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The answer is to look at the House, and see what bills passed there which would then, clear a Republican Senate and find their way to the President’s desk for a veto….
Here broken down by issue, is what has actually passed the House, but was stopped by the Senate…
Women’s Issues:
*A law that would make it a federal crime for an adult to accompany a teen across state lines for an abortion and hold doctors liable for knowing that.
*A law to ban abortion coverage in all state health-care insurance exchanges.
*A law to ban abortions after 20 weeks with an exception only for the life of the mother.
*A law to end the contraception benefit in the ACA.
These will need to be stopped by the veto pen of Obama. The real danger is if they get slipped into necessary pieces of legislation, funding bills, so he has to bear the burden and blame of shutting down government or letting them pass.
Paul Ryan’s Budget
*Protect tax breaks for the wealthiest.
*Austerity put in place to hold back growth. Non-defense discretionary spending would fall by $783 billion.
*The Ryan Budget would cut nearly $2.8 trillion from the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies and Medicaid.
*The Ryan Budget cuts all Food stamps, all Earned Income Tax Credit, all unemployment insurance, and all retirement funding for federal workers up to $1 trillion.
*Reducing Pell grants, food stamps, money for renewable energy.
*Target the EPA.
*Federal subsidies for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting can no longer be justified.
*Allow for further drilling access in Alaska, the Outer Continental Shelf, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Inter-mountain West National Parks.
*Keystone Pipeline
*Go after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, gutting Consumer protections by giving business more control, or taking it out from under the Federal Reserve Bank, which could reduce its authority.
Immigration
*An immigration reform with no path to citizenship, sweetened so that Obama would have a very hard time vetoing: DREAMers, border security, STEM, and temporary legal status.
*Plenty of ways to try to force Obama to accept GOP priorities, especially on immigration matters, or issue a veto that would be difficult for some red-state Democrats to defend.
ACA
*Repeal is unlikely now for political reasons… They would nip and tuck. Starve the ACA by budgetary means. What happens if Congress doesn’t pass the health budget the president requests.
*Doing away with the medical device tax and cutting expenditures required to properly implement ACA and in generally making things nasty for the administration.
Supreme Court
*GOP give a nominee a hearing but sit on the vote, leaving the Supreme Court with only eight members until we see who wins the presidency.
Hillary Clinton
*The Republican Senate will try to keep the Benghazi attack in the headlines until the day Hillary Clinton gives her acceptance speech, and beyond.
*With 2016 coming? The best thing for them to do: (in political terms, that is, albeit not for the country)—is dig in, and drag down Obama’s poll numbers. If you are running to succeed a two-term incumbent from your own party, you are in some sense running for his third term. Gutting Obama hurts Hillary’s chances.
Irony
Ironically more legislation will pass both Houses if Republicans do take the Senate. If a piece of legislation clears the House, it will likewise clear the Senate to then land on the desk of the President. Question is: is that type of legislation what you really want passed?
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As long a the president has his veto and the Congress cannot override it, the big changes like the ACA already embedded into todays society by the Obama administration cannot be rescinded. But, considerable bites can be taken out of them. The next two years will be all about reversing the growth and development achieved over the past 6.
This is what is predicted to pass.. Of course those predictions are being made based off of 2010’s voting results… (Looking at who voted in 2010 and predicting who will win based on those “probable” voters)… This is why all the polls are showing the Republicans taking over the Senate….
But this all changes if and only if every single Democrat does go out and vote as they did both times in 2012 and 2008…. if they vote Democratic…..This election is all about getting them off their ass… If every Democrat is motivated to get off their ass, America continues it’s great economic track record and even continues shuffling forward a little faster…
If they don’t, then we indeed have the road to hell ahead of us… Conservatives will be grateful, of course, if you stay home… However, your children and grandchildren when they grow up and find out what you you could have prevented and didn’t do, won’t.
Lynchings still take place. Chip Flowers is stepping down. It is time to consider his legacy, and boy, what a great legacy it was…
Chip Flowers is the first and only treasurer to take on the Cash Management Board, a select group of appointees who can get their position by donating large amounts of cash to the successful Governor candidates, even when one has a record for making investments on the fly without informing the investors trusting you with their money, of your personal conflict of interest against making money for them. Even if you were fined and had to pay over $976,000 for your illegal activity?
