The Liberal Elitist

The Republican Candidates: Seriously?

I suppose that one of them might wind up president, but....Does anyone seriously step back and listen to these people?

Newt Gingrich:  He would arrest judges who disagree with him.

Michelle Bachmann:  She inherited Sarah Palin's hate mantle, and gets away with it. 

Rick Perry:  After 10 years as governor of the second largest state, is it possible to be this unprepared for the presidency?

Ron Paul:  He gets away with racist screeds, crackpot ideas, and he still gets invited to debates.

Rick Santorum:  Tailor made for the "values" voter--if your values are subjugation of women and demoninizing of gays. Seems there are a lot of you out there.

Jon Huntsmann:   The sad thing about him is that in elections gone-by he would have been a serious candidate--but the Republicans treat him like a joke. Which says more about them than him.

Mitt Romney:  The best for last. Gordon Gecko gunning for the White House, who makes John Kerry look like the model of political consistency.  And a flat-out, unapologetic liar. 

Republicans--this is your field?  This is who you put in front of us?  There are lots of signs of the decay of our culture (Kim Kardashian, for example).  But do you have to actively work at making the country worse, making us dumber, more pathetic, a bigger joke than we already are?

Simply unbelievable. 

A way out for the GOP hostage takers

By now, it's probably dawning on some Republicans (not the band of nitwit freshmen in the House, of course or our Great National Homophobe, Michelle Bachmann), that you can't keep saying you're going to kill the hostage if you know it means your own suicide. People like Lindsey Graham and even the comical Tim Pawlenty are realizing that.

On the same token, Obama opened the door for these idiots by even agreeing at all to discuss conditions and concessions for raising the debt ceiling. He should have foreclosed that possibility from the beginning by using a loud and bully pulpit and framed the debate away from debt and towards the here-and-now jobs crisis. As it is, he let the Republicans define the tone of our entire economic debate (but that's another subject). 

Within two weeks, something is going to have to give. It's absolutely stupid to try to push through massive reforms with no time left on the clock. So no grand bargain, no balanced budget amendment, no raising the qualifying age for Medicare. 

We need to recognize we have a stalemate. And a stalemate means you start a new game. So here's a simple proposal:

1. Congress raises the debt limit by whatever amount necessary to take us six months into the next presidential term. I suspect this is something like $2.5 trillion. 
2. There are no strings attached to the limit; no specified spending cuts and no tax increases. Congress goes about its business until January 2013 and passes budget resolutions and makes appropriations that they can agree to send to the president for his signature. If the GOP can slash spending for the time remaining in the Congressional term, let them do it. 
3. In the 2012 election, the two parties fight out the battle over the role of government that has been at the heart of this hostage crisis. The American people decide which path they want to take. 

Here are the advantages for both sides:

• The hostage gets freed and the US doesn't default.  The investment community and the adults in places of power are happy and relieved. 
• The Republicans don't get blamed for ruining the economy. 
• Obama and the Democrats can't lay claim to having cut spending and having solved a big national problem. 

We really are at a point where it's time to move on and have an election that will sort all of this out. The 2010 election left us with divided government. While that works sometimes, in this case the new majority in the House is unusual--it's dominated by an ultra-radical wing that wants things their own way or else. The only way to deal with that at this point is to take the fight to the highest level possible--a presidential election. 

The tea party can have its chance to sweep it all. They don't have to kill the hostage to acheive their goal. All they have to do is persuade enough of us that they're right. 

Then the Democrats and the liberal elitists can set about beating them like a bad piece of meat. 

If you vote to increase the deficit, you vote to borrow money. So doesn't that mean you are required to pay it back?

There is something that mystifies me. But knowing the ways of the clowns who run our government, I guess it shouldn't be surprising. 

The Speaker of the House today wrote in an op-ed in USA Today that he would not support an increase in the debt limit unless certain spending cuts and policy changes are attached to it. Now, this is where I am confused:  this same Speaker voted back in December for a tax package that raised our deficit.  It extended some tax cuts and created more. He also has voted repeatedly for spending bills that he knows requires the government to borrow money. 

