. Accordingly, the news reporters interviewed a few such.

One of them said, "We've got to get God back into this country." Another said, "We have to get God into government."

I dearly wish I could have asked them exactly what they meant. But absent that, my reaction would be to say that America is not a theocracy, never has been, and anyone who thinks that a theocracy is in any way desirable should look at the example of Iran, where the opinions of the ruling ayatollahs trump the views of the more secular organs of government such as, indeed, President Ahmadinejad. Considering the freedoms that prevail in Iran—or rather the lack of them—should make anyone think twice before wishing for a theocracy in this country. (But they'd probably try to argue that a Christian theocracy is a good thing even if a Muslim theocracy is a bad thing.)

I have a feeling that these respondents, if I were to expostulate with them on the notion of church-state separation, would give me the standard Religious Right line that church-state separation is a "myth." And I would point out that it was Thomas Jefferson who, in a famous letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802, wrote of a "wall of separation" between church and state. (And the idea has even earlier roots, going back 150 years earlier still, to Roger Williams who was exiled from the Bay Colony in Massachusetts and established Rhode Island to provide religious freedom.)

If I did have my hypothetical chance to interrogate these same (presumably) caucus-bound Republican voters in Iowa, I have a feeling that before too long we'd hear that they want to see things like a return of prayer to the public schools; posting of the Ten Commandments in courthouses, city halls, etc.; total outlawing of abortion and same-sex marriage. These have been issues for, and aims of, the Religious Right for a long time—in some cases for decades.

Just as an aside, when they helped elect Ronald Reagan, and maybe ditto for George W. Bush, they were very disillusioned that these objectives of theirs were not realized. That those policies were not enacted, even by presidents whom these people thought were one of them or at the very least largely on their side, shows that these are not popular (in the original sense) or mainstream positions.

I think some polls have shown that about one-third of American voters consider themselves Evangelicals. Even if that is so and is not an inflated statistic, that number still is not a majority. Yet this minority aspires to political power such that it can trample on those who don't agree with it. The majority in the US gets to wield power via elections; but when it comes to rights (e.g. the civil rights of minority groups), the government is set up so that the majority cannot impose its religious views or practices on a minority. Nor a minority on the majority. The arbiter of any disputes about that is our court system.

Some of the earliest polities in America—for example, the seventeenth-century colony settled by Puritans in Massachusetts—were in fact set up as theocracies. A dissenter such as Roger Williams was kicked out of Massachusetts and went on to found Rhode Island. But the Framers of the Constitution, a century and a half later, in envisioning the shape of a federal government, wanted to avoid any government like that.

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein

Update, January 4, 2012
This posting received a comment from a faithful follower of this blog. While I have the power to moderate all comments—that means I can allow or not allow a comment to be posted—I am pledged to allow dissenting opinions to be expressed on my blog.

However, I have to object to what was said; and I at first did so by writing a comment myself, commenting on the reader's comment.

However, I think I will use this avenue, an "update" to my original posting, to further express my refutation of what this person says.

He accuses liberals of being opposed to "school choice." Now, what exactly is school choice?

First, the term is a euphemism of the sort that I particularly hate because it obscures what is really being talked about. To me that is deceptive and downright evil.

"School choice" means what are also called school vouchers. Vouchers are given to parents of school-age children who can take them and use them as payment for school tuition; that is, tuition at private schools, and that usually means parochial--religious--schools.

So, school vouchers are beloved by the Religious Right. I, however, am strongly opposed to them. They allow tax money—my tax dollars—to be used to pay for religious education. I don't think I should be forced to pay for religious, sectarian, doctrinal education—which might, for example, teach Creationism instead of evolution. I believe that breaches the Constitutionally-mandated separation of Church and State.

Here is an interesting slant on school vouchers from the article on that subject in Wikipedia:

In some Southern states during the 1960s, school vouchers were used as a method of perpetuating segregation. In a few instances, public schools were closed outright and vouchers were issued to parents. The vouchers, in many cases, were only good at privately segregated schools, known as segregation academies.[6] Today, all modern voucher programs prohibit racial discrimination. [Wikipedia, s.v. school vouchers]

Public school teachers and teacher unions such as the National Education Association oppose vouchers. For all of the arguments both in favor of and against vouchers, see the Wikipedia article.