David Marvin of the Cash Management Board did just that. Paid $976,980 in a fine to the SEC. Through his generous PAC donation to Jack Markell, he now sits on the Cash Management Board, and who knows what conflict of interests are in play with Delaware’s Treasury’s monies?
Do you know? Don’t you think we should at least find out? Why then is it against the law for the public to even find out what their conflicts of interests are?
Before anyone diminishes Chip Flowers’ achievement, let us remember the legacies left by those former Treasurers, including our current Governor, Jack Markell..
If you remember, the legacy he touted when running for governor, was that he computerized the Treasury Department. Hell, the entire government was computerized during the 2000’s, as well as the entire corporate world. Former Treasure Markell’s legacy was nothing more than being in the Treasurer’s office at the right time when computers came into being…
Prior to that, former treasure Rzewnicki. Her legacy was her attempt to bash Carper with a domestic abuse case. That is her lasting memory.
And before that, Tom Carper. lucklily happened to be in when Pete Dupont rewired Delaware’s laws and investment environment. Delaware was able to increase the rating of its bonds, but it wasn’t done as a result of decisions made in the Treasury. The decisions were made by the General Assembly and put into practice by Pete duPont.
So when it comes to legacies, the Treasury department by the very low level of duties alloted to it, is hard to make a lasting legacy. But that is what has been done by Flowers. We had an engaged treasurer, who actually made many of our sleep-walking members of the Delaware General Assembly aware there even was even a Cash Management board… There must be something very wrong with having a former guilty procedure breaker, handling the monies of the state in ways no one knows, and who is protected against anyone finding out.
That we know this, will be how the future views Chip’s legacy. This is huge.
Reflecting upon today’s news, it is best that he step down. It is unlikely that any second term could do more to add to what he has accomplished. It is best to “get-‘er-done” and move one, and not let the dilution process that naturally happens when one is in office too long, to occur on one’s second shift minimizing ones accomplishments and action.
At least now for the future, when anyone says “Chip Flowers”, we will always have the image of Delaware’s First Black Treasurer, who ran on the platform that it was the “People’s Treasury”, and was the first treasurer to ever do anything to return the Treasury back to the people whose money it handles. He and all of Delaware can be proud of that.
I agree with his decision. It is smart to move on and it is now up to us, “We, The People”, to arrest and hang the lyncher. David Marvin needs to be pulled off the board, even if it takes a bill originating in the General Assembly, and all the state gets to watch the next Speaker of the House twist in the wind between either supporting his “boss”, or all those thousands of citizens who voted him into office. Secondly, we need to know who and how this sickness ever got so close to Delaware’s people’s Treasury….
Ericka in today’s world, is a distraction. The real problem has always been that crook who was fined over $976,000 and now sits, at the discretion of the governor, where he can pass his hands through the state’s money at will… and no one is even allowed to look over his shoulder.
We need to know why he is still there….
And back date it to apply to all transactions starting after midnight, January 1, 2011….
A giant 248 MW power plant is going into a residential neighborhood. That is unheard of. We know Rowan jumped out of a similar deal.
Every human being in Delaware should demand (because they will soon breathe the toxins) that the UD lose its proprietary status, and that we find out what is really going on.
They were up front with Rowen and Rowen said no thank you… The University of Delaware is sitting on valuable information required by all to make a balanced decision, without which a gigantic lifetime mistake could occur….
Obviously they want that mistake to occur…
So, to fight back, they should lose all future protection from FOIA requests… All it takes is a change of one sentence…..
A statement (not a rhetorical but an action that has grave consequences), needs to be emphasized: that if you want of fuck with the citizens of the town of Newark, it will cost you. It WILL cost you…..
Here: John and Paul….