But, the way Washington is set up, there is another vote required that actually stipulates that we'll honor our debts. 

The debts are real. We have borrowed the money. We have borrowed it quite consciously and we know that our revenues don't come anywhere close to our expenses. The whole thing with raising the debt limit is actually just a sham. Every time Congress spends any money at all, they are adding to the debt. It's utter nonsense to say that we are "raising the debt limit."  All we are doing is affirming our promise to pay those debts back. 

The Republican recklessness on this issue is truly astounding. The Speaker is actually out there leading the charge saying he'll quit paying our debts if he doesn't get his way about certain things. 

These guys are as close to being traitors to their country as anyone can possibly be. It's time we brand them for what they are:  subservient oligarchs, living to serve their corporate masters and plotting subterfuge against their own people. 

Take the tax cut for the wealthy and give it to the middle class

We're in the midst of another silly debate in which a lot of wimpy Democrats will feel too nervous to take on the powerful conservative interests. We're already seeing signs of it as the Blue Dogs come out for extending the Bush tax cuts for people earning over $250,000.

The logic is "we can't raise taxes during the recession."

Well, here's an idea.  End the tax cut for that high-affluent group, but take those dollars and cut taxes for the middle class. It could be a permanent cut or one to last a few years.

This has a couple of advantages. The biggest one being that it shelters liberals from being seen as favoring an overall increase in government revenue. But it also shields liberals from charges of increasing the deficit. After all, the proponents of the tax cut for the wealthy are willing to let the deficit increase if the tax cut continues.

This seems to me to be an imminently sensible idea--one that every liberal could sign on for, and that would completely disarm the conservative opposition. It would expose them for what they are:  protectors of the ruling classes.

A comment to David Brooks says it all

A New York Times reader from South Carolina who identifies himself as "Jumper" wrote this in response to a David Brooks column, in which Brooks had called for cutting middle class entitlements as a way to stimulate economic growth:  

Mr. Brooks, before I'd start cutting middle class entitlement programs, I'd start cutting the upper class entitlement program.

From 1918 through 1921 the top tax rate was in the 70% range. Then it dropped to the 50% range through 1924.

From 1925 through 1931, the top tax rate was in the 25% range - lower than what we have today.

From 1932 through 1981, the top tax rate was never less than 70%.

(During the Truman through Eisenhower years, the top tax rate was in the 90% range - largely to pay the WW II debt.)

In 1982, under Reagan, the top tax rate dropped to 50%.
In 1987, still under Reagan, it dropped to 38.5%.
In 1988, still under Reagan, it dropped to 28%.
Since 1991, the top tax rate has averaged in the mid-to-high 30% rate.

From the late 1930s through 1982, the American middle class enjoyed prosperity and a steadily growing standard of living. The wealthy still made money and increased their wealth.

Since the first Reagan tax cut, the standard of living of the American middle class has steadily declined. Today, the top tax rate is hardly pay more the rate for the middle class.

That means that the great percentage of the costs of running this nation have been dumped on the middle class.

There it is. That's the wealthy elite entitlement. They've got trillions of dollars of nearly untaxed money and contribute next to nothing, compared to the middle class, for the governmental functions and services that any civilized nation requires.

We in the middle class have virtually no money for disposable income so raising taxes on us would definitely harm the economic growth.

Consequently, why not raise the highest tax rate back up to 70%? That will fund the costs currently being borne by the middle class, much of which is used to benefit the business of the wealthy elite. Simultaneously, this will cause more money, (middle class disposable income), to go into circulation. That will increase demand for product and increase hiring.

Now, go back to my first numbers. The top tax rate was 25% starting in 1925, which was the start of a period of runaway prosperity until the crash in the autumn of 1929. Notice the parallel to the huge cuts to the top tax rate and prosperity in the 1980s and 1990s followed by plummet into economic depression.

Note also that the top tax rate was actually raised to 63% in 1932, one of the darkest years of the Depression. It never fell below 63% for fifty years - fifty years of growing prosperity.

