So we hear the republican chanting over and over how the sky is falling if we don’t balance the budget, even if it means we have to take food out of the mouths of our elderly and sick and weak and poor. The world will end. Why all the noise?

The Republicans voted to raise the debt ceiling 18 times during Reagan’s administration. Got that? 18 times. During that time Reagan increased our nation’s deficit by three trillion dollars, more than all the previous presidents combined.

Where did all that money go? It went to tax breaks for the rich, mostly. That and to the military budget and his failed Star Wars program.

Then, along came Clinton and he balanced the budget and had a surplus that would have paid off the deficit in 10 years.

Where did all this money come from? Clinton ended “Welfare as we know it.” In other words, he stole it from the poor. He also raised taxes on the wealthy a couple percentage points.

Then, Bush added almost five trillion dollars to the deficit and the republican voted seven times to raise the debt ceiling.

Where did all that money go? Tax breaks for the rich and two illegal wars.

Then the economy crashed, as it always does when you lower taxes on the rich, and Bush pushed through another trillion dollars to the banker crooks.

Now, Obama wants to add a small fraction to the debt, less than 8%, and the Republicans are threatening to bring the entire country down unless we take more money from the poor.

Do you see any sort of pattern here? The republicans ran up almost all of the 10 trillion dollar debt and they don’t want to pay for it. They want the poor and the weak and the elderly and the sick to pay for their big party.

The republicans and the rich have been living large for the past 30 years at our expense and now they want you and me to pay for the bill.

What would you say about a political party that does this? What would you say about a party that is willing to crash our economy if they don’t get their way on everything? We’re in this mess because of the tax breaks to the rich and the republicans are saying they will destroy the country if we don’t give more tax breaks to the rich.

What party does big business own?

America’s middle class has been doing with less and less over the past 30 years while the rich have been getting richer and richer. There has been a class war going on for 30 years folks, and it’s time we started waking up to the reality. Not only are the rich making more than they ever did before, but they already own most all the wealth in the entire country.

It’s time to wake up, America. There’s a class war going on and you’re getting killed.

Listen to Senator Bernie Sanders.

You’ve probably read about the need to protect the commons on this site in previous posts. Here is what the commons are and why we need to protect them.

What Are the Commons?

The Commons is often referred to or described by The Tragedy of the Commons. The commons are those common parts of a society that belong to everyone, or should belong to everyone.  Let’s take an example:

Let’s imagine a village on the plains where there is enough room in the pasture for everyone to raise one cow. The village functions perfectly because the people share the pasture (the commons) and everyone protects it so everyone can benefit.

After generations of success, the village inherits a greedy villager who wants to grow lots of cows so he can sell them and get rich. If the village doesn’t protect their common pasture, it will be destroyed and the village will suffer and possibly even die away for lack of pasture land.

So, that was a pretty simple example of the commons and an easy demonstration of why society must protect the commons. But, let’s look at today’s societies. There are no common pasture lands and no common waterways and no common breathable air. Oh wait, I guess there always will be the most basic of commons. If one greedy person gets to get rich by polluting everyone’s drinking water then the society failed to protect their commons.

But commons include so much more than just the land we need to survive and the air and the water, but it also includes many other things that we need to survive.

So, now is a good time to stop reading and ask yourself what other commons you can think of, what other things a society needs for survival.

Does a society need clean water, clean air, unpolluted farmland? Does it need a government? Does it need a fire department and a police department and a military? I would say yes to all of the above. All of these are commons that need to be protected from the greedy. What is a military that isn’t owned by and responsible to the people? It’s a police state. It’s a repressive military government.

Is reasonable health care a necessary requirement for a successful society? Of course it is. And, what happens when greed takes over the common? You have members of society dying so greedy people can make a profit.

Why Should We Protect the Commons?

By now you probably already know the answer. It’s not at all difficult. When profits collide with the commons, society suffers, fails, and dies.

What happens when the fire department is controlled by the greedy? Only those paying through the nose for fire protection get fire services and in many cases, the fire department will go and start fires of those uninsured homes to strum up more business. We have seen this behavior in America in the past with insurance rackets.

