Michael Laybourn: Keep your filthy hands off our money

From MICHAEL LAYBOURN
Hopland

I just listened to Ross Murray on KZYX  rake the polititians and media over the coals while explaining why Social Security has nothing to do with the national deficit. Very well done Ross, glad you are in there still getting enraged about the state of American politricks.

The “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform”consists of 6 Republicans; 6 Democrats and 3 CEOs …. has been dubbed as the “Catfood Commission” because its goal appears to be cutting benefits so drastically that retirees will only be able to afford to eat pet food.

The “bipartisan” deficit reduction commission — appointed by President Obama and led by millionaires — just made their ideas public recently. With ideas are simply ridiculous.  They recommend to Congress cutting Social Security benefits and raising the retirement age. (Well, naturally, this commission of millionaires didn’t focus on raising taxes on the wealthy or even raising the cap to pay into SSA.) Or getting out of wars we can’t afford.

And …the mainstream media’s is picking the chant up with warnings: Deficit, deficit deficit . CNN, Washington Post, Time Newsweek, Atlantic, Reuters, LA Times, everyone. All of a sudden everyone is talking about the deficit: We need to fix it.

Why Republicans are So Intent on Killing Health Care Reform

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From ROOSEVELT INSTITUTE

It’s not just about expanded care. It’s about proving our government can be a force for the common good.

[Michael Moore has long ago proven the lies that conservatives and tea partiers will tell to kill even the feeble new health care laws we have. We need to stand tall and stop these big lie, sicko bastards in their tracks. -DS]

Why are John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Mitch McConnell so intent on stopping health care reform from ever taking hold? For the same reason that Republicans and the corporate Right spent more than $200 million in the last year to demonize health care in swing Congressional districts. It wasn’t just about trying to stop the bill from becoming law or taking over Congress. It is because health reform, if it takes hold, will create a bond between the American people and government, just as Social Security and Medicare have done. Democrats, and all those who believe that government has a positive place in our lives, should remember how much is at stake as Republicans and corporate elites try to use their electoral victory to dismantle the new health care law.

My enjoyment of the MLB playoffs last month was interrupted by ads run by Karl Rove’s Crossroads front group against upstate New York Rep. Scott Murphy, who was defeated last Tuesday. Rove’s ads rained accusations on Murphy, including the charge of a “government takeover of health care.” Some might have thought that once the public option was removed from the health care legislation, Republicans couldn’t make that charge. But it was never tied to the public option or any other specific reform. Republicans and their allies, following the advice of message guru Frank Luntz, were going to call

FDR Sanity: Time to Try Government as Employer of Last Resort

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From ROOSEVELT INSTITUTE

[If you really wanna piss off your right wing friends, this one will send them over the moon! -DS]

In the wake of the highest unemployment rate in 25 years, the Roosevelt Institute asked historians, economists and other public thinkers to reflect on the lessons of the New Deal and explore new, big ideas for how to get America back to work. Marshall Auerback calls for government to step in as employer of last resort.

At 10.2%, unemployment is now at its highest level since 1983. Nearly 16 million people can’t find jobs even, though we are constantly being told that the worst recession since the Great Depression has officially ended. Yet instead of trying to revive the productive economy, most of the Obama Administration’s recovery efforts still remain focused on cardio-shock treatment for Wall Street. The President still seems curiously hamstrung by his Herbert Hoover-like devotion to fiscal rectitude: he wants to spend but not add “one dime to the deficit,” as he announced at his Congressional address on health care in September. He does this even though deficits are a natural consequence of slowing economic growth, falling tax revenues and higher social welfare payments.

To all of the “Chicken Littles” (including the president), who fret about “excessive” government spending, we would simply point out that it is far better to deploy government spending in a way that reduces unemployment instead of settling for having it rise as a consequence of this spending.