WrestleMania 41 to be held in Las Vegas in 2025
29 minutes ago
My Blog List
The President Surrenders
I'm beyond angry, deeply disappointed, and absolutely appalled at what's happened in this debt-ceiling "debate." Why aren't the opinions of the vast majority of Americans being represented? How can elected leaders speak such untruths and not be held accountable? When will the members of the media stop quaking at the prospect of appearing "biased," when what they need to do is report facts, without drama and -- to borrow Dr. Krugman's analogy from last week -- declare that the world is indeed round and will never, ever be flat? Why is it that our elected officials turn away from rational possibilities, choosing instead to kowtow to a small but vocal minority, who as individuals are dangerously uninformed at best and treasonous at worst? How can any right-minded person hold to the opinion that we can get out of this mess without raising revenue? When did we become a country that casts aside without a second thought our fellows who are poor, sick, disabled, needy, or older? Have we become so selfish that we can no longer even consider sharing some of what we have with those who have less? If compassion is beyond our reach, is anyone concerned about the consequences of such disparity between the few who have and the many who have not? Why hasn't anyone in power -- one single person -- stood up and encouraged us all to do the right thing, even if it puts at risk his or her political future? Where is the leader who will get us all pulling in the same direction and give us the opportunity to share what we have? That's what we need to do right now. Businesses need to embrace innovation. Banks need to lend. Those of us who are able to, need to pay more taxes. And politicians need to remember what they're charged to do -- their best for their country, on behalf of all citizens. I honestly do not know how these people sleep at night or look in their mirrors in the morning. They do not represent me, nor what's best for this country. Me, and people like me, have no voice at all.
If not for this, then why do we even pay taxes?
I will not offend your intelligence by pretending to enjoy it; writing that check is about as enjoyable as a chainsaw root canal. But I don’t resent it, either.
I pay my taxes because this is how we the people pay for things we deem to be in our communal interest. This is how our military is sustained. This is how our children are educated. This is how our potholes are filled. This is how our libraries are stocked. This is how our police officers are supplied. This is how we take care of us. So I pay my taxes.
It is because I do, that I was appalled by the story of James Verone. He is a 59-year-old man from Gastonia, N.C. Drove a Coca-Cola delivery truck for 17 years until he lost his job three years ago. He got another job driving a truck, but that job went away, too.
So Verone took part-time work at a convenience store, only to find himself physically unable to do it. Verone has a bad back, a problem with his left foot that causes him to limp, arthritis that swells his knuckles and carpal tunnel syndrome. He could not stand behind the register, bend to reach the low shelves, lift things to the high ones.
And he had no medical insurance. Then, to make matters worse, he found a lump on his chest. Desperate, Verone considered his options. He filed for disability and early Social Security, but did not qualify.
Meanwhile, his savings were running out like sand through an hour glass. He considered a homeless shelter. He considered asking for charity. “The pain was beyond the tolerance that I could accept,” he told a reporter from the Gaston Gazette, upon whose story this account is based. “I kind of hit a brick wall with everything.”
That’s when Verone turned to crime. On the 9th of this month, he walked into a randomly chosen bank and passed a teller a note demanding one dollar and medical attention. He never showed a weapon, stood there while she called police, waited on a couch in the lobby for them to arrive, surrendered quietly. He went to jail, where he now has shelter, food and, yes, medical care.
I am not here to lionize Verone. His stunt could have gotten someone hurt. Indeed, the teller was taken to the hospital because her blood pressure spiked.
No I don’t lionize him. But I do empathize.
I pay my taxes. I consider it a patriotic obligation — a sacrifice for the greater we.
But that is not how it is seen by the anti-government forces who have dominated political debate in recent years. To hear them tell it, to pay taxes is to be robbed. And every federal program our taxes support is wasteful and unnecessary, except, of course, those that directly benefit the complainer himself.
During the health-care debate, we kept hearing that a government-run system amounted to “socialized medicine,” as if Marx would be your triage nurse and Lenin your doctor. As if, by that definition, our government-run libraries, police forces, schools and garbage pickup were not also “socialized.” As if it’s Aetna that really has your interests at heart.
If health care were “socialized,” a law-abiding working man would not have felt driven to this extreme. A great nation has a moral obligation to provide a safety net, to care for the most broken and vulnerable of its people.
I pay my taxes. That’s one reason I do.
GOP's diversionary tactics
Look over here, they say, the federal government is broke. We must cut social services to the poor and the elderly. No, look over there, they say. We must cut funding to Planned Parenthood, they say, even though it does not use federal money for abortions.
They are so good at their diversions, their smoke and mirrors, are they not? Meanwhile the Democrats and Republicans have quietly agreed to increase spending for the Pentagon a whopping $516 billion -- a $10 billion increase from last year.
Your taxes and loans from China pay $39 billion a year in interest on loans for excessive defense expenses incurred since December, 1941. Your grandchildren and their grandchildren will pay the Chinese and the U.S. bankers unless we reverse the growth of the Defense Department budget, which has tripled since 1997.
