Taxation

Focus Groups Demonstrate Lack Of Understanding Of Government: A Danger To America’s Future

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Various cable news channels have been organizing focus groups, usually consisting of 12-15 people in places such as Iowa and New Hampshire, the locales of the first caucus and primary in February 2016.

There is no claim that these focus groups are truly representative of how the mass citizenry feels, anymore than all of the many public opinion polls.

What does come out of these focus groups, however, is a general feeling of disgust with government; failure to understand how government works; and a desire to “throw the rascals out”, and replace them with people who have zero experience in running a government that is responsible to its citizenry.

In no other profession or field of work do we have people wanting totally inexperienced individuals to take over as total “rookies”, and gamble that they will know what they are doing, and adapt to the realities of domestic and foreign affairs.

This is an indication of the total lack of knowledge, experience, and reality of what it is to run a government that serves 320 million people, which is a very complex undertaking.

There is the myth, widespread and dangerous, that government can be run as a business; that one can be ignorant of the facts and the history of our country and other nations; and somehow those who come in to power without background can “wing” it through every issue and crisis that arises.

This is very dangerous, and the ignorance and over simplification of government and its responsibilities by a large number of the population is alarming.

We may not like to understand the truth that government must tax; that there is no “free ride”; that when one earns more income, he or she has a responsibility to pay more taxes; that government cannot always do what the people want, as often, they have no clue as to the complexities of domestic and foreign policy; that tough decisions must be made; and that experience and knowledge really do matter.

Instead, we have those who could be called demagogues, who appeal to the fears and insecurities of a population which too often thinks that these people with no experience and no understanding can create magic and solve all issues, but life is not that easy and simplified.

To believe that Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina and Dr. Benjamin Carson are qualified to lead our country means that those who promote this are totally deluded and living in a parallel universe.

The Modern Republican Myth About Ronald Reagan: He Could Not Be Nominated In 2016!

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The modern Republican Party lives by a myth, a deification of the 40th President, Ronald Reagan.

Based on the mean spirit of the Republican Party today and their ignorance of history, Ronald Reagan could NOT be nominated for President in 2016.

Ronald Reagan signed abortion bills as California Governor.

Ronald Reagan had an “11th Commandment”, not attack fellow Republicans, and he was willing to work with a Congress controlled by the opposition Democrats.

Ronald Reagan raised taxes multiple times, in 1982, 1983, and 1986, and made it harder for middle class people, while benefiting the wealthy elite.

Ronald Reagan made a deal with Democratic Speaker of the House Thomas “Tip” O’Neill to save Social Security, not destroy it.

Ronald Reagan signed an amnesty for three million undocumented or illegal immigrants in 1986.

Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt from about $900 million to $2.6 trillion in his eight years in office.

Ronald Reagan increased the federal bureaucracy by 325,000 workers, after saying he would cut the work force.

Ronald Reagan gave in to terrorism by withdrawing troops from Lebanon after the Beirut bombing of the Marine barracks killed 241 Americans in 1983.

Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire”, and then negotiated arms agreements with Mikhail Gorbachev.

Ronald Reagan worked with Saddam Hussein, and hailed the freedom fighters fighting Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, including a guerrilla fighter named Osama Bin Laden.

You can be sure that most Republican voters and most Republican officeholders either do not know the truth about Ronald Reagan, or do not care, but if Reagan was running for office now with these parts of his record in office, he could not be nominated!

 

 

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Second Bill Of Rights (January 11, 1944) Not Yet Achieved In 2014!

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Now that THE ROOSEVELTS series on PBS, the seven part series presented to the nation by the great documentarian Ken Burns, is over, many thoughts and emotions cross one’s mind.

FDR offered so much to the nation in his New Deal, and in his leadership of the struggle against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan in World War II.

But what struck this author more than any of this, while watching this 14 hour series over the past week, is an often forgotten speech, the State of the Union speech of January 11, 1944, delivered by FDR in a joint session of Congress.

The speech dealt with the issue of a “Second Bill Of Rights”.

