By Octopus
First, let’s dispense with an outrageous lie. The current debt under discussion is REPUBLICAN DEBT authorized by Congress and signed into law by former President George W. Bush. The debt in question covers bills that have come due … from two unfunded wars, from unfunded tax cuts and tax loopholes that have benefited the wealthy and ravaged the middle class, from gross mismanagement of the nation’s economy under Republican supply side bullshit.
Over two years ago, I tried to make a point under this post, Lets Go Viral, dated April 17, 2009. I find this date especially curious. On April 17, 2009, President Obama was a newly elected president scarcely 3 months in office. From the beginning, as you can see from my original post, the Tea Thug Party was already organized and marching to the orders of Rush Limbaugh who said, “I hope he fails” – uttered on January 16, 2009 - four days BEFORE President Obama took the oath of office.
My point: Even from the beginning, the Republicans were hell-bent on sabotaging the Obama presidency. For the two years and three months that have elapsed since my original post, Obama has been battered and abused with non-stop vitriol, defamation, outright racism, and endless filibusters from far right wing Republicans (who have transformed their party into a proto-fascist movement that places political ambition above the national interest).
Two years and three months ago, the national debt stood at eleven trillion dollars, nine trillion of which was amassed under Republican administrations – representing 82% of total debt. As of this month, July 14, 2011, the national debt stands at fourteen trillion dollars, of which nine trillion was amassed under Republican administrations – representing 64% of total debt. Yet, the Republicans continue to repeat the same dishonest trope about tax-and-spend liberals. Despite the $750 Billion TARP bailout started under Bush, and the $730 Billion economic stimulus bill to prevent economic collapse, Republicans remain the all-time champions of deficit spending:
64% OF OUR NATIONAL DEBT
WAS SPENT BY REPUBLICANS
(AS OF BASTILLE DAY 2011)
Lets dispense with outrageous lie number two: Last night on MSNBC news, Judson Phillips, founder of the Tea Party Nation, said rich people deserve to have tax breaks because it is rich people who create jobs.
Total bullshit. Rich people do not create jobs, never have and never will. Producers will hire only when there is demand for their goods and services. No consumer spending means no business confidence means no job growth. It is as simple as that, unless you are Judson Phillips, a self-styled spokesperson for corporate proto-fascists. When you impoverish the poor and the middle class, you have choked the engine that drives business expansion. Consumers create jobs when they create demand for goods and services, always have and always will.
Last year, Tea Thug Republicans ran on a platform of jobs, jobs, jobs. Since the new legislative session in January, Democrats have sponsored seven jobs bills, as follows (source):
- A bill to end government contracts that reward corporations for shipping American jobs overseas.
- The Build America Bonds Act – a bill that leverages public dollars to strengthen private sector investment in schools, hospitals, and transit projects.
- The American Jobs Matter Act – a bill that would give preference in federal contracts to U.S. manufacturers that create jobs at home.
- The National Manufacturing Strategy Act, which calls on the President to develop plans and policies to help American manufacturers compete and grow in the global trading environment.
- The Advanced Vehicle Manufacturing Technology Act – a research and investment bill to help ensure that the cars of the future are built in America.
- The Currency Reform Fair Trade Act - provides our government with tools to address unfair currency manipulation. According to estimates, the bill would have created over 1 million manufacturing jobs by leveling the international playing field for American workers and companies.
- A bill to promote jobs and innovation at home by offering incentives to patent holders who pledge to develop and manufacture innovative new products in the United States.
All of the aforementioned bills were voted down by Republicans. How many job creation bills have the Republican introduced since January? NONE, NADA, ZIP. Their idea of shrinking the deficit is sabotaging the country. For what? Their stinking political ambition!
Great no-BS post.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post (O)CT(O)! I'm reposting it over at PE. (I'm sure you won't mind.)
ReplyDeleteI've been saying this for months--that the GOOs (Grand Old Obstructionists) have had it in for Mr. Obama even before he was sworn into office.
