America’s Problem With Math

How is it fair for people who make all the money to pay all the taxes?

You hear this argument used all the time….. by super-rich Republicans who want to confuse the issue… Why should those who make all the money have to pay all the taxes? It is not fair!!!!

Allow me to use simple math….

$400,000,000,000 ($400 billion) X 40% = $160,000,000,000 (160 billion)

$40.000 X 40% = $16,000

$16,000 / $160,000,000,000 = 0.00001%

Mitt and Biden….

Biden portrayed the Republican front-runner as the purveyor of failed economic ideas…

Mitt Romney fired back that Biden and Obama live in an economic “fantasyland” out of touch with the real world.

I’ll bet you $10,000 right now, that Mitt loses this argument, that it turns out it is Mitt, who is out of touch with the real world…….

Are Politics Divisive?

At times they are, more so now than in recent memory. But, they were not always… There are fond memories from some of the more senior actors on the political stages across this country, of when elections were viewed as mere sporting events… similar to that of Dallas versus Philadelphia… Some sparing, baiting, teasing when on, but after the vote, life went on.. just the same as it does after game day.

The decisiveness began to occur during the eighties. Which simultaneously, coincides with the advent of Fox News… We all know how a mother in law can pick apart a marriage. Suppose a news network used the same approach? First shining a light on one little thing that pissed the other partner off, then, returning the favor, shining a light on something the other did, pissing the first one off too… Pretty soon both sides are expressing anger at each other; so mad they are, it never occurs to them to be mad at the person creating a fiasco where none existed before… the mother in law…..

What if our anger, was just us getting played? I imagine one could do that with a team rivalry. “Cowboy players all said they wished when they played Philadelphia, they could play in another city. Philadelphia stinks…” Then two days later. Philadelphia’s quarterback said the ugliest hooker in Philly, was better looking than the Dallas Cheerleaders.” The following week, Dallas fans beat up Philadelphian shopping in the Galleria.” Two days later, “Woman gang raped outside King of Prussia Mall for wearing Cowboys Jersey.” So what if none of the stories were true… Actually no one was even concerned to check out their veracity. (it was false) but that didn’t stop the animosity from building… Next seasons event: for some reason, had more fights then ever recorded at any NFL game. The second game of the season, was played without any fans in the stands…. Tickets were refunded.

Of course this is fictitious. And believable..

So what if we hate each other for no reason? Just that we were told there was a reason and so hate we do?

There is proof that we don’t hate for a reason.

One, history. We always got along well before.
Two, American Tradition. We pride ourselves with polite civility
Three, both Tea Party and Occupiers, have big money corruption as part of their policy planks.
Four, both Tea Party and Occupiers within the course of two years, have protested the status quo.
Five, both Tea Partiers and Occupiers have a common enemy. Big Money.
Six, both Occupiers and Tea Partiers, are upset Middle Class is doing poorly…

Just like the broken couple, both point fingers at the other side, and develop a deep hatred for the other.

But, is it too late?

Can a couple disown their mother in law, send her packing to a nursing home, and get along well enough again to provide their children with a better future? Well, it gets done all the time….

Humans can forgive and forget. Americans as a people, are far better at that than most any other country… Certainly better than France (lol)…

Imagine if David Anderson, Jason Scott, Dana Garrett, Dave Burris, Liberalgeek, Hube, Pandora, Frank Knotts, Unstable Isotope, Fay Voshell, as well as a cast of thousands, got so fed up, they withdrew their accounts from a big bank and put it into a local one. What if they refused to use a credit card, tore them up, and all paid everything with cash? What if they stopped buying anything made in China, or sold by a multinational corporation? What if they all wrote about why and what they were doing, and all those who read followed? It certainly would change Delaware. What if all states did the same…Those mad on the right, and those mad on the left, pursued the same course of action, until the complete absence of secret monetary influences, became standard policy in elections….?

What if both sides, supported a constitutional amendment that explicitly overturned Citizens United, and forbid, slush funds, large corporate donations, and only allowed individual donors to contribute small amounts?

Would we then find common ground? Would we, without the divisiveness being forced upon us, have the normalcy to actually listen to the other side for a change, and craft compromises in the fashion they used to be crafted, back when things were golden?

