THE 99% vs the 1% IS FOUND TO BE TRUER THAN EVER

New studies show that the American wealthy are winning, and the middle-class may be “down-for-the-count”.

Remember when the Occupy Wall Street crowd kind of coined the original, “99% of America versus the wealthy 1% concept”?

Well the “proof of the pudding” is now here.

A University of California economist Emmanuel Saez has published a new study that shows that in 2011, 93% of US income growth went to the wealthiest 1% of American households, while everyone else divvied up the remaining 7%. Yep, the break-out of wealth growth in the US is just as the “Occupy” crowd had predicted it. And this kind of growth response is unprecedented for the US for coming out of an economic down-turn.

In addition, research by Ms. Julia Isaacs of the Brookings Institution also supported this study, as part of the Economic Mobility Project, which has also shown that personal mobility for moving out of poverty into the American middle class has fallen far below the levels of that of Germany, Finland, Denmark and other more socially democratic nations of Northern Europe. Today, the Saez, UC analysis of income data provides further evidence that initially “mocks” the American self-image as a “land where working hard yields rewards in upward mobility”.

To show you how bad the situation has become, in the economic recovery that followed the downturn of the early 1990's, the wealthiest 1% captured 45% of the nation’s income growth. In the recovery that followed the “Dot-Com” bust 10 years ago, it was then noted that, 65% of the income growth went to the top 1%.

But this time around, it has now reached 93%, a level so high that it shakes the foundations of today’s American way of life. (To put this all in a true perspective, in 1968, when 28% of the workforce was unionized, 53% of the nation’s income wealth went directly to the middle class. However, in 2010, when only 11.9% of the nation’s workers belonged to a union, the share claimed by the middle class had already fallen to 46.5%.)

Now, just how did this all occur in such a short time?

The number one way this occurred, is that the way wealthy persons make their money today is not by investing in American companies that “make things”. They are not growing their wealth due to investments in a US manufacturing based economy. Instead, much of the 1%’s income comes from investments in multi-national funds that just “move the money around” or from firms that are raking in profits from overseas ventures in economies like China’s, which have weathered the recent downturn much better than in the US. (This is mainly due to the financial bind that the Republicans running the country got the nation into over the previous 10 years.) And of the US firms that did contribute to the top 1%’s increases in wealth, those firms’ profits were many times derived from reduced labor costs due to multiple worker layoffs and American labor pay-cuts. In other words, most of the 1%’s increased wealth was at the cost to those in America’s 99%.

So, what are we to expect from this latest revelation that once again proves that we are getting closer to becoming a 1st rate, Third World Nation?

Well, actually the decline had already started.

With the middle-class continuing to shrink, this has kept the country from investing in jobs, and in the needed projects in infrastructure, roads and bridges, education, health care, local police and fire departments and other areas that benefit all Americans.

We are also continuing to lose our democracy with all of the new voter ID regulations that the Republican state congresses are implementing. (As an example, just this last calendar quarter, in Florida alone, their new voter registration drive was over 80,000 fewer than the previous election, since the new voter ID rules were implemented.)

Gee, it’s a funny thing that these new rules have mostly affected the votes of the nation’s minorities, elderly, college students and the poor. Or, those that tend to usually vote Democratic...? And by the way, all of these new voter ID laws were drafted for the states by the very conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

On top of all this, with the rise of the Super-PAC’s, due to the conservative US Supreme Court’s Citizens-United decision, plus the low rates of taxation on capital gains and hedge-fund operators, this will continue to allow the banking industry to fend off any major financial reforms. Therefore, baring a serious intrusion by the US Congress, (which is more than highly doubtful), nothing is going to change in the near future.

So, what can we do?

Two major changes would be needed, and neither are expected to actually happen.

>>> First, the laws would have to change that would diminish the power of corporate stakeholders and the power of the corporate executives that are claiming all of the massive salaries these days.

>>> Second, and most important, the labor unions need to be revitalized.

But neither of these things is going to happen as long as “big money is King” in the nation’s election process and as long as the United States continues to not have public funded elections and while there are zero controls on how much is allowed to be spent on local or national elections.

It should be understood that there is no question that “regulated Capitalism” creates prosperity for all the masses. (The years in America from 1946 through the mid-1970’s proved that.) But “Crony Capitalism” or “unfettered Capitalism” doesn’t create broadly shared prosperity, and it never will. And that’s exactly what is unsuccessfully attempting to drive the US economy today.

When the middle-class does well, everybody in the nation does well, including the wealthy. That is because there are vast amounts of capital moving around in all the areas of the nation’s economy. But when only the top 2-5% do well, there isn’t enough money in action throughout the nation for running the giant economy of a country like that of the United States. One must always remember, America still has a “consumer driven economy”.

A nation where 93% of income growth goes to the top 1% is not a nation that can be sustained. It will eventually stop growing, except for that top 1%, which is what is occurring as we speak . America is already in a position of not being able to embark on the great projects it wants and needs, and it will eventually lose the ability to command the allegiance of its people.

Think about it...

Copyright G.Ater 2012

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IS MARCO RUBIO THE RIGHT CHOICE FOR THE GOP VP CANDIDATE? MAYBE NOT!

...Marc A. Thiessen, conservative writer and former speech writer for George W. Bush


A recent article about the junior Florida senator leaves more questions than answers.

As a professional opinion writer, I have always tried to provide substantiated information for supporting why I have come to a particular opinion or conclusion. I feel that I owe my readers that responsibility, instead of my just saying that “this or that” is my opinion. You know, the way it is usually done by most of the right-wing media pundits such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

In fact, most responsible op-ed writers also think that providing that substantiation is a requirement of a good opinion author. But as I said, I use the phrase “most responsible writers”.

This last week, a conservative op-ed columnist for the Washington Post, Mr. Marc Thiessen, wrote a piece on Florida’s junior Senator, Marco Rubio, that has left the reader with even more questions after they finished his column.

The basis of the article was supposed to be about Mr. Rubio and all the answers to the questions as to whether or not Rubio was the top candidate for running as vice president on the GOP ticket.

Initially, Mr. Thiessen gave all the basic reasons that Mr. Rubio was an excellent potential VP candidate.

Per Marc Thiessen, “Rubio has long been at the top of nearly everyone’s vice presidential short list — and with good reason. Rubio could help deliver the key swing state of Florida, and as the first Hispanic vice presidential nominee he would give the Romney team a fighting chance with Latino voters. His humble roots and compelling personal narrative could help blunt the class warfare attacks President Obama will surely level at Romney this fall. Rubio is telegenic and a dynamic speaker who can fire up crowds and generate desperately needed enthusiasm for the GOP ticket. He is beloved by the Tea Party, and he could help Romney win over the conservative grassroots. In short, if you were to design the perfect running mate for Romney, you would come up with Marco Rubio.”

And as far as that goes, this is probably a fair interpretation of Mr. Rubio as a VP candidate.

But then, after what appeared like this major endorsement for a VP candidate, Mr. Thiessen proceeds to question those on the other side of the aisle that have some additional questions about this supposed, “perfect VP running mate” for whomever is the final GOP presidential choice.

Now, I personally have no problem with any writer not being happy with those that challenge their choice of a VP candidate. But, if the writer doesn’t offer some proof that disputes the challenges being offered, what is the writer’s basis for being upset with the challenges…?

As an example, Mr. Thiessen says that another Post reporter had accused Rubio of deliberately “embellishing” his family history by saying that his parents arrived in the United States after Castro took power. In fact, the parents did actually arrived during the Batista years. Yes, this item proved to be true. Rubio’s family arrived in 1956, not after1959, when Fidel Castro had taken power in Cuba.

But Mr. Thiessen’s only point is that there was no proof that Mr. Rubio intentionally misled anyone with this information.

I’m sorry Marc, but that’s hardly the point.

Whether Rubio meant to or not, he had given out incorrect information that made his family appear to have been Cuban refugees that escaped Castro’s Cuba. And of course, this would be a large positive for the son of a Cuban refugee family, that also just happens to be running for a political office in Florida.

Thiessen then criticizes those that have said that when Rubio was 8 years old and living in Las Vegas, his family was baptized into the Church of Latter-day Saints and that they attended a Mormon church for a years before returning to Catholicism. He says that the, “Rubio detractors pounced, ridiculously [on this item] arguing that this disqualifies him [Rubio] from serving as Romney’s running mate, because conservatives would never accept an “all Mormon ticket.”

First, Mr. Thiessen doesn’t confirm whether or not the family was in fact, baptized as Mormons. So, instead of finding out and presenting whether or not the accusation was correct, he is mainly upset because the detractors “pounced” on this particular item. The reality is that, if the accusation is in fact true, the assumption that it could be a potential problem for a VP candidate running with the Mormon, Mitt Romney, is not out of the question.

