John Boehner and the Tea Party Congress are threatening to harm 99% of Americans in order to save the 1% from a FREAKIN MEASELY 4.6% tax increase. That's the whole argument the GOP has with President Obama's efforts to address the deficit.
A MEASELY 4.6% INCOME TAX INCREASE on people whose personal wealth has soared over the last 12 years! The GOP Congress, McConnell included, are heartless, pandering thugs.
One more time, tax cuts for the wealthy and military spending created our deficits. To fix the deficits, reverse the tax cuts (not for the middle class, if there still is one) and reduce military spending.
Keep your hands off of our social safety nets and support the long-term unemployed.
Simple analogy: Husband, wife, kitchen table: Getting behind on bills. How ridiculous would it sound if the husband seriously announced that he has the solution: Less income! And the wife chirped "I'll spend more money on lawn defense, too"
The husband, in the real world, would look for ways to increase his income and the wife would look for ways to cut back. NO ONE would suggest less income as a solution.
This is how ridiculous the GOP sounds to me.
Btw, Congress members make 300% more today than they earned in 1980. Can we really afford this? Their staff members are paid up to $152,000 a year. We pay for that, too. Wages for American workers have been flat! Where's the shared sacrifice Congress?
Pay and Perquisites of Members of Congress, Including A History of House and Senate Salaries
Congress members are mostly millionaires.
Net Worth of Congress members.
How dare these rich men and women even consider cutting funding for the poorest and/or most vulnerable in our country. WE DID NOT VOTE FOR A REDUCTION IN OUR SOCIAL SAFETY NET. It's already quite insufficient for many.
The first chart above is from a 2004 report by the Center for Budget and Priorities
Tax Returns: A Comprehensive Assessment of the Bush Administration's Record on Cutting Taxes...
Executive Summary
The Bush Administration has stood in favor of tax cuts through thick and thin. In the midst of a booming economy and large projected budget surpluses, President Bush’s top economic policy initiative — both as a candidate in 2000 and upon taking office — was to cut taxes. When the economy slowed, the Bush Administration’s response also was dominated by tax cuts. Now, in the face of yawning deficits and its own pledge to reduce them, the Administration has again put forward large, permanent tax cuts as part of its most recent budget.
http://www.cbpp.org/...
Emphasis, mine.
IMO, this chart demonstrates that tax cuts increase the deficit because we know who implemented the tax cuts: Reagan and Bush II
http://zfacts.com/...
ibid.
And that Trickle Down Theory, Bogus! During the Bush administration, the country had the weakest economic expansion since WWII
For six of the seven indicators, the average annual growth rate between 2001 and 2007 was below the average growth rate for the comparable periods of other post-World War II economic expansions.
Notably, this expansion was among the weakest since World War II with respect to both overall economic growth and growth in fixed non-residential investment. These two indicators should have captured any positive “growth effects” of the tax cuts.
The labor market also was weaker during the 2001-2007 expansion. Both employment growth and wage and salary growth were weaker during this expansion as a whole than in any prior expansion since the end of World War II.
The 2001-2007 expansion outperformed the average post-World War II expansion in only one area: corporate profits, which grew much more rapidly than average.
http://www.cbpp.org/...
Here's how Trickle Down has created the worst concentration of wealth at the top since the lead up to The Great Depression. And we wonder why people are suffering...AGAIN.
Conclusion: Republicans bad for economy, good for corporate profits.
The true cause of our deficits is reported by The Center on budget and Policy Priorities. The GOP lies are exposed.
The events and policies that have pushed deficits to these high levels in the near term, however, were largely outside the new Administration’s control. If not for the tax cuts enacted during the presidency of George W. Bush that Congress did not pay for, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were initiated during that period, and the effects of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression (including the cost of steps necessary to combat it), we would not be facing these huge deficits in the near term.
While President Obama inherited a dismal fiscal legacy, that does not diminish his responsibility to propose policies to address our fiscal imbalance and put the weight of his office behind them. Although policymakers should not tighten fiscal policy in the near term while the economy remains fragile, they and the nation at large must come to grips with the nation’s long-term deficit problem. But we should not mistake the causes of our predicament.
Here's a chart from the same source article, dated 1/17/2010 as the above quote:
http://www.cbpp.org/...
One more time:
THE BUSH TAX CUTS AND THE WARS CREATED THE DEFICITS, THE RECESSION MADE THEM A BIT WORSE.
CORPORATIONS ARE SITTING ON $TRILLIONS in cash but refuse to rehire.
Congress members are making 300% more than they earned in 1980, but workers wages have been flat!
Most members of Congress are millionaires as are the retired members. Can USA afford to pay them pensions? Do they even need the pensions?
And many of these very same screeching deficit hawks run and sit on the boards of many of the companies that fired.....laid off millions of Americans and are now receiving larger dividends on their investments in the very same companies that FIRED US.
How sick is this!
We need to rub the FACTS in their faces over and over and over again.
Even the teabag people should be outraged by the facts, but not if they don't know them.
Do not allow anyone, President Obama, Barney Frank, and any Repulbicans get away with blaming so-called entitlements, formerly referred to as our Social Safety Net for the deficit.
It's a bogus claim.
DON'T BE HOODWINKED. WE ELECTED THE PRESIDENT. HE IS TO DO OUR BIDDING!