And Paul Krugman supports this today in his NYTimes column:
"First of all, the modern G.O.P. fundamentally does not accept the legitimacy of a Democratic presidency — any Democratic presidency. We saw that under Bill Clinton, and we saw it again as soon as Mr. Obama took office.
As a result, Republicans are automatically against anything the president wants, even if they have supported similar proposals in the past. Mitt Romney’s health care plan became a tyrannical assault on American freedom when put in place by that man in the White House. And the same logic applies to the proposed debt deals."
It appears the GOOs have overplayed their hand on this one. The American people support Mr. Obama and NOT the GOOs.
Octo and All,
ReplyDeleteOne thing I would add to this fine post is that to use the debt ceiling as a negotiating basis is LEGISLATIVE BLACKMAIL – I believe we are watching the unfolding of a manufactured crisis designed to force Democrats to capitulate and slash Medicare and Social Security, and to cow the people into staying quiet while that slashing occurs.
"Fascist" used to be a sixties-style exaggeration we libs tossed out too easily, but with regard to the current gang of right-wingers in Congress, I think it is fairly accurate: what we are witnessing now is the way cynical proto-fascist tools transact business – they connive, lie, and threaten until they get what they demand.
And what these people demand, make no mistake about it, is nothing less than the evisceration of America for the benefit of the most privileged and powerful citizens therein, at the expense of ordinary people who were already leading "lives of quiet desperation" even before the bad times began late in 2008.
I don't believe for one minute that the current spokesfolk for Untrammeled Capitalism give a plump Democrat's bottom about jobs for the average citizen: they know something old Henry Ford may not have realized fully: from a pure, international capitalist perspective, it really doesn't matter who has the money to buy the goods our country is churning out; it matters only that somebody somewhere be able to buy them. So far as the market is concerned, America isn't "here or nowhere," as the phrase from Goethe goes – it's anydamnwhere anybody lives in a prettyhow town. I've said it many times, but here I go again: systems can flourish for a surprisingly long time even though what they produce is mostly misery for the vast majority that should be benefiting from them, and that's just as true of the nation's entire economy as it is of any other component system, such as the health insurance industry. It matters only that wealth be generated and that the relatively small number of people into whose pockets it flows be happy with how things are going; no shortage of bad means can be found to delude or at least silence everybody else into accepting the status quo.
Many of the wealthiest in this country – I mean many bankers and financiers, in part – have figured out how to make lots more money without supporting anything like real, on-the-ground economic activity. No, all they do is repackage feces as chocolate ice cream at a very high profit – they bundle worthless loans and whatnot to dupes and would-be participants in Ponzi schemes. To call these guys "job creators" is obscene; they are precisely the reverse of that. Yet it should come as no surprise that their agenda is what many Republicans in Congress are promoting, and I hope the president remains firmly opposed to this onslaught against economic viability and republican governance.
Strong, honest rhetoric has seldom been more important than it is at present: the Right must be called out as what it is and exposed with respect to what it is attempting to do. The GOP as currently constituted doesn't seem to understand the difference between shameless capitulation and reasonable compromise, so I don't see Democratic conciliation producing the desired results. Make them think they're going to lose the next election big-time, and you might have a chance at changing their tactics. Even that might not do it, but I think it's the only remaining hope at this point, unless we like the idea of adding an image of a stack of junk bonds to our flag.
"all they do is repackage feces as chocolate ice cream at a very high profit"
ReplyDeleteDino:
I hate to lump everyone with money into the same category, but by and large, yes, we're being offered a shitsicle and being told it's a Dove bar.
From today’s NYT Op-Ed, an editorial reflecting the gist of this post:
ReplyDelete"Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said default would be bad for his party’s “brand” and would allow the president to shift blame for the poor economy onto Republicans.
What he [Mitch McConnell] really meant, of course, was that default would expose the huge Republican role in creating the economic crisis. Republicans have not only consented to the skyrocketing deficit, they have also blocked any consideration of programs to put Americans back to work, all while blaming high unemployment on President Obama."