HOLD BUSH AND CHENEY ACCOUNTABLE


REPUBLICANS: THE TAX CUT IS MY SHEPHERD


Republicans, whose policies created the economic crisis we face now, are obstructing passage of a stimulus package because they want tax cuts for their fat cat friends. It's the same stuff that got us into this hole. It's almost like a religion with these clowns. You can almost see them on bended knee, looking heavenward, and reconstructing the 23rd Psalm. "The tax cut is my shepherd and I shall not want." Joe Conason talks about the reality of the stimulus package vs. the myths propagated by self-serving Republicans, who put fat cats before country. This commentary is at www.observer.com:


Another persistent myth denigrates spending on food stamps, unemployment insurance, tuition aid and similar programs as “welfare” that doesn’t promote growth. According to this argument, assistance to the poor doesn’t qualify as “stimulus” because it doesn’t create public assets such as roads or bridges. But the real purpose of fiscal stimulus is to boost demand in the economy and prevent the bottom from dropping out under prices for goods and services—in short, to forestall a deflationary spiral. Giving money to families that will purchase things immediately is the best kind of boost, as both Moody’s and the Congressional Budget Office have noted in recent studies.

It is true that we need to make real investments in transportation, energy, education and technology for the future—and that our future fiscal difficulties will be eased if we make those investments now. Yet the most immediate need is to promote demand, which will restore confidence and encourage investment.

What we ought to learn from this episode is that extreme inequality reduces national economic stability. The falling wages of working families forced them to rely too much on credit to maintain and improve their standards of living. Restoring the American dream means putting a floor under family incomes and reducing the gap between the richest and poorest, not only for the sake of simple justice but because that is the most reliable economic policy for the nation as a whole.

REALITY: MOST OF US WON'T GET RICH


Back in the days of aristocrats and peasants the peasants knew they wouldn't get rich, so I doubt they identified much with the people in the big castles. In the United States we get brainwashed into thinking that we, too, could be rich under the right circumstances. That's a part of the reason people don't rise up against the massive inequality in this country. This discussion by John Buell is at www.commondreams.org:

During the campaign, Democrats argued that working and middle-class citizens would be better off under their tax proposals. This debate is important, but it obscures one quintessentially American trait. More workers in the U.S. than in other nations are convinced they are going to become rich. They identify with the interests and ideas of the rich. It is important to reduce taxes on the working class. Nonetheless, fair taxation and economic justice are less likely as long as many believe they are only a little more hard work - or one lottery ticket - away from wealth.

Recent studies show that rags to riches stories, so widely publicized here, are actually less common than in much-reviled and more egalitarian European social democracies. Nonetheless, statistical attacks on mythology often fail to address the gut level concerns that feed it. Reformers must counter Horatio Alger tales of fortune tapping the hardworking for great wealth. Many of the largest modern fortunes are not the result of work or clever invention but insider deals that harm ordinary workers and even investors.

Hank Paulson's bailout was administered by Wall Street insiders, who showered billions of dollars on a narrow cadre of investment bankers. These banks in turn plot more mergers even as they abstain from lending to productive enterprises. The income investment bankers make from marketing exotic derivatives that destabilize the world economy is then taxed at about half the rate of plumbers' incomes. The plumber trying to start a business is paying more taxes so that investment bankers can pay less.