| 04/15/2014 |  |
| Long Title: | AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 29 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO DEFINITION OF PUBLIC BODY. |
| Synopsis: | This bill would include the President’s Offices of the University of Delaware as being defined as a public body, and would therefore serve to open it to all FOIA inquiries. Furthermore this bill would reach back to midnight January 1, 2011 and require the University to legally fulfill all FOIA requests for information dating henceworth that period in time. |
Section 1. Amend § 10002(h), Title 29 of the Delaware Code by making insertions as shown by underlining as follows:
(h) ”Public body” means, unless specifically excluded, any regulatory, administrative, advisory, executive, appointive or legislative body of the State, or of any political subdivision of the State, including the University of Delaware, but not limited to, any board, bureau, commission, department, agency, state university, committee, ad hoc committee, special committee, temporary committee, advisory board and committee, subcommittee, legislative committee, association, group, panel, council or any other entity or body established by an act of the General Assembly of the State, or established by any body established by the General Assembly of the State, or the University of Delaware, or the Presidents Office of the University of Delaware, or appointed by any body or public official of the State or otherwise empowered by any state governmental entity, which:
and… Section 1. Amend § 10002(l), Title 29 of the Delaware Code
(i) ”Public body,” “public record” and “meeting” shall not include activities of the University of Delaware and Delaware State University, except that the Board of Trustees and all offices of the President of the University of Delaware and the Board of Trustees and all offices of the President of the Delaware State University shall be “public bodies,” and that the University and University documents relating to the expenditure of all private and public funds shall be deemed “public records,” and each meeting by the President or of the full Board of Trustees of either institution shall be deemed a “meeting.” This action will apply retroactively to January 1, 2011.
We may all die of asphyxiation, but we won’t die without fighting back……
It is rare in politics when you can see clarity over where a person or party wants to go.. Our former congressman Mike Castle was very good at talking out of both sides of his mouth… I once heard him extol all the benefits of dismantling public schools, and was getting really angry over his direction, and swearing to myself that he had to be unseated by any means possible, even a Tea Party candidate, and then, almost in the same breath, he said: “one the other hand….” and begin running down my list of why public schools had to be saved… and I could feel myself cheering for each one… “yes, he gets it..”
It was my eye opener to politics in the real world. Prior I had the naive assumption one pitched causes to one’s constituents and ran on whether they wanted to go or not go in that direction… For example in Newark, if you want to breathe toxic elements you vote for this candidate, and if you want something more eco-friendly to go into the Star campus, you vote for their opponent. Real politics doesn’t work that way. In real politics both candiates play both sides and dodge being pinned to any side whatsoever… aka Chris Coons, John Carney, and Tom Carper… for examples….
So it is refreshing when clarity sneaks in through a back door… Like X ray glasses. When you see the skeleton upon which all the now invisible flesh is hanging….you surmise the flesh form would kind of be draped across the skeletal frame you currently see in your vision. If the skeleton was crouched, about ready to pounce, you should know to run, even thought you had no idea what animal’s skin and fur and facial features, If the skeleton was ambling slowly to you, head to the ground, like a horse, apparently grazing, you would know it probably was safe to relax and check it out more closely….
The skeleton of the Republican party is its money. Without big money it couldn’t survive. It certainly doesn’t represent real human being’s interests. It represents a very radical minorities interest and without huge sums of money, it would by now long have been eliminated…. Like impoverished flesh draped across a skeleton, it’s shape IS its skeletal structure, which in this case is… HUGE money.
Don’t know if anyone else is familiar with literature surrounding pimps and hoes. Unfortunately my knowledge mostly comes from one ancient Tom Clancy novel.. In that relationship, psychological control was established by isolating a subject down to one single lifeline which the pimp controls. Everything must go through him/her, otherwise you perish. This enables the handler to get his subject to behave as he wishes, often in ways the subject would never have done on their own. Crazy things happen in this way.
That is the best analogy as to how a creep like David Koch, can make Republicans everywhere do crazy, almost suicidal things. Shutting down the government and getting absolutely nothing in return… Remember that? No? Don’t worry, it got quickly pushed off the screen by the Obamacare rollout. Remember the success of Obamacare? Probably not; That was yesterday pushed off the air by Issa and the IRS Tax Controversy, which last year was determined to not be any of a controversy at all… The contention now, is that taking the fifth is not taking the firth if one makes a statement when taking the fifth… Yes! Of course it is bizarre. Would anyone be talking about it if it wasn’t bizarre? And that is the point. Push success off the table, and put something, anything on to scream about… Did anyone hear about Benghazi? Despite that nothing un-American happened, despite a very rational explanation by the CIA that satisfies all inquisitiveness over how it played out … there is under this almost perfect Republican President, nothing else to put on the table…. So. Benghazi it is…
Usually craziness like this would be dropped. How many utterances by a Tourette syndrome sufferer currently make the nightly national news? Probably quite a bit,… if they were as wealthy and as willing to spend as is David Koch….
