Some of us have known this for a long time. Some of us just found out and some will find out very soon. There are few, if any, elected officials who really care about our interests unless we’re one of the few thousand ultra rich who control Congress and the White House. (Image)
The Obama-Republican tax plan was just approved in the United States Senate. It will become law soon. What did we lose?
The Senate put the Social Security system at risk with a 33% cut to employee payroll taxes, from 6.2% to 4.2% of wages. Social Security is doing well with a $2.5 trillion surplus. But this major change begins the starvation of the system. Those who voted in favor will turn around sometime soon and say that Social Security is faltering. Of course, their cynical actions will be at fault. They’ll conveniently avoid mentioning that.
The Obama-Republican plan keeps the tax rate on investment income (capital gains) well below the rates for income taxes and below the capital gains rates in 2000. Wall Street ruins the economy with their shady deals then gets more tax breaks on their shady stock deals.
The wealthiest citizens get an extension of the “temporary” Bush era tax cuts.
We’re told that these huge tax cuts are worth it because they’ll get the economy going again by producing jobs. We had nearly 10 years of the Bush tax cuts and guess how many new jobs have been added to the economy? None, when you factor in population growth.
These tax cuts will cause $900 billion in lost revenues. Supporters of these tax breaks will talk your ear off about balanced budgets. Apparently, they see no connection between giving away $900 billion and increasing the budget deficit.
This legislation has nothing to do with new jobs or a balanced budget. It’s all about enhancing income of those at the very top.
Heroes
Senator Bernie Sanders said he’d stop the madness. Last Friday he stood up and spoke for hours outlining the glaring problems with the Obama-Republican program. People thought it was a filibuster. It wasn’t. There was no legislation to filibuster on Friday. Yesterday, when it really counted, Senator Sanders sat on his hands as the one sided brawl between The Money Party and the people took place on the Senate floor. There was no filibuster. Mighty Bernie had struck out.
But Sen. Sanders performed a valuable public service for those in charge. He provided the appearance that there might be at least one principled Senator left who was ready to hold the line.
We need our “heroes.” Without them, we might realize that we’re entirely on our own in the fight against the wholesale theft of the peoples’ hard work and wealth.
Before Sen. Sanders, there were the liberal Democrats in the House of Representatives. They promised to vote against the president’s health care reform bill if it didn’t have a viable public option. Guess what? They sat on their hands just like Senator Sanders as health care reform became a health insurance industry bailout.
Before Sanders there was presidential candidate Obama. He was the breath of fresh air, the sincere man for the people with the brains to pull off real “change.” But we had to have “hope” and before that, we had to believe him.
These public figures and many more promised to correct the chaos and depravity of the Bush era. It’s all a scam. A new war, more bailouts for Wall Street, the continued assault on the Constitution, and lower taxes for the super rich are what we got.
One Winner Only
The appearance of a political opposition is the essential window dressing required to fool people into thinking that there’s actually more than one side that will be heard on any public issue. There isn’t. The ultimate winners are the great accumulations of wealth represented by that bipartisan coalition that has no permanent friends or enemies, just permanent interests – The Money Party.
The Money Party is on a roll. From 2002 through 2007, 70% of the nation’s income growth has gone to just 1% of the population. That 1% wants an end to Social Security, even more tax cuts, and capital gains tax rates well below the income taxes the rest of us pay.
There is no time to feel disappointed, upset, or betrayed by the big con game masquerading as democracy. There is no reason to expect that any political leader will be honest. For those we allow to lead, the only incentive for honesty is a fear by politicians that they’ll be tossed out of office and prosecuted for fraud if they fail to do their jobs.
The United States is still a great country because the vast majority of people are hard working, honest, and willing to live peacefully with their neighbors and, when given a chance, with the rest of the world. The enemies of greatness and progress are the politicians and their patrons who insist on having their way on every issue, who take every thing that isn’t nailed down; and, who create fake dramas and diversions to further the distortions and censorship of the corporate media . They will not go quietly into the night. They will employ every trick available to retain power.
An effective movement for real change should express the positive values of the vast majority. Of fundamental importance, it requires citizens who trust elected and appointed official only while those officials prove their fidelity to the peoples’ interests and the laws of the land. If you want heroes to do the job, just remember all the false heroes we’ve endured.
If we’re willing to reach the end our life justified by the fight rather than the victory, informed by principals rather than personalities, we acquire an enduring wealth beyond the reach of those in charge.
