As long as their corporate-sponsored media can keep us talking in terms of conservative/liberal; Republican/Democrat; right-wing/left-wing, then the rich control the conversation–and it will always be directed toward THEIR best interests, not the best interests of the majority.
I don’t make any distinction any more between the Tea Party/Republican and the Blue Dog/ Wall Street Corporate Centrists. if you still do, then remember some of their history and stop listening to what they say. Instead watch what they do. The issue is not party but economic class. It is not left wing vs. right wing but rather rich vs. poor. As long as the upper 10% can keep at least15% of upper middle class believing that the belong to the rich (or will soon have their fingers around that brass ring) and 10% of the working class stirred up with irrelevant (to their economic well-being) wedge issues, the rich like Betsy DeVos and David Koch can continue to dismantle what is left of our democracy with the blessings of the 261 millionaires in the House and Senate.
The rich of BOTH parties joined hands years ago–at least 24 years ago in 1987 when the two major parties formed a corporation together to control the outcome of our political elections: The Commission on Presidential Debates.
The day this corporation was formed was the day that democracy in the USA went on life support.
BOTH PARTIES CONTINUE TO SUPPORT WAR
In 2006 we elected a majority of Democrats to the House and the Senate. These Democrats were put in office by the people on a clear mandate to bring our troops home on or before December of 2008. And what did they do instead? They continued to rubber-stamp George Bush’s demands for unfunded military appropriations and even voted to send thousands more troops over there in 2007. Today we have 50,000 troops still in Iraq.
Why?
Look no further than the Wall Street stock ownership of BOTH Democrats and Republicans for your answer More than a quarter of senators and congressmen have invested at least $196 million of their own money in companies doing business with the Department of Defense (DoD) that profit from the death and destruction in Iraq.
According to the latest reports, 151 members of Congress invested close to a quarter-billion in companies that received defense contracts of at least $5 million in 2006. These companies got more than $275.6 billion from the government in 2006, or $755 million per day, according toFedSpending.org, a website of the watchdog group OMB Watch.
BOTH PARTIES CONTINUE TO PRETEND THAT THE DEFICIT AND THE NATIONAL DEBT IS CAUSED BY “BIG GOVERNMENT SPENDING.
This is an outright bold faced lie. “Big government spending is a myth—a total fabrication of both parties and the leadership of the Democratic Party is as guilty as the leadership of the Tea Party/Republican Party in perpetuating this myth.
Government spending should always be viewed as a percentage of the GDP. In 2007, the last year before this recession, Government Spending was at 19.6% of the GDP. That is exactly 1.1% LESS than Government Spending was in 1977—more than 30 years prior. The thing that has changed are tax breaks for corporations and the rich. We need to return to the tax structure of 1977 if we want to repair our economy and build our democracy.
Why do the leaderships of both parties continue to perpetuate this myth?
As long as the American public believes the myth of “out of control government spending”, the rich can continue to dismantle what shred of democracy we have left. Politicians can continue to pretend that cutting public spending: laying off teachers, attacking public sector workers, raiding pensions, closing hospitals, and eliminating essential services for children, veterans, and the elderly are the solutions.
AND YES PRESIDENT OBAMA IS AS GUILTY AS ANY REPUBLICAN. He is the one who appointed senile, rabid, right-wing Alan Simpson to head up his deficit commission. And why do you think that Obama appointed such a rabid Social Security and hater of the poor a-hole? Well duh, it’s a matter of creating contrast. Thus any cuts to Social Security that Obama is going to propose will look “sensible” compared to Alan Simpson’s rants.
Obama is the one who appointed Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE to be one of his financial advisors. Now I ask you, what kind of financial advice do you think that the CEO of an outfit like General Electric, Reagan’s mentor, the man who began the tax cuts for the rich and put us in this hole in the first place is going to offer? What kind of financial advice do you think that Obama will be getting from the leader of a corporation that is the largest war contractor in the world and who paid no income taxes in 2009 and 201o?
WAKE UP AMERICA AND PASS THIS FORWARD TO TWITTER AND FACEBOOK.
If we want representation, we must first vote out all the millionaire plutocrats, the born-again rich, from our Congress. Run for office yourself. Support your neighbor. Stop expecting change to come from those who support the status quo of the rich.



15 Comments

Great post Liz! I would like to add though that there is one element of government spending that is not only big, but unproductive. That is Big Military and Police State spending. This is the one area of government spending that could make a huge difference in the deficit and in quality of life around the world if it were cut.
Anyone who hasn’t yet taken a look at my No Confidence Protest Vote 2012 post and the associated FAQ should do that if you have time. If you like Liz’s post I think you are quite likely to like the strategy I have presented.
you can’t blame the deficit on a single thing.