The point of this embellishment, is to show that the current irrational behavior of the Republican Party, if understood by the relationship of pimp to hoe, is actually very rational. Just like an abused child has to use their brain to navigate around their irrational and sick, diseased abuser, so do Republican operatives have to do irrational things to stay alive and in office….
So putting on one’s X ray glasses and looking at the Republican Party, one sees nothing but the skeletal frame of David Koch….. Studying what is David Koch, will point us to what the Republican Party is going to do, when we elect them in 2014….. It is pretty much determined that without any type of uprising, they WILL win both houses of Congress in 2014…. So what will that be like?
Study the frame of David Koch…. By luck, we were handed a copy of what David Koch stood on 34 years ago…. ..He was vice president of the Libertarian Party, and he published a testament to all he believes…. As you know, even though George HW Bush was silent after accepting Reagan’s VP offer, prior to that he coined the term “Voodoo Economics” which even after all this time, he still believes he was right today. And so do we. The point, is that whenever one is campaigning for oneself… one tends to be very honest. It is only after one loses or after one wins, that one begins talking outside of both sides of one’s mouth… Therefore if we could only find somewhere, what David Koch was running on and stood for in that campaign, we would know exactly what the Republican Party will do if both houses get owned by it in 2014….
Guess what? We do. Thanks to Bernie Sanders who brought it back up to the surface…. If this is what you believe in, then by all means, vote Republican… But if this really scares you. even if you currently resided in a safe district, you can’t just sit still. IF you sit still like always. then expect this……
We , the Koch- funded Republican Party of 2014 do attest to the following….
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“We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election Commission.”
“We favor the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs.”
“We oppose any compulsory insurance or tax-supported plan to provide health services, including those which finance abortion services.”
“We also favor the deregulation of the medical insurance industry.”
“We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive Social Security system. Pending that repeal, participation in Social Security should be made voluntary.”
“We propose the abolition of the governmental Postal Service. The present system, in addition to being inefficient, encourages governmental surveillance of private correspondence. Pending abolition, we call for an end to the monopoly system and for allowing free competition in all aspects of postal service.”
“We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes.”
“We support the eventual repeal of all taxation.”
“As an interim measure, all criminal and civil sanctions against tax evasion should be terminated immediately.”
“We support repeal of all law which impede the ability of any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws.”
“We advocate the complete separation of education and State. Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals.Government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.”
“We condemn compulsory education laws … and we call for the immediate repeal of such laws.”
“We support the repeal of all taxes on the income or property of private schools, whether profit or non-profit.”
“We support the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency.”
“We support abolition of the Department of Energy.”
“We call for the dissolution of all government agencies concerned with transportation, including the Department of Transportation.”
“We demand the return of America’s railroad system to private ownership. We call for the privatization of the public roads and national highway system.”
“We specifically oppose laws requiring an individual to buy or use so-called “self-protection” equipment such as safety belts, air bags, or crash helmets.”
“We advocate the abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration.”
“We advocate the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration.”
“We support an end to all subsidies for child-bearing built into our present laws, including all welfare plans and the provision of tax-supported services for children.”
“We oppose all government welfare, relief projects, and ‘aid to the poor’ programs. All these government programs are privacy-invading, paternalistic, demeaning, and inefficient. The proper source of help for such persons is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals.”
“We call for the privatization of the inland waterways, and of the distribution system that brings water to industry, agriculture and households.”
“We call for the repeal of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.”
“We call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”
“We support the repeal of all state usury laws.”
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Sound familiar? Of course it does…. As goes the pimp, so goes the hoe….
Today, March 25th, the Supreme Court hears the Hobby Lobby case.
The question before the court is this:
If a law violates one’s religion, does one have to follow it? We have by fortuity and circumstance, brought ourselves so low to now ask of our court, to decide which of the two shall have predominance… Law or Religion.
If law wins, than religions must conform to the law; if religion wins, then to circumvent any law, one simply has to state it is against one’s religion.
There are good reasons for both sides, depending upon which predominates in your mind. If you think religion is above the government, then obviously you will think that as an individual, your government shall not make you do something your religion tells you is wrong…. Basically the law is compelling you to sin.
We’ve seen it before. Burkas: your religions dictates you wear them, and the law says you can’t for safety reasons… Withholding medical care for a child, your religion tells you to put faith into divine intervention, and when that turns out badly, the state sends you away for murder. Vaccinations. your religion tells you no, but the government says yes…..
