October 27, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


A SYSTEM RIGGED FOR THE RICH

Anyone who paid attention knows that the "trickle down" economics preached by Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and their devotees hasn't trickled down to the majority of us. It was never intended to benefit the working class or the middle class. It was designed all along to enrich the already rich. Tax cuts for the very wealthiest among us are only the most obvious example. Military spending is a cash cow for the rich and high long-term interest rates are another bonanza. This article by Robert Freeman is at www.commondreams.org:

John McCain’s drowning campaign has grasped at the straw of “socialism” to try to smear Barack Obama’s economic proposals. The dirty little secret is that socialism is much more characteristic of McCain’s policies than Obama’s. But it’s socialism for the rich.

It has been an explicit tenet of Republican economic policy since at least Ronald Reagan that the rich need more money and that it is the essential job of government to make sure they get it.

This is what David Stockman, Reagan’s first Budget Director, meant when he let slip that supply side economics was really a “Trojan Horse” intended to pass the nation’s wealth upward. Reagan pursued that goal with evangelical fury.

He enacted a dizzying array of tax and spending policies, all designed to benefit the wealthy. He cut the marginal tax rate for the highest income earners from 75% to 38%. A huge bonanza in its own right, this was only the beginning of the ladling.

Reagan’s massive budget deficits drove up long term interest rates, another boon to the rich. The rich are lenders and lenders prefer higher interest rates. Reagan and his successor, George H. W. Bush, delivered in spades, turning the U.S. treasury into a printing press for the rich. The data speak for themselves.

Jimmy Carter's last deficit was $77 billion. By the end of the Bush I era, deficits had reached $300 billion a year and the national debt had quadrupled, from $1 trillion when Reagan took over, to $4 trillion. Interest payments on that debt had soared from $70 billion a year under Carter to over $300 billion a year.

THE INSECURE RICH

I believe the rich in this country like to tell themselves they're more deserving than the rest of us. They're more hard-working, more innovative, thriftier, more virtuous, favored by God, whatever. Never mind all the rich who inherited their wealth the way kings of old inherited their crowns. Never mind the component of luck. As this author says, most of us are born with two strikes already against us. It's a struggle in this society to survive, much less get rich. We have to scratch for things that should be ours: food, housing, education, and health care to name a few. This article by Maryscott O'Connor is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

A level playing field, indeed. Imagine an America in which everyone begins life on home base, with no balls and no strikes. Or, to use a clearer analogy -- on a level field, rather than some on a mountaintop and some in a ditch. Simple, really: Healthcare for all, food and shelter, education and basic employment -- all basic necessities guaranteed for all. For every other element one might wish, one would simply have to... work hard. To compete in a truly free market, unemcumbered by hunger, by the disabilities of race, family circumstances, "who you know." One's merits would truly be the yardstick by which accomplishments, achievements and advancements would be measured. THAT... is socialism.

Now, WHO could feel threatened by THAT?

I'll tell you who: The TRUE elitists in this VERY unlevel playing field on which we all stumble and on which we've been playing, blindfolded, listening to propaganda over their corporate-funded loudspeakers for generations. Propaganda that's told us that "Socialism equals Communism equals Russia equals Stalin equals BAD!