In fact, insurance is one of the few businesses that should not be controlled by greed. It is at conflicting sides of the ring to have greed and insurance in the same business.

What is your list of things that should be free from the control of greed? What commons need protecting?

I hope the Republican voters get a good look at their party. I hope this doesn’t all go unreported in the news.

The Republican party held the middle class tax cuts hostage and refused to allow their stimulus benefit unless the billionaires got their tax cuts. The past 30 years have taught us many things but it has taught, even the most ardent Republican voter, that tax cuts for the rich got us into this mess and more tax cuts are only making it worse. Still, the Republican party held our stimulus money hostage for tax breaks for the rich.

Now the Republican party is threatening to destroy America’s credit standing and possibly cause the next worldwide depression in order to take more away from the middle class and the poor to give to the rich. Their argument is that if they refuse to raise the debt limit and America defaults on our loans, that they can get the media to blame Obama.

Got that? They don’t care what harm comes to you or me or even to our country, as long as they can play politics and make Obama look bad. Of course, if they can send us all to the poor house in the process, that’s just a big plus.

Hey, you! Are you a Republican voter? Do you see what your party is doing? When will you do something about it? Don’t you care what they’re doing to your country? Don’t you care what they’re doing to the Republican name? Don’t you care about anything?

Why are they willing to gamble with our country to get their way? Why do they so badly want to end the booming years of the 40s through the 80s? Why won’t they just do what’s right for the country and raise the debt ceiling?

Nevada’s disgraced unethical Senator Ensign, who is still under investigation, is being replaced by Dean Heller, the representative of big business.

One unethical Republican replacing another. What difference does it make, Nevada? When will you wake up? You’re being taken for fools.

I drove past the Nevada capitol Friday and found a handful of people gathering around a sign that said, “Americans for Prosperity”.

Two important things are illuminated by this:

1. The billionaire Koch brothers, known for being the money behind Americans for Prosperity, could only pay a handful of people to gather, and
2. Even though this was slated as a Tea Party rally, it was mostly just workers and volunteers for billionaires.

Why are these issues important? First off, this was a vividly open event to support billionaires against the American people. The signs said right out in the open that these are people supporting the destruction of the middle class and the poor.  There’s really no hiding the fact and no reason to try to hide it.

And, secondly, it was obvious that the vast majority of the Tea Party has realized that they are being used as fools to support legislation that is bad for them and bad for America.

Sure, the Tea Party members know something is wrong with the state of America but they’re beginning to realize that their little Tea Party is created and funded by billionaires and their agenda isn’t America’s agenda, but an agenda to cut the already low taxes of the billionaires.

These are both very big deals. Now that the veil is off the Americans for Prosperity control of the Tea Party, people are coming to their senses.

Now, don’t think this is the beginning of the end of the Tea Baggers. There are millions of Americans out there who don’t know any better than to believe the propaganda and will be signing up with the same anti-American crowd when they start seeing the marketing again.

It’s not just sad but I find it quite disgusting that one of America’s major political parties is so unethical to take advantage of the Tea Baggers. But, what would one expect from a political party that does all the rest of the things the Republican party is known for.

Here is a graph of Nevada’s Revenue stream. Check it out. While looking at it, remember that Nevada comes in dead last in almost every area that matters, from health to intelligence to poverty.

Take a look at the slice of the pie that is the largest – sales tax. Sales tax is one of the most regressive types of tax because it affects the poor and middle class the most.

So, in Nevada, we see an example of what it’s like when the rich are not expected to pay their fair share. Do you see any income tax on the wealthy? Any taxes on billion dollar bankers? Any taxes on billion dollar mines? No? Me neither.

So the rich get a free ride and the poor and middle class are saddled with everything.

Well, Nevada, how is that working for you? Does it attract business having no income tax? No, I guess not.

When will you ever learn, Nevada?

But the bigger question is what on earth are we doing trying to bring the rest of the country down to Nevada’s level by following their tax structure and giving the billionaires a free ride while expecting the poor and middle class to work for less and carry a greater portion of the cost?

When will America ever learn? It’s time to throw out the failed Republican policies. We’ve been here before, America, it was called the Great Depression and it didn’t work so well back then.