An interesting alternative, which does not seem to me to be as objectionable, is called "education tax credits." This basically says that if you pay to send your children to private school, you don't have to pay taxes which go to finance public schools. That seems fair, but I'd hasten to add that by the same logic, people such as myself, who have no children, probably should not pay for public schools, either.

There was an important ruling by the Supreme Court: in "2002 in a landmark case before the US Supreme Court, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, . . . the divided court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled the Ohio school voucher plan constitutional and removed any constitutional barriers to similar voucher plans in the future. . . " [Wikipedia, ibid.].

However, in Florida vouchers were struck down:

In 2006, the Florida Supreme Court struck down legislation known as the Florida Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), which would have implemented a system of school vouchers in Florida.[67] The court ruled that the OSP violated article IX, section 1(a) of the Florida Constitution: "Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools" [Wikipedia, ibid.].

Poor Little Republican Guy

Today I went to buy some food and, as I was loading my purchases into my car I was approached by a young man with a petition he wanted me to sign.

The young man was good-looking and clean-cut—virtually Mormon-missionary clean-cut. The petition, it seems, was to nominate delegates to a Republican nominating convention.

I pointed out that I did not live in that area and, what's more, I'm not a Republican, so I didn't think he wanted my signature.

Of course I could have left the matter there. He wasn't insistent or anything. But, as my bags were going into the car trunk, I felt compelled to express a wish about where, at least sort of generically, I wished Republicans would go, because "that's where they all belong, in my opinion."

Well, was it gratuitous of me to say that? Probably my comment was not in the interests of fostering civil discourse. But consider this: People live in homogeneous neighborhoods. They surround themselves with people who think as they do, and they get lulled into being unaware that real, flesh-and-blood people might hold opinions very divergent from theirs. They also need to see that those who hold views diametrically different from their own do not have horns and tails.

He didn't ask me why I thought that. I almost wish he had, because if he had, I would have said, "I am a gay man and as a gay man, Republicans are my enemies, and they have shown that they are, over and over and over."

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

A Word for Conservatives

Ronald Reagan, when he was running for president, did a pretty good job of convincing a lot of Americans that "government is the problem," and we'd all be better off with less government regulation, smaller government bureaucracy, and so on. A lot of people believed what he said, and still, some 30 years later, it's common to hear people say that government is bad.

To these people I say, if you don't like government, let me make a suggestion for you. Move to Mississippi, where there are very low taxes. Also--just coincidentally--they have the worst education, the lowest literacy, the lowest life expectancy, the greatest rate of obesity. They rank at the bottom of almost every list. All because of very low government spending--which correlates with the low taxes they have.

At the other extreme might be a country like Norway, where taxes are very high but the government provides nearly everything everyone could want, pretty much cradle-to-grave.

Maybe, my imaginary anti-government friends, once you've abolished the government, you might find you need to try to get together with your neighbors to arrange for fires to be put out, criminals to be caught, roads to be built, traffic lights and stop signs to be put up--oh, and how about trying to ensure the safety of the food you eat, the medicines you take. . .

Sure, you could form some kind of association with your neighbors to do these things--but then you'd have a government!

By the way, I posted this (in pretty much these words) as a comment on an AOL/Daily Finance article on the Republican candidates--and a reply to my comment called me a "commie." Nice, reasonable refutation of my ideas.

Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein

When Republicans Were the Good Guys

For some time I have been reading online articles on AOL/HuffPost; and for maybe a couple of months I have been doing quite a bit of commenting--sometimes adding a new comment but more often replying to someone else's comment.

So that has given me an avenue for venting my views in addition to this blog.

One commenter recently was defending the Republican Party by pointing out that the Republican Party gave us Lincoln and the freeing of the slaves by means of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. She also said that Democrats in the U.S. Congress were the source of a lot of opposition to Civil Rights laws.

Of course she is absolutely correct. After the Civil War, many ill-advised actions and policies were part of so-called Reconstruction. Reconstruction attempted to go very quickly--in fact, instantly--to full integration of the recently-freed slaves into the political society. Not to defend white Southerners, but the extremely sudden and radical--and even punitive-- changes that they were expected to countenance under Reconstruction created an enormous backlash and groups such as the Ku Klux Klan formed to try (for example) to halt the new voting power of African-Americans.