Later in his column, Mr. Thiessen states that Mr. Rubio also faces a lingering inquiry by the Florida Commission on Ethics into a 2010 complaint that he misspent campaign contributions. They also claim that he abused his perch as the Florida House Speaker to gain a teaching position at Florida International University. The writer then states that Rubio says the charges are “baseless” and politically motivated and [Rubio] recently has demanded that the commission close out its investigation.

Once again, he doesn’t venture a statement, or even an opinion, as to whether these serious accusation are, or are not valid. He just leaves the situation totally unresolved with no evidence or statement that confirms or denies the accusation.

He then mentions that, “a Great Whisperer campaign has used these stories to plant seeds of doubt about Rubio: How well do we really know this guy? What else is there in his record?” And he adds, “Indeed, the whispers are making their way into the mainstream commentary.”

After all the holes in his previous statements, he’s surprised by a political whisper campaign developing...?

Thiessen seems to imply that it’s all like a great conspiracy when he says that “...this month, the National Journal downgraded Rubio’s position on its vice presidential power rankings because, it claimed, Rubio ‘skated into office without much of his past being vetted in the media. That would change in a hurry if he’s tapped for the vice presidency, and coming four years after Sarah Palin had such trouble adjusting to harsh scrutiny, that’s a very real concern for some Republicans.”

Once again, he doesn’t address the issue of vetting as presented by the National Journal. He instead makes an odd statement about a Miami Herald reporter that he says currently disputes the statement that Rubio was not properly vetted. Mind you, once again, no proof or statement offered that proper vetting was performed. He just offers up this other independent “opinion” by another print reporter.

Finally, Mr. Thiessen presents the idea that “Team Rubio” is taking the whispering campaign seriously. He states that after getting caught by surprise about his parent’s arrival date, Rubio wisely hired an opposition research firm to make sure there is nothing else about his past that he does not know.

He also states that the Florida junior senator has also moved up the publication date of his own autobiography titled, “An American Son”. This was done so that it will arrive in bookstores ahead of a new biography by Roig-Franzia “The Rise of Marco Rubio”. Thiessen admits that this is potentially a high-risk move by Rubio if the Roig-Franzia’s book contains major revelations that Rubio does not include in his book. Of course, this would only create a lot more verbal fodder for the “Great Whisperer” campaign

Overall, Mr. Thiessen makes it clear that he thinks Marco Rubio could help a Mitt Romney make it, “over the top” in November. He also refers to Rubio as, “charismatic, talented, optimistic conservative, uniquely positioned to appeal to the fastest-growing voting bloc in the country”.

Yes, there’s no questioning whom Thiessen supports to run alongside Romney, or whomever gets the final call.

As a professional opinion writer, I do not question whoever Mr. Thiessen decides to support, as that ‘s his personal choice.

But if someone is going to write a professional column for millions to read about a potential VP candidate, whether they support him or not, a good writer would provide more substantiation as to why he or she is, or is not, a good choice as a VP candidate. The article should also show some substantiation as to why a reader might also want to support, or not support the potential candidate.

Based on Mr. Thiessen’s article, he apparently supports Mr. Rubio, regardless of whatever occurred in Mr. Rubio’s political past.

To each his own, I guess.

Copyright G.Ater 2012

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LITTLE BY LITTLE, AMERICA AS WE KNEW IT IS SLIPPING AWAY

...An “OCCUPY” group demonstrating against a corporate member and sponsor of A.L.E.C.

Major corporations & wealthy Americans are working hard and spending enormous amounts of money to take away the average American’s hold on its democracy.

Ok, this time I’m not talking about the Citizens-United case or the “less than honest”, FOX Network. But how many of you out there are aware of a previously low-key organization known as “ALEC”.

For those of you that aren’t aware of this group, the acronym: ALEC stands for the “American Legislative Exchange Council”, a corporate-backed organization that has managed to keep a low profile even as it has exerted vast influence on many of our state’s governments.

To give you an idea as to the extent of ALEC’s influence, this organization literally writes many of the past questionable laws for states to pass. They supply the fully drafted bills to friendly Republican state legislators to whom they also donate big money. (Yes, they only donate to the Republican politicians.) For example, in Virginia, more than 50, ALEC-written bills have been introduced, many of them almost word for word from ALEC’s original copy. And these bills often become state laws.

And just who supports this highly influential operation?

Well, thanks to the many hours and the efforts of the Center for Media and Democracy, we now have a clear picture of ALEC’s activities.

ALEC is an extreme conservative organization, funded by the usual suspects, i.e.: the NRA, the Koch Brothers, Exxon Mobil, the private prison operator: Corrections Corporation of America, AT&T, most US gun manufacturers, and so on. But it also includes some surprises about those that offer ALEC financial support such as Coca-Cola and UPS.

The reason that I am bringing up ALEC today is that they have had a lot to do with the recent horrible murder of the young teenager in Florida, Trayvon Martin. Yes, the “Stand On Your Own Law” that allowed the killer of an unarmed, young teenager, to walk away without being arrested, or tested for drugs or alcohol and to keep his gun, that law was introduced and passed in well over 2 dozen states by ALEC.

Please note, many ALEC-drafted bills also go after standard conservative goals such as: union-busting, anti-abortion, anti-contraceptives, undermining environmental protection laws, and tax breaks for corporations and for wealthy Americans. But ALEC also has a very special goal for helping with US corporate, “privatization”.

Yes, much of their effort is targeted at converting American public services, such as public schools and prisons, to “for-profit” corporations. Many of the most prominent beneficiaries of this privatization, such as the online education company K12, Inc. and the prison operator, Corrections Corporation of America, are not surprisingly, very much involved with ALEC.

Therefore, ALEC’s bogus claim that they stand for limited government and free markets is deeply misleading.

To a large extent, the organization seeks not limited government but an increase in “privatized government”. They support a government in which corporations get their profits from taxpayer dollars. And these public dollars are steered their way by friendly conservative politicians. In short, ALEC isn’t so much about promoting free markets as it is about expanding today’s "crony capitalism".

And what do we get for all of these corporate, “privatizations”...?

Well, take private charter schools and private prisons. They are both extremely profitable, but charter schools have not shown any real examples of providing superior educational results. And the US now has more people incarcerated in private prisons than any country in the world.

Other areas that ALEC is embroiled in are those efforts that make it hard for the young, the elderly, the poor and ethnic minorities to vote? Virtually all of the states that have passed the bogus, so called “Voter Fraud Photo-ID” requirements, those laws were all originally written by ALEC.

And ALEC is not a “flash-in-the-pan”, short-term operation. They are in it for the long term and are working with a very long-term plan to take the government away from the American people and to give it to corporations and the wealthy.

As a very good example of this long-term approach, you must consider the interests of America’s prison-industrial complex. (This is currently the fastest growing private industry in the United States.)

This group includes prison operators, bail-bond companies and more. (The American Bail Coalition has publicly described ALEC as its “life preserver.”) This industrial complex has a financial stake in anything that sends more people into the courts and into the prisons. And this is done, whether it’s due to an exaggerated fear of racial minorities or something like Arizona’s draconian immigration law, a law that followed an ALEC template almost verbatim.

As Paul Krugman recently wrote in his column in the New York Times: “...we seem to be turning into a country where crony capitalism doesn’t just waste taxpayer money but warps criminal justice, in which growing incarceration reflects not the need to protect law-abiding citizens but the profits corporations can reap from [having] a larger prison population.”

Yes, it just one more example showing, that if it’s not already too late, we seriously need to step up our efforts for getting our country back .

Copyright, G.Ater 2012

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DE-BUNKING THE MANY MYTHS ABOUT THE REPUBLICAN “ICON”, RONALD REAGAN

...The "Icon" himself, the late President, Ronald Reagan



Reagan in reality was just as the old song said: “partly truth and partly fiction”, but in either case, he would never fit into today’s GOP.

As expected, with last week’s Republican Primary being held in Illinois, the birth place of Ronald Reagan, his name was brought up in the Republican candidate’s stump speeches nearly 250 times. Speaking in the shadow of a statue of Reagan in the late president’s hometown, former US Senator, Rick Santorum proclaimed: "Let the voice of Reagan be heard across this land."

Even the disgraced former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich was continuing to boast last week that he is the true heir to the legacy of Ronald Reagan. Gingrich also still declares that he was a key lieutenant of the past president. This is his claim, even though he once accused Reagan of "trying to score a touchdown for liberalism, for the liberal welfare state" due to Reagan’s1982 tax hike.

As I have stated many times over these past months and years, with the current Republican Party now being run by the religious right-wing of the party, Ronald Reagan would not have even been allowed to join today’s radical GOP. The reality is, and many historians agree, that if Reagan had a true heir to his legacy in office today, he or she would probably be raising taxes, compromising with the Democrats and they would put aside the notion of taming the deficit during an economic downturn.