In all those cases religion lost; here is why.
There were other people affected. Religion is a deep personal internal experience. and the law generally upholds that one has the right to adhere to doctrines if one wishes…. AS LONG AS THEY DO NOT HARM SOMEONE ELSE. The canon of law is very clear, that hurting other people, cannot be excused on the account of ones religions… The Burka ban is to protect from human bombs. The courts have said that if safety in a crowd is an issue for many other people, then the law can be changed to violate the harm-giver’s religion. The potential for harm controls the dynamics of the case.
Likewise the dead child not receiving medical care can be a very moving religious experience, but the child died. He obviously was harmed ant therefore the law trumps religion. The potential for harm controls the dynamics of the case.
Again the same is true over withholding vaccinations. Not being vaccinated creates a possible host-carrier for the disease sometime in the future… It is not just the subject at risk for failing to become vaccinated. Everyone else is susceptible to that carried organism. The potential for harm to many controls the dynamics of the case.
So we turn to birth control. One of which is abortion. Who could possibly be harmed over not insuring contraception? Is it really as cut and dried as Rush Limbaugh speaks, when he says it is all about him paying for Sandra Fluke to have sex? He’s paying and it isn’t even with him? Tant pis.
Prophylactics. Who gets harmed? That one is easy. Every person who picks up HIV for one. For two, gonorrhea and syphilis. For three, someone getting the herpes virus. Harm is endemic. And like vaccinations, harm can be unsuspectingly spread to others. Lack of free contraception could cause multiple spouses irreparable harm through no fault or wrongdoing of their own. Everyone has the right to intercourse, just as everyone has a right to their own Roth-IRA. But not everyone has an Roth-IRA now, do they? Many can’t afford it and so do without. Same with contraception. Therefore not funding free prophylactics causes irreparable harm to innocent people….
Chemicals, birth control pills and RU-486. Who gets harmed if these are unavailable? That one is easy. The future baby (def: humanness does not or will ever start until birth), the mother, the father, the grandparents, the great grandparents, the physician, society in general, future taxpayers… Quite a few harmed souls actually…. Withholding these birth control items is exactly on par with withholding antibiotics to a child dying from blood poisoning. Just as the child is suffering needlessly through no fault on its own, so is the pregnant woman suffering as is her child, though no fault of their own. Normally she would have gotten free contraception. But no, religion stepped in and now that is impossible.
Third is performed abortion. This is an emotional topic, that some equate with murder. The courts have flatly said it is not. Life begins at birth, always has, always will. Therefore performed abortions are perfectly legal, even though some people may not agree. And here the law is clear. They have the right to decide for themselves and not agree if they so choose, but they do not have any right to decide for others. No one does. That is embedded in the foundation of our founding documents…. That is the definition of freedom. One cannot say they for freedom and yet rail against choice. That is a scientific impossibility. Obviously what those well meaning people are trying to express is that they are all for freedom when it applies to them, but certainly not when it applies to others who have a different value system from them. Enforcing the right to free abortions, is like allowing burkas to be worn without restriction, fully knowing that suicide bombers are rampant in the crowds around you… Banning abortions for certain women, is the equivalent to telling the Israeli population, ” oh, sorry; no protection for you; you have to die if someone sets off a bomb, because you see, burkas are so sacred, we aren’t going to violate one of our tiny minority’s religious beliefs. If someone smuggles a bomb in under one, sigh, oh well.
If you are sharp about your wits, you picked up the clue I left you in the paragraph above. Right up there where I said..”they do not have any right to decide for others”….. Probably Conservatives will pick it up faster than contraception supporters. “Wait a minute” they will say, “see, that is exactly what you are doing to us by making us pay for contraception when we don’t want to cough up the money for it. You are deciding for us, what we have to do…”
And that is exactly right…. We are.
If you remember up at the top of this piece of writing where I stated this case was to decide the supremacy of law versus religion? Well that is the caveat. In religious circles we are deciding what one needs to do. We are saying that contraception will be available to everyone through their insurance free of charge…. In the legal realm that is the law. You can choose to follow it or not. If not, then beware of consequences. Why just today, I saw a Toyota that by my guess, chose not to follow the posted speed limit. He didn’t look too happy either…. We make decisions every day on whether to follow a law or not, and we choose to what degree we wish to comply… Some of us, unluckily, will pay a price…. But though angry, we really have no right to bring in religion…. Because it is a non-religious law….