Dean baker says the major cause of the deficit is the recession.
quoting Jim Quinn on how real wages (and taxes) have dropped:
“Using a true CPI figure, average weekly earnings are 64% below what they were in 1964. This explains why a family of five could live well with one parent working in 1964, but even with both parents working and accumulating debt in prodigious amounts, the average family cannot live as well today.”
we have 1.7 trillion in deficits.
quoting http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/wsj_editorial_board_and_taxes.php?page=all&print=true
”
So to continue the thought experiment, what if we taxed the top 1 percent at pre-Reagan, 1980 rates of 34.5 percent (the marginal rates were much higher at 70 percent, but I’m talking effective rates)? That would net us just roughly $190 billion over what the richest pay now, based on those 2008 numbers (which are sure to be low, as the rich have recovered nicely since then).”
so how does 190 billion = 1.7 trillion?
another way:http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/2011/04/shocker-as-tax-rates-drop-top-1-pays.html
“..In 1979 the top marginal income tax rate was 70% and 18.3% of the total taxes paid were collected from the top 1% of taxpayers”
2162 billion income means the top 1% paid 400 billion in taxes.
how does doubling that equal 1.7 trillion?
in the 90′s the Clinton campaign famously said “it’s about the economy, stupid.” Our slogan needs to be ” It’s about taxes, stupid. We pay, and the rich don’t.”
It’s actually about the power and influence. The rich have it and we don’t. The tax situation just follows from that. The legacy parties are continuing to further consolidate power and influence among the rich oligarchs. We need to restore power and influence to regular Americans. No Confidence Protest Vote 2012 is the best idea I have to do that.
There is a way to bring down the way the deficit continues to grow that doesn’t involve putting the hurt to those already hurting. It would, however, deal a blow to those who are profiting from the misery of others.
“The United States spends $1.5 billion per month in borrowed money on the Afghanistan war.”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=21357
Add in the governmental costs of our involvements in Iraq, Pakistan and Libya and pretty soon we’re talking real money.
To this total, add in the amount of income taxes lost because of the 20%+ of unemployment/underemployment due to the corporate-written FTAs and the hoarding/overseas investing of bankster bailout funds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE7tT4BAiJU
The rich are profiting from these ongoing wars and neoliberal economic policies so it is very much about the rich.
You are using old figures for some of the amounts so you are comparing apples and oranges in a lot of cases and I don’t have the inclination to correct all of your math here.
In any case, it’s not just individuals we need to be looking at. When GE and ExxonMobile pay not only zero dollar in taxes but collect billions in subsidies – that is a double whammy. You have no revenue but also a drain in the form of an expense so you lose two ways.
Further – the recession causes this double whammy as well. You have formerly productive workers who paid taxes (revenue side losses) who are now collecting unemployment/food stamps and other forms of assistance (expense increases). Double impact on the budget. That is why money spent on an actual job gets you so much return while a tax cut for a rich a**hole doesn’t.
Taking back a subsidy from the oil companies (about $40 billion) and spending that on actual jobs instead of billionaire tax cuts will net you about $80 billion in deficit reduction. That’s just one item. Now if you actually made the oil companies pay some taxes….
“18.3% of the total taxes paid were collected from the top 1% of taxpayers”
I absolutely hate when statistics like this are used to complain about the ‘tax burden’ of the rich. Currently the richest 1% of the country controls about 40% of the wealth. They are currently paying about 28% of the taxes and their apologists are always screaming about how unfair that is. Well, they control about 40% of the wealth so they SHOULD be paying 40% of the taxes!
Good article though I have some disagreements with it. It’s not about the rich it’s about those well connected into the corporatist/fascist politic-economy that is the problem. Some examples are Haliburton, a lot of GE (though they make other things than military hardware), the revolving door of government/corporate lobbyist/politicians, …
The debt is better looked at as the actual monetary amount not as percentage of GDP but still 19% is very high. What it does is take away productive resources from the free market (the free market is you the people, I don’t mean Wall Street) and spend those resources on projects to buy votes, special favors, etc.
Forgot to add it’s also about the “too big to fail”s and the Fed Reserve
Thanks Matthew. I will take a look. You are correct. Big military and police state spending is wacko.
well put.
Exactly lokywoky. It most certainly is about looking at the corporate loopholes and subsidies.
No greater example than the farm subsidies. We currently spend $19 billion in farm subsidies. Of this only $500 million goes to small farmers who still live on the land they farm (the original intent of this legislation). The rest goes to large agribusiness corporations and to “gentlemen farmers”, many of whom, like one of the Rockefellers, live on Park Avenue.
As for Wall Street banks–don’t get me started :). Six banks – Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley together paid income tax at an approximate rate of 11% of their pre-tax US earnings in 2009 and 2010. Had they paid at 35%, what they are legally mandated to pay, the federal government would have received an additional $13 billion in tax revenue. This would cover more than two years of salaries for the 132,000 teacher jobs lost since the economic crisis began in 2008.
Just try to think about what you’re saying. More taxes for wars, taxes for bases for the empire, taxes to aid foreign dictators, taxes to pay the bailouts
Thanks Liz, have you posted this over at the Orange Satan? They need to hear it.
Liz;
You may want to see:
It is not about Democrat or Tea Party/Republican: It is about the rich.
http://greywolf.newsvine.com/_news/2011/05/19/6674268-it-is-not-about-democrat-or-tea-partyrepublican-it-is-about-the-rich