Robin Hood, the guy who robbed the rich and gave to the poor, wore a short frock and tights. From the get-go, the guy serving the disadvantaged would fail the entrance exam required to become a card-carrying Republican.
The GOP is, after all, the anti-gay marriage, anti-repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell crew. More than that, Republicans are anti-working class. Their recent policies and activities show them clobbering the middle class while kissing the wealthy's, well, you know.
Consider health insurance reform and tax cuts for the rich.
The GOP spent the entire fall election cycle yammering about the federal deficit. The world as we know it was coming to an end because of the deficit, they contended loudly and repeatedly.
Then, immediately after Election Day, Republicans insisted on extending tax cuts for the rich. They added more than $36 billion to that supposedly-cataclysmic federal deficit in 2011 so that they could pad the pockets of the nation's millionaires.
To secure that bonus for millionaires, Republicans held hostage extension of unemployment compensation, which during this grave recession, sustains the nation's workers who are out of jobs and, all too often, also out of foreclosed-on homes. The deal comes down to this: The average millionaire will be $100,000 richer as a result in 2011. The average worker will get $15,236 in unemployment benefits if jobless the entire year of 2011.
Republicans insisted on giving the rich $84,764 a year more than the poor.
Repealing health insurance reform, as the GOP has said it hopes to do before month's end, would have the same result - increasing that supposedly-cataclysmic federal deficit while slamming the poor and middle class.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has calculated that the Affordable Care Act will decrease the federal deficit by $140 billion over 10 years. That's what the GOP wants to repeal - a deficit reduction measure. Republicans want to add $140 billion to the debt.
Most injured by repeal would be the nation's poor and middle class. That's because rescinding the law would once again allow insurers to deny health care to children with pre-existing conditions. It would mean the elderly would once again pay more for preventative care and prescriptions. It would permit insurers to once again withdraw coverage from people when they get sick. It would mean insurers could kick out young adults who are now covered under their parents' plans until age 26. It would permit insurers to re-impose "lifetime maximums," so that they could cancel the coverage of people with costly illnesses. It would permit insurers to once again pocket for profit and "administrative expenses" an unlimited percentage of premiums paid by workers and employers. It would mean small businesses would lose tax breaks that will help them pay for health insurance for workers.
The GOP intends to deny tens of millions of uninsured Americans the hope that soon they'll be able to afford coverage.
Republicans want to, as they put it, "undo" the health insurance benefits that the Affordable Care Act provides to Americans. And they're offering nothing in return, nothing to help the uninsured, nothing to help the untold millions cheated by insurance corporations, nothing to require premiums to be spent on health care.
That's the way Republican-hood rolls, protecting the wealthy, pummeling the poor. The rich, in the case of health insurance, are CEOs earning millions while increasing rates in double digits during a recession. The Los Angeles Times reported in August, for example, that the top executives of the nation's five largest for-profit health insurers pulled down $200 million in compensation in 2009. The poor, in this case, are policy holders who the insurers charged rate increases as high as 39 percent.
House Republicans would exempt their cancelling of health insurance reform from their own rule that new legislation be paid for. So they wouldn't have to find an additional $14 billion when they attempt to fulfill their campaign pledge to slash $100 billion from domestic programs - that would be from the programs most needed by the nation's workers - those that help pay for education and transportation, for example. Because these domestic programs are such a small part of the budget, securing $100 billion from them would cost each department approximately 20 percent of its funds this year. That means painful reductions to areas like law enforcement and medical research. This is accompanied by Republican demands for cuts to many workers' only retirement plan - Social Security.
In the meantime, the main concern of most Americans, as it was in the grueling days of Robin Hood, is jobs. Not the deficit. The GOP offers no plan to increase jobs for formerly working people, to end the suffering of tens of millions of Americans. Republican-hood is, instead, focused on pampering those who don't need it.
Follow Leo W. Gerard on Twitter: www.twitter.com/uswblogger
Conservatives, especially, want to hide behind the idea that Jared Loughner is a "deranged" loner. But where are these conservatives when it comes to extending a helping hand to the "deranged" in terms of some medical and mental health benefits. Mr. Loughner may be benefiting from the age 26 provision of health care reform, the repeal of which is the pillar reactionary strategy.
They would let lose the "deranged", they would vilify the "deranged", but help them? And in the process help the rest of us? Not in their world!
The lovely tax cut extension means many (up to 50,000,000) workers will actually pay more in Fed taxes.