One result of all that upheaval was that white Southerners pretty much rebelled against the Republican party and, for about the next 100 years, would only vote Democratic. Thus the U.S. Congress had Southern congressmen and senators who were so-called "Dixiecrats"--Democrats who could be counted on to oppose any civil rights laws such as school desegregation or protection for the voting rights of Blacks.

However, that has changed, and the present reality is that the South elects Republicans to Congress. Just a couple of examples are senators such as Trent Lott of Mississippi (resigned in 2007 but his successor is another Republican) , Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and many others.

So, even though it may once have been the other way around, now it's Republican congressmen who represent anti-civil rights positions and who are likely to vote to keep the entrenched power structures (such as the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, heterosexual male).

Also, I recently learned something interesting: for 14 years--from January 1920 into the 1930s--the United States had something called Prohibition (prohibition of the manufacture and sale of all alcohol for drinking purposes). Republicans nowadays can often be heard to claim that they defend individual liberty and oppose extensions of government power-- but where the enactment of Prohibition was concerned, again it was the very opposite of that, and not only did Republicans help to enact Prohibition but also Republican presidents Coolidge and Hoover supported the continuation of Prohibition--Hoover even once it was clear to everyone that Prohibition was not working.

And anyone with a little knowledge of American history knows that Prohibition, among other bad effects, caused organized crime in the U.S. to indeed become organized and strong and pervasive throughout the country. Also, it created widespread disregard, disrespect, and defiance of the law-- maybe the origin of the disregard of law that I see so often when drivers ignore "minor" traffic/driving ordinances like "no parking," "no left turn," etc.

Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein

It's Simple to Raise the Debt Ceiling.

The US debt ceiling can be raised by a simple vote of Congress. It is a single issue and does not need to be tied to spending cuts. It's been done countless times--eight times under George W. Bush--and most of the public were not even aware it happened.

However, Republican and especially Tea Party Republicans will not agree to vote for an increase in the debt limit unless it is tied to spending cuts. They are holding the vote to approve a debt ceiling increase hostage to getting their way.

They are ideologists, and they won't bend--even if it means dealing a reproach to Speaker of the House John Boehner. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (D) said, "The so-called Tea Party is unreasonable, and if we wait on them I'm afraid it's going to have a bad outcome."

As I said in a recent posting, the fact that enough voters sent these Right-Wing extremists to Congress is the reason for this present debt-ceiling mess.

Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein

The People vs. the Republicans

The Republicans are getting some backlash which is much deserved, in my opinion. The shining example recently occurred when Kathy Hocul, a Democrat, defeated the heavily-financed Republican candidate in a special election for the Congressional seat in the 26th District of New York State.

All eyes were on this election, and it was viewed as very largely a referendum on Medicare: That is, the defeat of the Republican is thought to have been because the Republicans are now perceived to favor cuts in Medicare, since the federal budget proposed by Republican budget-writer Paul Ryan would cut Medicare benefits.

Now, seniors (those who benefit from and who are literally the beneficiaries of Medicare) tend to be conservative in their voting, particularly on social issues. But they are a well-organized lobby, and when it comes to even threatening their government benefits (or, I should say, entitlements), they will get their backs up.

So, if the election which Hocul won really was a referendum on Medicare, I am glad that, for once, a popular message has been sent to Republicans. (Let's hope they get the message. We'll only know that they did when they begin to moderate some of their positions. You'd think they'd perceive what is in their self-interest, but they have not always been smart enough to do so.)

In my view, too often the "man in the street" does not, cannot, perceive that the Republican party is the representative of wealthy individuals and corporations. Corporate interests (made all the more influential since the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which removes restrictions on corporate political contributions) buy the votes, in Congress, through their army of highly paid lobbyists, and through out-and-out contributions to those candidates' election and re-election. Thus, Republican legislators are unabashedly beholden to corporate interests, which tend to have interests contrary to those of the public.