FDR knew that the Bill Of Rights had made America the beacon of the civilized world, with the basic civil liberties it granted to all Americans.

But FDR was looking ahead to the end of World War II, and envisioned a nation that would extend the concept of a bill of rights to other issues that affected all Americans.

So FDR called for a future guarantee of everyone having a decent job with a living wage; a guarantee of decent housing for all Americans; a guarantee of a decent supply of food, clothing, and leisure for all; a guarantee of a decent education providing opportunity for all to advance; an expansion of Social Security beyond the beginning of the concept nine years earlier in 1935; and  provision for a decent health care system for all Americans.

Now 70 years later, none of these have been accomplished, although Social Security has improved tremendously for the elderly, and for women who are widowed and children who lose a parent or are orphaned: Medicare has done so much to help the elderly and disabled; and ObamaCare, under great duress, has provided health care for millions of Americans who never had health coverage before.

But yet, conservatives and Republicans are out to make Social Security and Medicare privatized, and want to destroy ObamaCare!

But we have too many people who cannot find work, due to the Great Recession of George W. Bush and cannot even gain extension of the New Deal concept of unemployment compensation; many Americans live in substandard housing; many people go hungry and live in dire poverty; many have to work multiple jobs and cannot have time for leisure, with most Americans not able to have vacation time, less than any European democracy, or Canada or Australia;  and many children are denied a good education system and can only gain minimum wage employment as adults.

The right wing extremists are trying to destroy the New Deal and Great Society reforms, and return American to a century ago before there was social justice and economic opportunity and political reform offered, starting with the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.

How can any decent American not rise up in protest and anger at the selfishness and greed of the elite one percent and their propagandists, who do not care what happens to anyone other than their own class?  Why is acquisition of obscene wealth and power so important that these right wingers have no humanity, no common decency, no desire to see their fellow Americans have a chance to succeed as they were given?  Why is the hatred of taxes so vehement, as if one can take his or her wealth to the grave, or give it in obscene amounts to offspring who will never know responsibility or the virtue of accomplishing on their own?  What is wrong with this nation, that 70 years after the “Second Bill of Rights” speech of FDR, we have made very little progress on the goals of the speech, and have even backtracked on them, and we have evil forces wanting to destroy the most significant programs of the New Deal and Great Society?

Bill Clinton Reveals Something Not Generally Known: Only Chile And Mexico Among OECD Nations Taxes Capital Gains Lower Than US!

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OECD, the Organization For Economic Cooperation And Development, consists of 34 nations, that promote democracy and the market economy, and consists of nations in Europe, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and Canada and Australia and New Zealand.

Their goal is to promote economic growth, and they hold regular meetings of delegations to accomplish that goal.

But former President Bill Clinton, arguing today at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City, made the point in interviews, that wealthy people in America are indeed very privileged, and his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, also made that point in a speech.

The reason for both Clintons stating this is the statistic on Capital Gains on the wealthy, and the stunning reality that our 15 percent Capital Gains tax on investments in this nation, brought about by Republican action in Congress in the past decade, and helping to cause the budget crisis we face now, is the THIRD lowest of all the 34 nations in OECD, with only Chile and Mexico being lower!

So wealthy people are getting a real advantage on capital gains, as for instance Mitt Romney has had in the past decade, but also with income tax cuts for the wealthy in the past ten years, one could say that the wealthy are “making out like bandits”, as the saying goes, which is much too accurate!

The Republicans And The Economy: A Losing Issue, Ultimately!

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The Republican Party, and their Presidential team of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, love to say that we are NOT better off than we were four years ago, without pointing out that they have prevented any legislation to create jobs, and have done everything possible in their states of control to cut the number of teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public employees, therefore keeping the unemployment rate above 8 percent.

The fact that 4.5 million jobs have been created under Barack Obama, more than under eight years of George W. Bush, is ignored!

The fact that the stock market has reached an all time high, and doubled from its low point in 2009, is ignored!

The fact that the inflation rate is very low is ignored!

The fact that the corporations are doing well, and sitting on trillions of dollars of available capital for investments, as a ploy to defeat Barack Obama for wanting to regulate, and tax them at a higher rate as they were in the past, is ignored!

