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?

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.

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.

By now everyone knows about how the governor of Wisconsin betrayed his people and rather than negotiating with his voters and finding solutions to the shortfall he caused by the tax giveaways to corporations and billionaires, he sold out to the billionaires. Well, I should say everyone except the poor naive viewers of Fox. I wouldn’t expect them to know anything about how corrupt the Republicans are.

Governor Scott Walker took what he thought was a direct call from the billionaire who put him into office with his multi-million dollar contribution, David Koch. Imagine a governor taking a call from a billionaire when he won’t even negotiate with his state’s employees.

This was so disgusting that the majority of his state has lost confidence in him and the country is horrified at the blatant ownership of our elected official. He’ll take a direct call from his billionaire owner but not from his people.

In poll after poll, Americans are disgusted with this. Well, again, poll after poll as long as it’s not on Fox which doesn’t even cover this. Got that? America despises a candidate who is a prostitute for billionaires. You know, like oil billionaires like the Koch brothers?

Well, it’s not just Walker. It’s much worse than that. Check out this article showing that the entire GOP in the House of Representatives has voted to protect the tax breaks for the oil billionaires. Got that? 100% of the GOP in the House voted against America and for the oil billionaires.

Sure, some fools on the corrupt Right will say, oh, it’s not just them, there was a democrat in there somewhere so it’s okay if 100% of the Republicans are scum.

Well, you know what? He’d be right. It’s okay so let’s just all forget about it and let the billionaires take over our country. We don’t need unions. We don’t need a middle class. Let the billionaires decide what’s best for us.

Well, actually, it’s not okay and it’s not true that both parties are completely owned by big money. Sure, there are a few Democrats who voted for it too. There are a few Democrats owned by big money, too. But not 100%.

100% of the Republicans voted against the best interests of the people, AGAIN! Disgusting!

I got this in my email this morning. It brings to light a serious problem facing America today, something we need to fix immediately.

Hi,

The Republicans just released their budget proposal, and it zeroes
out funding for both NPR and PBS–the worst proposal in more than a
decade. We need to tell Republicans that cutting off funding was
unacceptable last time they were in charge, and it’s unacceptable now.

I signed a petition to save NPR and PBS. Can you join me at the link
below?

Click Here

Thanks!

This is another shocking example of how the Republican party is against so many of the fundamental principles of our country. The need to protect the free press is one of the most important fundamental principles of America’s freedoms. But, today, we no longer have a free press.

In today’s environment, almost all the news Americans get is biased by multi-billion dollar news corporations and presented by millionaire news casters. This is exactly what our founding fathers didn’t want to have happen.

That is why they put the press in the constitution, the only industry explicitly referenced in the constitution. Still, the Republicans want to do away with the few remaining threads of our free press.

In a time when our information is being purposely polluted, we need to protect the truly impartial news sources that are not influenced by big money or politics. That is why we need news sources that are wholly funded by our taxes and not relying on donations from people and big unethical businesses.

Our free press, such as NPR and PBS, is not perfect and still rely too heavily on big money donations from businesses, but we need to fix it by funding them enough so they aren’t influenced by corruption and we need to vote out any political party that wants to destroy our last chance of a free press.

So, how much money will it cost you, personally, to help fund our free press? The amount is truly pennies each year. So, why would a political party want to save you pennies while expecting you to pay thousands for welfare for the billionaires in tax cuts? Well, you know why.

Ever wonder how much Social Security really adds to our nation’s budget?

You might not believe it but it doesn’t add a single cent. Not one red cent.

So, you must be asking yourself, well, why are the Republicans always saying we need to cut it or privatize it. The answer has nothing to do with the budget. Let me explain.

The trust fund for Social security is growing in the trillions of dollars. At first Social Security was paid as it was used. Each generation paid for it’s grandparents. But, as the baby-boomers hit the work force, it was obvious that something was necessary to have money for them when they retire as there would be fewer workers to pay for their generation.

That is why Reagan doubled the tax on the middle class. That’s another truth that you won’t find in the text books but it’s true. The Baby-boomer generation had to pay for their grandparents and for their own retirement. This doubling of your and my taxes has created a huge surplus in the Social Security trust fund. It’s over three trillion dollars today and is expected to be $4.7 trillion in ten years.

After that, the baby-boomers will be drawing down on the trust fund until they’re all gone and so is the trust fund. At that time, we can go back to each generation paying for their grandparents. In other words, we’ll go back to paying as we go.

The Republicans try to scare you by lying about how the trust fund is going broke so Social Security is going broke. It’s just a lie. Get used to them.

Our Social Security trust fund is invested in US government bonds to collect a guaranteed return. The Republicans want you to have to give that money to the bankers, you know, the ones who pay themselves billion dollar bonuses while the investments crash and burn. It doesn’t work so well for 401Ks now does it?

The Republican politicians don’t care if you starve to death after losing your privatized Social Security in the stock market, at least their big banker johns will continue to fund their elections.

Social Security is not going broke. It’s just a right-wing lie like so many others.