The Medicare thing should make people realize that they Republicans pretty generally have no sympathy for the poor, the elderly, the unemployed--anyone for whom a more compassionate government provides a "safety net." The latest example—more recent than Paul Ryan's to-hell-with-Medicare budget—is that Republicans now want to cut funding for the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), which is charged with keeping our food (and medicines) pure and safe. In a rather typical example of their very odd logic (to put it mildly), the Republicans claim that reducing the funding to the FDA—which already lacks adequate resources to inspect food producers and processors, so that we have had numerous outbreaks of food-borne illness like Salmonella—will somehow contribute to, rather than undermine, the safety of the food which every single American must eat. Evidently it's again that extreme free-market thinking that says, Just leave them alone (free from regulation and other government "interference" such as inspections) and they will do the right thing, and we'll all be better off. How absurd. Any time—and let's acknowledge that this happens, often—that the corporate bottom line conflicts with what benefits customers and the public, you know which gets put first by the corporations—and by their Republican lackeys in Congress.

Update/Correction, May 26, 2011
1) The election which Hocul won was indeed regarded as a referendum on the treatment of Medicare in the Paul Ryan budget proposal because Hocul's opponent had specifically endorsed the proposed Medicare changes.
2) It was not exactly correct to say that the Ryan budget proposal would cut Medicare. Ryan's idea is to replace government-run Medicare with private insurance. This is in line with far-right ideological notions that Medicare and even Social Security are "socialist" programs, that everything should be left to the private sector and as little as possible administered by the government. Going back at least to Ronald Reagan, conservatives have been telling us that government is bad, or is bad as long as it is as big as it is--never mind that they themselves are part of "government." Somehow the inconsistency does not occur to them. "Oh yes, the body politic is evil and too big, so I guess (being part of it) I'll cut my arm off."

Update, May 26, 2011
Tim Pawlenty, a possibility for the Republican presidential nomination, has announced he supports Paul Ryan's Medicare proposals. Is he too stupid to have learned from the Hocul election? Of course I don't mind if any particular Republican, or even the whole party, self-destructs.

Update, May 27, 2011
Here I mention, for the third time, the Citizens United decision. I gave an incorrect impression, that that decision permits corporate contributions directly to candidates. It does not; rather, it permits corporations to fund, for example, advertising on issues rather than candidates. (Thus we see TV "public service announcements" that advocate for or against a certain position or proposed law, and their sponsorship by corporations or industry trade groups is disguised by a statement such as "Paid for by Citizens for Such-and-Such.") However, in today's news, a judge has ruled that corporate contributions to candidates are legal.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

What to Expect from Republicans in the New Congress

The Republicans' aims for the new Congress include convening many hearings in which government department heads will be asked to justify their regulations and their spending.

Well, the spending part certainly is going to sound okay to most Americans and be hard to object to.

But, according to an article entitled "GOP Agenda May Have Bigger Impact on 2012 Than on Daily Life" in AOL News: Politics,

The next chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Republican Fred Upton of Michigan, says he'll work to stop over-zealous government regulators. A big target for him is the Environmental Protection Agency.

So here we have the Republicans again showing that they favor business (industry), which wants to go on polluting with no regulation, over the environment and over the health of the American public. Do they need any more proof than what has come to light over five or six decades, that air and water pollution is not good for people or for any living things?

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

I Know I've Said This Before: The Republican Party Is for the Rich

We are just now seeing evidence of something I've been saying for a long time. The Republicans in Congress are opposing a tax-cut extension if it does not continue the tax breaks for the rich.

If anyone needed evidence that the Republican Party is all about the rich and privileged, they should take note of this and doubt no longer.

I just cannot comprehend the "common man" who supports the Republicans when (as I know I have said repeatedly) they are the party of the rich, the privileged, and big, powerful corporations (who unabashedly buy legislators' support).

We keep hearing how serious the nation's deficit, and the national debt, are. Raising taxes on those who can afford it the best should be a no-brainer. I can't understand how the Republicans think the American public in general will have enough sympathy for the rich to want to spare them a tax increase.

