Winne the Pooh and the Honey Pot
By David Glenn Cox
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; who am I kidding? It is,no doubt about it, the worst of times. An age of rapacious greed and serrated misery, the coming of the new dark age. Just one week after being thumped in the bi-year elections Barack Obama begins his "let them eat cake," un-election tour. Even though you knew the blow was coming, you can still be surprised by the force of it.
First, I must apologize to Barack Obama, for a year or better I have compared his politics to Richard Nixon and Herbert Hoover. That was unfair and far too generous on my part. Hoover was a goofy ideologue and Richard Nixon and insecure sociopath. Obama is as honest as Bernie Madoff with the character of George W. Bush and the internal kindness of Richard B. Cheney.
Barack Obama is a Trojan horse, all sweetness and light. A poison gift wrapped up in pretty paper feeding the hand that bites him. An emptiness inside, a hailstorm at war with those who elected him.
The President's deficit reduction committee has delivered their preliminary suggestions. I'll no longer refer to them as the cat food commission because this isn't a bit funny. A more apt name might be the Fort Laramie commission, the terminal solution for the tatters of America's middle class. A program that suggests that we must destroy America to save it.
A program that declares we can still have tax cuts and balance the budget if we can make the hard choices of throwing the elderly onto the pyres of greed. If we can just ignore our own squeamishness and beat the middle class to death. Death's own dirge for the Democratic Party.
The terminal solution begins by raising the age to collect Social Security to 68 in 2050 and 69 in 2075. That means with current life expectancy you will work and pay into the system for fifty two years to collect for less than eight years. Oh, but this is just the salad before the main course. The committee plans to scrap the mortgage interest deduction and tax deductions for child care and of course imposing limits on malpractice lawsuits because the committee asserts that is what is really running up our health care costs.
The mortgage interest deduction is the last and largest tax deduction most families still have. Long gone is the deduction for credit card interest. The mortgage interest deduction was put in place because American families deserve to own their own home. They deserve a government that assists them in that goal and not one which persecutes them for aspiring to own a decent place to live.
It is a dark and cynical philosophy, that will spawn only bitter fruit, to feed the banks with free money while doing away with most American's only relief from bank interest. A ten for me and none for you final solution!
The plan aims to save $100 billion dollars per year simply by doing away with all middle class tax breaks. Then, they suppose, that we can lower tax rates. Since most middle class families all ready pay the lowest federal tax rate, the plan is nothing more than a wealth transfer scheme. The middle class made to pay in blood for yet another tax cut for the rich.
Then there is a .15 cent per gallon fuel tax increase. For the average consumer around $150 per year. Now if you're one of Obama's married couples earning a quarter of a million dollars per year that's not so bad. You still have your Bush tax cut, plus your new tax cut so what's $150 annually to couples earning five grand per week? If however, you've lost your mortgage interest deduction and your child care deduction then this is beyond regressive, It is punitive, its a punch in the nose and a kick in the ass.
Most of these suggestions come straight from the fountainhead of the 2008 Republican platform.
Lowering tax rates?
"For more than three decades – since enactment of the Budget Act of 1974 by a Democrat-controlled Congress – the federal government has operated within a rigged system notable for its lack of transparency. - It fails to recognize the positive impact that lowering tax rates has on economic growth." (RNC platform)
Freezing wages and firing Federal workers?
"Government waste must be taken off auto-pilot. We call for a one-year pause in non-defense, non-veterans discretionary spending to force a critical, cost-benefit review of all current programs." (RNC platform)
The Fort Laramie committee recommends instead, a thee year freeze. They also recommend freezing wages and cutting the Federal workforce by ten percent.
The plan calls for $100 billion in defense cuts out of a $982 billion annual defense budget. A ten percent reduction to be aided by freezing non-combat military pay at 2011 levels and by reducing facilities maintenance. Reduction of facilities maintenance is incredibly short sighted. In the private sector this is known as deferred maintenance and this is how slums are built. The landlord pockets the money that should be used for maintenance and the buildings fall into disrepair. In this case the landlord wants to pocket the money to carry on fighting pointless wars.
There are no calls in this plan to reduce America's military commitments. No plans to bring any troops home. No plans to scale back the war on error.
Discretionary spending is to be cut by $1.4 trillion over 10 years, while mandatory spending -- including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- would be reduced by $733 billion while taxes would be raised by $751 billion. Now ask yourself, if you made a million dollars last year where is your pain? You got a tax cut, your house is probably paid for and your children have a nanny. You have your own retirement plan and the very best health care that money can buy.
This is an machete assault on the middle class, this is the the public option gambit in reverse. The President will stand firm in his own inimitable Jell-O like fashion. He will announce "I will not sign any bill with these punitive aspects." Then at the eleventh hour will capitulate, "In order to fight our massive budget deficit we have reached a bipartisan agreement."