And during his two terms in the White House in the 1980’s and as the former governor of California, that’s exactly what Ronald Reagan did.

Mr. Stephen Knott, an author of two books on Reagan and professor of national security studies at the US Naval War College stated, "I'm not sure how well Ronald Reagan would do in today's highly partisan environment. If he tried to do today, what he did in compromising on a budget dispute with House Democrats in 1982, he'd be crucified."

"Republicans are trying to use Ronald Reagan as a symbol for all the things he stood for," said George Lakoff, author of several books about Republican political issues. "But they may be calling up an image that doesn't fit."

So, why with all the contradictions to the current Republican thinking do these staunch conservatives continue to refer to Reagan as their conservative icon?

Reagan, both as a governor and as president, majorly expanded the role of state and federal government. But he is also properly remembered for his verbal disdain of that same “government”. This is the single feature of his presidency that animates today's Republicans. Immediately after being sworn into office in January 1981, Reagan said that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

This single quote is the basis for the Republican’s positive attitude toward Ronald Reagan today.

Reagan also took shots at the welfare programs of the time, and his comments resonated with many Americans. He many times repeated the mythic and unsubstantiated story about the so called "welfare queen" who Reagan claimed tooled around Chicago in a new Cadillac. Many journalists and investigators back then and even today have tried to find or nail down who the illusive “Cadillac Queen” was, but to this day, none has ever been identified.

President Obama has often been called “a great communicator in the mold of Ronald Reagan”. As Reagan inspired the so called “Reagan Democrats”, Obama inspired today’s Democrats with his "Change We Can Believe In" slogan. But the way Obama has governed to date, trying to compromise as Reagan did, this has frustrated today’s progressives who have felt betrayed by Obama’s brand of compromise. As with Reagan, Obama has also become known for campaigning and speaking one way, while governing another.

The reason for this is that both Reagan and Obama are political “pragmatists” when it comes to governing. Both are known for doing whatever is necessary to get the job done.

In his first year as California governor, Reagan signed the nation's most liberalized abortion law, saying at the time: "Liberalization of abortion laws is necessary." Later, when he ran for president as a conservative, Reagan pivoted 180º to the right in his attempt to expand the GOP base to include religious conservatives and by his becoming an anti-abortion candidate.

The reason that Reagan would not be allowed in today’s GOP was actually stated by Reagan himself.

Reagan spoke many times about avoiding the pitfalls of ideological politics. "We cannot offer [voters] a narrow sectarian party in which all must swear allegiance to prescribed commandments," he told conservative activists. "Such a party can be highly disciplined, but it does not win elections. This kind of party soon disappears in a blaze of glorious defeat, and it never puts into practice its basic tenets, no matter how noble they may be."

And what Reagan described is exactly what the GOP is doing today.

This comment from Reagan about ideology makes complete sense to most moderate Republicans. But those are not who is running the Republican party today.

Mr. Bill Bagley, a retired California legislator has stated: “Reagan never went for the jugular, and he was far from being a conservative, What's happened recently is the ideologues have taken over on the Republican side, both nationally and in California."

Still, conservatives who decry deficits and refuse to entertain new taxes say they aren't bothered by Reagan's very “spotted” and unbalanced record. They say that Reagan's key contribution was in making taxes and spending and a principled opposition to big government, the cornerstone of modern American conservative political debate. That was Reagan’s most important contribution, as far as the American conservatives are concerned.


However, listed below are a few of the actions of the past Republican “Icon” that would not be allowed in today’s radical Republican party.

>>> Federal spending under Reagan increased the national debt threefold to a record $2.6 trillion by the end of his second term. More than all previous presidents, “combined”.

>>> As president, Reagan jolted the nation by cutting the top income-tax rate in half. Then, a year later, he signed a $37 billion tax increase, the largest tax increase in U.S. history.

>>> Reagan’s tax was a progressive tax that put most of the burdens on wealthy Americans.

>>> In his two presidential terms, he signed 11 tax hikes.

>>> As compared to today’s Republicans, Reagan was in office to actually govern. When the nation needed revenue, Reagan raised taxes.

>>> As has been said of Reagan, “He had a great handle on the principles of limited government, even if his individual policies weren't a furtherance of that vision.”

>>> Reagan ran on promising to eliminate entire departments of the federal government, but he didn't. Instead, he added the Department of Veterans Affairs.

>>> Reagan also created the California Department of Consumer Affairs in 1969; signed a law limiting agricultural burning in 1970; and signed the California Clean Water Act of 1969. All of these would be “no-no’s” in today’s GOP.

>>> As governor of California, his first act in 1967 was to raise taxes.

>>>In 1967 he signed the most liberalized abortion law in the nation.

>>> In 1967 he signed the Lanterman Act, which created safeguards for the mentally ill and developmentally disabled.

>>> He signed the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty with the Soviet Union to reduce nuclear arsenals, upsetting such conservative stalwarts as George Will and William F. Buckley Jr.

As I said, today’s party of President Ronald Reagan would make his past membership in the GOP, totally “null and void”.

Copyright G.Ater 2012

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THE “TAX DAY COMETH”, BUT IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN YOU THINK

...The day for the “TAX-MAN”

The conservatives have done a good job of putting the US tax burden on the backs of the American worker.

Well, April 15th, “TAX DAY” is almost upon us, and most of us are moaning and groaning about paying Uncle Sam a major chunk of our income.

On the other hand, the conservative GOP was running the Congress for a good portion of the last two decades. Due to their empowerment of the current army of DC lobbyists, the rules and tax loop-holes for corporations have made their way of life to be so much better than that of the average American.

This is why President Obama has recently been pushing his. “Buffett Rule”. This is the concept that the tax code should be changed so that a corporate president’s administrative assistant should not pay a higher tax rate than the company’s president. And today, that is usually the case.

Since Ronald Reagan was president, the nation’s tax burden has more and more been shuffled over to the shoulders of the American middle class. This has all occurred while the corporations have been given tax loop-holes the size of a Boeing 747.

Big business apologists just love to tell the average working American that the US corporate tax rate of 35% is way too high, and that it makes US companies less “competitive” with foreign firms. That’s nonsense. We have come to realize that corporations hire legions of accountants to find those loopholes that often bring their tax rate down to next to nothing. Today, the average final US corporate tax rate for all corporations, both big and small, is actually more like 17% -19%, not the maximum rate of 35%.

As an extreme example, in 2008, Goldman Sachs paid a laughable 1.1% of its income in taxes. That same year, it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an $800 billion government bailout, courtesy of the American taxpayers. And as we know, the bailout is not all the taxpayers paid for Goldman Sachs to operate its business. We paid for its employees to be educated in public schools and we paid for the infrastructure of roads, bridges and airports required to facilitate Goldman’s business.

Paying 1.1% is an absolute joke. And what’s even more disgusting is that many outsized firms pay nothing at all. General Electric famously managed to do that in 2010, despite showing $10.5 billion in profits.

However, GE is not alone. According to a report from Citizens for Tax Justice, 37 of the largest American corporations did not pay one cent in taxes in 2010. In addition, the US financial services companies received the largest share of all federal tax subsidies over the last three years. That is despite the fact that the size and recklessness of that industry is one of the greatest dangers to America’s economic well-being.

The real issue today is that the number of firms classified as “non-taxable” has grown to an unrealistic number, and these firms pay zero taxes.

The percentage of US corporations structured as “nontaxable businesses” soared from about 24% in 1986 to about 69% as of 2008, according to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). If you include partnerships and sole proprietors, the number gets even bigger.

The way these businesses work is as follows:

These companies take advantage of a special structure known as a “pass through”, in which profits are passed along to investors who pay taxes on those sums through their individual returns. This has been around for decades, but under the past Republican Congress’ and some GOP state governments, they have broadened it to encourage so called “entrepreneurship”. The idea is to help small businesses. This at first glance sounds like a good thing, but it is not limited just to “small companies”. You realize that a major private equity company, like the Blackstone group, along with massive construction firms like Bechtel Corp., (among others), are also using this kind of business organization to avoid the taxman altogether.

Even Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal has pointed out that this "pass through” business’ enormous popularity is “one big reason why federal corporate tax collections amounted to just 1.3% of US GDP in 2010, well below their mark of 2.7% in 2006 and far beneath their peak of 6.1% in 1952.”

Up to 60% of all U.S. businesses today with profits of $1 million or more are structured as “pass-throughs”.

Unfortunately, today both Democrats and Republicans alike are failing to taking this on as priority. (And the DC lobbyists are spending millions in political donations in order to keep it that way.)

But unsurprisingly, a GOP-backed coalition of major building contractors, beer distributors, car dealers and funeral directors has been the strongest in arguing that changing the rules will block “entrepreneurship”. Right...

