Both President Joe Biden and House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) have stated publicly that the U.S. will not default. They are negotiating over the budget. For my part, I’ve started to wonder if the whole debt ceiling crisis isn’t about Republicans’ determination to cut taxes for the wealthy at all costs.
"Here's my principal: My donors enabled me to be President by giving me money, specifically to ensure that I enrich them. So? I will grant them huge tax cuts."
___Ronald Reagan.
Who then went on to provide both tax cuts and direct, Congressionally approved spending for his donors which included Military Contractors and rich folks.
Reagan ushered in a new type of government in the USA: Social Democratic Prostitution.
A form of government now fully embraced by Republicans as DeSantis announces his candidacy together with his "John" (Elon Musk) in an open display of our new type of government.
Maybe but the problem is still that people who make $50000 pay more taxes than people
who are making $50 million a year and who, Reagan claimed, would plow that income back into yhe economy. But that doesn't happen unless you considering buying more stock and another $26 million yacht supporting the economy. TAX THE RICH, they can afford it. Bill Gates make over $1000/second and pays minimal taxes. That ain't right
Yes. Any tax that isn’t steeply progressive as income goes beyond beyond a small multiple of the median income is immoral. Regressive taxes, like sales tax and FICA are deeply immoral. Scrap the cap on FICA, eliminate sales tax and other regressive taxes, include capital gains and all other forms of income as ordinary income to which standard income tax rates apply, make income tax rates increase with income more and more sharply as income gets further beyond median income, and fund the IRS to put a well-financed, expert forensic audit team on every billionaire every year.
There is no way to get this into any legislation because upwards of 74 million US voters think it’s far more important to preserve the systemic advantages that white Americans have had from the outset.
Yes as a percentage of income, not necessarily in dollars. To a wealthy man paying $50,000.00 in taxes is pocket change ( or maybe pocket lint) to the person making mean average, paying $50,000.00 is everything he's got.
Fern, I’m always pleased to see a comment from you. You help counterbalance the insanity of current day DC. For my own mental health I’ve taken to reading HCR letters a few times weekly, rather than daily. Thanks, mb
Thank you, Mary Beth. Mental health is not easy to maintain in our country and of great concern.
'Excessive social media use as a child may lead to a higher risk of poor mental health, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy wrote in an advisory issued Tuesday.'
'In the 25-page advisory, Murthy said there isn’t enough evidence to determine whether social media is “sufficiently safe” for children and teenagers. This comes amid an ongoing mental health crisis for teens and children, as adolescent rates of anxiety and depression continue to surge.'
“It is no longer possible to ignore social media’s potential contribution to the pain that millions of children and families are experiencing,” Murthy wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post.' (WAPO) Sorry that no gifted link is available.
As a middle school special education teacher, I witness first hand the crisis this has become. My evidence is anecdotal, but I image an elegantly designed study would indicate the same.
One story: when a student couldn’t get their phone back (it was held by a teacher for safety reasons), their response was too similar to an addict than I care to think about.
Mary Beth, I have two daughters that are HS English teachers. About 7-8 years ago, one had a student defiantly refuse to give up his phone after scrolling away as she taught. He shoved it under his butt and told her to "reach and get it yourself" !!! Can you imagine what would have happened had she done that?!!? She sent him to the Dean. As I said, that was almost a decade ago and students owning phones wasn't yet universal.
A month ago, I was talking with the other daughter who is leaving her position after one year at this particular school due to toxic administration that doesn't support the faculty. She told me that half the kids are scrolling their phones all during class. I asked her what she can do/does. They have a policy that the kids aren't supposed to be on their phones, but she said, policing them would take all her teaching time and is disruptive, and sending them to the dean does nothing (at this school). Apparently, if there are repeated infractions, the parent has to come to school to retrieve the phone, and the parents tend to defend lil' Johnny and Susie so the admin doesn't want to deal with it either. (She's taught for over 10 years, btw)
I could write a very long comment on what ChatGPT is doing to probably all classes but especially to English classes. That's for another day. IMHO this crisis is going to play out horribly--there will be a class on undereducated people who cannot find well paying jobs, and the jobs they could have will have been replaced by robots. (That is, if they could flip a burger with one hand as the other scrolls the phone.)
It takes courage to read HCR every day. But if we cannot summon that courage (those of us who know what the stakes are) and let it lead US to action, we will lose our country to oligarchy. Therefore those of us who can read, think, and write have responsibilities to do all three in the service of our country, plus marching if we can and, of course, voting.
What an important and massively depressing thread between you & Mary Beth on the state of social media, kids & schools. For my part, I’m profoundly thankful that social media did not exist when I was in HS. I had depression that was not diagnosed until I was in my 30’s and I’m fairly certain I am a high functioning autistic person. It was hard enough dealing with that in the 70’s without having the added burden of social media. I loved learning, and still do, escaping into history and literature. But what about the poor, barely literate teens in schools now, being regaled daily by toxic fear-mongering of those who are “other.” What happened to “give me your tired, your poor, yearning to breathe free...?” We are a mongrel nation with tremendous hybrid vigor, that is slowly being choked to death by the Christian nationalists among us. I despair. I really do.
Leslee, thank you for your reply. To be alert and care about the wellbeing of life, is to know that there are always important improvements that need to be addressed. When, where, what...varies. This time in America is heavy with problems. It is worthwhile to choose some piece of the trouble, a small, doable area for most of us, and selecting an organization to work with and or donate to -- being of service is a strong way to proceed.
I took exception with the ACLU when they advocated for the Supreme Court's decision allowing all sorts of posts on social media. There is extraordinary evil (I rarely use that word) on media and what child wouldn't surf?
Fern, these words, in this article, should be close enough. I paraphrased Reagan's more lengthy statement into a clear statement of his meaning and intent.
'Close', you say, that's Bull! There is nothing to match what you wrote, which was not in the least a quote of Ronald Reagan's; nor was your post claiming to be a quote by Milton Friedman true; that was, in fact, said by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
You compiled quite a record of misquotes this early morn, and that is the most polite comment I can make about your posts.
Mike, it might be more accurate to say political prostitution. Social Democratic prostitution implies, to me at least, those on the left of the spectrum. Those on the right are actively courting the morbidly rich to more of a degree than the left, given the current stance of the right wing extremists.
I agree that there are places where spending should and can be cut. But no Congress person in their "right mind" would do so, because they want to be reelected. Cuts mean that favorite programs go away. What a mess we've managed to get ourselves into.
I'll suggest the first cut; after removing Bush and Trump tax cuts, cuts should be to 'Not' help with federal monies, states suffering flooding disasters, where folks continue to insist on living despite the gambles of nature, and perhaps severe weather events, due perhaps to global climate disruption / change.
Love your description of Musk as a john. I hope this announcement bombs as it should. Stubby "Boots" DeSatan and the giant "spaceship"....quite the pair.
Dear Mike, I think the only word in your “new type of government in the USA” is Prostitution. The other words don’t apply, since those bastards don’t see anything as either “social” or “democratic”!!!
Whether Reagan actually said that or not (he wasn't that intellectual) it is certainly what he meant, and every thing the ham actor did was to support the top at the expense of the middle and working classes.
The great howl about socialism is a red herring. Republicans have been beating a dead fish for 90 years. It ignores the communities that evolved over the thousands of years before the European right to property conquered this western hemisphere.
I figure I am fooling nobody, but imagine I might be making a poignant point about where and when our government changed from something approximating what John Adams had in mind when he wrote his seminal "representative" form of government into the Massachusetts Constitution in 1779.....subsequently used as the model for the US Constitution a bit later........
to......something approximating Prostitution where someone provides money for services.
Which, undoubtedly, Reagan ushered in exactly that type of government and now Republicans fully embrace that openly as DeSantis is about to show us and the world.
"What happened to the plan to keep Debt Ceiling and Budget separate?" That's what I'm wondering, too, Patricia. It affects my ability to follow anything else that's being talked about.
Biden the deal maker of old wanting bipartisanship threw them bone, and of course they bite him, like any mad dog would. He has to know what he is dealing with. He has no other option but to pull the 14th Amendment on them and let them scream. The Dems need to show trump their true leader during his time in the WH saying that there is no negotiating over the debt ceiling.
So, do you think Gaetz was referring to McCarthy as their "hostage" or Biden? I thought Biden -- and was even more disgusted with Gaetz & Co. for such a comment.
As Heather has asserted in her chat last evening, not "invoking" the 14th Amendment but following the oath that he took at his inauguration: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." In other words, to "preserve, protect and defend" our Constitution, which includes the 14th Amendment.
As I read LFAA this morning, it occurs to me that all the monies that moved upward to the 1% and hollowed out the middle class made the 99% less able to be independent and look after their own needs. Moving money upward outs people more in need of government services. Still EVERYONE should pay their share, including big corporations and the ultra rich. It's ridiculous that Buffet's secretary pays a high tax rate than Buffet.
Judge Elihu Smails is the comical bad guy in the 1980 comedy Caddyshack. Played by actor Ted Knight, Smails is a pompous snob with a fondness for white pants, yachting caps, and golf.
He's worse than that. He was directly involved in restructuring the economies of Central and South American economies after coups d'etat, to allow corporations to essentially take over governments, leaving democracy a memory and the people of those countries dealing with the wreckage of their societies. One of the reasons we have a border crisis. He specialized in making profit out of disaster. One of the last things he did was to organize the privatization of New Orleans' schools after Katrina.
Its hard to believe this post was written by a History Professor?
It so full of false cliches. Let me help you out.
1) In case you didn't notice the demographics for the Democratic party have changed since 1980. The Democrats used to be the party of middle America and The Republicans the party of the rich and religious.
2) Today that has total reversed itself. Democrats are the party wealth elites, minorities, and graduate level education. Furthermore All the wealthiest urban areas in America are leftist. Silicon Valley, West Side of LA, San Francisco, NYC, DC, Boston. et cetera.
3) As for taxation your claim that Republicans unilaterally love tax cuts for the rich is SILLY.
The democrats could have CHANGED the tax code ANYTIME they wanted when they controlled Congress. They could propose a bill at ANY TIME. Of course they don't, ALL of their super donors LOVE all the loopholes.
3) As for DEBT, what is your argument that somehow Democrats are the party of FISCAL
responsibility? If Biden had unilateral control of the budget he would spend trillions more on social giveaways and climate programs.
4) Finally why do leftists love to invoke the name of Reagan? When they do it never ends well. FIRST you make another 1st year history student mistake. Reagan never had control of congress HIS entire presidency. The Democrats controlled the House , and the Republicans controlled the senate for 6 out of 8 years.
THEREFORE ALL THE BUDGETS started in a Democratic House. Any deficits WERE shared with the Democrats. It was 8 years of push and pull between Reagan on defense spending, tax cuts, and Democratic social spending. The Democrats could stopped or lower TAX CUTS anytime they wanted.
THE NET EFFECT UNDER REAGAN? Let me help you out again
20 million new jobs were created
Inflation dropped from 13.5% in 1980 to 4.1% by 1988
Unemployment fell from 7.6% to 5.5%
Net worth of families earning between $20,000 and $50,000 annually grew by 27%
Real gross national product rose 26%
The prime interest rate was slashed by more than half, from an unprecedented 21.5% in January 1981 to 10% in August 1988
FINAL RESULT? Reagan WON reelection carrying 49 of 50 states.