In the religious world, we are however making a person (although admittedly in an extremely indirect and via a convoluted pathway, be associated with something he doesn’t wish… However, that is not a problem of our governmental courts. Religious issues are not in the bailiwick of the Supreme Court. It decides issues of law and order, and is forbidden on deciding on religion. Instead, religious issues need to be decided by a denominational or religious court if their denomination should happen to have them… If not, they should then be decided by that religion’s Inquisition or equivalent…. Then through whatever authority those courts have, they need to exercise their options of enforcing those religious edicts in ways that do not run up against the laws of the land…
A second issue is whether information or facts on file inside a Delaware Courthouse is also a real person. Are Corporations people too, as Romney once said? That is preposterous to even consider, but alas, so it will be one of the hinges on which this outcome depends. The sole point of this case is that a corporation (Hobby Lobby) is so sad, it’s heartbroken that it will have to pay for contraception for its employees, it cries every night and has insomnia. It can’t urinate correctly and has irregular bowel movements. As a result, this corporation is now suffering from malnutrition, and dehydration. Quite possibly, through all the duress and stress, this corporation has also suffered brain damage, causing its malignant depression. It might even have cancer….
If a corporation is not a person, then this case is simply dismissed. Corporations are subservient to human beings and therefore must confirm to the laws of the land in which they may find themselves. But if a corporation IS a person, then we have a battle over which person suffers the most, if free birth control is abandoned…. or…. no longer free…
If a corporation IS deemed to be a person… the next question for discussion, is when does that person-hood begin…. Did it start when it is born,upon the signing of its documents? Or, has it existed as a corporation ever since its idea was first conceived?
Courtesy of cookinfood.com
It’s a pun off of the word stagflation which was short for stagnant inflation. Stagpression is short for stagnant depression. It is the most accurate indicator of our economic situation today, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…
We seem to be in a Depression. but we aren’t. The Housing market is recouping, jobs are consistently growing, energy costs have dropped, corporate profits are now at record, higher than just before the 1929 crash, and an all time record high stock market.. We should be booming. But we aren’t. We still have too high of an unemployment both on and off the books, we still have depressed low wages, we have lost massive wealth within the middle class over this century so far, we have record high student loan debt, we have low consumer confidence, Hence, one class of America is booming. The other class is still in Depression mode. Hence we are in Stagpression….
It is easy to see why.
Here is a chart showing the free cash flow of businesses……
Record highs. See? Record highs. We should be growing faster than China, we have so much investment money at our fingertips. But no.
Here is our investment track record…
Ironically as we gave our businesses more and more money with lower taxes, less regulation, tax funded price supports, hand-tied their unions, and made free new technology at our taxpayers expense, despite all these perks and incentives, they invested less. So what are they doing with their money? Pick up any financial publication and read the headlines. They all will let you know.
None of which help our economy. It is as if we work hard, buy their products, and they put that money into a mattress. Soon, we are going to run out of money. Fortunately the Fed has filled the gap by printing more and giving it to banks for free. It too, filters though the system, and when it gets to the top, it goes into the mattress.
Instead of recycling money, we are letting the tap flow from our printing presses to the top echelon of our society… Now do you get it?
What is missing is a system that recycles the materials back into our economy so we have less money we need to print. If we were talking about paper, we would be saying we need to recycle paper to keep from cutting down more and more trees simply to fill up our landfills….
We need a system to return that money to the bottom so it can rise again and again and again.
Here are the options that have been tried.
- Price and pay freezes.
- Government set and regulated prices.
- Lower tax rates.
- Cash incentives from taxpayers to reinvest.
- Pleas and entreaties from the Oval Office.
- Higher marginal tax rates.
Only one of these has worked. Can you guess which one? If you guessed higher tax rates spur reinvestment you are absolutely correct.