Now who out there really thinks that companies like Blackstone, the world's fifth-largest private equity firm, really need government assistance?

The pass-through structure, in addition to being highly unfair, also encourages serious fraud that the IRS has a hard time spotting. S-corporations, partnerships and other pass-throughs game the system by under-reporting income and overstating deductions. Billions in uncollected taxes each year are the result of this scamming.

The economist, William Lazonick, Director of the U-Mass Center for Industrial Competitiveness, stated the following: "Ordinary taxpayers should be outraged by the obsession of business executives with tax avoidance. Our tax dollars have played a major role in funding the physical infrastructures and human capital that support business enterprise. Then they pull out every trick in the book to deprive us of our fair share of business profits. Besides reflecting a profound moral deficit on the part of our business 'leaders,' it is a recipe for U.S. economic decline that calls for massive tax reform."

Reform for getting rid of these loopholes is more than seriously overdue. And businesses that refuse to pay their fair share should be called by their proper name: “Parasites”.

(Thanks for the data for this article that was provided in an article by: Lynn Parramore, an AlterNet contributing editor. Cofounder of Recessionwire, founding editor of New Deal 2.0, and author of 'Reading the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture. Twitter @LynnParramore. )
Copyright G.Ater 2012

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WILLARD MITT ROMNEY & FOX: “LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE”

...An “Etch-A-Sketch”, the explanation of Mitt Romney’s campaign goals.


When you have nothing to offer the average working American, you might as well just lie directly to the American public.


The one thing that has come from this year’s election campaigns other than the Super Pacs and all their money is that apparently, the Republicans have come to a universal decision for their campaign rhetoric. That decision is that it is perfectly OK to not only stretch the truth in campaign speeches, but since they have no new ideas or political accomplishments of their own, it is now their goal to lie as often as possible. And Mitt Romney, with the help of the FOX cable network, continue to work hard at fulfilling that goal.

Romney’s lies started way back in early 2010 when he was saying that it was Obama that caused the recession. That lie didn’t last very long, so he updated the lie to, “Obama didn’t cause the recession, but he made it worse.” Still a total lie, but it was easier to sell.

Since the gas prices had started to rise due to Wall Street speculation and the middle east issues, Romney then came up with another big one when he said, “President Obama said that energy prices would skyrocket under his views and he selected three people to help him implement that program: the secretary of energy, the secretary of the interior, and the EPA administration. And this gas-hike trio has been doing the job over the last three and a half years and gas prices are up.” Romney is now calling for the president to fire these three cabinet members.

It’s just one more big lie that Romney continues to repeat.

There may come a point at which the issue of Mitt Romney's propensity for falsehoods reaches some kind of critical mass. In fact, one would hope that Romney may have already reached that point, but I doubt it.

The law professor, David Bernstein recently stated, "I think we've seen, over the past couple of months, an important tipping point where much of the national political media now recognizes ... that, in the Romney campaign, they are dealing with something beyond the normal spin and hyperbole. They are realizing that Romney and his campaign simply cannot be trusted, in any way, about anything.” This was a comment by Bernstein on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" where he did two segments on Romney lying, rather blatantly, about his record on health care.

It also came the day before Rick Santorum began targeting Romney as someone willing to "not tell the truth" to win the GOP Primary.

Even the cable TV political host, Rachel Maddow, has blasted the former governor Romney for being a “serial liar”.

As Rachel stated, “...the degree to which Mr. Romney lies, all the time, about all sorts of stuff, and doesn’t seem to care when he gets caught is maybe the single most notable thing about his campaign.”

Maddow stated that Romney lied about Obama making the economy worse and then lied about his saying Obama made it worse, he lied about his professional background, lied about his health care policy in Massachusetts, lied about the cost of Obama’s health care reform, lied about the federal deficit, lied about Obama cutting Medicare benefits, lied about Obama raising corporate tax rates, lied about Obama’s trade deals and even lied about America’s national anthem.

“He lies all the time, really easily,” she continued. “He says things that are not true with unnerving frequency.”

As has been the case with past political campaigns, once a candidate earns a reputation for being shamelessly dishonest, it usually very tough to reclaim a degree of credibility. Let’s hope that’s a true statement in regards to Mitt Romney. However, since he appears regularly on FOX, where they never question his lying statements, those FOX watchers will just continue to get his lies..

To illustrate just how blatant the Romney campaign lying is, you may remember back when Mitt Romney released a campaign ad which supposedly quoted President Obama saying “if we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” However, Obama’s never spoke those words. This was a quote the Romney campaign stole directly from a strategist for Senator John McCain, made back during the 2008 campaign.

In response to this lying Romney ad, the Romney campaign actually tried to defend this blatantly dishonest campaign tactic as “not being out of bounds.”

After Romney’s campaign said that this was “not out of bounds”, the ThinkProgress operation then put together and posted their version of a “Romney in-bounds video advertisement” using video quotes from Romney and taking them out of context.

Here’s what the ThinkProgress video ad showed Romney actually saying: “We should raise everybody’s taxes.”, “There’s nothing unique about the United States.”, Government knows better how to guide a free economy.”, “Fiscal responsibility is heartless & immoral.”, “Let us just raise your taxes a little more.”, and “America is just another country with a flag”.

Yes, by Romney’s own rules and standards, these out-of-context quotes are totally in-bounds and accurate Romney quotes.

The reporter and editor-at-large, Mark Halperin, now says Mitt Romney's campaign has “...the worst relationship with the media of any major candidate I’ve ever covered”. Halperin assures us, "it's not a partisan thing." The fault lies entirely with the Romney campaign itself, which reportedly keeps the lies coming while continuing to keep the press at arm's length.

As a recent example, in a stump speech, Romney stated that Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has so much authority that, “...the [Obama] government would have banned Thomas Edison’s light bulb....Oh yeah, Obama’s regulators already did just that!"

Another blatant lie.

The Obama administration did not ban the incandescent light bulb. This was the Department of Energy following through with the phase-out of inefficient bulbs under the new standards set by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. Oh, and by the way, it was President George W. Bush who signed that bill into law.

Later in the speech, Romney stated, “President Obama hopes to erase his record with a speech. In a recent address, he said that, ‘We are inventors. We are builders. We are makers of things. We are Thomas Edison. We are the Wright Brothers. We are Bill Gates. We are Steve Jobs.’ The reality is that, under President Obama’s administration, these pioneers would have found it much more difficult, if not impossible, to innovate, invent, and create. Under Dodd-Frank, they would have struggled to get loans from their community banks. An Obama regulator would have shut down the Wright Brothers for their "dust pollution."

The Obama administration has actually streamlined the EPA regulations and getting a loan would actually be easier today under the current administration. Yes, just another Romney lie.

To end this article, I cannot ignore the latest Romney campaign “faux pas”. The one about the “Etch-a-Sketch” episode.

In an interview with a senior Romney advisor, Eric Fehrnstrom, he went on CNN and gave new meaning to the term “game change”.

When asked how Romney would deal with questions after the actual campaign starts with President Obama, Romney’s Mr. Fehrnstrom stated, “I think you hit a reset button for the Fall campaign,” he said, trying to explain why the fight for conservative primary voters has not pushed Romney too far to the right. “Everything changes [in the Fall]. It’s almost like an Etch-a-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.”

Of course, both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have grabbed this as a Romney “flip-flop” admission and they are both running hard with it.

Realizing that he could not shake the “Etch-a-Sketch” inquiries, Romney returned a few minutes after a stump speech for a “press avail”. (This is what a “short Q&A” is called in press jargon.) However, the “avail” only lasted 90 seconds for one question.

“The issues I’m running on [in the Fall] will be exactly the same,” he declared in response to an Etch-a-Sketch question. “I’m running as a conservative Republican. I was a conservative Republican governor.”

So, Romney was a conservative when he enacted Romneycare?

“Can you guarantee to Republican voters that you won’t take more moderate positions?” CNN’s Jim Acosta asked.

“I answered the question,” Romney replied.

“An ‘avail’ is more than one question, governor, if you don’t mind my saying so,” Acosta told him.

Romney grinned. “This wasn’t an 'avail'. It was a chance to respond to a question I didn’t get a chance to respond to.”

So, it was not a press “avail”? Sounds like another Romney lie to me...

Copyright, G.Ater 2012

Follow me on Twitter: gater01

THE NATION CANNOT AFFORD TO NOT ENACT “OBAMACARE”

..."Obamacare" is replacing this as America's Health Care Coverage






An insurance executive agrees that “Obamacare” is a good thing for the country.

I find it amazing that one of the most successful programs ever enacted by the US government, Social Security, which was originally hated by the Republicans, is now such a successful program that the conservatives want it for their own so that they can “privatize” it.

It is now appearing that the Affordable Health Care Act, commonly referred to as “Obamacare”, could eventually become another one of those successful programs. That is, if the Republicans don’t get a hold of it early on and screw it up like they did the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan.