Feel free to keep trying to rewrite the Reagan legacy.
But remember the words of HL Mencken: "There is no idea so stupid that you can’t find a professor who will believe it.”
"the deepest post-World War II economic downturn occurred in the early 1980s. According to the accepted arbiter of the economy’s ups and downs, the National Bureau for Economic Research, a brief recession in 1980 — lasting only six months — and a short period of growth, were followed by a sustained recession from July 1981 to November 1982. The unemployment rate hovered between 7% and 8% from the summer of 1980 to the fall of 1981, when it began to rise quickly. By March 1982 it had reached 9%, and in December of that year the unemployment rate stood at its recession peak of 10.8%. The jobless rate slowly receded over the next few years, falling to 8.3% by the end of 1983 and to 7.2% by the 1984 presidential election. The unemployment rate did not fall below 6%, however, until September 1987."
-->The Destruction of the Middle Class that was built by FDR and Eisenhower and sustained through Carter.
Now, since a lot of religious folks "believe in" Ronald Reagan, thereby leveraging their belief skills into the real world, I don't really try to argue with them. Folks can believe what they want.
But, this is not a religious board and? Well, writing false narratives about how great Ronnie was?
Is bound to be contested with real world facts.
Reagan was an abject failure as a President of a Representative Democracy.
We all have our opinion of Reagan’s presidency, but as a research scientist (now retired) I’m inclined to put my personal biases aside and look at the facts, all readily available on Wikipedia under the heading “Reaganomics.” Yes, there were some upsides to his policies, but your cherry-picked statistics are only part of the picture, and rather misleading. For one thing, Reagan didn’t even enter office until 1981 and left in 1989, so stating statistics for the period 1980-88 makes no sense. Looking at the graphs this is what I see:
1) Job growth: Jobs grew by 2.0% annually under Reagan, versus 3.1% under Carter, 0.6% under H.W. Bush, and 2.4% under Clinton. Hard to see how Reagan was stellar in this regard unless you want to compare him to another Republican president.
2) Inflation: Slightly over 11% when he entered office in 1981 and about 4.5% when he left, so that’s a positive. But your numbers make it sound more impressive than it actually was.
3) Unemployment: About 18% when he entered office and 9% when he left, so I’d call that a success. I have no idea where you got your numbers, though.
4) Net worth of families earning between $20k-50k. Not sure where you got the +27% number, but here’s what Wikipedia says:
a) The average real hourly wage for production and nonsupervisory workers continued the decline that had begun in 1973, albeit at a slower rate, and remained below the pre-Reagan level in every Reagan year.
b) In nominal terms, median household income grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.5% during the Reagan presidency, compared to 8.5% during the preceding five years. Nominal household net worth increased by a CAGR of 8.4%, compared to 9.3% during the preceding eight years.
So tell me, why do you think Reagan’s performance was so amazing?
5) GDP: Real GDP per capita grew 2.6% under Reagan, compared to 1.9% average growth during the preceding eight years. But that statistic is as misleading as the increase of GDP over the past 40 years has resulted in the bulk of the gains being heavily skewed towards higher-income Americans. Just look at the graph of “Trends in US Income Inequality 1975-2005” and you’ll see that income inequality rose during the Reagan years.
6) Prime interest rate: It was about 19% when Reagan entered office and 9% when he left, so about the same ratio you state.
Notably absent from your statistics is how much Reagan reduced tax receipts (call them what they really are: “Tax Expenditures”) and exploded the national debt.
“During Reagan's presidency, the federal debt held by the public nearly tripled in nominal terms, from $738 billion to $2.1 trillion. This led to the U.S. moving from the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest debtor nation. Reagan described the new debt as the "greatest disappointment" of his presidency.”
I guess since that doesn’t resonate with your glowing appraisal of Reagan you just chose to ignore that inconvenience. Do you understand what the current debt-ceiling debate is all about? Reagan was the poster child of national-debt largess. That is, until Trump came along: He increased the national debt by nearly $7 trillion, thus eclipsing Reagan’s figure of “only” $1.4 trillion. But, it was Reagan who taught the entire Republican party that “Deficits don’t matter”--except when a Democrat is in the White House.
“Leaving the White House today, McCarthy told reporters that he would not entertain rolling back the 2017 Trump tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. ‘[T]he problem is not revenue,’ he insisted. ‘The problem is spending.’”
Is McCarthy (et al.) being disingenuous or is he just plain dumb? There is NO DIFFERENCE between “revenue” and “spending” when you’re talking about government. There’s even a specific term economists use for tax cuts/carve-outs/loopholes/giveaways; they’re called, “tax expenditures.” Meaning, when you give someone--an individual, perhaps, or a corporation, or any entity--a break on taxes, it’s the same as if you handed them (“spent”) money from the US government. These people are cosplaying Marie Antoinette and her famous line, “Let them eat cake.” And we all know how that ended up for here.
Dave, I think it is stupid of McCarthy to pretend to be so disingenuous, and even more stupid of the rest of us to put up with his act for another second. He, too, should end up behind bars.
I am not normally a conspiracy theorist, but I increasingly worry that the underlying endgoal for Speaker McCarthy is to destroy our national government’s abilities to do anything that does not involve the military, thus proving that “Government does not work.” Another Trump administration would only hammer that lesson home further. Viz. Steve Bannon -- “the deconstruction of the administrative state.”
According to MSNBC, Kevin is doing this at the behest of TFG and the goal is to make Joe Biden look bad. They are actually willing to cripple the economy to put the would be dictator back in office. May their scheme come back and bite them.
McCarthy is just plain dumb, and the blond haired female Goon. or cavewoman MTG is even dumber. Dumb and dumber would be a great name for those 2 deluded cretins. I was a teenager when the Richard Nixon Watergate thing went down. but all of this BS with TUMP, the Jan 6 insurrection riots, and these demented Rethug Congress critters pushing a budget default, etc. etc. would make the Watergate thing look like a minor criminal act. Watergate wasn't a minor thing, but in comparison to what these Rethug criminals are doing now, it seems like a minor crime that happened 50 years ago.
Well said John - but I am beginning to think MTG is not so dumb. She instead has malice in her heart. She is not a nice person. That doesn't make her dumb; that makes her all the more dangerous, especially if given power, which McCarthy has done. And I believe that her antics fire up the very people who voted for her. So just like the other vile persons we see in Congress year after year (Gohmert, Jordan, Stefanik, etc) they get re-elected by an electorate with malice in its collective heart.
And to see her yesterday with the gavel again calling the House to order - I regard that as a message. An "Own the Libs" message. How irresponsible of McCarthy to put up perhaps the singlemost inappropriate person in that body to be up there. Literally a slap in the face of serious politicians.
He is weak and trapped. Not a defense for the speaker in name only. This is a zero sum game and the whole negotiation theme is just theatre of the absurd. The clowns are performing for their audience.
:-) Except that Marie-Antoinette apparently never said that. I'm not defending her queenship, but when you see the evidence of the horrible and even pornographic things written about her at the time, you see that faux news is nothing new.
Thanks, Carolyn! I actually said that too, with less detail, about the same time as you, but it seems to have sunk. Poor girl, she was part of a political deal to shore up French support for her mother the empress of Austria, and a couple of quick cases of smallpox suddenly changed the succession to the throne. They were still teenagers, and totally unprepared to be king and queen. My closing remark was "McCarthy is hoist with his own petard".
The Republican Party isn't 'stupid.' It knows what it is doing in working to emasculate government and benefit wealthy donors in the name of 'freedom.' Those who are the stupid ones, if not merely ignorant or gullible, are the ones who repeatedly vote against their own interests when they vote for Republicans for local, State and national offices. Solution: Vote to defeat any Republican on any ballot and work hard to get others to do the same with the vehemence you manifest in many of your comments on LFAA!
Many here say McCarthy is “dumb”. He’s winning. McCarthy has forced Biden (his “hostage”) to negotiate. If the reports about the impending deal are accurate, McCarthy is getting Biden to abandon tax increases on the wealthy, and instead cut spending. While we’re saying he’s “dumb, stupid”, McCarthy is winning concessions for his wealthy patrons. We may despise McCarthy, but that ain’t “dumb”.
You're absolutely right. Like I've been saying for about seven years with respect to The Former Guy, "Don't blame him; blame his supporters." McCarthy knows exactly what he's doing---and the MAGA crowd laps it up. But, it's up to the sane people in the room to call them out on their lies and hypocrisy, loudly and relentlessly. It'd be nice if the media would do the same, eh?
President Biden isn't the hostage. The United States are. The President is tying to get us released by utilizing the negotiator's art of "letting them have my way". If he is unable to do so (and you really should not negotiate with terrorists, since there is no way to bargain with them since what they want is antithetical to a positive outcome for anyone but them) he needs to utilize the tactical team and eliminate the threat posed by the terrorists.
I disagree. I think he, and most of the “Freedom Caucus” even more so, really is dumb. The reason they are “winning”, as you say, is that they don’t care about the damage they might do. And the reason they don’t care is that their dumbness prevents them seeing it, or feeling it, or appreciating it.
I agree that they don't care about the damage they do to those they don't care about, like average citizens. In fact, they know that Biden, not them, will be blamed for the damage they're causing. They do care very, very much about the wealthy and big corporations. Their "dumb" actions are carefully designed to further the interests of those patrons. You might think it's dumb to not care about hurting the country. They are happy to have us think that.
I think not really stupid. McCarthy et al. have learned the lesson well that repeated lying works quite well. It doesn't get everyone, but the constant repetition gers into the brains of those who don't watch closely. It's like brain worms. The victims lose sight of their own experiences and swallow the lies.
I miss Dana Millbank and Jennifer Rubin, but these days I'm finding the WaPo very heavy going, and HCR is an excellent news source. Plus the forum isn't populated by enemy aliens.
I miss them, too, as I didn't renew my subscription.
But I think that McCarthy combines maybe not dumbness, but not a particularly high level of "smarts", with extreme ambition. That is dangerous, especially when realizing his ambitions depends on the likes of MTG, Gaets and Gosar.
Dave There is as much connection between revenue and spending as there should be between McCarthy’s head and shoulders. Maybe. His head (with an itty-bitty brain) may actually be connected to foo foo dust.
Regrettably, when Democrats hold the White House, Republicans, particularly since 2010, largely have viewed the debt ceiling “as a hostage worth taking.” I expect, were the country to default, the economic calamity that would ensue would be pinned on Biden. Moreover, I believe the call for savage cuts to Medicaid, to housing, to the environment, to childcare, to education, and so forth is aimed at destroying the ability of government in a democratic society to provide for its people. Accordingly, I agree with Senator Bernie Sanders who asserts Republicans want to make this country even more of a corporatist society wherein the only Americans empowered in economic decision-making are large multi-national corporates.
Currently, unless dynamics I’m unaware of are at work behind closed doors, I see no recourse but for Biden to invoke the 14th and pay the nation’s bills while litigation ensues.
"Senator Bernie Sanders who asserts Republicans want to make this country even more of a corporatist society wherein the only Americans empowered in economic decision-making are large multi-national corporates."