Their maters must be businesses and wealthy, otherwise, they would have compassion and understanding. However, because so many of them are millionaires, it is not too surprising that they support anything that benefits themselves and their families, first and foremost.
The Tea Party unfortunately was founded by money from some of the wealthiest people in the US, who stand to gain more through deregulating their business practices.
American has lost its way and the those with the flashlight are pushing the lower and middle classes off the edge of the cliff and then ask "what was that sound?" Unable to imagine the suffering and pain that many endure, while the wealthy and Congress have to settle for so much less than what they wanted.
America is not for those poor people that do all the dirty jobs we don't want to.
Perhaps we could implement a bus system to get them back and forth from Canada for their work week?
You anti-GOP tirade is quite funny considering that your organization and the rent seeking protection that it gets through tariffs has added to the cost of production and driven many of our manufacturers overseas and to Mexico where they are not penalized to prop up your inefficiencies.
You worry about the effect of the GOP on workers when you and your protection-seeking brethren have done more than anyone to ensure that our manufacturers cannot compete freely. The jobs that you have cost so that you can maintain your cushy lifestyle is simply sad.
Glad to see that you have time to write political blogs instead of adding to the productivity of the United States. Union dues well spent.
You are destroying America!
Kai
Clearly you have no understanding of tariffs. They are a way to enforce international trade laws and agreements. When the U.S. imposes tariffs, it's because those laws and agreements have been violated. Imposition of tariffs supports American industry and American jobs. In many of the trade cases filed by the USW, U.S. firms have joined or have been partners with the union in seeking the trade sanctions.
I am very well-versed in both the benefits and detriments of tariffs. What they, and you, fail to understand is that the industries they protect have their limited jobs saved, but it penalizes all the downstream consumers of the protected industry’s products and services. As such, by forcing the price of steel up above international market levels (supposedly because you are worried about dumping but really you just do not like the fact that other international competitors with lower regulatory, tax, and labor costs produce more efficiently and cheaper than you do) it kills auto manufacturers, white goods manufacturers, etc. These companies slowly get squeezed out of the markets they invented. Consumers pay more, and as such it is a regressive tax that the poor bare more heavily than the rich.
As for support, the unions of course stick together. Because they are all in the labor protection and extortion racket and rely on price collusion to keep their wages artificially high, there is a form of brotherhood their that looks only at the short-term gain. This myopic approach has killed not only the consumers of domestic steel but as these factories move overseas to get away form the punitive steel tariffs, it causes US steel to also drop in demand. Not to mention that as a retaliation, other countries than slap their own tariffs on our more competitive goods, telecom, software etc.
America business loses, consumers lose, America loses.
Kai
In addition, what many conservatives refuse to recognize is that the rich are rich because of benefits provided by this country -- including infrastructure, courts, trade protections, copyright laws, etc. Still, the rich don't want to pay their share of the cost for those benefits. They are not rich solely by dint of their own initiative, which is the myth they'd have the poor believe.
The USW helped restructure the steel industry and preserve American steel manufacturing and American steel jobs.
In addition, the steel industry has consistently partnered with the USW in seeking protection from unfair foreign competition.
Pretty much the way it is. Extending the Bush tax cuts has made their cries over the "deficit" and "austerity" pretty much crocodile tears.
The function of government is protection of citizens. The rich in this country receive super-sized benefits from government protection and government services -- including courts, patent and copyright laws, infrastructure, and trade enforcement. The rich, however, want everyone else to pay for those benefits. They refuse to pay their patriotic share. They'd rather see this country fail because they're not patriotic. They simply selfish.
(In addition, your suggestion that those who "do not work at all" make a "good living" on the $15,000 in unemployment insurance they receive over a year's time is shocking and disgusting and shows the depth of soullessness and selfishness of conservatives.)
This past Monday has been three years for me since I lost my job and my benefits ran out at the end of May 2010 (thank God for living with the folks).
One thing I have tried to do is contact the Congressman in my district to have an informal meeting to talk to him about us 99ers and the 99ers to be. I'm also trying to get in touch with my local area newspaper to speak with their business editor to see if they will publish an article about 99ers as well. These efforts, along with the daily ritual of trying to find a job, may not lead to anything, but it sure beats being depressed.
Anyway, you shouldn't be without a fan, so let me be your first one. F/F
Kai
Candy made with sugar? What century are you living in. Candy is made with government-subsidized corn syrup. Again, you don't know what you are talking about.
Manufacturers joined with the USW in seeking the tariffs. Check the facts, dude.