Based on a former president of a branch of the Certified Life Insurance Underwriters Society, Mr. James Hall, he has stated, “My more than 45 years in the [U.S.] medical delivery system tells me Obamacare is a good step forward.”

Now, here is an insurance executive that one might have expected to say that a health care program structured by the government would be getting in his way of representing a private industry.

The reality is that Obamacare does not stop insurance companies from doing what they are doing today.

But what it does do, is to tell the private health care companies that if they want to be allowed to be listed as a choice on the federal insurance exchange, they must meet certain standards as a health care provider. Those standards include allowing children to remain on their parents policies until they are 26 years old, and no more outlawing of previously existing medical conditions, and other basic requirements.

And what do the insurance companies get for following these government guidelines?

Well, first and foremost, they will be adding between 30 to 50 million new premium-paying clients to their rosters over the next few years.

Mr. Hall has made it clear, that just as France, England, Germany, Canada, Japan, Switzerland and Spain’s health care covers 100% of their citizens, as the richest country in the world, the United States should also work toward getting as close as possible to that 100%. From Mr. Hall’s point of view, even though Obamacare doesn’t do all of that, it is a good step forward.

Today, our medical delivery system is controlled by a virtual monopoly of only five private health care companies: United Health Care, Well Point, Aetna, Humana, and Cigna.

Obamacare is the first confrontational “shot across the bow” of these companies and their largest and financially strongest lobby in the United States.

For years, Medicare has worked well along side Kaiser Permanente and Blue Shield, the two major non-profit US health care providers.

Today, the United States is the only nation in the world that even allows health care companies to be “for profit” companies.

Most Americans are not aware that in most industrialized countries, it is against the law to provide health care on a “for-profit basis”.

As an example, for-profit health care company executives in Switzerland would pay large fines and go to prison if their companies were found to be selling “for profit” basic health care. “For-profit” companies in these countries can sell “supplemental health care” programs, but not basic health care plans.

As expected, all of the current Republican presidential candidates are totally pandering to their conservative bases by being against Obamacare. (Why anyone wouldn’t want every American to have health care coverage is very confusing, especially if it reduced the health care costs to all Americans.)

Poor Mitt Romney is seriously in a major bind with his base since it was his “Romneycare” that he introduced as the governor of Massachusetts that Obamacare was structured from. It was also a plan that was originally suggested by the highly conservative Heritage Foundation that they are now totally against, just because it was taken on by a Democratic president.

It is the Republican’s plan to get rid of Obamacare in any way they can. Needless to say, as it was passed by both houses of congress, fortunately a newly elected president could not just write an executive order to get rid of the program.

However, unfortunately, the conservatively controlled US Supreme Court could find something about it as being unconstitutional. And Mr. Hall agrees that the Supreme Court Justices are not really qualified to make an up or down decision on this important medical program. But as it was with their “off-the-wall” Citizen-United decision, the current conservative high court may not really care if there is conventional wisdom and logic that shows that Obamacare is a good thing for the country.

In any case, by 2014, the whole program is set to be totally implemented and millions more Americans will have more affordable health care coverage. From that point forward, no American will need to lose their life’s savings, retirement savings or to declare bankruptcy due to the high cost of a family member having a tragic disease.

Yes, Obamacare is a very good step forward. We need to keep Obama in office in order to see it totally emerge in 2014.

Copyright G.Ater 2012

Follow me on Twitter: gater01

NOT HAVING ANY NEW IDEAS, THE GOP REVERTS BACK TO THE BOGUS “DRILL, BABY DRILL”

...The usually incorrect Charles Krauthammer.



The Washington Post’s, Charles Krauthammer, once again supports an unworkable idea.

Well, he’s doing it again. Good ole Charles Krauthammer has once again totally missed the point in about 10 or 20 areas on America’s energy future.

Kraut-hammie’s latest shot is at the president saying that “Obama is flimflamming the public due to his disdain for oil and oil drilling. “

The basis for this bogus claim is Obama’s attitude against drilling in certain sensitive areas such as just off the Atlantic coast in Virginia and Florida, drilling on the border of the Gulf of Mexico, (and we all know how well that went last time), and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and our own Mountain Rockies.

He also slams the president for calling oil “the fuel of the past”.

I think Mr. Kraut-man sincerely fits in the description that the president recently made about the conservatives that are against increasing our development of alternate energy sources. The president said that if these individuals were around when Columbus sailed off to discover the new world, those nay-sayers, [like Krauthammer & the conservatives], would have probably also been the founding members of the “Flat Earth Society”.

The other shot at President Obama was against Obama’s veto of the Keystone Oil Pipeline from Canada to the Gulf.

Of course, Mr. Kraut-man didn't happen to mention in his column that the Keystone Pipeline would not create the number of jobs, (temporary ones at that) that were originally claimed, and the oil would not be staying in the US. It’s Canadian crude oil that would be refined and put aboard ships in Texas harbors and sent elsewhere. The truth is that it would be sold on the world market to the highest bidder. It would have much less than a 50-50 chance of staying in the US.

Kraut-man also didn’t mention how much of a risk the pipeline would be in crossing the valuable agricultural lands in America’s food-growing Mid-West. And wouldn’t it make a great target for those would-be terrorists with those miles and miles of oil-pipeline. (Just what would that cost American tax-payers to protect hundreds of miles of a Canadian oil pipeline?)

The point that the president is making is that there are already many permits out there that the oil companies have yet to pursue. Part of the reasons that that Kraut-man wants us to drill in these new areas is that they would be what we call the “low-hanging oil-fruit”. These new sensitive areas would be virgin lands where the oil is claimed to be easier to access by the oil companies.

The other issue that the Kraut-man isn’t mentioning is that the oil companies only have so much drilling equipment and so many oil drilling crews. Since Obama became president, there are more drill rigs in operation than there have been in 30 years. In addition, with the new technologies, the US is now exporting oil for the first time in 20 years due to higher US oil production. For the first time in decades, the US is importing less that 50% of its national oil requirements.

Obama says of increasing US drilling even more: “That’s not a plan.” Krauthammer says: “Of course it’s a plan. We import nearly half of our oil, thereby exporting enormous amounts of U.S. wealth. Almost 60% of our trade deficit — $332 billion out of $560 billion — is shipped overseas to buy crude.” Yes Mr. Kraut-man, this is probably a true statement.

But the United States currently has only 2% of the world’s oil reserves, while the US uses 20% of the world’s oil. There is no way that the US could drill its way out of not depending on foreign oil. That gap could never be filled by the Republican’s and Sarah Palin’s “Drill Baby Drill, and Drill Now!”

But the current gap could be filled by increasing our drilling with the current drilling permits while developing other sources of energy and making our houses, cars, factories, airplanes and appliances more energy efficient.

President Obama wants the focus on pursuing and using up the current drilling permits, while providing subsidies for developing alternate energy sources such as wind, solar, bio-fuels and rechargeable batteries. He also wants to stop the subsidies to the oil companies, (which the US Government has been doing for over 100 years), and to divert that money to developing these alternate energy sources. And these alternate energy sources would not only help with making the US energy independent, these new technologies would also become some of the new jobs of America’s 21st century.

As the president has said, yes we need to expand our oil drilling efforts, but we also need to develop our next generation energy sources.

As an example of what’s possible, for the last 10 years, the German government focused on incentives for developing their solar energy programs. Today, Germany is in the process of shutting-down their nuclear energy plants because most German houses and businesses have solar panels that now allow the Germans to sell power back to the nation’s power grid. It can be done, and it doesn’t have to take forever.

This approach was actually attempted in the 1970’s by President Jimmy Carter when he started the alternate energy programs after the 1973 Arab oil embargo. In demonstrating his support for the program, Carter also had solar panels installed on the White House roof.

Of course, President Ronald Reagan was a major supporter (and donor recipient) of the big oil companies, and when he was elected, he stopped the programs and he had the Carter solar panels removed from the White House. America has been bowing to Arab oil princes’ ever since.

If the Republicans take-over this November, you can expect a re-run of that same action in new a GOP White House.

Copyright G.Ater 2012

Follow me on Twitter: gater01

POLLS SHOW SOME REPUBLICANS MIGHT VOTE OBAMA OR NOT VOTE, IF ROMNEY OR SANTORUM RUN

...A 1950's Election Poster





Both PEW & GALLUP surveys show just how much trouble the GOP is in for 2012 elections.

With the Republican leadership “shaking-with-fear”, while refusing to chastise right-wing talk-show blow-hard, Rush Limbaugh, for attacking a college coed testifying for a House Committee. And with the GOP going after social issues instead of the real issues that the American public really care about, such as jobs and the economy, this is all taking a heavy toll on the Grand Ole Party.