Tell me, could you not work with the other side to achieve this goal? We have a common complaint. That complaint is that our government, who depends upon our votes to achieve their office, is not listening to us…. Both sides voice that.

Perhaps we take care of the corporate mother in law first, then work together again and fix this country… It’s not that hard to fix, we already have a plan.……

Mitch McConnell Speaks

“For better or worse, this is a problem House Republicans have created and one they have to fix,” said a Senate GOP leader. “I don’t think there is anybody on our side who views this as anything positive. We are ceding ground on one of our No 1 issues that we spent decades gaining advantage on, which is taxes.” Mitch McConnell.

Republicans Just Cost Me $1000 A Year!

They cost you too…

The drop in payroll tax from 6.2% to 4.2% results in a savings of about $1000 a year to every wage earner.

(If truth were widely known, that tax cut is actually a bad idea. It hemorrhages a dying social security fund, requiring the eventual death of the program or an expensive emergency last ditch surgery in the future.)

But it is hard not to give a $1000 present to every voter. Even if it only comes out as $19 dollars and change each week… But, still again, if your electric bill is $198 and you only have $189 in your account, that additional amount is, well, a lifesaver…..

But, Republicans in the House, even after Republicans in the Senate voted passage, overwhelmingly voted….. not to vote on the measure…

They didn’t vote against it… THEY VOTED NOT TO VOTE ON IT……
(speculation is that they lacked the votes to keep it from passing)..

So, how does that relate to you?

House Republicans (read Tea Party) just voted NOT TO VOTE on whether or not you will be losing an extra $20 a month out of your next paycheck.

Imagine what this is doing to payroll clerks around the country?
Imagine what this is doing to family budgets around the country?
Imagine what this is doing to businesses who rely on consumer spending around the country?
Imagine what this is doing to businesses heavily involved in the financial sector, around this country?

So what would normally happen?

Normally a group that can’t find agreement, acknowledges the sad fact, and long before the deadline, announces that they failed to reach agreement and that things would continue as they were on a temporary basis, to unfortunately allow for more time to solve differences.

But NOOOOOOOOOOOO, …. WE ARE STUCK WITH A TEA PARTY THAT FUCKS THINGS UP.

Instead, we have a vote not-to-vote, then get all sorts of very lame excuses from those who are delaying, none of which apply to the real problem that Social Security is doomed unless drastic action gets taken (higher rates, not lower), and we get nothing….

The tax cut will expire…

It is like sequestering a jury in a room, where everyone after much fact-covering argument has agreed to a judgment, except for one person who’s been bought off. And nothing, nothing, logic, emotional appeal, bullying, snuggling up to, befriending, produces any change. And you go years, every working day, to the same court house, the same jury room, they same chair at the same table, hear the same arguments, hoping against all odds, that today, he will see the light and switch. You go the next day.

That is today’s Congress. Held hostage by Tea Party Republicans who live in a dream world untouched by the reality of living under $185,000 a year. Like that bought-out juror, every day, they hold up progress with the unjustified belief that, if they wait long enough, the other 11 jurors will give up and sway over to the sole juror’s way….

Two things can happen… 1) return to the public and announce a hung jury, and do a complete retrial.. or 2) sneak up to that one juror, put a gun to his head, say nothing, pull the trigger, clean up the mess, dispose of the body, then go out to the public and announce what the 11 of you have decided…..

One is the nice way, sanctioned to due process of law. The other is the American Way.

It’s time to initiate the kavipsian policy of expression or what is otherwise known as “Show Us How You Really Feel”… Who knows? It could become the next great movement? The next time someone you know (or don’t), says anything about how millionaires should keep their tax cuts and the poor should pay, nod your head in agreement, smile a little bit, then hit them as hard as you can in their mouth, I mean as hard as you can! Put them flat on the ground holding their jaw… Then loudly say, “Don’t every talk that stupid way to me again!” Who knows, if 99% or all 303,930,000 would respond that way to our fellow congressional delegates, and the other 3.9 million of their like who advocate such madness, we might actually get the very progress we need, not because of intimidation, but because such policy is right….