Public opinion polls make clear that while the American people are not happy with the economy, they trust Barack Obama to care more about them and their future, than they do Mitt Romney, the guy who actually laid off people at Bain Capital, and accumulated vast wealth at the expense of the American economy, and thinks that middle class people make $200,000-$250,000 a year, demonstrating that he has no clue as to the life of the average American!

And even worse, he and Paul Ryan do not give a damn about the average American–whether senior citizen, college student, African American, Hispanic-Latino, women, the poor, or working class white!

The Republican Party is flailing, and no intelligent person is listening to their arguments on the economy!

One Dark Part Of The Supreme Court Decision On “Obamacare”: Commerce Clause Limited For First Time Since New Deal, Thrilling Libertarians!

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As one analyzes the Supreme Court decision on “ObamaCare” written by Chief Justice John Roberts, in the midst of the celebration, one has to pause and be concerned about Roberts’ assertion that the “commerce clause”, utilized regularly since the New Deal to permit expansion of federal power, was declared limited by a 5-4 vote of Roberts and all four Republican and conservative appointments on the Court—Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito–and vigorously opposed by the four Democratic and liberal appointments—Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Instead, Roberts said the law was constitutional based on the “mandate” being a tax.

LIbertarians are cheered by this aspect of the case, but it COULD effectively limit federal power, and restore states rights back to the pre 1930s view, which would indeed be tragic in so many ways!

So the battle over the future of government, and over what the Roberts majority opinion means for the long term, will be the subject of much discussion, debate, and cases over the coming years!

Barack Obama On The Attack Against Republicans And Conservatives: Critical Of The Supreme Court And The Paul Ryan Budget Plan

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Barack Obama has gone on the offensive against conservative and Republican philosophy, both on the Supreme Court and in Congress.

Already throwing down the gauntlet to the Supreme Court yesterday, Obama pointed out that the commerce clause and Supreme Court case history and two Circuit Court Judges (Laurence Silberman and Jeffrey Sutton) are a call for backing the Obama Health Care law, and it is clear that IF the Court declares it unconstitutional, the Court itself will be an issue in the upcoming Presidential campaign of 2012. And it is certain that the KEY issue of 2012, no matter what happens, is to realize that the future judicial appointments to the Supreme Court and the lower courts matter more than ANYTHING economic or foreign policy related, because the judiciary is a lifetime appointment!

If we are upset over a 5-4 Court to the right, imagine a 7-2 Court under a Republican President when and if Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer, both in their 70s, leave the Court over the next four to eight years!

But today, President Obama is also mounting a full scale assault on the Paul Ryan budget plan adopted by the House Republican majority for the second year in a row, which includes massive tax cuts to the rich beyond the Bush tax cuts, and major cuts in Medicare and Medicaid and all other domestic spending programs that benefit the poor and the struggling middle class, as well as the elderly.

Obama is calling it today’s “Social Darwinism”, the prevalent philosophy of the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, a period being matched and surpassed with the growing concentration of wealth in the top one percent of the population in the past ten years, and now threatening to be even more concentrated under the budget plan of the House Budget Committee Chairman.

And with the growing possibility that Ryan might be the Vice Presidential running mate of Mitt Romney, the future of the nation is at stake on the Supreme Court and lower courts, and also on the Presidential and Vice Presidential level, along with the Congressional actions in future years.

This is a battle for survival of the middle class, and the continuation of understanding the plight of the poor, as class division and the potential for class warfare grows!

Class Division, Conflict, Stress Multiplying: Dangerous For American Social Stability!

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A new survey demonstrates that the biggest problem developing socially in America is economic class conflict and division, more than racial differences or the debate over immigration.

Economic inequality, leading to a sense of rich versus poor, and very little middle class, is a time bomb that could endanger the nation’s future.

The great increase in this feeling is, interestingly, most common among whites, middle income earners, and independent voters, but also increased among Republicans.

73 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of Independents believe there is strong economic class conflict.