"This country’s out of money and we better start thinking," said Erskine Bowles,co-chairman of the panel created by President Barack Obama. Without "tough choices," Bowles said, "we’re on the most predictable path toward an economic crisis that I can imagine."
I have been thinking too Mr. Bowles, my first thoughts lean towards torches, pitchforks and a French style revolution, but there is another way. Contrary to Mr. Bowles position, this country isn't out of money. The money is only accumulated in too few hands.
Let's return to the good old days of 70 percent tax rates on the wealthy. Let's end the Social Security wage base cap. Why should Social Security withholding stop at the first $106,000 in income? That makes no sense what so ever. Why not a cap it at the first million dollars in income?
In it's first meeting, the Federal Communications Commission declared that the airways are free. However, broadcast networks are now charging cable companies millions of dollars per month to carry their otherwise free broadcast signals. This violates not just the spirit but also the intent of the FCC's first ruling. Therefore broadcast networks are signaling that they wish an end to the government's free transmission policy.
To assist them in this goal the FCC should institute a $100,000,000 annual network licensing fee. Affiliates should be charged a licensing fee commensurate to the size of their their audience. License holder's with more than one franchise in a market area, television or radio should pay an additional multiple licensing fee figured by the audience size and multiplied by the number of overlapping franchises.
Cable channels would also be required to obtain a license and to pay an annual fee of $12 dollars per viewer. In Britain they require viewers to obtain a TV license. Instead of that, let's tax the broadcasters, they want to charge you to watch so lets tax them to broadcast.
A port handling fee of $500 per shipping container off loaded in the United States or transported across our border plus a $1,000 fee for any automobile off loaded from any foreign port. Not a tariff or a tax, but a handling fee to cover the cost of port security and import inspections.
The Congressional budget office estimates that $60 billion annually in levied taxes are eluded by corporate America. Perhaps if we were to declare the Cayman Islands a terrorist state. Then we could seize those assets and suddenly Omaha, Flagstaff or Peoria might look like a nice place to set up a home office.
On Wall Street, a one dollar per transaction fee and with 4,561,295,000 transactions yesterday that would mean $4.5 billion for the treasury per day or $22.5 billion a week. No sniveling now Mr. Bowles, no crying about what this will do to the market. You have no moral problem going after the elderly, the weak and the poor.
No more free rides on public lands, all leasing, mining, drilling or logging will be assessed at competitive private rates. The Republicans are always talking about the glories of the free market and in this situation, I say we give it to them!
In 1974 there were 424 work stoppages by organized labor. In 2009 there were 5 and in 2010 there have been none. Organized labor has been effectively chloroformed. So as these workers are forced to take pay cuts, who is the biggest loser after the workers themselves? The tax man! The problem is clearly workers not earning enough rather than government spending too much.
The problem is in a nation that imports too much, every dollar spent on imported products leaves this economy for good. Every dollar spent in the domestic economy circulates within this economy. We import our own poverty as we export our own wealth The average trade deficit for the last three months was 46.3 billion dollars. This means that we begin each new month $46.3 billion in the hole and must create $46.3 billion in new wealth just to start again at zero.
There are three solutions, export more, import less or raise tariffs. Tariffs are neither the savior nor the devil, tariffs merely level the playing field. Asking workers in a country with a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour to compete against workers with a minimum wage of .88 cents per hour isn't free trade. It is the exploitation of workers in both countries. The higher wage country faces job loss and downward wage pressure. The lower wage country profits only by keeping workers wages low. If the low wage country happens to be ruled by a military dictatorship that process is quite simple.
After thirty years of job loss, tax cuts and downward wage pressure the higher wage country suddenly discovers that it can no longer pay it's bills. The President must convene a blue ribbon panel to figure out a solution. The panel will never, ever suggest rolling back the policies that caused the problems in the first place because the panel is made up of those who profit from your loss.
For more than thirty years taxes on the wealthy have fallen while their incomes have climbed. At the same time incomes for working people have fallen while taxes and fees have risen. Our standard of living has dropped and our purchasing power has evaporated. These problems are caused by our tax policy and the committee wants to repair the problem with more of the draconian same. They plan to raise your taxes, cut your benefits and to continue the wars with just enough left over for another tax cut for the wealthy.
These are the most vile, mean spirited and contemptible attacks on the American public in the life of this nation. The politics of damnation, completely one sided, take from the many to give to the few. Mr. Bowles says, "This country’s out of money and we better start thinking," I am thinking Mr. Bowles, I'm thinking that if a government can't do any better than this, then perhaps we should burn it all down and start all over again French revolution style.