Isn't that the way the country is already governed? Did you watch "60 minutes" this past Sunday about the two monopolies extorting our armed forces for hundreds of times the cost for equipment and parts that are needed to operate our defense systems at the expense of the taxpayers? Bernie's words lead me to do a little searching. I found a Brennan Center 2016 publication, "How Big Business Bailed Out the Nazis: A tragic tale of what can go wrong when profits are entangled with politics" Clara Torres-Spelliscy. We shouldn't forget history.
Of course. Thank you for pointing that out. I thought he meant "even more" to the extent wherein...... I thought he meant we're not there yet that the "only Americans empowered in economic decision-making are the large multi-national corporates," but that the Republicans want to make it so. I meant that we are already there that the only Americans empowered in economic decision making are large multi-national corporates. Sorry.
I think if we sat with Bernie Sanders (wouldn't that be fun?) he would agree that we are ALREADY a corporatist society. A nation run to make money for a few. Run to make money off illness. A nation that allows a few "yachtists" to hijack the economy for their pleasure. A nation that gives its natural resources away to the same "yachtists". Why do we allow a few people to own and profit from the minerals and chemicals in public lands? And why do we allow them to export petroleum when we need it right here? If you haven't read Thom Hartmann's piece on the power we are giving away to Putin and the murdering prince of Saudi Arabia, please do.
Thank you both for the astute questions and for the link to the Hartmann piece, which I will read. As for Bernie, I expect were we ever able to sit with him, he would underscore the words “even more” of a corporatist society.
"A 2020 study by Carter C. Price and Kathryn A. Edwards of the RAND Corporation showed that the changing economic distribution systems of the past forty years have moved a staggering $50 trillion upward, out of the hands of the bottom 90% of Americans."
The raison d'etre of the modern bought and paid for Republican Party. And it's not just the dramatic upswing in how financial inequality has skyrocketed; the the way "Reaganomic" financial asymmetry means that creeps such as Elon Musk gain ever more control and impact on our politics, our society and our lives, and they are no longer shy about talking about it. How close did we come, how close are we now to losing democracy entirely? Billionaires openly defy the law, and way too often get away with it.
I have believed this point all along.......it is all about taxes, but they have duped the uneducated citizens by pandering to gun owners, misogynists, religious extremists, and all the others that make up " the base. "
The Republican Party of the Civil War and the Republican Party of today have nothing in common beyond a name. The party today is composed of the traitors and seditionists of the New Confederacy, and they should be dealt with the way we should have dealt with their traitor forebears, of which my patriot ancestors didn't kill enough of them when the opportunity presented itself.
Yes, TC, and the best thing about history repeating itself is that there is a second chance to do the right thing. Not sure how many second chances are left for us at this point, given the stupidity of today's GOP. Not even sure we've earned another.
The last forty years should demonstrate that there is no direct correlation between money and brains. And none whatsoever between money and heart or common sense.
I am pessimistic that the debt ceiling crisis will be resolved before a default occurs. The Democrats have not messaged this well--the amount of wealth transferred out of the bottom 90% to the top 1% is OBSCENE and that has not gotten out in the media. The problem is a TAX (REVENUE) problem and not a JUST A SPENDING problem as the Republicans claim.
I agree. Ever since poor George McGovern got squashed by that sleazy crook Nixon in 1972, enough "Democrats" have gone along with the GOP's laissez faire capitalism to ensure we got to where we are in terms of wealth distribution. Overwhelmed by Faux news, Rush Limbaugh and all the rest, I guess. And Joe Biden, bless his humane heart, is still playing softball.
I have a similar emotion. I want Biden to throw a pitch so hard and fast it knocks the batter out of the game. But I think Joe Biden is smarter than me. He is deftly playing the game.
Biden is demonstrating a willingness to talk. Most people see that as reasonable. I agree that the talks will probably collapse. But we still might see a discharge petition. And Biden could invoke the 14th for just long enough to get that through Congress. The Republicons will sue. A bit of a horse race. A ridiculous one. The Supremes could throw it back to Congress just in time for the petition to pass and send it to the Senate. Done.
I think Joe is surrounded by good advisors. And he will sail this ship to safe harbor. And the Democrats will have been handed the greatest campaign tools in American political history. "The Republicans were willing to risk your Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security...and the well being of our Military and their families. They were willing to risk millions of jobs - to take food off your kitchen table."
Camera rolls. Woman in uniform standing with her two young kids. She says "The Republicans were willing to take food out of the mouths of my children. Why? So rich dudes on their yachts can pay less taxes? I risk my life for this country. And Republicans don't want my kids to eat?" Somebody with "Hollywood skills" can do this and more - much better than me. I hope that this crisis passes without damage to Americans. But it certainly could help us create a tsunami of Blue Election Winners. No?
Your point is well taken. I am in total support of the writers strike. But wouldn't there be a bunch of writers who would like to save the nation from fascism? I suspect so...
David Herrick, Joe Biden's humane heart has reaped amazing accomplishments. Since his installation as President, the world has become a better place with more cooperation with our allies....relationships and respect renewed following the horror of the "trump terrors"!!!! and the breakdown of the republican party!!!!
Do we continue to have wars..."YES" but we are supporting the ideal of freedom not rule by dictators!!!
As I was shopping in Walmart looking for ingredients for a cake (I bake rarely!) so needed assistance .....a lovely lady came to my aid....politics wove its tainted opinions within my need to locate this particular ingredient.....she openly shared her passionate opposing opinions!!!!
Let me just confirm....there IS A GOD ! I know this because only HE could refrain the words I wanted to say and the volume with which I wanted to say them. The dear lovely lady was completely brainwashed. The description she gave of our President was the opposite of mine in every way! We parted in peace and politeness.
As Democrats we are of course not perfect. Joe does not carry around a "big stick". He is demonstrating how Democracy can actually work. He demonstrates this through patience, respect, quiet persistence....knowledge with a large dose of "HOPE".
We need to realize the full extent to which the enemies of freedom are at work in our
America. What kind of future do we want....what kind of legacy do we want to leave?
Emily, I avoid Walmart if at all possible. I had a friend who left her position as one of two HR people in her store after 23 years. The reason? They were reorganizing the stores and her job and that of the other person were being combined into one. She'd compete with the other person to get it, and btw, she told me there would be no increase in salary. So she quit. She had many many stories about WAlmart and they were not good. The ONLY good thing she told me was that they encouraged volunteerism and would financially support the organization they volunteered for. There were some stipulations which I don't recall, but our school music program greatly appreciated the $1000 year that came from her efforts.
I remember rural America before Walmart. Small towns with nice stores owned by local folks who knew your name when you walked in.
When a Walmart moved into Palestine, TX in the mid 1980's it killed Elkhart, Grapeland and Palestine TX all three beautiful little towns. Killed every business in every town. I am not exaggerating.
I took my kids back in 2009, all stores shuttered except for one diner in formerly prosperous Grapeland. Same in Elkhart. Same in Palestine.
These MAGA folks are often on a crusade of sorts, hoping to convert those willing to listen to them. Flat liners is an old label for such people.( brain dead)
Meredith, I expressed my complete transformation from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party and was grateful to vote for someone with character and experience and love and respect for this country like Joe Biden whom she immediately began to disparage???!!! (all from news/info/friends/church....whose opinions I knew she had been absorbing.....)
Funny David. Outside of corporate hardball, nearly all of of enjoyable baseball for both men and women is softball. Funny you should choose to criticize Biden for playing the singular most effective baseball in America today. He rates a grand slam in my book. To be honest they called Selensky a comedienne. Look how Putin is laughing now. I say stand up for those who stand with you.
I occasionally work in the snack bar at my kid’s school. The kids of the parents who work there get free snacks when their parents are working. The other day, I watched as my co-worker’s kid came behind the counter and grabbed snacks for not only himself but their whole friend group, including several of the coveted and scarce just baked cookies. This while a line of kids whose parents don’t or can’t work in the snack bar (or just weren’t working that day) waited in line hoping to get and then to pay for those same cookies. But if you were to ask the kids in line why they didn’t get a cookie, they would blame the kid in front of them who bought 2 cookies or the kid who cut or the kitchen staff who didn’t make enough cookies. They would never have seen the raid that was carried out while they were jockeying for position and then trying desperately to hold their position in that line. This is how privilege works.
Beth, in my about 15 years of volunteering to work all sorts of fundraising for various school activities, often I was working a snack bar or concession stand. This happens ALL THE TIME. I personally am aware of three instances where parents were caught taking funds from the organization. (Two were in scouting, one at a concession stand.) In the first two instances, those in charge just let them repay and not work with the kids again. In the third, the school administration came very close to pressing charges, but did not. Apparently there were some circumstances involved that they let her off. (I had some insider information but even that person had a closed mouth. I will say I trust this was good reason as the principal at the time was probably on of the most honest and human persons, one of the best administrators that I have ever had the good fortune of knowing.
I should say that it is common practice to put things aside for your own kid and I am not blameless. My kid got chips and a drink for free that day too. But that's just it. The thumb is on the scale.
A real example of privilege is how Little League works. First, I was a coach in Little League for five years of the six my son played.
Reason? The first year he played, the Coach of his team played his son either at Pitcher or Short Stop every game even though the kid could barely throw the ball while keeping my own son on the bench.
The next year I was coach. I ran the team in this manner: For the first half of the season I rotated every player through EVERY position. I took detailed stats and notes and had parents do the same.
Midway through the season I had a parent meeting and TOGETHER we selected who would play what position for the remaining season.
My team (our team I should say) always mopped up in the second half of the season because ALL of the other teams were playing "preference" for key positions while we played performers.
The last game of my Little League career, my team laid waste to a team stacked with preference kids, 17-9. Even had a black kid on my team by then (the only one in the League).
My team received a standing ovation from the parents of BOTH teams that day.
I wish Biden had agreed to enter negotiations with McCarthy ONLY if tax increases on the wealthy and corporations remain. No discussion about any cuts of any kind without that guarantee.
The mass cruelty and mean-spiritedness in the Republican Party right now is incomprehensible.
The KKK (Klown Kar Kawkus, whose motives are as lily white and pure as the other, more well known group known by those three letters) are the terrorists holding America hostage; that the President is "negotiating" with them is a tactical move, nothing more. I am of the firm belief that when the impasse is reached, there will be a resolution by whatever means necessary to save the hostage.
What happens is they become their own hostage as the world turns. They just don’t look that far down the road to the era they are creating that kills the goose. Eat it all now while the getting is good.
I'm reminded of the report of an SS officer beyond the wire telling an Auschwitz inmate that the wheel had almost turned full circle and those who'd held the heights would soon go under.
It is maddening Peter. You would think that one synapse would jump the gap. It’s like two for a penny candy at the general store when we were kids. Kids gobbled both pieces and then followed like vultures savoring the one you saved for later. Of course you had to divide it up.
My question is, what is Kevin’s Plan B? They’ve clearly stated their position, boxed themselves into a corner with nowhere to go. Seems like there’s no point in Biden continuing to negotiate, as Kevin doesn’t have the votes. Either it’s a discharge petition or the 14th amendment. I believe that’s what’s going to happen next. Unless...
Raise taxes on the wealthy. Tax the wealthy to death, if possible. Remove the income cap on an individual's salary payments into Social Security, so Social Security is solvent forever. Increase discretionary spending. Forgive all student debt.
