12 April 2011

Dean Baker: Paul Ryan in Your Pockets; government by people who hate you; and a rant: Mad as hell, and not going to take it anymore‼

If you want a really succinct statement of just how much the Republican party is perpetrating a gigantic swindle on the American people, pretending to represent the interests of ordinary folks, when in fact they represent the interests of those who are so greedy they want every last dollar, and only their interests, read this recent op-ed by co-founder of the Center for Economic Policy Research, Dean Baker, Paul Ryan in your Pockets: Government by People Who Hate You.

We progressives are not represented well by the Democratic party; that's clear. The Republicans are perpetrating a big hoax: the idea that cutting spending will increase jobs and restore the economy to full employment. The opposite is more likely to be true; and if you look not even at the fine details but the major tenets of the Republican "cause not a budget," they have no interest in cutting the debt. Their budget doesn't do this, at all. They say it does, but only in magic land would it ever happen. They project 2.8% unemployment from their magic trickle down system, that's been proven not to work. They want to further cut taxes on the rich, which would accelerate the government into insolvency, not "balance the budget."

(If you have any doubt about this, consider history. Most of the current national debt was run up under Republican presidents. The only balanced budgets in the last 40 years were under Democratic presidents. Under George W. Bush, they set up a vastly expensive national security and surveillance infrastructure, started two wars that are still going on, and created a boondoggle Medicare prescription drug benefit that was more of a giveaway to Big Pharma than a real benefit to America's seniors (although partly fixed by HCR), all without paying for any of it; they just added it to the debt while cutting taxes for the rich. I call that irresponsible to the point of being unpatriotic.)

I honestly think whoever is calling  the shots in the Republican policy machine is being given marching orders by people who have gone insane with greed; who want every last dollar from ordinary people they can get, and who care so little about the long term well being of the American people (synonymous with America itself), that they are willing to enact policies that give short term gain to a tiny oligarchy while destroying America. And they have gamed the system, including ownership and control of the media, legalization of corruption the buying of political power, and masterful use of propaganda techniques and political brinksmanship, to do it.

The Democrats, who have no clear progressive economic agenda, led by a president who has made quite clear that he has no intention of creating or leading one, are feckless, weak, beaten back, and losing this fight.

We progressives just have to start organizing. Start taking to the streets and saying, America is not broke! The rich have it all. And we're mad as hell and we're not gonna take it anymore!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Gyromantic Informicon. Comments are not moderated. If you encounter a problem, please go to home page and follow directions to send me an e-mail.