Let’s also not forget how the Republicans have totally been dissing minorities, college students, the elderly, the disabled and women in general with their new voter ID laws against a voter fraud problem that did not even exist, plus their anti-contraceptive focus.

After all this, and based on the recent Pew Research Center survey, the latest results about the Republicans today is that the Grand Ole Party is: ”Old, white and in very big trouble.”

According to the PEW survey, there was one very clear outcome: “A highly worsening of the GOP’s image among the young, the better-educated and the non-white.” The expected results of the survey say that this “could be a serious handicap for the party in the elections this fall and in many years to come”, says PEW’s director, Andrew Kohut.

"The [survey shows] Republicans really are the party of white people, and especially older white people," Kohut told reporters as the poll was released. "They [the GOP] have done nothing in this campaign to make themselves be more favorably viewed among the other parts of the electorate.”

That verdict won’t come as a surprise to many Republican strategists. Some of those, including Karl Rove, “Bush’s Brain” and the architect of George W. Bush’s past electoral victories, have been arguing for years that the party needs to find ways to reach out to demographic groups, particularly Latinos, who are increasing as a percentage of the population.

An example of what could happen if the party does not “change its ways” is clearly shown in states like California. In this state, the GOP became alienated from Latinos just as their voting percentage began to rise rapidly. Over the last five election cycles, California has moved from being mostly a swing state to being one of the most solid Democratic states in the country.

As yet, the Republicans do not face that sort of negative situation on a nationwide basis, but negative changes are in the works as we speak. In part, up to now, the nation's demographics differ somewhat from California's. Whites without a college degree are a much larger percentage of the voting population nationwide, and that group has unfortunately become a bastion for the Republicans. But as the Baby-Boomers have now started needing Social Security and Medicare and as the country becomes less white and more college-educated, the picture is rapidly changing. And the numbers in the PEW survey provide some bad omens for the GOP.

Seniors, Latinos, other non-whites and college students view the Republican Party unfavorably by a 2-1 margin (30% favorable, 60% unfavorable). On the other hand, these same groups view the Democrats favorably, 56%-31%.

The picture among most all Americans under 30 is almost as negative, with 34% viewing the GOP favorably, while 53% have an unfavorable view. Their view of Democrats is almost the exact opposite, 54% have a positive view, and 35% negative. Among those with a college degree or more, only 31% said they had a favorable view of the Republicans, while 66% were unfavorable. That group, which was a key to Barack Obama’s victory in 2008, views Democrats favorably by 55%-42%.

The PEW Research Center is one of the most respected polling groups in the country and historically, their polling surveys are one of the most accurate.

PEW also reported that Republicans are less enthusiastic about having Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum as their potential presidential nominee than they were four years ago about Senator John McCain, (R-AZ). This is also the findings according to a Gallup survey recently released. For the conservatives, these lackluster numbers are a worrying sign that the party’s already extremely bitter primary fight has dampened voter enthusiasm and has left the GOP weakened for the Fall battle with President Obama.

Gallup reported that only 35% of Republicans surveyed said they would “vote enthusiastically for front-runner Romney” if he becomes the party’s standard-bearer. Similarly, just 34% said they would “enthusiastically support Santorum”, his main challenger for the nomination and the preferred choice of the most-conservative Republicans.

But there is another small group that still remains, of those moderate Republicans and independents that disagree with the hard-right, uncompromising turn that those controlling the GOP have taken. This has previously been a somewhat silent group that has since decided to make some of their wishes known. For the first time, this group is outwardly stating that if their choices were either Romney or Santorum, they might just go ahead and vote for Obama.

For these moderates and independents, if Mitt Romney is the nominee, 19% of them said they would either support Obama or not vote at all. As to Rick Santorum, that number of voting for Obama or not at all creeps up to 22%.

The poll also found that there was a serious drop in the party’s excitement from the 2008 election.

In a survey released in early February 2008, 47% of Republicans were enthusiastic about the prospect of backing McCain.

That’s a major 12-point difference from Mitt Romney's numbers today. The poll found that governor Romney has not been able to increase excitement by even 1 percentage point about this candidacy since running for president in 2008 when he lost to McCain. Exactly 35% of Republicans said they would wholeheartedly back Romney in 2008. That’s the same exact percentage that would do so today.

FYI: The PEW survey and the Gallup polls have a margin of error of +/-6 percentage points.

Copyright G.Ater 2012

Follow me on Twitter: gater01

ROMNEY’S BUDGET PLAN WOULD HASTEN AMERICA IN BECOMING A THIRD- WORLD NATION

...A caricature of Willard “Mittens" Romney

Even though Romney’s economic plan cannot be “scored”, it can still be shown how devastating it would be to all Americans.

Mitt Romney’s campaign workers have recently stated that “It would take an “Act of God” for anyone else to get the Republican nomination at this point.”

After this statement was made, a well know comedian sent a warning to Mr. Romney’s political camp.

The warning was: “Mitt, please don’t tempt him for another Act of God! God has already sent us Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain and Rick Perry to run in this primary election. And based on Mississippi, Alabama, Ohio and Michigan, the idea of God possibly making Rick Santorum the nominee is still not out of the question. And based on the recent storms in the Midwest, sometimes those “Acts of God” can be worse than highly destructive."

But the real major “faux-pas” in the Romney camp was Mr. Romney actually admitting that his budget plan “can’t be scored”.

Someone, please explain to me why anyone running for a national political office would produce and distribute a national budget proposal that “could not be scored”?

Mitt instead tells us to just “trust him”. He will eventually tell us what his budget proposal will do.

And just why can’t his economic budget be properly scored?

It’s because there aren’t enough details in his plan for the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) to score Romney’s budget. Well Mitt, that’s just what we were all looking for...a budget proposal and an economic plan from a presidential candidate that can’t be scrutinized...Right!!!

Mitt, when you were running your private company, Bain Capital, as its chief executive, you were not required to let any outsiders know exactly what you were doing. Sorry Mitt, the US government doesn’t work like a private business.

As one other knowledgeable American has said about Mitt's economic plan, “Mitt’s proposal is not a budget plan, it’s a budget scheme.” However, it’s an interesting campaign approach, “Elect me, and I’ll let you in on how it all works.”

The reality is that it doesn’t take the OMB to tell you that the Romney proposal would devastate the US economy, especially for all Americans making less than $75K per year. It would also highly reward all those making over $1 million per year. (You know, the ones that have donated all that money for Mitt’s campaign.)

During this bizarre primary election, is there any wonder why the overall Republican primary voter turn-out has been pathetic when compared to the 2008 primaries. But even though the Republican turn-out has been down, so far, the turn-out of wealthy Republican voters that did vote for Mitt Romney was up by 33%, over those that voted for Senator John McCain in 2008.

These wealthy individuals are very aware that, “Mitt is their guy”.

Listed below are some examples of the programs that would be cut or discontinued under Mr. Romney’s budget proposal:

IN GENERAL:
Mitt Romney's has proposed to cap total spending, boost defense spending, cut taxes, and to balance the budget it would require extraordinarily large cuts in nondefense programs. For the most part, Governor Romney has not outlined cuts in specific programs, and this is the main reason as to why it cannot be scored. Romney’s spending cap would require cuts of 35% in 2016 and 56% in 2022. Without his balanced budget requirement, the cuts would be smaller but still massive: 28% in 2016 and 38% in 2022.

These cuts are far deeper than even those that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's (R-WI) austere budget plan would require. The cuts would shrink nondefense discretionary spending which, over the past 30 years, has averaged 3.7% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and has never fallen below 3.2%. But Mitt’s plan would slash it to just 1.7% by 2022.

In other words, these are the budget cuts to all the programs that the average American uses every day and particularly those programs for the elderly, the poor and the disabled.

Here are some specifics of Mitt’s program that we can somewhat, “score”.

During his campaign, Governor Romney has made four proposals that would significantly affect the overall level of federal spending, taxes, and the deficit:

>>> Cap total spending: "Reduce federal spending to 20 percent of GDP by the end of my first term" and "cap it at that level."

>>> Increase defense spending: "Set a core defense spending floor of 4 percent of GDP."

(So, defense spending worst case=4% GDP, but non-defense spending at only 1.7% GDP...?)

>>> Cut taxes: “Permanently extend the 2001-2003 tax cuts, eliminate taxation of the investment income of most individuals, reduce the corporate income tax, eliminate the estate tax, and repeal the taxes enacted in the 2010 health reform legislation.”

>>> Balance the budget: Put the federal government "on a path to a balanced budget."

Unfortunately, if all the tax cuts are extended and some additional taxes are eliminated, the OMB has shown that there won’t be enough federal income to meet a goal of a balanced budget.

Therefore, that means there would be even more cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and of course the new Obamacare program which he has vowed to get rid of ASAP.

How Deep Are Mitt’s Required Budget Cuts?