Good point Pat. But the only thing I disagree with in his comment is "tax the wealthy to death". I don't want them dead. I just want half their money and then for them to pay appropriate taxes forever on the other half. They might have to sell one of their five or six homes, or one of their yachts.
"Faced in 1861 with funding the Civil War, members of the Republican Party invented the U.S. income tax and graduated it to make sure that “the burdens will be more equalized on all classes of the community, more especially on those who are able to bear them,” as Senator William Pitt Fessenden (R-ME) put it."
Only one of many respects that the nominally "Republican Party" seems the antithesis of the Republican Party of Lincoln.
I explained the current debt crisis to my kids and wife using this analogy and they found it helpful-
The Rs and Ds are like a husband and wife who spend more than they make and their way of deciding how to agree on future spending is to not pay their upcoming bank payment.
Rob, I think that your analogy is great! I’d amend it to say that the husband(R) (who controls the checkbook) made his wife quit her job (tax cuts) because he’s convinced that they can save money (balance the budget) by having her stay home. Instead of driving a less expensive car (oil and gas subsidies), he says that he will only make the bank payment if she and the kids stop eating lunch.
And he cannot quite admit that the “system” he chose to “improve things” was terribly flawed. How it undermined the strength of his own family, fostered anger and disrespect for his “wisdom”, contributed to the inability to address needed repairs to house infrastructure, terribly role-modeled “leadership” for his children, heightened the mental distress of all family members, insured the ill-health of his family, and probably forces his wife to bear more children because “He has needs!”
There was an old Scotch woman to whom one of my father’s friends sold some rams. After the sheep were unloaded and the financial transaction completed she offered him a meal. He gratefully accepted. She dumped a cup of oatmeal flakes into a pan with a dollop of bacon grease and stirred it around until the grease was absorbed by the oats and they were starting to toast and brown. She dumped this into two bowls, poured some coffee onto hers and gobbled it up. As he told it to my dad, he had already discovered that the coffee would remove the enamel from his teeth and the lining from his stomach, so he ate the oatmeal plain. He thanked her for the meal, and she said to him, “Always did like a man who ate fried oatmeal plain. Come back any time!” Needless to say, the next time he sold he some rams, he sent his hired man.
Mary, about 35 years ago, my manager quit after the birth of her second child because the cost of child care was so high and her husband insisted she stay home. Wouldn't you know it, I heard about 10 years later, he passed of a heart attack in his early 50s. She was in her late 40s at the time. I'm sure she had to go back to work and I wonder what happened to her? Not a good move for women to leave the workforce and then try and claw their way back in!
My mom always said that her daughters needed to learn work (outside the home) skills and be able to support themselves (she was a single mom to 4 kids—although she & my dad loved each other the marriage didn’t work out & he ALWAYS paid child support/other costs); she also made sure my brothers also knew how to cook, clean & do laundry. She worked FT, so we had LOTS of chores around the house & it taught us a lot (tho’ we whined at the time!). I got married young, just 18 & my hubby was only 2 yrs older (was I ever really that young?!) & while having dinner with his parents and an aunt visiting from out of state we shared that we’d decided to head to far northern CA for college the aunt said to me “how wonderful you are going to work to put him thru college!”……um, “no”, I replied, “we are BOTH going to work PT and go to school FT”. The look on her face was priceless, but we were proud and committed to our path.
First, folks seem not to remember that in the 50s with the Republican president Eisenhower, the economy was going strong and the government funded many infrastructure projects, i.e., bridges, roads, airports. The top federal income tax rate was 91 percent in 1950 and 1951, and between 1954 and 1959. In 1952 and 1953, the top federal income tax rate was 92 percent.
When king Ronnie was president, he pushed through tax reductions primarily for the wealthy and he pushed through an increase in the Social Security withholding tax. “We kept our promises.” We promised that we would protect the financial integrity of social security. We have. We promised that we would protect beneficiaries against any loss in current benefits. We have. And we promised to attend to the needs of those still working, not only those Americans nearing retirement but young people just entering the labor force. And we’ve done that, too…
Instead of being a proud day for America, April 20, 1983, has become a day of shame. The Social Security Amendments of 1983 laid the foundation for 30-years of federal embezzlement of Social Security money in order to use the money to pay for wars, tax cuts and other government programs. The payroll tax hike of 1983 generated a total of $2.7 trillion in surplus Social Security revenue. This surplus revenue was supposed to be saved and invested in marketable U.S. Treasury bonds that would be held in the trust fund until the baby boomers began to retire in about 2010. But not one dime of that money went to Social Security.
Addressing what is called socialism, let's look at the other side of that argument, capitalism.
"There's nothing "normal" about having a middle class. Having a middle class is a choice that a society has to make, and it's a choice we need to make again in this generation, if we want to stop the destruction of the remnants of the last generation's middle class.
Despite what you might read in the Wall Street Journal or see on Fox News, capitalism is not an economic system that produces a middle class. In fact, if left to its own devices, capitalism tends towards vast levels of inequality and monopoly. The natural and most stable state of capitalism actually looks a lot like the Victorian England depicted in Charles Dickens' novels.
At the top there is a very small class of superrich. Below them, there is a slightly larger, but still very small, "middle" class of professionals and mercantilists - doctor, lawyers, shop-owners - who help keep things running for the superrich and supply the working poor with their needs. And at the very bottom there is the great mass of people - typically over 90 percent of the population - who make up the working poor. They have no wealth - in fact they're typically in debt most of their lives - and can barely survive on what little money they make.
So, for average working people, there is no such thing as a middle class in "normal" capitalism. Wealth accumulates at the very top among the elites, not among everyday working people. Inequality is the default option."
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
___Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Here's my principal: My donors enabled me to be President by giving me money, specifically to ensure that I enrich them. So? I will grant them huge tax cuts."
___Ronald Reagan.
Who then went on to provide both tax cuts and direct, Congressionally approved spending for his donors which included Military Contractors and rich folks.
Reagan ushered in a new type of government in the USA: Social Democratic Prostitution.
A form of government now fully embraced by Republicans as DeSantis announces his candidacy together with his "John" (Elon Musk) in an open display of our new type of government.
The quote you posted was not found. Care to share your source?
Here is one of Reagan's that is easy to remember:
The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.
____Ronald Reagan
Maybe but the problem is still that people who make $50000 pay more taxes than people
who are making $50 million a year and who, Reagan claimed, would plow that income back into yhe economy. But that doesn't happen unless you considering buying more stock and another $26 million yacht supporting the economy. TAX THE RICH, they can afford it. Bill Gates make over $1000/second and pays minimal taxes. That ain't right
Yes. Any tax that isn’t steeply progressive as income goes beyond beyond a small multiple of the median income is immoral. Regressive taxes, like sales tax and FICA are deeply immoral. Scrap the cap on FICA, eliminate sales tax and other regressive taxes, include capital gains and all other forms of income as ordinary income to which standard income tax rates apply, make income tax rates increase with income more and more sharply as income gets further beyond median income, and fund the IRS to put a well-financed, expert forensic audit team on every billionaire every year.
This is common sense Rex....anathema to the party of death. They would rather whine about drag queens, trans people, and heaven forbid, books.
Or as Bernie said, "$999 Million is enough. A billion dollars should be taxed 100%!"
Yea right on.. how to get this into next tax legislation for posterity ?
While ‘maggots’ are eating away in every city, town & dell to attempt evisceration of our once peaceful communities with bullets & blasphemy.
There is no way to get this into any legislation because upwards of 74 million US voters think it’s far more important to preserve the systemic advantages that white Americans have had from the outset.
Yes as a percentage of income, not necessarily in dollars. To a wealthy man paying $50,000.00 in taxes is pocket change ( or maybe pocket lint) to the person making mean average, paying $50,000.00 is everything he's got.
And even he admits it. As does Warren Buffet.
Fern, I’m always pleased to see a comment from you. You help counterbalance the insanity of current day DC. For my own mental health I’ve taken to reading HCR letters a few times weekly, rather than daily. Thanks, mb
Thank you, Mary Beth. Mental health is not easy to maintain in our country and of great concern.
'Excessive social media use as a child may lead to a higher risk of poor mental health, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy wrote in an advisory issued Tuesday.'
'In the 25-page advisory, Murthy said there isn’t enough evidence to determine whether social media is “sufficiently safe” for children and teenagers. This comes amid an ongoing mental health crisis for teens and children, as adolescent rates of anxiety and depression continue to surge.'
“It is no longer possible to ignore social media’s potential contribution to the pain that millions of children and families are experiencing,” Murthy wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post.' (WAPO) Sorry that no gifted link is available.
As a middle school special education teacher, I witness first hand the crisis this has become. My evidence is anecdotal, but I image an elegantly designed study would indicate the same.
One story: when a student couldn’t get their phone back (it was held by a teacher for safety reasons), their response was too similar to an addict than I care to think about.
Mary Beth, I can hear the student. A very dear friend was a born teacher, and I learn a lot from her.
To turn the page, morality, knowing right from wrong in this country is an enormous, basic, fundamental problem.
Mary Beth, I have two daughters that are HS English teachers. About 7-8 years ago, one had a student defiantly refuse to give up his phone after scrolling away as she taught. He shoved it under his butt and told her to "reach and get it yourself" !!! Can you imagine what would have happened had she done that?!!? She sent him to the Dean. As I said, that was almost a decade ago and students owning phones wasn't yet universal.
A month ago, I was talking with the other daughter who is leaving her position after one year at this particular school due to toxic administration that doesn't support the faculty. She told me that half the kids are scrolling their phones all during class. I asked her what she can do/does. They have a policy that the kids aren't supposed to be on their phones, but she said, policing them would take all her teaching time and is disruptive, and sending them to the dean does nothing (at this school). Apparently, if there are repeated infractions, the parent has to come to school to retrieve the phone, and the parents tend to defend lil' Johnny and Susie so the admin doesn't want to deal with it either. (She's taught for over 10 years, btw)
I could write a very long comment on what ChatGPT is doing to probably all classes but especially to English classes. That's for another day. IMHO this crisis is going to play out horribly--there will be a class on undereducated people who cannot find well paying jobs, and the jobs they could have will have been replaced by robots. (That is, if they could flip a burger with one hand as the other scrolls the phone.)
It takes courage to read HCR every day. But if we cannot summon that courage (those of us who know what the stakes are) and let it lead US to action, we will lose our country to oligarchy. Therefore those of us who can read, think, and write have responsibilities to do all three in the service of our country, plus marching if we can and, of course, voting.
Agreed. I just have to wait to read a few letters now and then.
Here you go, Fern...morning!
Gifted Link to WaPo article Fern referenced is below:
'What the surgeon general’s advisory says about social media for kids'
'Vivek H. Murthy expresses concern about exposure to ’extreme, inappropriate content,’ difficulty paying attention and other issues.'
https://wapo.st/3OCqacf
What an important and massively depressing thread between you & Mary Beth on the state of social media, kids & schools. For my part, I’m profoundly thankful that social media did not exist when I was in HS. I had depression that was not diagnosed until I was in my 30’s and I’m fairly certain I am a high functioning autistic person. It was hard enough dealing with that in the 70’s without having the added burden of social media. I loved learning, and still do, escaping into history and literature. But what about the poor, barely literate teens in schools now, being regaled daily by toxic fear-mongering of those who are “other.” What happened to “give me your tired, your poor, yearning to breathe free...?” We are a mongrel nation with tremendous hybrid vigor, that is slowly being choked to death by the Christian nationalists among us. I despair. I really do.