END
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An Alternative to Capitalism (which we need here in the USA)
The following link takes you to an essay titled: “Home of the Brave?” which was published by the Athenaeum Library of Philosophy:
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/steinsvold.htm
John Steinsvold
Michael mentions that the “Senate put the Social Security System at risk…”
The truth is the Social Security System is broke and already gone, because Presidents of both parties from LBJ (who used Social Security to mask the deficit and the spending on the Vietnam war) have bled SS dry.
If you download the report from the Treasury site called ‘The Financial Report of the United States Government’ it is very interesting. This report is created by the government and uses the same accounting methods that businesses in America have to use. In that report you read where the actual national debt is around 55 Trillion and when you go through it you find Medicare, SS and other programs are broke and there is no hope of every paying back what is owed.
If you research it out the government has other ways to conceal and stroke numbers and reports and generally if you talk to a career level government employee they will explain how it is done.
For example, unemployment. Currently our actual unemployment (if you don’t have work) is actually between 23-28 % in our nation which is great depression levels. However the news 9.8%.
How they run that scam is if you got laid off today, your unemployment is reported on a list for 90 or 120 days. This is the number that the press reports.
However after that 90 or 120 day period and you still don’t have work, you fall off the publicly reported list on to another list (that is available, but not publicly reported) then after a period of time another list and another list and finally to a list that was called “unemployable” in years past.
So if you add up all those lists, not to mention whatever model or data manipulation the BLS is using, you can see a total number (of all lists combined) of 23-28% unemployment. Awhile back I spoke to a government official at BLS who said if the US unemployment was measured as it was during the Great Depression, i.e. if you aren’t working, you are unemployed, we would be right at the 28% level.
So whether it’s the SS program, or Medicare, or National Debt, or the unemployment, the numbers are stroked and manipulated to keep everything going so to speak. The truth is the United States is broke and the ONLY two reasons that the US doesn’t go into bankruptcy, Chapter 7 is they have the ability to tax, print money and pretty much go into unlimited debt.
Truthfully, very hard choices would have to be made now and the longer they are put off, the worse the choices will be and the more they will impact Americans. Generally speaking the politicans of both parties can’t make hard choices, so they end up doing very little or nothing.
Ultimatly the responsibility for all of this has fallen on in the past and currently falls on the back of the citizens of the United States for they are the ultimate enablers. They want the money, jobs, government projects, and ear marks coming to their district, but cut the budget somewhere else.
Robert, thank you for that outstanding exposition. It represents the core problem – massive deceiption. There’s an excellent source of data that tell the truth you speak of, in part, at Shadow Government Statistics
http://www.shadowstats.com/
Here’s the real unemployment figures:
I only take issue with one point. The citizens of this country will make the right decisions when they get the real information. That’s not happening now. But will, although we’re late in the game.
Cheers.
If you say that Social Security is broke now, you’re adopting the rhetoric of those who wan to kill it. You’re doing their work for them. Social Security does not add one penny to the deficit as it stands. It’s sound and, with a few adjustments, will be sound for the foreseeable future.
It is problematic that the present Administration has cut the payroll tax. And that’s an issue.
But when you say stuff like Social Security is broke, you’re just playing into the hands of those who would want to deny you your Social Security.
Here’s an idea: Instead of saying that Social Security is broke, say that the U.S. War machine is broke.
It’s all funny money now, and it’s important to presnent the facts to support your interests, not those of the rich who are out to screw the rest of us.
I disagree. Making the comment that “your’re just playing into the hands of those who would want to deny you your Social Security.” is exactly where some people want you to be at. They want to turn it into a you against them issue (which keeps the debate at that level) as opposed to knowing the greater truth which is Social Security really is broke and really doesn’t have any or very little of the money that it is claimed that SS has. Awhile back SS had 2.5 trillion in IOU’s and this number has gone up with Obama significantly.
The government (Presidents and Congress’s from both parties) has been using the trust fund to help pay for the budget deficit, not to mention masking the true size of the yearly deficit and then stuffing in IOU’s in the form of government bonds back into SS. An interesing article appeared awhile back about the IOU’s. See:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/16/social-security-ious-stashed-away-in-wva/
If you ever wonder how Bill Clinton ran into the black during his Presidency the one or two times? The gimmick was to use Social Security. If you take SS out of the picture, it was huge deficits. Same with all Presidents since at least LBJ.
In essence SS used to be a big pot of money, but folks from both parties have borrowed the money over the years and have thrown in IOU’s in the form of government bonds into the pot for the money that was borrowed. Naturally the intent was to pay it back…someday, perhaps even with more Treasury Bonds with newer expiration dates on them.
