Last weekend, Americans watched in anger and disbelief as Tea Party Republicans held our nation's economy and our international standing hostage. Although debt default was ultimately averted, the crisis did not end with the hostages walking away unharmed. The extremity of the debt deal's spending cuts and the fact that more revenues -- making billionaires, millionaires and corporations pay their fair share in taxes -- were, in the end, not even on the table mean Americans will be hurt and the economy will be slower to recover. We got immediate proof of this as the stock market plummeted in response to the deal and Standard & Poors downgraded U.S. credit rating for the first time in history.
Now, as the dust settles, House Whip Eric Cantor has declared that because of Tea Party Republicans' refusal to make the rich pay their fare share, the government won't be able to keep its promises to future generations. Young Americans, Cantor said on Wednesday, are going to have to "come to grips with the fact that promises have been made that frankly are not going to be kept for many."
We can do better than this. And the chance to do better starts in the states.
The manufactured debt-limit crisis and the historic swindle of the middle class that came out of it were not hard to see coming. In states like Wisconsin, Ohio and others across the country, budget battles going back to as early as February foreshadowed the reckless hard line we just saw the Tea Party take over the debt ceiling. Progressives have fought back hard against these assaults on low and middle income families, but were met with a major push by right-wing governors and state lawmakers for state budgets with devastating, draconian cuts to health care, education and more essential services.
In one state, where all these things happened, we have a chance, on Tuesday, to stop the onslaught and say "No!" in a way that will resonate across the country.
In Wisconsin, six right-wing state senators who aided Republican Gov. Scott Walker in passing budget measures that took an ax to the state's social services and to the rights of working people, while preserving hand-outs to the wealthy and out-of-state corporations, are facing recall elections. If three of them lose their seats and all Democrats keep theirs, control of the state Senate will switch -- and Tea Party Republicans across the country will get a serious wake up call.
Progressives can do this... because we must do this. The debt limit crisis showed us how serious the stakes are.
The debt ceiling hostage crisis -- simply that it was able to happen -- is a testament to the dysfunction of our current political culture. The right-wing Republican positions on taxation, spending and deficits, which unfortunately have set the agenda this last year, have absolutely nothing to do with sound economics... and everything to do with a dogged commitment to extreme right-wing orthodoxy and making the government, at every level, subservient to powerful corporate interests. They aren't even consistent with the priorities of Americans -- a recent poll found that by a 2 to1 margin, Americans preferred that Washington focus on creating jobs to get the economy moving again than on deficit reduction.
If voices of compassion and reason don't prevail, we'll be stuck on a dangerous path towards being a country that ignores science, history and economics, and adopts policies based only on long-disproved right-wing ideological myths like "trickle down economics" and "cutting services is more important than creating jobs."
Winning in Wisconsin is the first step to taking our country back from a movement that has spun wildly out of control... and bringing back a government that cares about creating jobs, working for its citizens and keeping its promises.
Follow Michael B. Keegan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/peoplefor
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Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.
Welcome to the progressive media channel.
It's sure a great time not to be a progressive.
Democrat – Democracy * A government by the people for the people
Republican – Republic * government by the ruling class
With a progressive tax, we the middle class will be the ruling class. Like our founding father wanted it to be. That’s why they put the checks in balances in our system to keep us in the middle.
Are system is all messed up because of the bush tax cuts. Billionaires with all this accumulated money get to manipulate the system to benefit their profit margin at the expense of the poor and middle class.
Our system does work but ‘we the people’ need to make sure Billionaire backed flunkies like Scot Walker and Paul Ryan do not take our DEMOCRACY away. Bring Back the Marginal TAX for the extreme rich.
If our representatives will only tout their large contributors wishes. It time to origanize a very large peaceful demontrations at the White house.
Now there is something to fear. Without Democrats, life would be void of laughter.
I don't have a Union at my manufacturing plant, but back in the 80s, the union tried to establish itself in it, it was voted down because we were threaten we would lose jobs and insurance. but that it never got voted into the plant. It was so powerful and scared the crap out of the company to provide us with
decent coverage so not to let em in. They held em accountable in . or out . To lose that representation as a whole in the country is a true loss to our workers/consumers.
The problem is that Obama still does not realize the basic cause of the problem he is facing. The problem is nopt that we are spending too much, the problem is that the rich are not paying enough taxes. In effect what is happening is the the richest Americans have taken on huge loans that the rest of us are stuck paying off and the only actual solution is to raise taxes on the rich.
consider this, Since 1980 the assets of the rich have jumped from 9.8 trillion to 38 trillion, while the assets of the other 95% have remained essentially level at 13 trillion. Meanwhile oveer this time the government cut taxes on the rich and ran up a debt of 14 trillion.
If the debt is a serious problem and I think it is, then lets make the folks who have the money to easily pay it all off foot the bill. they borrowed it. they have it now we need it back. that's right tax the rich.
Apparently the top earning 10 percent of our population contributing 55 percent of all the tax revenue is not enough. I tell you what, when you have people losing 50, 60, 70 percent of what they make so they can support the others, you will find them saying heck with it and give up. Why do it? Welcome to socialism. It eventually gets very ugly.
This country gives everyone an equal opportunity. What you do with it is up to you.
In fact, we no longer have ANY REASON to expect ANY recovery for the foreseeable future.
People now talk about a "double dip." Well a dip is something that goes down but eventually comes back up again. We no longer have a reason to expect that we will come back up. That is the true reality of what the Republicans have done by way the debt ceiling deal. We are not in a double dip. We are in something much worse than that.
Do we hear anyone in the media asking Obama about this? What real content is there in the Obama speeches? At the moment, what we have is the president trying to get across the message that he is cute, and can identify the issues. He never speaks about the underlying values that drive his actions, nor any solutions. And Obama is the one who brought SS and Medicare to the chopping block, not the Republicans.
Pay attention to what Senators are appointed to commissions-they are deficit hawks who maintain we must cut social programs, even though this does not apply to SS. Medicare and Medicaid in and of themselves aren't an issue. What we have is a medical system that is running out of control in terms of outcomes and costs. So Medicare will become unaffordable because we are doing nothing to curb costs, which would involve cutting out insurance companies from the system-they add no value and drive up costs.