Notice the rates of reinvestment climbing in each of these presidencies: Eisenhower, Kennedy-Johnson, Carter, Clinton each time Congress legislated higher marginal tax rates. Also notice the drops under Nixon, Reagan, and George W. Bush as Republicans cut the taxes… The Bush Tax Cuts held through Obama’s first term, and account for today’s sluggish reinvestment. More precisely, the reinvestment turned upwards under Obama until 2010 when Republicans took over Congress, and has fallen since. I can’t wait to see 2013’s numbers, for I expect to see real investment increase there as well. However those higher tax rates on the top half percent implemented at 2013’s beginning, sent financiers scurrying and bargain empty homes were bought up by investors with lots of cash which brought up the floor of the housing market (perhaps to our future peril). It also accounts for stocks becoming an area of liquidity to hold cash,..explaining the record highs ….
So we have an opposite relationship: cutting taxes increases corporate profits which go elsewhere other than reinvestment back into the ecnomy.
Increasing taxes, cuts into the Free Cash Flow, and funnels some of that flow over to reinvestment projects.
Ever wonder how Delaware’s 3 banks lasted for decades and then all disappeared very close to each other? Bank of Delaware, Delaware Trust, and Wilmington Trust. are now owned by other entities. (Wilmington Trust had some hand in cutting off its own foot). Commerce Bank, which was New Jersey based had the same fate.
They lasted for years because big banks never had enough free money to buy them out. Just think. In Delaware there are now 3 less bank presidents. 18 less bank officers, and who knows how many clerical workers are missing because the work goes to the owners headquarters, not located here…. One still wonders if our state could be better off, had MNBA not been bought up by an outside conglomerate.
So giving more money to businesses and corporations in this case, cost us jobs… and destroyed 3 long termed Delawarean corporations…
That was one example. Across this nation, in every city, every county, every state are millions more….
Raising the tax rates drives re-investment. It is the only thing we know of so far that consistently works to drive re-investment. Everyone who insists on cuts and de-regulation, no matter how they spin it, is pursuing a policy that has been completely disproven by reality and fact and of course, recent history..
Are you better off than you were under Clinton? Your income level will probably determine your answer….. Because yes, some people are indeed, a lot better off. John Carney. Tom Carper. Chris Coons, Jack Markell, to name 4 off the top of my head…. Better off too, are those who these four represent… the 1%. Much better off!
If you find someone willing to raise taxes, stick to them like glue. They are the ones who will lead us back to prosperity…..
Until then, economic stagpression will continue…. continuing through tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow….(at a) petty pace that creeps from day to day….
Remember Super PAC’s? The fear that Republicans would flood the market with money, so really bad Republican candidates would win over really good Democratic ones? Well. that hasn’t happened, and the reason why, is rather obvious after 2012. Why would one throw money away on a candidate who has zero chance of winning?
The key word is “zero”.
The Federal Election Commission has published the top 10 contributors of 2013. 8 lean Democratic, 2 lean Republican and one of those died this past year.
When money does not flow towards ones campaign because of one’s ideology, one’s ideology will remain just that: ideology. And that is what is happening. For those already tied to the losing side, conservatism, being shrill is the only method left in their bag of tricks to shake up campaign donations… For example if as a candidate I wade into a group of ten people and champion “We really have got to get rid of this president who is black” and one person says “here, here”, I know which of the ten to press for money. Hence we will hear the Tea Party get crazier, and crazier, and crazier, in their attempt to isolate those donars who will only donate if one meets the high bar set by a certain litmus crazy test…
But it will cost in the long run as this chart well shows…. Donors for 2013.
Compiled by Center for Public Integrity from FEC information. (Click image to show party affiliation)
The fears over Citizens United still remain. Just because no Republicans are on this list today, does not mean they lack the potential to donate next year. (Adelson and his wife donated $90 million in 2012). but what is telling is that many of the deep-pocketed GOP donors who ranked among the most generous givers during the 2012 election cycle, have yet to open their checkbooks for super PACs during this election cycle. Furthermore, the only 2 Republicans on this list, Bob Perry at number 6 who died, leaving a giant hole in Republican future finances, and the number 10 spot was only to funnel money in to Massachusetts GOP Senatorial candidate Gabriel Gomez, have since… disbanded….
Republicans are waiting for a more moderate, sensible, and decent human being to step up to the plate before they will think twice of donating any money. Currently there is only one, Rand Paul, who stands a chance.
In a recent debate: What would get you to change your mind?
- Republican: “Nothing, I’m a Christian.”
- Democrat: “Evidence.”
Think about the campaigns of 2012, 2010, 2008, 2006, 2004, 2002, 2000….. Doesn’t that snippet above ring true? Evidence based decisions versus wishful thinking….
kavips 