We’ve discussed supply side economics many times on this blog and there are countless websites that compare the two economic models, Keynes vs Friedman. But this time I’m going to add a bit of history to the discussion. After all, if we can’t learn from our mistakes, we’re doomed to repeat them, and repeating them we are.

Supply Side Economics

Probably the best way to describe Supply Side Economics is Voodoo economics. This is the idea that if you give money to the rich, they will hire people and pay a good wage and the heavens will open and the angles will sing and leprechauns will dance. It’s also referred to as trickle-down economics.

In other words, people will run out and buy just because the stores are full.

Keynesian Economics

This is the old model of economics where demand drives the economy. In other words, when people have money they will buy.

Now this is obviously just broad strokes and there is a whole lot more involved in each of these models of economics. You may find yourself interested enough to learn economics and get into the nuts and bolts of these, but this is as technical as I plan to get.

Alright, so here’s the little bit of history I promised you. Neither of these perspectives of economics is new. Since the beginning of economic times, the concept of supply and demand has been the fundamental core of the study of economics.

However, back in the early days of America, the concept of unfettered free trade was the approach the government took and this freed up the companies to be as greedy and they could. This allowed America to become quite wealthy, or at least our wealthy became wealthy.

Of all the leading countries, we were becoming the most wealthy. This seemed to convince many people that if a little free is good, oh my gosh, totally free trade must be the be-all end-all of wealthy. So, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, America decided to pull all the plugs and let the rich get as rich as they wanted.

So by the 1920s we saw the roaring 20s when the wealthy were insane with their greed and wealth. At lease back then, they were smart enough to protect our industries through tariffs.

Then, the big crash.

Following the Great Depression, many economist admitted that the whole idea of completely unregulated greed was bad for America. At this time, Keynes came back to the idea that maybe really, demand drives the economy. This wasn’t the first time economics thought of this, but it was back in vogue.

Then, about 50 years ago, Friedman brought back the greed and supply side economics.

So, fast-forward to today and we’re all the rage back into supply-side economics and unfettered free trade. Of course, we’re also seeing the return of the economics of the Great Depression.

When will we learn from history? When we start exposing the idiots who keep pushing failed economic policies on us. When we eject the same people who got us in the First Republican Great Depression. The Republicans.

Unfettered Free Trade doesn’t work. All it does is impoverish a nation and make a handful of greedy people insanely rich.

Free trade doesn’t work.

Supply Side Economics don’t work. It’s a myth.

Voodoo Economics always brings disaster. Read your history.

This table is a wonderful example of welfare for the rich.

Where are your taxes going? To the rich, of course.

The billionaires and multinational corporations own the Republican party and they are doing everything they can to destroy the Democratic party, everything from destroying Acorn, who helped register real Americans, and helped them get out and vote, to attacking trial lawyers, the only legal profession to donate to the Democratic party, and they’re even trying to destroy the workers, the unions, and the middle class.

But, the Democratic party has held together because it is the only true party that represents the people, it represents the poor, the underprivileged, the working class, the average American.

No, all the underhanded and deceitful attacks won’t destroy the Democratic party as quickly as they will destroy themselves.

The Democratic party is losing touch with its base and is abandoning the progressive principles that have made the party strong. Today’s Democratic party is partly owned by blue dog democrats (aka corporate democrats), partly controlled by conservatives who support anti-American principles like indefinite imprisonment without trial, support giving tax breaks to the billionaires and then cutting services for the poor to pay for them.

No, the liars and billionaires won’t destroy the Democratic party. The Democratic party will destroy themselves if they can’t get back to their progressive roots and get back to representing the people.

Want to see the Democratic party strong, again? Stop the free trade disasters, increase services for the people, and demand fair taxes on the rich.

Anything less will make this a single-party country. Sure, they’ll keep both the names so as to fool the fools but it’ll be the same old party no matter if it’s Democrat of Republican.

How can we Americans save our country? Get out there and get active. Talk to your friends and neighbors. Call and write your representatives, write letters to the newspapers, and more than anything else, turn off your network news. The only news that is trustworthy is locally owned.

Time is running out, America.