Leslee, thank you for your reply. To be alert and care about the wellbeing of life, is to know that there are always important improvements that need to be addressed. When, where, what...varies. This time in America is heavy with problems. It is worthwhile to choose some piece of the trouble, a small, doable area for most of us, and selecting an organization to work with and or donate to -- being of service is a strong way to proceed.
Salud, Leslee!
I took exception with the ACLU when they advocated for the Supreme Court's decision allowing all sorts of posts on social media. There is extraordinary evil (I rarely use that word) on media and what child wouldn't surf?
I can't think of another time I opposed the ACLU!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/campfin/stories/cf101097b.htm
Fern, these words, in this article, should be close enough. I paraphrased Reagan's more lengthy statement into a clear statement of his meaning and intent.
'Close', you say, that's Bull! There is nothing to match what you wrote, which was not in the least a quote of Ronald Reagan's; nor was your post claiming to be a quote by Milton Friedman true; that was, in fact, said by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
You compiled quite a record of misquotes this early morn, and that is the most polite comment I can make about your posts.
Fern,
Of course, you are right. But, I do think Reagan's statement does point to his new form of government:
That government: "You give me money, I do what you tell me to do."
Alternatively made somewhat less unseemly by using these words:
Social Democratic Prostitution.
Which, is now what Republicans bring to the table for government, including our Supreme Court.
Mike, it might be more accurate to say political prostitution. Social Democratic prostitution implies, to me at least, those on the left of the spectrum. Those on the right are actively courting the morbidly rich to more of a degree than the left, given the current stance of the right wing extremists.
I agree that there are places where spending should and can be cut. But no Congress person in their "right mind" would do so, because they want to be reelected. Cuts mean that favorite programs go away. What a mess we've managed to get ourselves into.
I'll suggest the first cut; after removing Bush and Trump tax cuts, cuts should be to 'Not' help with federal monies, states suffering flooding disasters, where folks continue to insist on living despite the gambles of nature, and perhaps severe weather events, due perhaps to global climate disruption / change.
You can't find the quote, because its bullshit
Love your description of Musk as a john. I hope this announcement bombs as it should. Stubby "Boots" DeSatan and the giant "spaceship"....quite the pair.
Michele, I couldn’t agree more! I call him Puddin’Paws and Musk I haven’t even bothered with. What a pair.
New one for me....Puddin'Paws. I have a name for Musk, but it isn't polite.
Dear Mike, I think the only word in your “new type of government in the USA” is Prostitution. The other words don’t apply, since those bastards don’t see anything as either “social” or “democratic”!!!
Of course, you are correct. I was trying to find a way to make the words government specific.
But, it really is just plain old Prostitution. Actually, what I see is an insult to Prostitution as a Profession.
Whether Reagan actually said that or not (he wasn't that intellectual) it is certainly what he meant, and every thing the ham actor did was to support the top at the expense of the middle and working classes.
The great howl about socialism is a red herring. Republicans have been beating a dead fish for 90 years. It ignores the communities that evolved over the thousands of years before the European right to property conquered this western hemisphere.
"Socialism for the Rich. Rugged Individualism for the Poor."
___Milton Friedman
Holy _ _ _ _! Mike S!
Here's who said it:
This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor.
____ Rev. Martin Luther King Jr
:-)
Fern, thanks! I think Friedman must have been plagiarizing that day!!
Who are you fooling, not me for sure!
I figure I am fooling nobody, but imagine I might be making a poignant point about where and when our government changed from something approximating what John Adams had in mind when he wrote his seminal "representative" form of government into the Massachusetts Constitution in 1779.....subsequently used as the model for the US Constitution a bit later........
to......something approximating Prostitution where someone provides money for services.
Which, undoubtedly, Reagan ushered in exactly that type of government and now Republicans fully embrace that openly as DeSantis is about to show us and the world.
Friedman saw it as a feature, not a bug. Read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein to understand how sick he was and how much misery he caused.
How quickly we forget. We forget who we’re dealing with . The Republicans are in charge of granting the wealthy, exactly what they want.
The rest of us can rot.
And I hate to say Joe Biden is allowing them to think its all good.
What happened to the plan to keep Debt Ceiling and Budget separate?
Allow these Maga monsters to think they make the rules?
Nothing good can come of it.
Im sorry about Kevin McCarthys deal with the super Maga .
Thats hostage taking and Kevin jumped at it so he could be Speaker.
Thats their deal not ours.
President Biden, take back the reins of this runaway Maga.
"What happened to the plan to keep Debt Ceiling and Budget separate?" That's what I'm wondering, too, Patricia. It affects my ability to follow anything else that's being talked about.
Biden the deal maker of old wanting bipartisanship threw them bone, and of course they bite him, like any mad dog would. He has to know what he is dealing with. He has no other option but to pull the 14th Amendment on them and let them scream. The Dems need to show trump their true leader during his time in the WH saying that there is no negotiating over the debt ceiling.
So, do you think Gaetz was referring to McCarthy as their "hostage" or Biden? I thought Biden -- and was even more disgusted with Gaetz & Co. for such a comment.
How do you propose Biden take back the reigns Patricia?
As Heather has asserted in her chat last evening, not "invoking" the 14th Amendment but following the oath that he took at his inauguration: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." In other words, to "preserve, protect and defend" our Constitution, which includes the 14th Amendment.
As I read LFAA this morning, it occurs to me that all the monies that moved upward to the 1% and hollowed out the middle class made the 99% less able to be independent and look after their own needs. Moving money upward outs people more in need of government services. Still EVERYONE should pay their share, including big corporations and the ultra rich. It's ridiculous that Buffet's secretary pays a high tax rate than Buffet.
“You’ll get nothing, and you’ll like it!”
___ Judge Elihu Smails (Ted Knight)
Judge Elihu Smails is the comical bad guy in the 1980 comedy Caddyshack. Played by actor Ted Knight, Smails is a pompous snob with a fondness for white pants, yachting caps, and golf.
Mike, I never liked Milton Friedman. Isn’t he the “trickle down” guy? What a loser economically speaking....
He's worse than that. He was directly involved in restructuring the economies of Central and South American economies after coups d'etat, to allow corporations to essentially take over governments, leaving democracy a memory and the people of those countries dealing with the wreckage of their societies. One of the reasons we have a border crisis. He specialized in making profit out of disaster. One of the last things he did was to organize the privatization of New Orleans' schools after Katrina.
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-milton-friedman-aided-and-abetted-segregationists-in-his-quest-to-privatize-public-education
Elisabeth,
Here is a gift link to Friedman's original thesis in 1970, which, has done ever so much harm.
https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctrine-the-social-responsibility-of-business-is-to.html?unlocked_article_code=MJY5hh7bN7Jz75nw5Bn_BBS1dCPrawwocO0ljt-I321jHtGQJ0Uw1hjUt9lKQAuemi8r-7CNPI6YbACdgWlnVQcHv_8uA078wxeLqwKdGY6NEBwIh53Esa6yePkUc5tXPKwBxL9j8wkP7_7DS8dUO-EPZoQNTiHRuJOCuwYJAfL3K1Lsx7XlsQdlMlBiOlzdpSYwSFnpF75SeHl60S9gW9OPllrnzgKnQixd3QqYAU32qb2eN9Cc5hQn04I2z4XQGls5hmzfBc4ehdYL1ilDZfOoUFSWjKbmHe5Gxn-S03un7wc9aC7taU6X9Vr9IXm0DmAn1eGHW8oVIC0lyxXDyPis6LI3_PRcJaa842suvnTkB_8aD89NNOntRDxLFDCd38zQX00jek8YIg&smid=url-share
Arthur Laffer was Mr. trickle down
A.k.a. known as bs.
That’s good old Chicago School.
Gotta love FDR😊❤️
Its hard to believe this post was written by a History Professor?
It so full of false cliches. Let me help you out.
1) In case you didn't notice the demographics for the Democratic party have changed since 1980. The Democrats used to be the party of middle America and The Republicans the party of the rich and religious.
2) Today that has total reversed itself. Democrats are the party wealth elites, minorities, and graduate level education. Furthermore All the wealthiest urban areas in America are leftist. Silicon Valley, West Side of LA, San Francisco, NYC, DC, Boston. et cetera.
Democrats win urban areas, Republicans win rural areas.
3) As for taxation your claim that Republicans unilaterally love tax cuts for the rich is SILLY.
The democrats could have CHANGED the tax code ANYTIME they wanted when they controlled Congress. They could propose a bill at ANY TIME. Of course they don't, ALL of their super donors LOVE all the loopholes.
3) As for DEBT, what is your argument that somehow Democrats are the party of FISCAL
responsibility? If Biden had unilateral control of the budget he would spend trillions more on social giveaways and climate programs.
4) Finally why do leftists love to invoke the name of Reagan? When they do it never ends well. FIRST you make another 1st year history student mistake. Reagan never had control of congress HIS entire presidency. The Democrats controlled the House , and the Republicans controlled the senate for 6 out of 8 years.
THEREFORE ALL THE BUDGETS started in a Democratic House. Any deficits WERE shared with the Democrats. It was 8 years of push and pull between Reagan on defense spending, tax cuts, and Democratic social spending. The Democrats could stopped or lower TAX CUTS anytime they wanted.
THE NET EFFECT UNDER REAGAN? Let me help you out again
20 million new jobs were created
Inflation dropped from 13.5% in 1980 to 4.1% by 1988
Unemployment fell from 7.6% to 5.5%
Net worth of families earning between $20,000 and $50,000 annually grew by 27%
Real gross national product rose 26%
The prime interest rate was slashed by more than half, from an unprecedented 21.5% in January 1981 to 10% in August 1988
FINAL RESULT? Reagan WON reelection carrying 49 of 50 states.
Feel free to keep trying to rewrite the Reagan legacy.
But remember the words of HL Mencken: "There is no idea so stupid that you can’t find a professor who will believe it.”
The truth about Reagan?
"the deepest post-World War II economic downturn occurred in the early 1980s. According to the accepted arbiter of the economy’s ups and downs, the National Bureau for Economic Research, a brief recession in 1980 — lasting only six months — and a short period of growth, were followed by a sustained recession from July 1981 to November 1982. The unemployment rate hovered between 7% and 8% from the summer of 1980 to the fall of 1981, when it began to rise quickly. By March 1982 it had reached 9%, and in December of that year the unemployment rate stood at its recession peak of 10.8%. The jobless rate slowly receded over the next few years, falling to 8.3% by the end of 1983 and to 7.2% by the 1984 presidential election. The unemployment rate did not fall below 6%, however, until September 1987."
https://www.pewresearch.org/2010/12/14/reagans-recession/
Another truth about Reagan? At the start of his huge runup of debt, Jimmy Carter had been PAYING DOWN US debt with a MORE than balanced budget.
https://zfacts.com/national-debt/
Reagan's real legacy in America?