Limiting spending to 20% of GDP, setting defense spending at 4% of GDP, and enacting Romney's tax cuts, but not balancing the budget would require cutting nondefense programs by $637 billion in 2016 alone and by $6.5 trillion over the 2014-2022 period.

>>> If policymakers spread these cuts proportionately across all nondefense programs, including Social Security and Medicare, they would, “have to cut every program by 20% in 2016 and 26% in 2022”.

>>> If policymakers spared Social Security from cuts, they would have to cut all other programs, including Medicare, by an average of 28% in 2016 and 38% in 2022.

>>> If policymakers protected both Social Security and Medicare, they would have to cut other important programs 38% in 2016 and 56% in 2022.

>>>Balancing the budget would require even much deeper cuts in both mandatory and discretionary nondefense programs. In this case, the cuts would total $10 trillion over the 2014-2022 period.

>>> If policymakers reduced all programs equally, the additional cuts would amount to 25% in 2016 and 38% in 2022.

And remember, while all of these cut will savagely hit virtually every American with incomes under $75k per year, Romney plans on increasing the currently bloated defense budget. (Mitt’s gotta take good care of the vast American Military Industrial Complex.)

If Mitt Romney is the nominee, we will be headed even faster to becoming a third-world country, except for the top 2% of Americans that he springs from.

Copyright: G.Ater 2012

Follow me on Twitter: gater01

SARAH PALIN HAS CHANGED THE GOP GAME, & NOT FOR THE GOOD

...A 2008 McCain-Palin campaign poster.




The movie “Game Change” has been declared as being factually correct, and those facts are frightening for the nation’s future politics.

I had hoped that I had finally rid myself of needing to write any further about the former ½ governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. But with the semi-documentary HBO movie “Game Change,” now out for the public to see it, (And 2 million viewers tuned in to watch), it shows just how much damage this one mother of five has done to the Republican party.

Actually, the Game Change movie has been confirmed as being a very correct documentary by the two closest people to the 2008 Republican campaign, the campaign managers: Mr. Steve Schmidt and Ms. Nicolle Wallace. These were the managers of the GOP campaign road-show of McCain - Palin for the 10 weeks that their show was on the campaign trail.

Yes, even though it seemed like an eternity, we were only subjected to Ms. Palin in that short campaign for a total time of 70 days. Amazing!

But since that public exposure, it is now clear that Ms. Palin caused major damage to a political party that no one expected or anticipated.

So you ask, what kind of damage did this unknown remote Alaska governor do to the Republican party?

Well, the selection of Sarah Palin as the VP running mate of John McCain was the beginning of an approach to a political campaign that is now being duplicated in the current 2012 Republican Presidential Primary.

First, the selection of Ms. Palin affirmed the attitude that the final “end” (winning the election), justifies the “means” for selecting a candidate. In other words, forget vetting the candidate’s intelligence and qualifications. Just make sure he or she has “the dazzle, the self-assurance and the sex appeal to be a winner”.

Both Schmidt and Wallace have agreed that what they did in choosing Palin was "what not to do" in selecting a future VP candidate that would be next in-line for the presidency. Had they won in 2008, this female ding-bat would have been one “72 year old McCain heart-attack” away from being president. (At the end, Steve Schmidt ended up becoming very afraid of that possibility.)

Schmidt admitted that they had assumed that to be the elected Governor of a US state, Ms. Palin's background had already been vetted and that she knew how the US government worked. She obviously must have had some knowledge of US history and basic foreign affairs. Not! He basically has admitted that the Game Change movie rightly portrays Palin as a political and historical ignoramus. Schmidt properly states that he became very afraid of this woman possibly becoming the US vice president. Ms. Wallace became so anti- Palin, she eventually chose to not vote in the 2008 general election that November.

In those horrendous ten weeks of campaigning, here is just a small slice of what they learned about this locally popular governor of the remote state of Alaska.

>>> She did not know that Queen Elizabeth II does not run the British government.
>>> She did not know that North and South Korea are different countries, one a democracy, one a dictatorship.
>>> She had not heard of the US Federal Reserve Bank.
>>> She referred to the then Senator Joe Biden, and Democratic VP candidate as “O’Biden”.
>>> She had no clue that the Bush Doctrine was for striking a potentially threatening foe before that foe struck the U.S. or its allies.
>>> She was unable to tell the TV interviewer, Katy Couric, one national magazine she read about national politics
>>> She thought America went to war in Iraq because Saddam Hussein, not al-Qaeda, had attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001.
>>> She didn’t know that Africa was a continent, not a country.
>>> She thought Paul Revere warned the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms as he rode through town

Palin was also very incurious about history, politics and was supremely smug in having that ignorance.

At the same time, Steve Schmidt came to realize that Palin was an habitual liar. In the movie, she was even called exactly that by Schmidt. Schmidt had learned that one of Palin’s great talents was to totally deny the truth. When confronted, Palin would simply shut down and become highly petulant and child-like.

The real damage that the selection of Palin has caused is that the GOP today now has this new attitude that, “winning is everything”. It is now obvious that the need to find the appropriate qualified candidate for the GOP has changed to, “who can we pick that has the charisma to win, regardless of their intelligence and qualifications”?

Just look at the array of seemingly acceptable GOP candidates that have been paraded past the party and the public over the past 10 months.

>>> Herman Cain was a front-runner that had a nonsensical 999 tax plan, no knowledge of foreign affairs and he had never held any elective office.

>>> Michele Bachmann had faux pas on everything from confusing the late actor John Wayne with a convicted serial killer, she falsely claimed that HPV vaccine causes mental retardation. She also thought that the, “shot-heard-around-the-world”, occurred in New Hampshire, not Massachusetts.

>>> Rick Perry had to say “oops” in a TV debate when he couldn’t remember a whole US Cabinet department he had vowed to eliminate. He also did not know who governs Turkey, an important NATO ally. He even got wrong the number of justices on the Supreme Court — he said 8 not 9.

>>> Donald Trump, the New York huckster and millionaire TV host of The Apprentice, wrongly accused the president of not being born in the US until the governor of Hawaii produced a real birth certificate for the president.

And just look at the current remaining group of GOP candidates.

First, there’s a disgraced Speaker of the House who falsely claims that as president he could offer $2.50 per gal. gasoline, plus a previous Pennsylvania US Senator that wants to inject religion into the US government and he wants women’s birth control to be outlawed. This senator also made a wild denunciation of John F. Kennedy’s famous speech about the proper role of religion in public life. Then there’s a somewhat robotic, wealthy, Wall Street-type ex-CEO that wants to run the US government like a corporation. And finally, a Libertarian that wants to be a total isolationist and to get rid of all government agencies such as Social Security and Medicare / Medicaid.

Not one of these candidates is seen as being able to get 50% of their own party’s vote, much less over 50% of the whole nation’s votes.

Sarah Palin’s whole political platform, that she continues to promote as a FOX Network commentator is, “You should support me, because I know nothing about politics or history but I hate the same things you do” . Yes, hate seems to be the foundation for most of the Republican candidates. Hate directed in different directions, depending on which of the candidates is speaking. Not one of them has offered any positive aspects of their own candidacy.

As was recently written by the Washington Post op-ed columnist, Richard Cohen:
“Palin is no longer an anomaly. McCain didn’t choose her for her intellectual or experiential qualities, nor because he was geographically or ideologically balancing the ticket. She was an anti-abortion woman with a pulse: [that’s] Enough! She…had the stuff of celebrity — the snap, the dazzle, the self-assurance, the sex appeal. She didn’t need to dance with a star. God told her she already was one. So far, the Palin effect has been limited to the GOP...The movie had it right. Sarah Palin changed the game.”

Copyright G.Ater 2012

Follow me on Twitter: gater01

WHY PRESIDENT OBAMA IS THE RIGHT US LEADER FOR 2012 TO 2016

...Obama's 2008 Inaguration Speech.

Here are 40 reasons to keep the same leader that currently resides in the White House.

I am so tired of hearing the far right and FOX blathering about this president being a horrible president. There are many instances to show how this president has been exactly what was needed for our previous and current times of national crisis.

Fortunately, some people on the proper side of the equation have put together a list of 40 of the president and the Democrat’s accomplishments. Here are the 40 examples showing why this president should be kept in office for another 4 years.

1. Passed Health Care Reform: After five presidents over a century failed to create universal health insurance, signed the Affordable Care Act (2010). It will cover 32 million uninsured Americans beginning in 2014 and mandates a suite of experimental measures to cut health care cost growth, the number one cause of America’s long-term fiscal problems.

2. Passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009 to spur economic growth amid greatest recession since the Great Depression. Twelve months later, the private sector began producing more jobs than it was losing, and it has continued to do so for twenty-three straight months, creating a total of nearly 3.7 million new private-sector jobs.

