Just in case you had been suffering delusions that the Republicans have improved on basic arithmetic or responsible governance, House Speaker John Boehner and presidential aspirant Mitt Romney on Tuesday made sure to disabuse you of that notion. As both men pandered to the base on deficit reduction while foreswearing tax increases, they reinforced the central Republican narrative of our age: Somebody else can pay for the mess we made. Somebody -- as in those losers who can't afford memberships at our golf club.
Boehner delivered that message in a warning that he would again engage in brinksmanship later this year when Congress and the White House return to negotiations over lifting the debt ceiling and extending the tax cuts George W. Bush bestowed on wealthy Americans. You will surely recall how the last such negotiations went down: Boehner and his fellow Republicans held to threats not to go along without draconian spending cuts -- a line they maintained so rigidly that they convinced much of the planet that we Americans had lost our minds along with our calculators, leading to Uncle Sam's credit rating getting dinged.
"When the time comes, I will again insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase," Boehner told a gathering in Washington sponsored by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, an institution dedicated to propagating deficit alarmism. "This is the only avenue I see right now to force the elected leadership of this country to solve our structural fiscal imbalance."
Translation: "I am perfectly willing to threaten the national interest again by driving us rapidly toward the cliff of fiscal insanity and sovereign debt default. I am perfectly content to demand that debts -- run up via disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus a financial crisis whose buildup enriched people who fill my campaign coffers with cash -- get paid for on the backs of poor people, public school students, retirees and others who did not share in the festivities of the financial leverage orgy, because it allows me to to posture as being virtuous: I am holding the line on taxes, addition and subtraction be damned."
Romney, smelling an opportunity to pile on the pander wagon while donning a blue plaid shirt in Iowa, told reporters that he, too, was adamant that the deficit would have to be squared without any new taxes. "You do not owe Washington a bigger share of your paycheck," he said.
Unfortunately, most of you do, and there is no way around that for anyone serious about closing the nation's fiscal gap. Simon Johnson and James Kwak have laid all this out nicely, and you can dip in to their work here, but the distilled version is this: Our debt problems are enormous if we keep dodging them, and entirely manageable if get back to sensible tax policy, through scrapping the reckless tax cuts engineered by George W. Bush and returning to the tax rates of Ronald Reagan's time. If we do that, we can square our books, invest in job-creating growth, improve public education while making higher education more affordable, and we can preserve the government institutions that ordinary people count on -- not least, Medicare and Social Security.
We can do that, or we can wind up like California, now staring at a $16 billion hole in its budget and making plans to dismantle much of what has made the Golden State the admiration of the world for decades: an excellent and inclusive community college system, world-class research instituions, public lands for public enjoyment and a prodigious safety net to help more vulnerable people in tough times.
Gov. Jerry Brown understands math, and he is urging voters to approve a tax increase via a ballot measure in November. But if he doesn't get that increase, he understands that math still holds, and the cutting will continue.
In Washington, the Obama administration has helpfully pursued tax increases, while adhering to the fiction that only the rich have to pay, while the Republicans have somehow managed to portray themselves as fiscally responsible even as they promise that no one ever has to pay taxes. This is reprehensible, and it is bleeding the country.
The public cannot be expected to stand up and demand to be taxed more. Human nature says otherwise. Getting our house in order will require straight talk from leadership, something that continues to be sorely lacking in the pander-fest that masquerades as a public policy debate.
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Richard Klass: Vampires and Mattresses
Probably this is the case over the years with many of the most intransigent most incumbent Republican reps in many swing states.
Just the opposite has occured in Kucinich's and Kaptur's districts, which are now one - in the same state as Boehner's.
I am presently in Kucinich's district. The change pushed me across (by 5 blocks) into the east side district, which is tortuously gerrymandered to include all the blacks in both greater Cleveland and Akron. That is, one of the 4 nearly 100% Dem. districts. The other 12 are set up to be 56% Repub. Just enough margin that they can never go Dem. When the whole country is so gerrymandered then the Repubs can never be dislodged.
This is why we should never allow electoral vote style rules to preside in any states - gerrymandering.
Firstly, Boehner should read this sentence and think about it. Using force means damaging the institution - making it do something it was not designed to do. Secondly, he should say over and over again "the elected leadership, the ELECTED leadership" and remind himself that he is answerable to the American people who are entitled to demand that he respect their choice. Thirdly, this is not the only avenue he sees. He can see tax increases just as everyone can see them. He just doesn't like what he sees. I do wonder whether this will be a successful strategy for the GOP. Sure, the GOP will love anything that makes life difficult for Obama, but the election will be won or lost in the centre, where the swing voters are. For them, the GOP might well prove too divisive, obstructive and downright nasty... I have a feeling that the GOP are so spooked by the tea party, they are more afraid of their right wing nutters than they are concerned about beating the democrats. It makes sense: lose the election but keep your seat is better than losing your seat and losing the election...
Hopefully they will play this card again rioght before the election and PRESIDENT Obama will take the opportunity to borrow Hillery Clinton's balls.
Encourage the financial investment companies to invest in domestic production, start-ups and expansions as a percentage of their holdings by giving incentives to allow this to happen.
Stop unnecessary overseas production milking our markets by increasing import tariffs on goods that can be manufactured in the US. ( Germany does this very successfully so why are we so stupid.....bribery of course) Start a large scale rebuilding of essential infrastructure, it has to happen sooner of later so do it now, corporations all need the same infrastructure as most of us.
Just scratching the surface but there are many CONSTRUCTIVE measures that can be taken to turn this country around. Stop screwing around with secondary concerns that, though important, should be addressed at a time when we are on a better course as a whole to deal with them.
FIX: Tax levels back to where they were 50 years ago.
Taxes for the rich are actually lower than they have been for decades, ignore the right wing pseudo numbers and lies.
FIX: No globalist tax breaks & increased import tariffs for goods that can be produced in the US.
The global corporations milk this country with tax breaks and pay nothing or hardly anything back.
Global corporations manufacture overseas then use us as their consumers then bank the profits overseas, offshore accounts or overseas registered companies.
FIX: Kill sweat heart deals for redundant hardware. Renegotiate true costs for actual need.
The MIC is one of the major costs that just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
FIX: Close all unnecessary bases, total can most likely be reduced by 50% +.
Over 1000 overseas US military based, many have costly military hardware and have outlasted their purpose.
FIX: Total withdrawal from Iraq & Afghanistan.
The wars were never justified in the first place. The US trained and armed the Taliban in the 90's & they couldn't help us by eliminating the miniscule Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. The private proxy military in both countries will bleed us dry for years.
FIX: Single payer health care for all.
Medicare and medical are costing way too much due to a healthcare industry that is overcharging by at least 300%. It's out of control and getting worse and we all know it.