For those who argue expression of violence is un-American, I’ll remind them that tonight, is John Wayne Night on AMC: view it!… I argue that such action is VERY American and perhaps it has been the lack of such spontaneous expressions of frustration from working American people, that has caused the logjam where nothing gets done because of one holdout, who thinks he can sway the world to his opinion and face no consequences… ….

Practice now, by punching brick walls.

Speaking of Gingrich, This Cracked Me Up.

“He’s a little bit like a sober Charlie Sheen,” says Rep. Steven LaTourette of Ohio, who came to Congress in Gingrich’s 1994 Republican surge. “He just kind of shouts stuff out.”

That said, I think Gingrich is their best nominee. Why? Because he is the Republican candidate least concerned over his party’s philosophy. If elected, he seems far more concerned about the status of the nation, than the rise or fall of his party. None of the other candidates show concern over the United States of America, (Ron Paul excepted). All they’ve shown, is how much they care about themselves.

Can This Be Right?

When we had a surplus, the GOP’s answer was to cut taxes. When the surplus became a deficit (in large part because of the Bush tax cuts), the Republicans answer was to cut taxes. During times of peace they argued for cutting taxes. When we were involved in two wars, costing billions of dollars a month, then-House Republican leader Tom DeLay said, “Nothing is more important in the face of war than cutting taxes.”

Tax cuts define the Republican Party…. Yes, they do…

The Republicans are fighting against a tax cut for the middle class. And the President is supporting it?

A tax cut? Republicans against? The President for?
Is the world turned upside down?

Even twenty-seven Senate Republicans thought their own party’s stance was unconscionable, and voted against the Republican version of the middle-class tax cut, which deleted tax on millionaires and replaced it, with a federal pay freeze and draconian spending cuts.

The research firm Macroeconomic Advisers projects that the Obama middle-class tax cut will create 1.3 million new jobs by the end of next year and 800,000 more in 2013. Former Sen. John McCain’s economic adviser Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics says the payroll-tax cut has prevented us from slipping back into a recession. If an extension of the cut does not pass, he told MSNBC, “at the very minimum, we’ll likely go into recession.”

Voters are coming to the conclusion that the GOP cares more about protecting tax breaks for millionaires than the benefits that millions of middle-class retirees depend on.

Rush Limbaugh: “i hope he fails.”
Mitch McConnell: “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” And the single best way to defeat Obama is to sabotage the economy.

Republicans want to kill Obama’s middle-class tax cut, his American Jobs Act, his extension of unemployment benefits and everything else he’s advocating to revive the economy, and they want millionaires to pay no taxes….

Perhaps they are against extending the middle class tax cut, because they know it is a good bill, and it will improve the economy enough so we won’t then vote for them in 2012?

“It Was A Bash…. It Was The M o n s t e r Bash…. “

Mitt vrs Newt: Newt vrs Mitt

Each attacking the other’s ideas. Ironically both doing it from the left.

First Newt: “I reject Mitt Romney’s demand that I return the $1.6 million I “earned” as Freddie Mac’s top “housing historian” by challenging Romney to return all the money he made at Bain Capital, gotten by bankrupting companies and laying employees off.

Mitt’s turn: From Saturday’s debate: “his plan in capital gains, to remove capital gains for people– at the very highest level of income is different than mine. I’d– I’d– eliminate capital gains, interest, and dividends for people in middle income”. And one day earlier he said this: “My own calculation is that if that were the case, for anybody—no taxes on interest, dividends, and capital gains—I would have paid no taxes over the last ten years, because all my income is from interest, dividends, and capital gains, and neither would Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and so forth.”

Get it?

The Republican Party is so morally bankrupt, that when required to attack one’s opponent in an effort to win, they MUST resort to values championed by the left, to make them stick…

Doesn’t Gingrich sound like an Occupied Wall Streeter? Doesn’t Mitt sound like kavips? Hey, WAIT A SECOND! Wasn’t it the “Democrats tax package” last year, that kept all the Bush Tax Cuts for those earning under $150,000, but let them expire for the billionaire top earners? That same one that was stymied by Mitch McConnell by buttonholing EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN IN THE SENATE?

