I continually am amazed at how the Republican Party induces the ignorant and bigoted to vote Republican even though it is against these individuals' own best interest. The usual ploys are appeals to religious bigotry and extremism - i.g., opposition to gay rights - racism, and anti-Hispanic bigotry. Then there's a good dose of greed and selfishness thrown in for good measure. Sadly, uninformed morons fall for these pitches over and over again and ultimately sell them selves and their families out. A piece in Salon looks at how the GOP is waging war on the middle class and why it is urgent that people take off the blinders and get their heads out of their asses before more damage is done to working people. Here are some highlights:
If you’re among the millions of Americans who feel bypassed by the economic recovery, you should pay attention to what the GOP-controlled Congress says it wants do to the federal government—via the 2016 budget—because if Republicans get even a fraction of what they have proposed, your living standards will start sliding downhill.
This is the takeaway from economists and experts who know how to ignore the right wing’s ridiculous rhetoric about freedom and opportunity, and instead see exactly who will be hurt, and how that will unfold—if the GOP rips the floor out of virtually every federal social safety net, as they propose, and also raises taxes on already struggling lower wage earners, which they also propose.
“The simplest way to understand these budgets is surely to suppose that they are intended to do what they would, in fact, actually do: make the rich richer and ordinary families poorer,” wrote Paul Krugman, The New York Times’ columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist. “We’re looking at an enormous, destructive con job, and you should be very, very angry.”
The GOP-controlled House and Senate budgets not only drastically cut spending on education, retirement, environment, road and bridges, climate change, immigration, job creation, Obamacare, food stamps, and other social welfare programs; but it gives the Pentagon a blank check, and includes tax cuts for the rich and corporations while raising taxes for lower-income Americans.
Republicans are not delivering the kind of federal government that Americans want; they are declaring economic war on average Americans by reshaping government to serve the upper classes and biggest businesses.
1. Bleed domestic programs to death.The budget is broken down into various areas that are reviewed separately, starting with domestic discretionary spending. This includes education, energy, environment, housing, job training and more. The White House wants modest increases in these areas in 2016. Polls show that Americans want more investment in infrastructure, climate change, the economy, immigration, and support higher tax revenues for these priorities. The GOP propose to freeze current spending or cut it back by hundreds of billions of dollars starting next fall, adding up to $5 trillion in cuts over the next decade.
2. Who needs new or better jobs? Two-thirds of Americans say improving job prospects is a key issue facing Washington. Obama wants to spend about half a trillion dollars over the next six years on road and bridge upgrades, research and development, and give tax credits to new manufacturers. The House and Senate budgets propose “no new funding” in these areas, NPP said, with the Senate saying that “reduced spending and regulation will indirectly lead to job creation.”
3. Who needs a good education? The same-size majority that wants to see more and better jobs, also wants to see Congress improve access to education. The White House wants to expand federal subsidies from pre-school through high school, and spend $60 billion to provide two years of community college for free over the next decade. Republicans propose the opposite. The House wants to cap federal Pell grants, which are awarded to low-income people for college and graduate school. That means “financial aid to fewer families,”
4. Who needs healthcare anyway?Obamacare may have its problems because it relies on private insurers to be middlemen, but since its inception 11.7 million people have gained access to healthcare and millions have subsidized premiums. . . . the House and Senate still obsess with repealing it entirely.
5. Next on the chopping block: Social Security. Here, too, even cautious pollsters like the Pew Research Center, report that 66 percent of Americans want to strengthen the program—which, contrary to GOP rhetoric, isn’t an “entitlement,” but the government acting as a retirement bank for decades of payroll deductions.. . . . The GOP agenda is not expanding payments to make life easier, but cutting senior benefits while allowing young people to give their payroll deductions to Wall Street.
6. Privatize Medicare, health care for seniors. Medicare is the federal government health plan for people age 65 and older. It is not free, but costs significantly less than private health insurance. Pew reported that 61 percent of Americans want this system fortified and improved. . . . The Senate GOP simply says it wants to cut about half a trillion dollars from Medicare over the next decade, but doesn’t say how or where those cuts would be. That’s pretending no one would be hurt.
7. Kick 7 Million Poor People Off Medicaid. Medicaid is the state-run health program for low-income people. . . . . The House GOP doesn’t just want to repeal Obamacare, kicking millions off this health plan, NPP reports, but it would cut overall Medicaid spending and turn the program—along with SCHIP (the State Children’s Health Insurance Program)—into one block grant. That scenario all-but ensures that health care for poorer families will shrink.
8. Our century’s version of “Let Them Eat Cake.” Those infamous words were attributed to France’s queen in the late 1700s, when commenting about impoverished countrymen. Today, in America, the food stamp program (SNAP) tries to ensure that nobody goes hungry, and is supported by 70 percent of the public. . . . . The House GOP, in contrast, would make “deep cuts to SNAP”
9. But give the Pentagon more blank checks. Sixty-three percent of Americans say the Pentagon spends the “right amount or too much on national security,” . . . . The House Republican budget writers say that’s not enough, however, and seek to use loopholes in war funding laws to add several hundred billion more over the next decade. The Senate GOP essentially rubber stamps that approach, offering no specifics.
10. And use the excuse of endless war to do it.
11. Corporate taxes are still too high, right? That’s not what 66 percent of Americans told the Gallup poll, . . . . House Republicans, in contrast, have only proposed lower rates for corporations and small businesses, NPP said, and nothing to recapture outsized wealth.
12. And the rich can’t afford to pay, either? In January, 68 percent of Americans polled said wealthy households aren’t paying a fair share in taxes. . . . The House GOP, in contrast, only wants to lower tax rates “for individuals and familes,” NPP said, and eliminate the “Alternative Minimum Tax that sets a minimum tax for the wealthy.”
13. But working class and poor must pay more. In a January poll, 91 percent of Americans said that middle-class households paid enough or too much in taxes, and 79 percent said the same for low-income households. . . . Both House and Senate GOP go in the opposite direction, phasing out two tax credits that now lower taxes for 13 million families, NPP reported. Their budgets allow “the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC) to expire in 2017, raising taxes on more than 13 million working families.” In other words, the GOP won’t touch taxes for the rich, but will raise them on the poor.
14. Why Krugman called all of this a “con game.”In politics, there’s always a publicly given reason why something is proposed and the real motive, which is not stated. . . . . deficit reduction is not what is going on here. The House and Senate Republican budgets actually would cut less money from next year’s deficit—about $350 billion—than Obama, NPP said, and then decrease domestic spending by more than $5 trillion dollars over the next decade to “balance” the budget. What’s going on is the GOP wants to cut back the federal government to roughly where it was before the Progressive era began a century ago, when government helped the rich get richer and there were no safety nets.
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