-->The Destruction of the Middle Class that was built by FDR and Eisenhower and sustained through Carter.
Now, since a lot of religious folks "believe in" Ronald Reagan, thereby leveraging their belief skills into the real world, I don't really try to argue with them. Folks can believe what they want.
But, this is not a religious board and? Well, writing false narratives about how great Ronnie was?
Is bound to be contested with real world facts.
Reagan was an abject failure as a President of a Representative Democracy.
John Adams would have thrown him out of office.
Enjoy life in your own delusional bubble.
Back on planet earth there are facts. And the most relevant fact is the Reagan won reelection
carrying 49 out of 50 states in one of the greatest landslide victories in US History.
You just look like bitter fool.
"James", I previously gave you notice that personal attacks are not acceptable at anytime under the Platform's contract.
Today arou d 11:45 am Pacific, I gave "James" & Substack Inc notice of Mediation at the conract forum, JAMS in SF.
Will you voluntsrily appear,. Name an acceptable date.
Bryan McKown, contractually defined 'Reader'
We all have our opinion of Reagan’s presidency, but as a research scientist (now retired) I’m inclined to put my personal biases aside and look at the facts, all readily available on Wikipedia under the heading “Reaganomics.” Yes, there were some upsides to his policies, but your cherry-picked statistics are only part of the picture, and rather misleading. For one thing, Reagan didn’t even enter office until 1981 and left in 1989, so stating statistics for the period 1980-88 makes no sense. Looking at the graphs this is what I see:
1) Job growth: Jobs grew by 2.0% annually under Reagan, versus 3.1% under Carter, 0.6% under H.W. Bush, and 2.4% under Clinton. Hard to see how Reagan was stellar in this regard unless you want to compare him to another Republican president.
2) Inflation: Slightly over 11% when he entered office in 1981 and about 4.5% when he left, so that’s a positive. But your numbers make it sound more impressive than it actually was.
3) Unemployment: About 18% when he entered office and 9% when he left, so I’d call that a success. I have no idea where you got your numbers, though.
4) Net worth of families earning between $20k-50k. Not sure where you got the +27% number, but here’s what Wikipedia says:
a) The average real hourly wage for production and nonsupervisory workers continued the decline that had begun in 1973, albeit at a slower rate, and remained below the pre-Reagan level in every Reagan year.
b) In nominal terms, median household income grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.5% during the Reagan presidency, compared to 8.5% during the preceding five years. Nominal household net worth increased by a CAGR of 8.4%, compared to 9.3% during the preceding eight years.
So tell me, why do you think Reagan’s performance was so amazing?
5) GDP: Real GDP per capita grew 2.6% under Reagan, compared to 1.9% average growth during the preceding eight years. But that statistic is as misleading as the increase of GDP over the past 40 years has resulted in the bulk of the gains being heavily skewed towards higher-income Americans. Just look at the graph of “Trends in US Income Inequality 1975-2005” and you’ll see that income inequality rose during the Reagan years.
6) Prime interest rate: It was about 19% when Reagan entered office and 9% when he left, so about the same ratio you state.
Notably absent from your statistics is how much Reagan reduced tax receipts (call them what they really are: “Tax Expenditures”) and exploded the national debt.
“During Reagan's presidency, the federal debt held by the public nearly tripled in nominal terms, from $738 billion to $2.1 trillion. This led to the U.S. moving from the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest debtor nation. Reagan described the new debt as the "greatest disappointment" of his presidency.”
I guess since that doesn’t resonate with your glowing appraisal of Reagan you just chose to ignore that inconvenience. Do you understand what the current debt-ceiling debate is all about? Reagan was the poster child of national-debt largess. That is, until Trump came along: He increased the national debt by nearly $7 trillion, thus eclipsing Reagan’s figure of “only” $1.4 trillion. But, it was Reagan who taught the entire Republican party that “Deficits don’t matter”--except when a Democrat is in the White House.
There is an old adage "tell the truth, then give your opinion"
By any objective metric Reagan's presidency was tremendously successful.
The proof? He won 49 out of 50 states in the of the greatest landslide victories in
US history.
That's the bottom line.
Then why don't the Democrats rewrite the tax code and get rid of the loopholes that benefit
the wealthy? They could level the tax playing field in 5 minutes. Why? Because their Wall St and Silicon Valley megadonors don't want it.
No, it’s mainly because the Republicans vote against it or use the filibuster in a reflex knee jerk when they hear the word “tax”.
“Leaving the White House today, McCarthy told reporters that he would not entertain rolling back the 2017 Trump tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. ‘[T]he problem is not revenue,’ he insisted. ‘The problem is spending.’”
Is McCarthy (et al.) being disingenuous or is he just plain dumb? There is NO DIFFERENCE between “revenue” and “spending” when you’re talking about government. There’s even a specific term economists use for tax cuts/carve-outs/loopholes/giveaways; they’re called, “tax expenditures.” Meaning, when you give someone--an individual, perhaps, or a corporation, or any entity--a break on taxes, it’s the same as if you handed them (“spent”) money from the US government. These people are cosplaying Marie Antoinette and her famous line, “Let them eat cake.” And we all know how that ended up for here.
Dave, I think it is stupid of McCarthy to pretend to be so disingenuous, and even more stupid of the rest of us to put up with his act for another second. He, too, should end up behind bars.
I am not normally a conspiracy theorist, but I increasingly worry that the underlying endgoal for Speaker McCarthy is to destroy our national government’s abilities to do anything that does not involve the military, thus proving that “Government does not work.” Another Trump administration would only hammer that lesson home further. Viz. Steve Bannon -- “the deconstruction of the administrative state.”
I ain’t putting up with anything, David. Let’s throw the package OUT!!! All the packages....
According to MSNBC, Kevin is doing this at the behest of TFG and the goal is to make Joe Biden look bad. They are actually willing to cripple the economy to put the would be dictator back in office. May their scheme come back and bite them.
With a venomous bite.
Precisely.
I didn’t see that on MSNBC, but I know it’s right on the money from countless examples of TFG’s behavior and Rs’ response to it.
McCarthy is just plain dumb, and the blond haired female Goon. or cavewoman MTG is even dumber. Dumb and dumber would be a great name for those 2 deluded cretins. I was a teenager when the Richard Nixon Watergate thing went down. but all of this BS with TUMP, the Jan 6 insurrection riots, and these demented Rethug Congress critters pushing a budget default, etc. etc. would make the Watergate thing look like a minor criminal act. Watergate wasn't a minor thing, but in comparison to what these Rethug criminals are doing now, it seems like a minor crime that happened 50 years ago.
Well said John - but I am beginning to think MTG is not so dumb. She instead has malice in her heart. She is not a nice person. That doesn't make her dumb; that makes her all the more dangerous, especially if given power, which McCarthy has done. And I believe that her antics fire up the very people who voted for her. So just like the other vile persons we see in Congress year after year (Gohmert, Jordan, Stefanik, etc) they get re-elected by an electorate with malice in its collective heart.
MTG is filled with malice without chalice.
The Karen from hell.
And to see her yesterday with the gavel again calling the House to order - I regard that as a message. An "Own the Libs" message. How irresponsible of McCarthy to put up perhaps the singlemost inappropriate person in that body to be up there. Literally a slap in the face of serious politicians.
Frighteningly true.
James,
She does indeed have malice at her core as you say.
Agreed.
He is weak and trapped. Not a defense for the speaker in name only. This is a zero sum game and the whole negotiation theme is just theatre of the absurd. The clowns are performing for their audience.
:-) Except that Marie-Antoinette apparently never said that. I'm not defending her queenship, but when you see the evidence of the horrible and even pornographic things written about her at the time, you see that faux news is nothing new.
Thanks, Carolyn! I actually said that too, with less detail, about the same time as you, but it seems to have sunk. Poor girl, she was part of a political deal to shore up French support for her mother the empress of Austria, and a couple of quick cases of smallpox suddenly changed the succession to the throne. They were still teenagers, and totally unprepared to be king and queen. My closing remark was "McCarthy is hoist with his own petard".
Thank you.
You ask, ‘Is McCarthy being disingenuous or is he just plain dumb?’
I’m going with dumb. Our Kevin is the lead spokesperson for the Stupid Party.
I have concluded their behavior and actions are evil because they know exactly what they are doing.
They are bought psycophants, puppets, told what to do.
The Republican Party isn't 'stupid.' It knows what it is doing in working to emasculate government and benefit wealthy donors in the name of 'freedom.' Those who are the stupid ones, if not merely ignorant or gullible, are the ones who repeatedly vote against their own interests when they vote for Republicans for local, State and national offices. Solution: Vote to defeat any Republican on any ballot and work hard to get others to do the same with the vehemence you manifest in many of your comments on LFAA!
Many here say McCarthy is “dumb”. He’s winning. McCarthy has forced Biden (his “hostage”) to negotiate. If the reports about the impending deal are accurate, McCarthy is getting Biden to abandon tax increases on the wealthy, and instead cut spending. While we’re saying he’s “dumb, stupid”, McCarthy is winning concessions for his wealthy patrons. We may despise McCarthy, but that ain’t “dumb”.
You're absolutely right. Like I've been saying for about seven years with respect to The Former Guy, "Don't blame him; blame his supporters." McCarthy knows exactly what he's doing---and the MAGA crowd laps it up. But, it's up to the sane people in the room to call them out on their lies and hypocrisy, loudly and relentlessly. It'd be nice if the media would do the same, eh?
The media has lost its way.
President Biden isn't the hostage. The United States are. The President is tying to get us released by utilizing the negotiator's art of "letting them have my way". If he is unable to do so (and you really should not negotiate with terrorists, since there is no way to bargain with them since what they want is antithetical to a positive outcome for anyone but them) he needs to utilize the tactical team and eliminate the threat posed by the terrorists.
I disagree. I think he, and most of the “Freedom Caucus” even more so, really is dumb. The reason they are “winning”, as you say, is that they don’t care about the damage they might do. And the reason they don’t care is that their dumbness prevents them seeing it, or feeling it, or appreciating it.
Indeed. A default will hurt the economies of most of the world. It would be "cutting off your nose to spite your face," as the old saying went.
I agree that they don't care about the damage they do to those they don't care about, like average citizens. In fact, they know that Biden, not them, will be blamed for the damage they're causing. They do care very, very much about the wealthy and big corporations. Their "dumb" actions are carefully designed to further the interests of those patrons. You might think it's dumb to not care about hurting the country. They are happy to have us think that.
If we engage in a conflict that we know this is a threat to America, we should make it so one-sided that it gets over very quickly.
____Kevin McCarthy
“Stupid is pretending to look tough about deficit spending after waving through every budget-busting dollar that Donald Trump wanted to spend.”
______Dana Millbank on Kevin McCarthy
I think not really stupid. McCarthy et al. have learned the lesson well that repeated lying works quite well. It doesn't get everyone, but the constant repetition gers into the brains of those who don't watch closely. It's like brain worms. The victims lose sight of their own experiences and swallow the lies.
To the detriment of all of us.😡😪
I miss Dana Millbank and Jennifer Rubin, but these days I'm finding the WaPo very heavy going, and HCR is an excellent news source. Plus the forum isn't populated by enemy aliens.
I miss them, too, as I didn't renew my subscription.