Update: Correction – at this date, the trust fund is just under three trillion dollars, not over.

I just got this in my email from Steven Horsford. It’s a reasonably sane interpretation of Nevada’s disaster of a Governor. Is Nevada flushing down the toilet any hope of saving Nevada from becoming a third-world state?

There are some aspects of the governor’s speech tonight with which I agree: We must work together to pass a balanced budget. We must focus on economic development and put Nevadans back to work.

But tonight Governor Sandoval offered a budget that would gut public education – and our kids’ futures as a result. It would cut our school budgets by more than 14 percent. It would slash colleges by nearly 30 percent.

• This means laying off literally thousands of teachers and closing entire college campuses.  Worse yet, he proposes to cut our children’s teachers’ pay by more than 10 percent.  That’s just wrong.
• It means putting our children in classes of 40 students.
• It means eliminating sports and music, and ending gifted and talented programs.
• It means we cannot afford real reform to our schools or come even close to a tolerable level of funding for higher education – the engine of a new economy.

In short, this budget would dismantle public education.

I will not accept a budget plan that extinguishes all hope for a new Nevada built on better schools.

I will be looking for the best ideas among my colleagues here at the Legislature – Republicans and Democrats – to produce a balanced budget that leads us forward, not backwards.

This process starts tomorrow morning at 8:30 when we begin our budget hearings. I URGE YOU TO GET INVOLVED BY CONTACTING THE GOVERNOR AND YOUR LEGISLATORS IN THE SENATE AND ASSEMBLY IMMEDIATELY.

The future of Nevada depends on you.

Thank you.

Steven

It’s looking pretty bleak, there, Nevada!

Did you know that the president of the USA is the source of the country’s budget? Every president proposes a budget and congress takes that proposal and either passes it as is or tweaks it and passes it. Then, the president signs or vetoes the budget. I suppose most everyone reading this blog already knows this.

If congress doesn’t like the budget they can just scrap the whole thing and make their own and the president can veto it.

The budget belongs to the president. This is the opposite of what the constitution says in which it says the House of Representatives is where all budgetary bills originate.

Look at this graph of our nation’s debt over the past century. Tell me which political party is the party of drunk Animal House frat boys?

National debt as function of GDP

What’s of most interest here is how the Republican party is screaming and hollering about tax and spend Democrats when the facts, as always, shows them to be lying hypocrites. Why does anyone still believe the Republican party? Whey does anyone still vote for the party that is shipping our jobs overseas? Come on America, you’re smarter than that.

What did the last ten years of the GOP bring us?

Unemployment in many states is still on the rise. We saw a short glimmer of hope over the holiday season but now we’re back to further and further declines in the economy.

The stock market is improving though, but so what? The stock market doesn’t provide jobs for Americans. In fact, it’s time we quit considering the stock market when remarking on the state of America’s economy. For Americans the things that mean anything when considering the country’s economy is jobs, pay, benefits, and pensions. Also included in evaluating the economy is the state of our social safety net, not the stock market.

All these things affect the economy of Americans. The stock market does not. I know, I know, there many people (one hundredth of of one percent of Americans) who actually make any reasonable money off the stock market but that in no way reflects the state of America’s economy.

This simple difference explains why we haven’t dug ourselves out of the Bush years yet. We’re putting our resources and attention in the wrong things. Did we learn nothing during the last Great Depression? The conservatives are telling us that it was the second world war that got us out of the last Great Depression. Well, now we’re in two and a half wars. Our economy should be the best it’s ever been, right? Well, no, not really. Wars don’t cure depressions. Job do. The stock market doesn’t cure depressions, jobs and benefits and pay do. So when are we going to start addressing these problems?

Want to fix the economy? Here’s how:

1. Stop with the tax give-aways to the billionaires and multi-national corporations. Put taxes back where they were before Reagan began the destruction of our economy,
2. Increase the minimum wage to a living wage and keep it there,
3. Require all major corporations and all multi-national corporations provide substantial pensions to all workers, full time and part time,
4. Stop the Social Security tax give-away for billionaires. Expect billionaires to pay the same percentage of tax for Social Security that you and I do,
5. Temporarily create government jobs for Americans (no tax dollars spent on non-American incentives, you know, the bill the Republicans opposed), and
6. Fix our broken trade policies, get out of NAFTA, GAT, WTO, and all the rest of the trade agreements that are destroying our manufacturing jobs. In other words, protect American jobs.

The nice thing is these don’t have to be done all at once but the more that we enact, the faster our economy will improve.

Now if you see these points brought up over and over in the blogisphere, they must not be rocket science, so why hasn’t our government thought of them? They have, but the big businesses controlling both parties are preventing us from stopping the rape and pillage of America’s economy. Remember, someone is making out like bandits while the rest of us suffer, and those bandits donate to make and break our politicians.

Get involved! Get active. Participate on our political process. Run for the local dog catcher or school board. That does make a difference.

[Update: ] Check out this post at Open Left for an good example of what the economy really means.