Is government of the people, by the people and for the people (the Constitution) outdated? Dubya seems to think so -- the Commandante rules and the hell with the separation of powers.
When Medicare started 40 years ago 58% of retirees lived below the poverty line. It was down to 10 percent in 2000, but is rising rapidly with the increasing cost of health insurance, fuel and prescription drugs. Bush's 2007 budget advocates charging even higher premiums, and freezing payments to home health care providers. It's been proven psychologically and financially that elders are better off staying in their homes; not being warehoused in nursing homes. The choices people have to make spending their Social Security income are cruel -- and it's past time we stood up and said `enough'.
Were you bloggin this winter covered with a blanket to stay warm? Your Dictator-in-Chief defended the $36.13 billion profit Exxon Mobil Corp. posted in 2005 -- the highest ever for a U.S. company. He said the profit reflected the market and that consumers should not expect help from the government. "I think that basically the price is determined by the marketplace and that's the way it should be," said Bush, a former Texas oil man. (Did you expect sympathy?)
In recent years the oil and gas industry has given $200 million to (mostly) Republicans. They write the laws and their stooges pass them. You lose.
A (common-sense) windfall profits tax would ensure oil companies remained financially healthy. It would kick in only when profits become excessive, as they are now. Why shouldn't this industry pay its fair share?
Did you know the profits of the Top 200 corporations grew 362.4 percent, while the people they employ grew by only 14.4 percent? WalMart is now the top private employer in the world with 1,140,000 workers, more than twice as many as No. 2, Daimler- Chrysler, who employ 466,938.
Of the U.S. corporations, 42 of the top 82 do not pay the standard 35 percent federal corporate tax rate, and five of the firms (Texaco, Chevron, PepsiCo, McKesson and General Motors) paid less than zero in federal income taxes.
This country became a superpower because we manufactured quality items and our family farmers grew more than we needed so we could sell to, and feed the world. We were respected not so long ago, but we'll never reclaim that respect without major changes.
Our government must spend responsibly (for a change) or we're going to be in a world of hurt very soon. And when the flow of borrowed money, mostly from China and Japan slows, the dollar will crash to earth like Humpty-Dumpty.
If the President's $400 billion tax cuts over the past 5 years to the rich and the corporations are extended permanently, their cost over the next 75 years (the standard period used to evaluate Social Security's long-term finances) will be three times the Social Security shortfall over that period. These are Congressional Budget Office figures the corporate news is not reporting.
The price of gold today is the canary in the coal mine. It tells us when major investors see structural vulnerabilities in the system and begin to bail out. We can't keep spending more than we take in with these unnecessary tax cuts and perpetual undeclared wars. We can't police the whole world.
And the lunatics in Washington are so busy lining their own pockets contracting at least half of our military hardware to foreign countries, with thousands more high-paying jobs lost and national security compromised.
Alan Greenspan, retiring chairman of the Federal Reserve Board explained why corporate profits are rising so fast. Take US productivity surging to 13.5% with rising corporate profit from imports and divide by stagnant domestic wages and rising unemployment. Workers are on the treadmill, desperately working harder, longer and faster to stay in place.
We can't go on like this. Bush and Cheney policies are financially raping the taxpayers, spending billions for war while impoverishing the people. The hearings must start with impeachment of both Bush and Cheney on the calendar.
There won't be anything left in two and a half more years! Let the revolution begin!
Barbara