It appears that when you truly need to hurt an opponent, in order to portray him as an insensitive brute, as being uncaring about anyone other than himself, YOU HAVE TO USE LIBERAL VALUES TO DO SO…..

Gee, it appears (quoting the two top Republican contenders of the moment as experts), that liberals, were right, all along….

Inside every American’s core, actually lies hard-sore solid liberal values. Conservative values, are just fake eyelashes, designed to lure the next “john of the moment”, into one’s bed……

Have Corporations Gone TOO Far?

It comes under the heading of GImmicks:

Shopping for the holidays, you pick up an item, scan it with your phone, and BOOM, you can see how much it would save you had you shopped on line… at… Amazon.com…

Great service. The customer has a need for information. It is provided conveniently. The customer can make a decision on the spot.

Gone are the days of writing down prices, walking through 8 stores, then returning to the one with the lowest… It is all in the palm of you hand…

Ahhh, but is it fair for those retailers trying to stay open another year, by capitalizing on the surge of holiday book sales?

AS one enterprising book shop owner exclaimed to the NY Times: “to “everyone who comes in my store. If you let me, I’ll get to know you through your reading life and strive to find books that resonate with you. Amazon asks you to take advantage of my knowledge & my education (which I’m still paying for) and treat the space I rent, the heat & light I pay for, the insurance policies I need to be here, the sales tax I gather for the state, the gathering place I offer, the books and book culture I believe in so much that I’ve wagered everything on it” as if it were “a showroom for goods you can just get more cheaply through them.”

Are small businesses who lack the gigantic resources required, put at a competitive disadvantage? Is it morally correct, to allow corporate espionage on a scale that could wipe out all small business competitors in one Christmas season.

Somewhere in Amazon.com, is a listing of every price in every bookstore, as well as a guide as to which books are popular. And no one gets employed to go out looking for that information.

On one hand, businesses have the right to innovation. they have the right to compete, they have the right to outsmart the competition. That is how society moves forward. The weak fail. The strong survive.

But on the other hand, like an endangered species, little bits of Americana, of life as it used to be, those pieces of the good side of life, do not return the next season; it gets worse year after year….

On one hand prices are low now, meaning other things can be bought with the savings.

On the other hand, as we saw with Standard Oil at the beginning of the last century, monopolies do raise prices to levels a lot higher than they would be if they had competition….

It is quite similar to the Wal*mart takeover of America. For one, I love Wal*mart. It is how I find out what’s new. But my folk’s small town, died the day Wal*mart opened its doors onto the Interstate exit. Understandably. You saved $20 dollars buying the same assortment of items………. back when they first opened that is. Now, with Main Street closed up, the prices are about where they were in the small shops the day before it opened…. All we did was move spending our money downtown, to spending it 3 miles out of town. Whereas the local businesses used to give back both in taxes and in donations…. the corporate giant now sends our money overseas….

Do small businesses have to take this onslaught. “The law has long been clear that stores do not invite the public in for all purposes. A retailer is not expected to serve as a warming station for the homeless or a site for band practice. So it’s worth wondering whether it’s lawful for Amazon to encourage people to enter a store for the purpose of gathering pricing information for Amazon and buying from the Internet giant, rather than the retailer.”

And so, the issue actually moves from economic, to political.. Sort of like the “Buy America” campaign in the 80′s. It involves conceding the economic war; establishing a new front in the form the political war. It becomes a moral issue, and not a price-point one. Do you like small bookstores? Do you like seeing a business open? Do you like establishing a solid tax base for your community? Do you like the option of your son or daughter being hired by someone you personally have known for years….. when they come home for Christmas breatk? If so, then support your local bookstore, and don’t buy on line at Amazon.com….

That may work for those politically motivated, which if the past presidential election can serve as a guide, applies to only 61% of us… The rest of us need to save that $20….

If there is any wisdom that comes from watching this past decade unfold, it is this: you have to treat corporations like children; you can’t let them have the upper hand… Historians know this. Teddy Roosevelt proved it during the dawn of the 1900′s. You HAVE to break up corporations so they become SO worried about other’s moving in on their territory, they don’t have time for mischief. You give them time (with no supervision), they’ll make mischief. Just like one’s kids.