Put in a simple form, picture you and your spouse having multiple checking accounts and multiple savings accounts for yourselves and all your kids.
Over the years money is put into those accounts, and lets say that Junior has an account with 100K in in. You and your spouse decide you need to spend 40K for a new car, so you take the money out of Juniors account, print an IOU, and toss it into that account’s file in your desk, naturally with the intention that when the time comes, and Junior is headed to college, you will put that 40K back into the account or so you think at the time you are buying the new car.
By the time that moment of truth comes, you have three new cars your are paying on, a mortgage on a huge house, snow mobiles and other toys that you are paying only the interest on, plus you are in debt many times your yearly income. You check your financial condition and find over the years you have thrown IOU’s into alot of files to fund various expenditures of the moment and you don’t have the 40K, plus your other accounts are tapped and full of IOU’s (meaning no actual cash) so other then your yearly income, you can’t pay that money back.
Social Security is broke meaning it “actually” doesn’t have the cash in the bank that the SS balance sheet says it has? Absolutly YES. It has some cash, plus an absolute load of IOU’s. It does have some cash flow with the deduction from the paychecks of those working, however that cash flow will get eaten up as Congress/Presidents dump more IOU’s into the SS.
So down the road, where does the government get more money to use to fund the government programs or cover SS? Why they would probably take all the retirement accounts in America, from State retirements (assuming the States have some money and haven’t robbed their accounts like the government did) to private retirement, put it under the Federal umbrella then start dropping government bonds in OR claim they are backing the retirement accounts with government bonds. You might say “this will never happen.” Already did with the Railroad retirements back in the early 70s.
Ask yourself where SS checks (and for that matter railroad retirement funds) get cut from. In years past I have seen those that people have gotten both and the checks all have United States Treasury on them. Now it’s a direct deposit so nobody see’s where the money comes from, other than the government. My Father-in-law worked for the Union Pacific and his UP retirement checks came from the government.
Is our government broke? YES it is. The only difference between the government and the various schemes we hear about in the news is the government has the ability to print bonds, print money, and lay taxes.
If our government would have been a private company it would have been chapter 7 a long, long, long time ago.
As for the theory that “the rich are screwing us” the Wall Street Journal ran a piece about a year ago and if the government took/confiscated every dollar that everyone worth over $250K per year make that total amount would be around 800 billion dollars per year, i.e. not enough to even cover 6 months of government spending.
What! Why some billionaire like Bill Gates is worth 40 or so billion dollars? True, but that is only in the form of paper instruments, i.e. stocks and bonds, NOT actual money. (Remember Social Security is fully funded on paper because of the IOU’s in government bonds, but in reality doesn’t have the cash) In terms of actual cash Bill Gates gets a year, it totals to around $640,000.00 per year. Now you look at the 15,000 or so people that Microsoft employs in the US, not to mention thousands across the world and here is a rich guy, that is using his business so that folks can have pretty high paying jobs, and because of that he makes even more money. As I observed before, poor people don’t hire others.
Same with us on a much smaller scale. Assuming you had a house with a face value (pre bust) of $400,000.00, then a couple of newer cars with a face value of $35,000.00, not to mention other things, you could easily have a face value of $500,000 or more EVEN though you only have a cash income of $50,000 per year.
Farmers are famous for this. They have land, tractors, other equipment that have a face value of millions of dollars, yet in “actual” real value, some of them are only making $25K per year.
Who is actually always been screwing us (but they think it’s ok when they do it) is the common citizens, who elect leaders, who bring government jobs money, earmarks, etc so they can be employed and have a job. At the next level we are getting screwed by the elected government officials who are caving into the pressure and not being responsible, vote for deficit spending and excess borrowing to keep funding the government, and up the ladder to the Office of President (both parties) who have not wanted to make the hard choices over the years, and all seem to have their pet programs or areas of government they think is worth while to spending money on. In recent years, Bush Jr with the original 800 billion bail out, Obama with three trillion in expenditures etc.
I do agree with Michael above that the citizens of the United States need to have the truth spelled out to them and things have a remote possibility of changing. I say remote because there are so many special interest groups, funded in large part by common people who have a cause to keep cash vested with whatever it is they are championing. All the special interest groups operate under the same logic, which is “cut everybody else, but don’t cut my precious program that I am getting money out of the government for. ”
Thus nothing changes over the years and as long as the people keep getting government checks/jobs or checks and jobs because of government spending. Then the elected leaders can keep the balls in the air so to speak, and keep kicking the can down the road, everybody is happy, including a bulk of private citizens.
Sad but true!
Robert