Our goal is national prosperity to benefit everyone including the wealthy. The key to this is getting money into circulation,(without devaluing the currency), not helping the wealthy elite hoard it.

Put the top tax rate back up where it has proven historically necessary for a national prosperity.

Some of this tax will be used to pay down the national debt or to fund the entitlements found in civilized nations.

Last, slash military spending by 30% and use that to also pay down national debt.

That's how to grow the American middle class, traditionally the United States engine of growth. That's not what needs pruning.

via community.nytimes.com

I haven't posted here in a long time, and it's interesting that a reader comment to a David Brooks column is what jogged me back into the liberal/conservative dialog.

This is great.

To defeat the Tea Party, just show them for what they are

This is Dale Robertson, the self-proclaimed founder of the Tea Party, at a party even last year in Houston. 

The Washington Independent dug this up after Robertson suggested that Democrats may have planted people at Tea party events last week to cast racial slurs. The Washington Times quoted him as saying, ""These people could be anybody. I wouldn't put it past the Democrats to plant somebody there. They're trying to label the tea party, but I've never seen any racial slurs."

Tea Party apologists, from Sarah Palin on down, are trying to cast liberals as the villains in the background. The only way to fight these lies is to expose the truth.  

 

Health care reform is an anti-discrimination bill--and that's the ultimate case supporting it

We're within a day of a resolution of the most hard-fought legislative battle since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  A couple of days ago, I arrived at something of a Eureka moment on this issue, and, like any such moments, you wonder afterwards why it never dawned on you sooner. 

Health care reform is simply an anti-discrimination bill. I had not looked at it like that, but think about it:

If you're on Medicare or Medicaid, or if you are eligible for VA benefits, you get health care without worrying about whether you have been sick in the past or if you might get cancelled if you get sick in the future. The same is true if you are covered by a group insurance plan at work. While your exposure to risk is greater in this case, group insurance is tightly regulated and generally you don't have to worry about pre-existing conditions and cancellation because your claims were too high. 

If we compel insurers to cover autism, why is it wrong to compel them to cover pre-existing conditions? My state senator responds

I posted recently about contacting my state senator regarding legislation proposed in Missouri that would require insurance companies to cover very expensive therapies to treat children diagnosed with autism spectrum. 

My question was simple:  "Why do Republicans like yourself strongly support legislation like this but then oppose health care reform that simply requires companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions?" 

Senator Schmitt's chief of staff, Sean Furey, had the courtesy to call me today to discuss the matter. He pointed out that his boss felt that this problem had reached such a proportion that it was a legitimate function of government to compel private insurers to extend this coverage. I happen to agree with this position and support the legislation. 

A government takeover of health care? Think again

Consider these premises:

1. People who have health coverage through their employer generally have pretty good coverage (with some exceptions because there are some cheap plans out there that don't do much). 

2. People who have Medicare have good coverage, even exceptional.

3. People who have Medicaid have fairly good coverage, though not as good as these others in some respects (we like to tightly regulate the poor in this country, you know, and stigmatize them whenever we can). 

4. People who have individual coverage are the most vulnerable. They are subject to the most volatility in pricing, to pre-existing condition write-outs, to having their coverage dropped, etc. In general, it's safe to say that this individual market is pretty much of a mess. 

Still waiting for my state senator

A couple weeks ago I wrote a post on hypocrisy in the Missouri legislature, because there is broad GOP support in that body for a bill mandating that insurance companies provide very costly care to children on the autism spectrum. 

I favor this bill, and I'm glad the conservative Republicans do, too. But why do they so vehemently oppose health care reform--in large part because it constitutes interference in the private sector. The bill they support does the same thing!

I brought this up with my Democratic state representative who gave me a nice response on it, and who also pointed out that autism had tragically affected the families of some prominent Republicans. 

I have yet to hear from my state senator, Eric Schmitt, a Republican and a cosponsor of the bill. I got an email from his chief of staff who said he wanted to talk to me about my concern, and I gave him phone numbers where he could reach me.  He never called.