But I think that McCarthy combines maybe not dumbness, but not a particularly high level of "smarts", with extreme ambition. That is dangerous, especially when realizing his ambitions depends on the likes of MTG, Gaets and Gosar.
Our Kevin makes my point for me. About being dumb, I mean.
Why are we engaging in a conflict that we know is a threat to America?
This is like being in a duel of wits with an unarmed opponent.
What does K McC even mean? Oh. Let him eat cake.
But he might lose his head completely...
Poor KM! His grammar and command of the English language is even worse than mine!
Dave There is as much connection between revenue and spending as there should be between McCarthy’s head and shoulders. Maybe. His head (with an itty-bitty brain) may actually be connected to foo foo dust.
I say that Keystone Kev is dumb and he owes his soul to the company of total wing nuts in the House.
“her,” not “here.”
That happens to me all the time. Not even the dratted computer will do as it's told.
I didn't know that about tax expenditures, but that perspective makes perfect sense from the government side.
Yes, a man whose name was Guillotine invented a quick, painless desth for her and her husband.
Regrettably, when Democrats hold the White House, Republicans, particularly since 2010, largely have viewed the debt ceiling “as a hostage worth taking.” I expect, were the country to default, the economic calamity that would ensue would be pinned on Biden. Moreover, I believe the call for savage cuts to Medicaid, to housing, to the environment, to childcare, to education, and so forth is aimed at destroying the ability of government in a democratic society to provide for its people. Accordingly, I agree with Senator Bernie Sanders who asserts Republicans want to make this country even more of a corporatist society wherein the only Americans empowered in economic decision-making are large multi-national corporates.
Currently, unless dynamics I’m unaware of are at work behind closed doors, I see no recourse but for Biden to invoke the 14th and pay the nation’s bills while litigation ensues.
"Senator Bernie Sanders who asserts Republicans want to make this country even more of a corporatist society wherein the only Americans empowered in economic decision-making are large multi-national corporates."
Isn't that the way the country is already governed? Did you watch "60 minutes" this past Sunday about the two monopolies extorting our armed forces for hundreds of times the cost for equipment and parts that are needed to operate our defense systems at the expense of the taxpayers? Bernie's words lead me to do a little searching. I found a Brennan Center 2016 publication, "How Big Business Bailed Out the Nazis: A tragic tale of what can go wrong when profits are entangled with politics" Clara Torres-Spelliscy. We shouldn't forget history.
The trouble is, we don't forget history, but watch it from our train window, whizzing past and out of sight.
Gloria, If you re-read Bernie’s assertion, you will note the words “even more” of a corporatist society…”
Of course. Thank you for pointing that out. I thought he meant "even more" to the extent wherein...... I thought he meant we're not there yet that the "only Americans empowered in economic decision-making are the large multi-national corporates," but that the Republicans want to make it so. I meant that we are already there that the only Americans empowered in economic decision making are large multi-national corporates. Sorry.
Gloria, I appreciate you taking the time to clarify the intended meaning of Sander’s assertion.
Thank you! I found this article and will read when time permits.
Good morning Barbara!
Agreed. Let's hear it for the 14th.
I think if we sat with Bernie Sanders (wouldn't that be fun?) he would agree that we are ALREADY a corporatist society. A nation run to make money for a few. Run to make money off illness. A nation that allows a few "yachtists" to hijack the economy for their pleasure. A nation that gives its natural resources away to the same "yachtists". Why do we allow a few people to own and profit from the minerals and chemicals in public lands? And why do we allow them to export petroleum when we need it right here? If you haven't read Thom Hartmann's piece on the power we are giving away to Putin and the murdering prince of Saudi Arabia, please do.
https://hartmannreport.com/p/russia-and-saudi-arabias-devious?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Good afternoon Bill.
Thank you both for the astute questions and for the link to the Hartmann piece, which I will read. As for Bernie, I expect were we ever able to sit with him, he would underscore the words “even more” of a corporatist society.
"A 2020 study by Carter C. Price and Kathryn A. Edwards of the RAND Corporation showed that the changing economic distribution systems of the past forty years have moved a staggering $50 trillion upward, out of the hands of the bottom 90% of Americans."
The raison d'etre of the modern bought and paid for Republican Party. And it's not just the dramatic upswing in how financial inequality has skyrocketed; the the way "Reaganomic" financial asymmetry means that creeps such as Elon Musk gain ever more control and impact on our politics, our society and our lives, and they are no longer shy about talking about it. How close did we come, how close are we now to losing democracy entirely? Billionaires openly defy the law, and way too often get away with it.
If nothing else, the last forty years should demonstrate that leaving the foxes in charge of the chicken coop does not end well for any but the foxes.
The old "I could kill somebody on 5th Ave . . ."
Republicans don’t really believe in trickle-down economics. They don’t care about the poor. They care only about themselves.
I have believed this point all along.......it is all about taxes, but they have duped the uneducated citizens by pandering to gun owners, misogynists, religious extremists, and all the others that make up " the base. "
The floor in trickle-down economics is intended to be for those in the top 1-3% income. Just saying.
The Republican Party of the Civil War and the Republican Party of today have nothing in common beyond a name. The party today is composed of the traitors and seditionists of the New Confederacy, and they should be dealt with the way we should have dealt with their traitor forebears, of which my patriot ancestors didn't kill enough of them when the opportunity presented itself.
Yes, TC, and the best thing about history repeating itself is that there is a second chance to do the right thing. Not sure how many second chances are left for us at this point, given the stupidity of today's GOP. Not even sure we've earned another.
The last forty years should demonstrate that there is no direct correlation between money and brains. And none whatsoever between money and heart or common sense.
And today's Democrat is similar in name only to a 19th century Democrat. Both parties flipped 180°. Prof. Richardson has mentioned this before.
Hear, hear, TC!
I am pessimistic that the debt ceiling crisis will be resolved before a default occurs. The Democrats have not messaged this well--the amount of wealth transferred out of the bottom 90% to the top 1% is OBSCENE and that has not gotten out in the media. The problem is a TAX (REVENUE) problem and not a JUST A SPENDING problem as the Republicans claim.
I agree. Ever since poor George McGovern got squashed by that sleazy crook Nixon in 1972, enough "Democrats" have gone along with the GOP's laissez faire capitalism to ensure we got to where we are in terms of wealth distribution. Overwhelmed by Faux news, Rush Limbaugh and all the rest, I guess. And Joe Biden, bless his humane heart, is still playing softball.
I have a similar emotion. I want Biden to throw a pitch so hard and fast it knocks the batter out of the game. But I think Joe Biden is smarter than me. He is deftly playing the game.
Biden is demonstrating a willingness to talk. Most people see that as reasonable. I agree that the talks will probably collapse. But we still might see a discharge petition. And Biden could invoke the 14th for just long enough to get that through Congress. The Republicons will sue. A bit of a horse race. A ridiculous one. The Supremes could throw it back to Congress just in time for the petition to pass and send it to the Senate. Done.
I think Joe is surrounded by good advisors. And he will sail this ship to safe harbor. And the Democrats will have been handed the greatest campaign tools in American political history. "The Republicans were willing to risk your Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security...and the well being of our Military and their families. They were willing to risk millions of jobs - to take food off your kitchen table."
Camera rolls. Woman in uniform standing with her two young kids. She says "The Republicans were willing to take food out of the mouths of my children. Why? So rich dudes on their yachts can pay less taxes? I risk my life for this country. And Republicans don't want my kids to eat?" Somebody with "Hollywood skills" can do this and more - much better than me. I hope that this crisis passes without damage to Americans. But it certainly could help us create a tsunami of Blue Election Winners. No?
"Somebody with "Hollywood skills" can do this and more"
Bill, unfortunately, the creative writers in Hollywood are all on strike because, in today's America, they get paid peanuts and cannot make rent.
Another side effect of moving wealth upwards: No good writers to tell the important stories.
Your point is well taken. I am in total support of the writers strike. But wouldn't there be a bunch of writers who would like to save the nation from fascism? I suspect so...
Bill, I really hope you're right and that I have just let pessimism get the best of me. We'll all know soon enough.
YES Bill 🙏
Really good comment. Thanks 🙏
David Herrick, Joe Biden's humane heart has reaped amazing accomplishments. Since his installation as President, the world has become a better place with more cooperation with our allies....relationships and respect renewed following the horror of the "trump terrors"!!!! and the breakdown of the republican party!!!!
Do we continue to have wars..."YES" but we are supporting the ideal of freedom not rule by dictators!!!
As I was shopping in Walmart looking for ingredients for a cake (I bake rarely!) so needed assistance .....a lovely lady came to my aid....politics wove its tainted opinions within my need to locate this particular ingredient.....she openly shared her passionate opposing opinions!!!!
Let me just confirm....there IS A GOD ! I know this because only HE could refrain the words I wanted to say and the volume with which I wanted to say them. The dear lovely lady was completely brainwashed. The description she gave of our President was the opposite of mine in every way! We parted in peace and politeness.
As Democrats we are of course not perfect. Joe does not carry around a "big stick". He is demonstrating how Democracy can actually work. He demonstrates this through patience, respect, quiet persistence....knowledge with a large dose of "HOPE".
We need to realize the full extent to which the enemies of freedom are at work in our
America. What kind of future do we want....what kind of legacy do we want to leave?
Emily, I avoid Walmart if at all possible. I had a friend who left her position as one of two HR people in her store after 23 years. The reason? They were reorganizing the stores and her job and that of the other person were being combined into one. She'd compete with the other person to get it, and btw, she told me there would be no increase in salary. So she quit. She had many many stories about WAlmart and they were not good. The ONLY good thing she told me was that they encouraged volunteerism and would financially support the organization they volunteered for. There were some stipulations which I don't recall, but our school music program greatly appreciated the $1000 year that came from her efforts.
I remember rural America before Walmart. Small towns with nice stores owned by local folks who knew your name when you walked in.
When a Walmart moved into Palestine, TX in the mid 1980's it killed Elkhart, Grapeland and Palestine TX all three beautiful little towns. Killed every business in every town. I am not exaggerating.
I took my kids back in 2009, all stores shuttered except for one diner in formerly prosperous Grapeland. Same in Elkhart. Same in Palestine.
It looked like that Steven King book: The Stand.
Hate to "like" this, Mike.
When Walmart first came by me, i didn't get the negatives. I was actually excited! I hate them now.
And, the citizens of those towns willingly changed their shopping allegiance to Walmart. go figure...
These MAGA folks are often on a crusade of sorts, hoping to convert those willing to listen to them. Flat liners is an old label for such people.( brain dead)
I'd always heard "flat liner" as in an EKG of a heart that was not beating.
No, I think it's always referred to an EEG -- no brain activity, however hard the heart might continue pumping.
I hope you at least very mildly told her you had a different view of Biden?
Meredith, I expressed my complete transformation from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party and was grateful to vote for someone with character and experience and love and respect for this country like Joe Biden whom she immediately began to disparage???!!! (all from news/info/friends/church....whose opinions I knew she had been absorbing.....)
Funny David. Outside of corporate hardball, nearly all of of enjoyable baseball for both men and women is softball. Funny you should choose to criticize Biden for playing the singular most effective baseball in America today. He rates a grand slam in my book. To be honest they called Selensky a comedienne. Look how Putin is laughing now. I say stand up for those who stand with you.