But wait a minute. There has been this phenomenon in America: Americans would never (just to conjure up an image as an example) stone the Rolls-Royces. It's because every American believes he might some day be rich. For the poorer folks, maybe it's a foolish faith that they're going to win the lottery, or that some other miracle is going to happen for them. But studies have shown, nearly everyone in America thinks he might be rich some day. On the other hand, with the grim economic conditions we've had recently, maybe many Americans have begun to wake up from that chapter of "the American dream."

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein

Why Should Americans Pay Any Taxes?

In the United States, it would be difficult for anyone to be unaware that it is election season. We are all being barraged by election/campaign messages—on our televisions, on our telephones, in our mailboxes.

Here in Illinois, our Democratic governor is up for re-election (this is the man who became governor when the infamous Rod Blagojevich was impeached, so this man was never elected governor on his own); and the man who was our state Treasurer is running for the Senate, to fill the seat once occupied by Barack Obama.

The State of Illinois is financially in crisis, with a huge budget deficit. Both the governor and the state Treasurer have said that, to rectify the deficit, our state income tax should be increased from 3% to 4%.

Probably no one likes to pay more taxes and, not surprisingly, Republicans are using pro–tax-increase statements by the Governor and the Treasurer as ammunition against them. Both the Republican party and the Tea Party keep railing against "big government" and politicians who want to increase taxes.

Now, let's remember that Bill Clinton left office with a surplus in the national budget. His successor, George W. Bush, cut taxes—and thus turned Clinton's budget surplus into a big deficit.

The conservatives who don't like tax increases also complain that the national debt is a "burden passed on to our children and grandchildren." They don't like the deficit but they don't like tax increases. Can you say "inconsistency"?

Also: the very same conservatives who don't like tax increases very generally support wars. The United States is fighting a war—no, two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan. These wars are expensive beyond most people's imagination. How do we pay for these wars, or any war? If the government does not have enough revenue coming in, it prints money or it borrows-- for example, by issuing Treasury bonds. (The relationship between government borrowing and "printing money" is a complex matter which I won't go into here.) This adds to the national debt.

So I'd like to ask the anti-tax folks if they'd favor immediately ending those wars. I think I know what they'd say. No, cut federal spending somewhere else.

Several government missions, like protecting us from unsafe food and unsafe drugs, are already underfunded. We've seen outbreaks of food-borne illnesses. The E. coli outbreaks caused by ground beef can be laid at the door of the Bush administration, which managed to not implement a Congressional mandate to increase inspection of meat-processing plants.

To some of the extreme anti-government people, I'd like to ask, Do you want the government to no longer help ensure the safety of our food, water, air, medicine?

Would you like the government to not have fire trucks to come to your aid when your house is on fire? To stop building roads? (By the way, we already have a near-crisis of deteriorating infrastructure: roads, bridges, sewer lines, and so forth.) To not install traffic lights?

Sure, let's just rely on the food industry to police itself. We all know that we can absolutely trust large business to act in the public interest.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein

What Do "Left Wing" and "Right Wing" Mean?

In some countries such as those in Latin America, "Left Wing" has meant favoring the rights, the voice, and the wages of workers and peasants, and maybe redistribution of land. "Right Wing," on the other hand, has meant favoring or preserving the power of those who've got money and influence—the wealthy, the traditional landowners.

These Latin American countries are agrarian countries with a very pronounced wealthy, landowning class, and a very definite, very poor class at the bottom (usually the indigenous peoples, who have faced egregious racial discrimination since Colonial times). And, in many counties elsewhere in the world, movements on the Left have struggled to further the rights and power of the poor, the masses—in opposition to entrenched monetary and political interests.

But obviously the United States is a different sort of animal altogether.

Well, maybe not. In the 1930s, Socialism was not a dirty word in the U.S., and you had a genuine socialist and even communist movement in the U.S. This was closely allied with the labor movement, which was still fighting for decent wages and working conditions for workers in mines and factories (and, by the way, often being resisted with clubs and occasionally bullets by the factory owners and their allies, the police).

And of course we have had our racial discrimination (and maybe gender discrimination), which has had the effect of causing one group to make less money than others.