Also, 71 percent of those who earned between $40,000 and $75,000 believed there are strong class conflicts, up from 47 percent in 2009.

The Census Bureau has come up with the figure that the top ten percent of the population have 56 percent of the national income in 2009, up from 49 percent in 2005.

If this trend continues, and if the masses become more and more resentful at the unfairness of national income distribution and taxation policies, it is not going to benefit the Republican Party, and could lead to demands for far greater taxation of the wealthy, already at the lowest level it has been since the 1920s!

With Ron Paul Having His “Surge” In Iowa, The Investigation Of His Record Begins!

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Texas Congressman Ron Paul has been very appealing to libertarians, and was in fact the Presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party in 1988.

Having run as a Republican for President in 2008, the only repeat candidate along with Mitt Romney, Paul is presently first in some Iowa public opinion polls as the Iowa Caucuses of January 3 get closer.

So Paul is having a “surge”, as earlier Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich have had. Only Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman have not had a “surge’ as the search for the non Romney candidate continues.

So now that Ron Paul is being paid more attention, let us look at the facts about a man who has been around a long time, and has taken positions on all kinds of issues, meaning at least some will be seen in a positive light, depending on the person looking at Paul’s record. But there is plenty to be disturbed about!

But face the facts: There is no way that Ron Paul can be the GOP Presidential nominee, and if he looked as if he was going to be, there would be such a ganging up on him by the Republican Party, which despite its claims, is NOT a libertarian, isolationist party as Ron Paul basically is.

What is objectionable about Ron Paul, in no special order?

1. Ron Paul has in the past, in a newsletter he now disavows, but was under his name, stated racist, anti Semitic, and anti gay statements. While he is not the only Republican to make racist or anti gay statements, the fact that he said them in a newsletter many years ago makes him even more objectionable, since it is harder to refute.

2. Paul is for taking America out of the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and all free trade agreements. He is perceived as an isolationist.

3. He is highly critical of Israel, the only Republican candidate to be so, and yet does not see Iran as a threat for the future with the development of nuclear weapons.

4. Paul is for wiping out most government agencies and their bureaucracies, including Education, Commerce, Homeland Security, Energy, Health and Human Services, and Energy. He also would love to eliminate the Federal Reserve Board. None of this is going to happen, no matter what criticisms there might be of these agencies.

5. Paul promotes letting states decide most matters dealt with by the national government, and thinks climate change is a hoax, and advocates stopping interference with religion’s influence in government, including the teaching of intelligent design over evolution.

6. He is a strong believer in pro-life without exceptions; against any government intervention in the environment; any regulation of guns; and any aspect of affirmative action.

7. Paul opposes any kind of amnesty for illegal aliens, any support of any kind for them, and birthright citizenship for their children born in the United States.

8. Paul believes only in excise or sales taxes, and the wiping out of the income tax, and refuses to support any spending programs that create new debts.

Also, a study by a political science journal, The American Journal of Political Science, came to the conclusion that, overall, Paul has the most conservative voting record of all 3,320 members of Congress from 1937 to 2002!

So the attacks on Ron Paul as outside the mainstream, even of the GOP, is rapidly growing!

Conservative And Republican Ideas On Economy: Proved Wrong By What Has Happened In Great Britain In Past Year

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Conservatives and Republicans keep on arguing that budget cuts are the answer, without any tax increases, and that government spending is the villain.

Meanwhile, the British government of Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has been promoting fiscal austerity, which has failed to help their economic situation. Unemployment has risen, and the budget cuts have not revived business confidence or encouraged more hiring, as people have less to spend as a result.

The British are suffering with a bad economy made far worse by spending cuts in the public sphere. All it has done is make for more future budget cuts as people cannot spend, and is leading toward a policy that did not work during the early years of the Great Depression, but only made it far worse.

Promoting fiscal austerity only will doom the British economy to a long period of no growth and worse economic conditions. Cutting government spending will only cause reduced demand and less tax revenue, and the British experience should be a warning sign to the American government and the American people.

Will we learn from past mistakes during the Great Depression, or will we again prove that we do not learn from the lessons of history?