I occasionally work in the snack bar at my kid’s school. The kids of the parents who work there get free snacks when their parents are working. The other day, I watched as my co-worker’s kid came behind the counter and grabbed snacks for not only himself but their whole friend group, including several of the coveted and scarce just baked cookies. This while a line of kids whose parents don’t or can’t work in the snack bar (or just weren’t working that day) waited in line hoping to get and then to pay for those same cookies. But if you were to ask the kids in line why they didn’t get a cookie, they would blame the kid in front of them who bought 2 cookies or the kid who cut or the kitchen staff who didn’t make enough cookies. They would never have seen the raid that was carried out while they were jockeying for position and then trying desperately to hold their position in that line. This is how privilege works.
Beth, in my about 15 years of volunteering to work all sorts of fundraising for various school activities, often I was working a snack bar or concession stand. This happens ALL THE TIME. I personally am aware of three instances where parents were caught taking funds from the organization. (Two were in scouting, one at a concession stand.) In the first two instances, those in charge just let them repay and not work with the kids again. In the third, the school administration came very close to pressing charges, but did not. Apparently there were some circumstances involved that they let her off. (I had some insider information but even that person had a closed mouth. I will say I trust this was good reason as the principal at the time was probably on of the most honest and human persons, one of the best administrators that I have ever had the good fortune of knowing.
I should say that it is common practice to put things aside for your own kid and I am not blameless. My kid got chips and a drink for free that day too. But that's just it. The thumb is on the scale.
Beth,
A real example of privilege is how Little League works. First, I was a coach in Little League for five years of the six my son played.
Reason? The first year he played, the Coach of his team played his son either at Pitcher or Short Stop every game even though the kid could barely throw the ball while keeping my own son on the bench.
The next year I was coach. I ran the team in this manner: For the first half of the season I rotated every player through EVERY position. I took detailed stats and notes and had parents do the same.
Midway through the season I had a parent meeting and TOGETHER we selected who would play what position for the remaining season.
My team (our team I should say) always mopped up in the second half of the season because ALL of the other teams were playing "preference" for key positions while we played performers.
The last game of my Little League career, my team laid waste to a team stacked with preference kids, 17-9. Even had a black kid on my team by then (the only one in the League).
My team received a standing ovation from the parents of BOTH teams that day.
Preference is a loser. Fairness is a winner.
Excellent strategy! And I’ll bet it taught the kids an everlasting lesson on how to be fair and inclusive…brilliant!
Beth M., YES, since the beginning of time.
Absolutely great example of privilege. You are so right!!
I wish Biden had agreed to enter negotiations with McCarthy ONLY if tax increases on the wealthy and corporations remain. No discussion about any cuts of any kind without that guarantee.
The mass cruelty and mean-spiritedness in the Republican Party right now is incomprehensible.
Agreed.
Thank you, Dr. Richardson, for showing so clearly what's in a name. And what is not in a name.
And we can thank Gaetz for those words "our hostage".
Mobsters' language, rule by racket.
Peter- that caught my attention, too! If the Rs are negotiating with the hostage, doesn’t that make them terrorists??
The KKK (Klown Kar Kawkus, whose motives are as lily white and pure as the other, more well known group known by those three letters) are the terrorists holding America hostage; that the President is "negotiating" with them is a tactical move, nothing more. I am of the firm belief that when the impasse is reached, there will be a resolution by whatever means necessary to save the hostage.
Ally,
Let us all hope you are correct.
Peter, I noticed his terminology right away. That is exactly what he and the MAGA cult believe we are. I can't disagree.
What happens is they become their own hostage as the world turns. They just don’t look that far down the road to the era they are creating that kills the goose. Eat it all now while the getting is good.
How apt, Pat, your words of quiet encouragement.
I'm reminded of the report of an SS officer beyond the wire telling an Auschwitz inmate that the wheel had almost turned full circle and those who'd held the heights would soon go under.
[No, not YOUR uniform. THEIRS.]
It is maddening Peter. You would think that one synapse would jump the gap. It’s like two for a penny candy at the general store when we were kids. Kids gobbled both pieces and then followed like vultures savoring the one you saved for later. Of course you had to divide it up.
My question is, what is Kevin’s Plan B? They’ve clearly stated their position, boxed themselves into a corner with nowhere to go. Seems like there’s no point in Biden continuing to negotiate, as Kevin doesn’t have the votes. Either it’s a discharge petition or the 14th amendment. I believe that’s what’s going to happen next. Unless...
Raise taxes on the wealthy. Tax the wealthy to death, if possible. Remove the income cap on an individual's salary payments into Social Security, so Social Security is solvent forever. Increase discretionary spending. Forgive all student debt.
It is better to fly fish than to outright troll ZB.
Good point Pat. But the only thing I disagree with in his comment is "tax the wealthy to death". I don't want them dead. I just want half their money and then for them to pay appropriate taxes forever on the other half. They might have to sell one of their five or six homes, or one of their yachts.
Yeah, me too Bill. I think ZB was selling overkill to mock democratic idealism.
YES, YES AND YES!
Superb historical retort to GOP tax-and-spend complaints, Heather. I am so grateful for your presence in my daily reading.
"Faced in 1861 with funding the Civil War, members of the Republican Party invented the U.S. income tax and graduated it to make sure that “the burdens will be more equalized on all classes of the community, more especially on those who are able to bear them,” as Senator William Pitt Fessenden (R-ME) put it."
Only one of many respects that the nominally "Republican Party" seems the antithesis of the Republican Party of Lincoln.
IS the antithesis of the Republican Party of Lincoln.
I fully agree with the last sentence, J.L. Graham, and it's so true.
So: at what stage did it become "Grand Old"?
Same old stupid from the Republicans.
I explained the current debt crisis to my kids and wife using this analogy and they found it helpful-
The Rs and Ds are like a husband and wife who spend more than they make and their way of deciding how to agree on future spending is to not pay their upcoming bank payment.
Rob, I think that your analogy is great! I’d amend it to say that the husband(R) (who controls the checkbook) made his wife quit her job (tax cuts) because he’s convinced that they can save money (balance the budget) by having her stay home. Instead of driving a less expensive car (oil and gas subsidies), he says that he will only make the bank payment if she and the kids stop eating lunch.
And he cannot quite admit that the “system” he chose to “improve things” was terribly flawed. How it undermined the strength of his own family, fostered anger and disrespect for his “wisdom”, contributed to the inability to address needed repairs to house infrastructure, terribly role-modeled “leadership” for his children, heightened the mental distress of all family members, insured the ill-health of his family, and probably forces his wife to bear more children because “He has needs!”
Girls girls girls, work work work.
Love it!
Best finance class I have ever attended Mary Hardt. My wife however is keeper of finance as she is a Scotch/Norwegian person who already skips lunch.
My grandmother said that the Scotch could squeeze a buffalo nickel until it squealed (referring to her Scotch mother-in-law).
I'd heard "pinch a nickel so the Indian rides the buffalo"
There was an old Scotch woman to whom one of my father’s friends sold some rams. After the sheep were unloaded and the financial transaction completed she offered him a meal. He gratefully accepted. She dumped a cup of oatmeal flakes into a pan with a dollop of bacon grease and stirred it around until the grease was absorbed by the oats and they were starting to toast and brown. She dumped this into two bowls, poured some coffee onto hers and gobbled it up. As he told it to my dad, he had already discovered that the coffee would remove the enamel from his teeth and the lining from his stomach, so he ate the oatmeal plain. He thanked her for the meal, and she said to him, “Always did like a man who ate fried oatmeal plain. Come back any time!” Needless to say, the next time he sold he some rams, he sent his hired man.
I forgot the punch line- ever after that, my mother would threaten us with fried oats, when the four of us kids got too rowdy in public.
Mary, about 35 years ago, my manager quit after the birth of her second child because the cost of child care was so high and her husband insisted she stay home. Wouldn't you know it, I heard about 10 years later, he passed of a heart attack in his early 50s. She was in her late 40s at the time. I'm sure she had to go back to work and I wonder what happened to her? Not a good move for women to leave the workforce and then try and claw their way back in!
My mom always said that her daughters needed to learn work (outside the home) skills and be able to support themselves (she was a single mom to 4 kids—although she & my dad loved each other the marriage didn’t work out & he ALWAYS paid child support/other costs); she also made sure my brothers also knew how to cook, clean & do laundry. She worked FT, so we had LOTS of chores around the house & it taught us a lot (tho’ we whined at the time!). I got married young, just 18 & my hubby was only 2 yrs older (was I ever really that young?!) & while having dinner with his parents and an aunt visiting from out of state we shared that we’d decided to head to far northern CA for college the aunt said to me “how wonderful you are going to work to put him thru college!”……um, “no”, I replied, “we are BOTH going to work PT and go to school FT”. The look on her face was priceless, but we were proud and committed to our path.
Déjà vu!
First, folks seem not to remember that in the 50s with the Republican president Eisenhower, the economy was going strong and the government funded many infrastructure projects, i.e., bridges, roads, airports. The top federal income tax rate was 91 percent in 1950 and 1951, and between 1954 and 1959. In 1952 and 1953, the top federal income tax rate was 92 percent.
When king Ronnie was president, he pushed through tax reductions primarily for the wealthy and he pushed through an increase in the Social Security withholding tax. “We kept our promises.” We promised that we would protect the financial integrity of social security. We have. We promised that we would protect beneficiaries against any loss in current benefits. We have. And we promised to attend to the needs of those still working, not only those Americans nearing retirement but young people just entering the labor force. And we’ve done that, too…
Instead of being a proud day for America, April 20, 1983, has become a day of shame. The Social Security Amendments of 1983 laid the foundation for 30-years of federal embezzlement of Social Security money in order to use the money to pay for wars, tax cuts and other government programs. The payroll tax hike of 1983 generated a total of $2.7 trillion in surplus Social Security revenue. This surplus revenue was supposed to be saved and invested in marketable U.S. Treasury bonds that would be held in the trust fund until the baby boomers began to retire in about 2010. But not one dime of that money went to Social Security.
Addressing what is called socialism, let's look at the other side of that argument, capitalism.
"There's nothing "normal" about having a middle class. Having a middle class is a choice that a society has to make, and it's a choice we need to make again in this generation, if we want to stop the destruction of the remnants of the last generation's middle class.
Despite what you might read in the Wall Street Journal or see on Fox News, capitalism is not an economic system that produces a middle class. In fact, if left to its own devices, capitalism tends towards vast levels of inequality and monopoly. The natural and most stable state of capitalism actually looks a lot like the Victorian England depicted in Charles Dickens' novels.
At the top there is a very small class of superrich. Below them, there is a slightly larger, but still very small, "middle" class of professionals and mercantilists - doctor, lawyers, shop-owners - who help keep things running for the superrich and supply the working poor with their needs. And at the very bottom there is the great mass of people - typically over 90 percent of the population - who make up the working poor. They have no wealth - in fact they're typically in debt most of their lives - and can barely survive on what little money they make.
So, for average working people, there is no such thing as a middle class in "normal" capitalism. Wealth accumulates at the very top among the elites, not among everyday working people. Inequality is the default option."
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)
That last line I will reuse it’s a great one.