Why? The bankers, defense contractors, and lobbyists pay for the politicians' campaigns. The politicians pay them back.
Look over there. Rep. Paul Ryan wants to "fix" Medicare by having us buy private insurance policies from for-profit insurance corporations based on Wall Street. Yet Medicare has $2.7 trillion in reserves, is good for 25 years, and does not need to be fixed.
Re
Devin Nunes don't repensent us
They don’t represent us in Golden State
Our valley is perennially under-employed, even worst during the recession. Cities and countries are laying off hundreds of workers. It’s reported that high-speed rail could provide 120,000-plus jobs locally. Fresno is emerging as the logical location for the maintence station, with is permanent jobs. The federal government has even appropriated billions of dollars for this project.
Three Valley Congressmen, Devin Nunes, Kevin McCarthy, and Jeff Denham, have introduced a bill-H.R.761-to kill this high-speed rail project by reassigning the money, already appropriated, to highway 99 improvements.
This will not produce anywhere near the jobs that high-speed rail would. Their real purpose is to prevent the president from benefitting politically. So, instead of being the constitutionally elected representatives of the people in their districts, they have decided to become impediments to the progress in their districts.
It is apparent to me that this is the result of these congressmen selling their souls and their votes to Washington lobbyists, who represent a handful of billionaires who but votes. They are not supporting the people of their districts. Should the people of their districts continue to support them.
Our valley is perennially under-employed, even worst during the recession. Cities and countries are laying off hundreds of workers. It’s reported that high-speed rail could provide 120,000-plus jobs locally. Fresno is emerging as the logical location for the maintence station, with is permanent jobs. The federal government has even appropriated billions of dollars for this project.
Three Valley Congressmen, Devin Nunes, Kevin McCarthy, and Jeff Denham, have introduced a bill-H.R.761-to kill this high-speed rail project by reassigning the money, already appropriated, to highway 99 improvements.
This will not produce anywhere near the jobs that high-speed rail would. Their real purpose is to prevent the president from benefitting politically. So, instead of being the constitutionally elected representatives of the people in their districts, they have decided to become impediments to the progress in their districts.
It is apparent to me that this is the result of these congressmen selling their souls and their votes to Washington lobbyists, who represent a handful of billionaires who but votes. They are not supporting the people of their districts. Should the people of their districts continue to support them.
Middle-class warfare
When are members of the middle class going to realize thet the Republican Party has no use for them, and are using them to keep power.
In December,it was the Republicans in Congress who were against replealing the Bush tax cuts for the highest 2% of wage earners. They claimed this is class warefare, pitting the rich against the middle class nd poor.
Somehow they got the American people believing that. Now,we have Republican-led state legislatures promoting class warfare,pitting middle-class public service employees against the middle-class private sector employees. It is called divide and conquer. Soon there will be no middle class, just rich and poor.
It is amazing to me that middle-class Americans can be jealous of other middle-class Americans, because they are public employees, but feel sorry for the top 2% wage earners.
In December,it was the Republicans in Congress who were against replealing the Bush tax cuts for the highest 2% of wage earners. They claimed this is class warefare, pitting the rich against the middle class nd poor.
Somehow they got the American people believing that. Now,we have Republican-led state legislatures promoting class warfare,pitting middle-class public service employees against the middle-class private sector employees. It is called divide and conquer. Soon there will be no middle class, just rich and poor.
It is amazing to me that middle-class Americans can be jealous of other middle-class Americans, because they are public employees, but feel sorry for the top 2% wage earners.
GOP loves bad economy
Last week Goldman Sacks had conducted a study to find out how the GOP budget cuts would affect the economy. The study showed that economic growth would be reduced by 2%, which would pretty much kill economic growth for the year. The effect on unemployment would be 700,000 jobs lost this year.
So why is the GOPs still pushing this course if it is so bad and cost more jobs? The fact is that a bad economy has been good for the GOP.
It gives Republicans more power because they are able to blame the other guy for all the bad things. It also gives them a chance to push through the most radical legislation (bust unions, kill the EPA, FCC)
There is a set of facts that tells all we need to know: More jobs were created during the two years of the Obama presidency, than during eight years of the Bush administration.
If it’s the deficit we need worry about, well they cannot be believed there either since they fought tooth and nail to increase the deficit with the Bush tax cuts. I hope people start to take off their GOP-tinted glasses before it’s too late.
So why is the GOPs still pushing this course if it is so bad and cost more jobs? The fact is that a bad economy has been good for the GOP.
It gives Republicans more power because they are able to blame the other guy for all the bad things. It also gives them a chance to push through the most radical legislation (bust unions, kill the EPA, FCC)
There is a set of facts that tells all we need to know: More jobs were created during the two years of the Obama presidency, than during eight years of the Bush administration.
If it’s the deficit we need worry about, well they cannot be believed there either since they fought tooth and nail to increase the deficit with the Bush tax cuts. I hope people start to take off their GOP-tinted glasses before it’s too late.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)