So the answer lies not in boycotts. The answer lies not in public shame. The answer lies not in micromanaging colossal giants…

After thinking about it for a very long time, it appears the only answer is to eliminate them, by breaking them up so they have to compete against themselves.

The laws are already on the books to do it.

Declaration Of Occupy…..

When it started, the most frequent complaint regarding the Occupy Movement, was… “Oh, I understand their anger, but what good are they going to accomplish?”

(Well, everyone can’t be as smart as us, right? Who then would be around to watch Fox News?)

The movement is beginning to gel. The era of protest is continuing. The era of organizing is beginning. The plan is for two people, one man and one woman, to be chosen out of each of the Congressional Districts, to meed in Philadelphia to hammer out a platform.

Some things on the agenda, make both Republicans and Democrats look like sappy old parties….
It is obvious that a new push is needed to fix America. Here is a preliminary topic list….

1) Therefore, all private funding of political campaigns shall be replaced by the fair, equal and TOTAL public financing of all federal political campaigns.

2) The immediate abrogation, even if it requires a Constitutional Amendment (e.g. the Sanders-Deutch Amendment), of the outrageous and anti-democratic Supreme Court holding in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

3) Elected and unelected public officials and their immediate families shall be banned from ever being employed by any corporation, lobbying firm, individual or business that the public official specifically regulated while in office. 

4) Members of the United States House of Representatives shall be limited to serving no more than four two-year terms in their lifetime. Members of the United States Senate shall be limited to serving no more than two six-year terms in their lifetime.  The two-term limit for President shall remain unchanged.

5) A complete reformation and simplification of the United States Tax Code to require ALL individuals and corporations to pay a fair share of a progressive, graduated income tax by eliminating loopholes, unfair tax breaks, exemptions and unfair deductions, subsidies and ending all other methods of evading taxes. The current system of taxation unjustly favors the wealthiest Americans..

6) Medicare for all or adoption of a universal single-payer healthcare system. The broken Medicaid program will be eliminated as redundant. Affordable healthcare shall be a human right.

7) New comprehensive laws and regulations must be immediately enacted to give the Environmental Protection Agency, and other environmental protection regulators, expanded powers and resources to shut down corporations, businesses or any entities that intentionally or recklessly damage the environment, and to criminally prosecute individuals who intentionally or recklessly damage the environment

8 ) Reduction of the $15 trillion national debt to be achieved by BOTH fair progressive taxation and cuts in spending

9) The American People must be put to work now by repairing America’s crumbling infrastructure and building other needed public works projects.

10) education is the only way to ensure our future success as a nation, interest on student debts must be immediately reduced to 2% or less and repayments deferred for periods of unemployment. Subject to the provisions of point five herein, the tax code will be amended so that employers will receive a student loan repayment tax deduction for paying off the loans of their employees.

11) New educational goals to train the American public to perform jobs in a 21st century economy, particularly in the areas of technology, infrastructure repair, water and resource conservation and green energy must be mandated as national security issue.

12) Subject to the elimination of corporate tax loopholes and exploited exemptions and deductions as stated in point five, limited tax incentives will be permitted to entice businesses to hire our citizens rather than outsource jobs.

13) Immediate reenactment of the Glass-Steagall Act and increased regulation of Wall Street and the financial industry by the SEC, FINRA, CFTC, the Justice Department and the other financial regulators including the recently established Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

14) The federal government shall buy all mortgages in foreclosure and refinance these debts at an interest rate of 1% or less..

15) The 99% demand the abolishment of the Electoral College in favor of the Popular Vote in presidential elections to avoid situations where the Electoral College elects a candidate who does not receive a majority of the popular vote. 

16) An immediate withdrawal of all combat troops from Afghanistan

17) It must not be censored or regulated in any manner without the consent of the people who utilize and contribute to its vitality. We therefore demand the immediate withdrawal of the Stop Online Piracy Act or “SOPA” (H.R. 3261) and the Protect IP Act (S. 968).

18) We call upon the United States government to repeal those portions of the Patriot Act that limit the civil rights of American citizens, withdraw sections 1031 & 1032 of the National Defense Authorization Act and immediately stop all abuses of the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act which allows extrajudicial eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without oversight.