3. Passed Wall Street Reform: Signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010) to re-regulate the financial sector after its practices caused the Great Recession. Creates the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to crack down on abusive lending products and companies.

4. Ended the War in Iraq: Ordered all U.S. military forces out of the country. Last combat troops left on December 18, 2011.Began Drawdown of War in Afghanistan: From a peak of 101,000 troops in June 2011, U.S. forces are now down to 91,000, with 23,000 slated to leave by the end of summer 2012.

5. Eliminated Osama bin laden: In 2011, ordered special forces raid of secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in which the terrorist leader was killed and a trove of al-Qaeda documents was discovered.

6. Turned Around U.S. Auto Industry: In 2009, injected $62 billion in federal money (on top of $13.4 billion in loans from the Bush administration) into ailing GM and Chrysler in return for equity stakes and agreements for massive restructuring.

7. Recapitalized Banks: In the midst of financial crisis, approved controversial Treasury Department plan to lure private capital into the country’s largest banks via “stress tests” of their balance sheets and a public-private fund to buy their “toxic” assets. Got banks back on their feet at essentially zero cost to the government.

8. Repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”: Ended 1990s-era restriction and formalized new policy allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military for the first time.

9. Toppled Moammar Gaddafi: In March 2011, joined a coalition of European and Arab governments in military action, including air power and naval blockade, against Gaddafi regime to defend Libyan civilians and support rebel troops. Gaddafi’s forty-two-year rule ended when the dictator was overthrown and killed by rebels on October 20, 2011. No American lives were lost.

10. On February 1, 2011, publicly called on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to accept reform or step down, thus weakening the dictator’s position and putting America on the right side of the Arab Spring. Mubarak ended thirty-year rule when overthrown on February 11.

11. Reversed Bush Torture Policies: Two days after taking office, nullified Bush-era rulings that had allowed detainees in U.S. custody to undergo certain “enhanced” interrogation techniques considered inhumane under the Geneva Conventions. Also released the secret Bush legal rulings supporting the use of these techniques.

12. Improved America’s Image Abroad: With new policies, diplomacy, and rhetoric, reversed a sharp decline in world opinion toward the U.S. (and the corresponding loss of “soft power”) during the Bush years. From 2008 to 2011, favorable opinion toward the United States rose in ten of fifteen countries surveyed by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, with an average increase of 26 percent.

13. Kicked Banks Out of Federal Student Loan Program, Expanded Pell Grant Spending: As part of the 2010 health care reform bill, signed measure ending the wasteful decades-old practice of subsidizing banks to provide college loans. Starting July 2010 all students began getting their federal student loans directly from the federal government. Treasury will save $67 billion over ten years, $36 billion of which will go to expanding Pell Grants to lower-income students.

14. Boosted Fuel Efficiency Standards: Released new fuel efficiency standards in 2011 that will nearly double the fuel economy for cars and trucks by 2025.

15. Passed Mini Stimuli: To help families hurt by the recession and spur the economy as stimulus spending declined, signed series of measures (July 22, 2010; December 17, 2010; December 23, 2011) to extend unemployment insurance and cut payroll taxes.

16. Increased Support for Veterans: With so many soldiers coming home from Iraq and Iran with serious physical and mental health problems, yet facing long waits for services, increased 2010 Department of Veterans Affairs budget by 16 percent and 2011 budget by 10 percent. Also signed new GI bill offering $78 billion in tuition assistance over a decade, and provided multiple tax credits to encourage businesses to hire veterans.

17. Tightened Sanctions on Iran: In effort to deter Iran’s nuclear program, signed Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (2010) to punish firms and individuals who aid Iran’s petroleum sector.

18. Created Conditions to Begin Closing Dirtiest Power Plants: New EPA restrictions on mercury and toxic pollution, issued in December 2011, likely to lead to the closing of between sixty-eight and 231 of the nation’s oldest and dirtiest coal-fired power plants.

19. Passed Credit Card Reforms: Signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act (2009), which prohibits credit card companies from raising rates without advance notification.

20. Signed Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009, giving women who are paid less than men for the same work the right to sue their employers after they find out about the discrimination, even if that discrimination happened years ago.

21. Protected Two Liberal Seats on the U.S. Supreme Court: Nominated and obtained confirmation for Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic and third woman to serve, in 2009; and Elena Kagan, the fourth woman to serve, in 2010. They replaced David Souter and John Paul Stevens, respectively.

22. Achieved New START Treaty: Signed with Russia (2010) and won ratification in Congress (2011) of treaty that limits each country to 1,550 strategic warheads (down from 2,200) and 700 launchers (down from more than 1,400), and reestablished and strengthened a monitoring and transparency program that had lapsed in 2009.

23. Expanded National Service: Signed Serve America Act in 2009, which authorized a tripling of the size of AmeriCorps.

24. Expanded Wilderness and Watershed Protection: Signed Omnibus Public Lands Management Act (2009), which designated more than 2 million acres as wilderness, created thousands of miles of recreational and historic trails, and protected more than 1,000 miles of rivers.

25. Signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (2009). Nine years in the making and long resisted by the tobacco industry, the law mandates that tobacco manufacturers disclose all ingredients, obtain FDA approval for new tobacco products, and expand the size and prominence of cigarette warning labels, and bans the sale of misleadingly labeled “light” cigarette brands and tobacco sponsorship of entertainment events.

26. Pushed Federal Agencies to Be Green Leaders: Issued executive order in 2009 requiring all federal agencies to make plans to soften their environmental impacts by 2020. Goals include 30 percent reduction in fleet gasoline use, 26 percent boost in water efficiency, and sustainability requirements for 95 percent of all federal contracts. Because federal government is the country’s single biggest purchaser of goods and services, likely to have ripple effects throughout the economy for years to come.

27. Trimmed and Reoriented Missile Defense: Cut the Reagan-era “Star Wars” missile defense budget, saving $1.4 billion in 2010, and canceled plans to station antiballistic missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic in favor of sea-based defense plan focused on Iran and North Korea.

28. Began Post-Post-9/11 Military Builddown: After winning agreement from congressional Republicans and Democrats in summer 2011 budget deal to reduce projected defense spending by $450 billion, proposed new DoD budget this year with cuts of that size.

29. Invested Heavily in Renewable Technology: As part of the 2009 stimulus, invested $90 billion, more than any previous administration, in research on smart grids, energy efficiency, electric cars, renewable electricity generation, cleaner coal, and biofuels.

30. Crafting Next-Generation School Tests: Devoted $330 million in stimulus money to pay two consortia of states and universities to create competing versions of new K-12 student performance tests based on latest psychometric research. New tests could transform the learning environment in vast majority of public school classrooms beginning in 2014.

31. Cracked Down on Bad For-Profit Colleges: In effort to fight predatory practices of some for-profit colleges.

32. Improved School Nutrition: In coordination with Michelle Obama, signed Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010 mandating $4.5 billion spending boost and higher nutritional and health standards for school lunches.

33. Expanded Hate Crimes Protections: Signed Hate Crimes Prevention Act (2009), which expands existing hate crime protections to include crimes based on a victim’s sexual orientation, gender, or disability, in addition to race, color, religion, or national origin.

34. Brokered Agreement for Speedy Compensation to Victims of Gulf Oil Spill: Though lacking statutory power to compel British Petroleum to act, used moral authority of his office to convince oil company to agree in 2010 to a $20 billion fund to compensate victims of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

35. Created Recovery.gov: Web site run by independent board of inspectors general looking for fraud and abuse in stimulus spending, provides public with detailed information on every contract funded by $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

36. Pushed Broadband Coverage: Proposed and obtained in 2011 Federal Communications Commission approval for a shift of $8 billion in subsidies away from landlines and toward broadband Internet for lower-income rural families.

37. Signed 2009 Children’s Health Insurance Authorization Act, which allows the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to cover health care for 4 million more children, paid for by a tax increase on tobacco products.

38. Recognized the Dangers of Carbon Dioxide: In 2009, EPA declared carbon dioxide a pollutant, allowing the agency to regulate its production.

39. Expanded Stem Cell Research: In 2009, eliminated the Bush-era restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, which shows promise in treating spinal injuries, among many other areas.

40. Killed the F-22: In 2009, ended further purchases of Lockheed Martin single-seat, twin-engine, fighter aircraft, which cost $358 million apiece. Eliminating it saved $4 billion.

There are even more examples than those above as to why this is the right president for this decade. Too bad that there are those that seriously want us to go back to what got us into this mess in the first place. The country is healing under President Obama’s leadership. To interrupt it now could undo all the good that has occurred over the past three years. Hopefully, there will be another four years under President Obama and that the public will understand that he will be needing some additional help with more Democrats in the House and Senate.

Copyright G.Ater 2012

Follow me on Twitter: gater01