And the United States has actually been moving in the direction of greater social inequality. Wealth is becoming more concentrated in the hands of the few at the top of the pecking order. This trend has been going on for a while, favored by tax policies which let the rich keep more of their money than they were able to when the scale of rates of our progressive income tax was steeper. (In other words, the "Bush tax cuts" that favored the rich, and no one has been able to argue that that was not the case.)

Here is a link to an article with some statistics on how wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few in the U.S.:

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/disturbing-statistics-on-the-decline-of-americas-middle-class/19676292/?icid=main%7Cmain%7Cdl1%7Csec4_lnk2%7C178480&icid=sphere_copyright

In the U.S., for a long time the principal political party on the Right has been the Republican Party. They are devoted to keeping taxes on corporations and on wealthy individuals low. Despite their attempts to include a wider following, such as by appealing in religious conservatives, and their attempts to have people believe otherwise, they are still the party of a rich minority.

Yet, in terms of who identifies as Republican or who votes Republican, it's not that simple. Many people support the Republican Party who are not in that wealthy upper few percent. Not wanting to oversimplify—I grant it's not that simple—I think that many times these people fail to perceive where their interests lie.

In previous blog postings I've gone into how I think the moneyed interests manage to evoke the sympathy and support of a wider base. They fund the Republican Party and now the Tea Party. And, with their money, they support candidates, lobby Congress, and do a lot of what is essentially propaganda, though nowadays we call it "public service messages" on TV.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein

Politics, Energy Policy, and Financial-System Reform

Anyone who pays attention to current news has heard about the environmental disaster in the making, due to an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. An offshore oil-drilling platform caught fire and then sank. This has resulted in loss of lives (I think 11 at latest estimate), plus some 40,000 gallons of oil per day are being spilled into the gulf waters.

Such accidents are a constant risk of offshore oil drilling. Yet President Obama recently issued an order to expand offshore oil drilling off the U.S. coast.

Yes, we need energy. For now, unfortunately, we need oil. But it still is surprising, disappointing, and saddening to Obama's liberal constituency and anyone concerned with the environment that he has done this. It seems to be a philosophy of "more oil at any cost." Well, I say, let people driving 3-ton SUVs pay more for their gas than they are currently. They don't care about the environment, and I'd like to see them bear more of a burden for their actions. (The U.S. still has gasoline for half of what it costs in Europe.)

Lest I seem to be attacking Democrats and a (supposedly) liberal president, let me hasten to lay some blame at the door of Republicans. The energy problem goes back at least 30 years. Or rather, 30 years ago, when things could have been done, they were not. The day of his inauguration, Ronald Reagan halted all U.S. Department of Energy funding for research on alternative energy. (I know this because I was working for a nonprofit engineering research group that did a lot of research into fuel from biomass, ocean thermal energy, fuel cells, and so forth. This institution depended very heavily on DOE contracts and was extremely impacted by Reagan's actions, and had to cut, eventually, two-thirds of their staff.) Other commentators have said that we have lost 30 years out of the alternative-energy program.

Ronald Reagan even stamped out or undid what was viewed as Jimmy Carter's last legacy: a solar water-heating system Carter had installed on the White House roof. I don't know what reason, if any, Reagan gave for this action. It was not publicized at the time, if I recall. I have to think it was just thumbing his nose at Carter, liberal policies, and environmentalism.

Also on the subject of Republicans: Right now they are opposing legislation in the Senate that would reform the financial system. During the years of laissez-faire, some of the reforms of the post-Depression era—such as the Glass-Stiegel Act, which separated banking from investment business--were repealed. That was a cause of the recent economic mess. (I think some of this occurred, in fact, under Clinton. Any reader, please correct me if I am wrong here.)

The Republican approach clearly is, "If the Democrats want it, we're going to oppose it." That's called obstructionism. In fact they are filibustering, which is nothing more nor less than an obstructing tactic.

But there is lots of evidence that the people want these reforms. The Republicans in Congress surely are professional politicians; we will see if they are astute politicians as well. To oppose the will of the people should result in their being voted out of office. That message probably is just now starting to penetrate their osseous skulls.

Note added April 29: The news on the oil spill continues to get worse. Yesterday they said it is much worse than originally estimated. Today they said that 210,000 gallons of oil are leaking into the Gulf every day. This promises to be one of the worst environmental disasters ever.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein