Budget Battle

Even though a government shut down has been averted for the time being, it just goes to show the how the tyranny of the minority governs us, making millions sweat it out while addressing ideological issues rather than the seriously harmful issue like trillions for perpetual war on foreign soil.

The budget battle and the threat of a government shut down is an example of the tyranny of the minority. Six hundred and thirty five legislators made millions of Americans sweat it out. Military families wouldn’t receive their pay and 800,000 government workers would be furloughed.

Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus stated “What the Republicans are looking for is to take the general federal-funding program for family planning known as Title X, to turn that into a block grant, to give it to states, many of which, you may recall, have Republican governors and perhaps give those Republican governors the flexibility to administer the program in a way that, guess who, Planned Parenthood, might not be able to get the funds.”

This is what they’re fighting about, exemplifying the tyranny of the minority, where keeping the government functioning turns into a battle over abortion.

And while on the subject of battles, just last week Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the US might stay in Iraq if the Iraqis asked us to stay. How much more will that cost us and where is the concern to get out of that country and cut spending? There isn’t any.

At one time there were more contractors on the ground in Iraq than there were US soldiers. Contractors cost up to $250,000, so four contractors is a million dollars, eight is two million and so forth. So what does hundreds of thousands of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan cost us? Big enough to rival funding to Planned Parenthood. But this is how the minority misleads us, by attaching heated emotions to all aspects of governing.

Speaker of the House John Boehner said he’s “damn serious” about spending cuts and wants to know when the President and Congressional Democrats will get serious about cutting spending.

Yes, just when will John Boehner, and the rest of the politicians get serious about cutting trillion dollar spending on expenses like war rather than million dollar expenses like Planned Parenthood?

Controlling Food Costs

John Boehner said-“…Washington needs to do a lot more to end the uncertainty and get our economy moving again. It's clear that we need to cut spending, we need to stop unnecessary regulations, end the threat of tax hikes…. ” The Speaker has his talking point, to end uncertainty. But just whose uncertainty is he concerned with?

ExxonMobil pays nothing in taxes, yet the Speaker insists we end the threat of tax hikes. It doesn’t make sense, but neither does the fact that the oil companies are the ones receiving the pay raise Americans received from the lowered Social Security tax deductions the working class pays. Is he talking about righting this tax hike on the little people for the sake of Big Oil to get the economy going again?

Where is the end of constantly rising prices for oil and food? The Nation magazine states-“Now, with oil prices again on the rise, the price of food is likely to surpass all previous records and spark additional upheavals around the world. What we are seeing, in effect, is a vicious cycle in which rising oil prices drive up the cost of food, which triggers political disorder in the oil-producing countries, which in turn pushes oil to still higher prices, propelling food costs even higher, and so forth---with no end in sight.” And here in the U.S., food prices have risen thirty percent just since January.

And talk about spending, where is the certainty of cutting huge government subsides to Big Oil and Agri Business? According to Republicans “farm cuts’ are off the table. Whatever happened with the president’s pledge during his State of the Union Speech to cut subsidies to Big Oil? We haven’t heard a word about it, while they proclaim unbelievable profits. But we’ve heard plenty on spending cuts for the old and the sick, and those of the “Greatest Generation” living on fixed incomes. We’re just not hearing about the kind of spending cuts which could make a real difference, just the ones that harm the unprotected.

The double speak on all sides is blatant, while we’re left with the certainty that oil and food prices will continue to rise with no one wanting to stop them. All we really hear are the actors repeating their lines in a well rehearsed play. And it is a play, it’s called the history of the world; oppression rules while the actors tell the masses what they want them to hear, and what they should think.

Deficit Deceit For Hire

Republicans want to cut federal government spending which could result in 700,00 jobs lost. When Speaker John Boehner was informed of this possibility, his response was “so be it”.

Republicans will eliminate public jobs while doing nothing about the rampant explosion of contracting jobs that out sourcing two wars has cost us.

From the book “Pinstripe Patronage Political Favoritism From The Club House to the White House and Beyond” by Martin and Susan Tolchin- “The author of a riveting book on Blackwater, Jeremy Scahill, argues the magnitude of Blackwater’s activities is much greater that the public or the government is willing to admit: Americans are under the impression that the United States currently has about 145,000 active duty troops on the ground in Iraq. What is seldom mentioned is the fact that there are at least 126,000 private personnel deployed alongside the official armed forces. These private forces effectively double the size of the occupation force, largely without the knowledge of the U. S. taxpayers that foot the bill”. “How can I get soldiers to re-enlist offering them a $2,000 bonus, when they can go to Blackwater and draw beginning salaries of $80,000-$100,000?” complained one high-ranking army official”. “A House-Senate conference committee reporting on the use of private contractors in intelligence work estimated that the average civilian employee (in all sixteen intelligence agencies) cost the government $126,500 annually in salary, while the cost of the “core contractor” hovered at $250,000.”

Why aren’t the Republicans, the Speaker or even the Democrats looking at these exorbitant and un-necessary costs?

Again from Pinstripe Politics-”… in the words of Scott Amey, general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight-The problem, continued Amey, is that “the real politics of contracting is less about contracting than it is about campaign contributions” Amey estimated that in FY 2008, the government spent $531 billion for contracts…” Republican aims are to cut $600 billion from the federal budget. Cut out the contractors and we’re almost there.

General David Petraeus commander of forces in Afghanistan is guarded by a security corporation hired by the State Department. Maybe we could save a bundle if the US military could provide security to their own commanding general. After all if they’re capable of multiple deployments, surely we must think they’re capable of protecting their general.

The American public wouldn’t swallow the deficit deceit being perpetrated by the republicans if they only knew where their tax dollars were really going; into the pockets of large defense contractors and not just into the pockets of public employees.

Spending Cuts or More Deficit Deceit?

A lot of budget nonsense is being proposed which just doesn’t make sense.

Like the president’s proposal to cut back heating assistance to the elderly to 2008 levels. The $2 billion “savings” pales in comparison to the projected $1.1 trillion cost of the Medicare drug prescription plan over the next ten years. Republicans are howling about spending, yet they passed this trillion dollar giveaway to pharmaceutical conglomerates in 2003 with no concerns of how we were going to pay for it. If the Republicans are so concerned over debt they helped create, then let’s take back this trillion dollar windfall to pharmaceutical giants, oh but we can’t curb the dastardly profits corporations make at the expense of our seniors. We can only afford to medicate them, we just can’t afford heat for them.

Republican proposals include cutting funding for the FDA and the EPA.

Just last year peanut butter paste made in the state of Georgia was recalled due to contamination from bird droppings in the manufacturing plant. The federal government farmed out the responsibility for inspections to the state, who of course didn’t have the money to inspect the plants, so they went uninspected. resulting in tainted food which sickened Americans.

Last fall the salmonella out break in eggs which sickened thousands, was traced back to one egg producer with a history of numerous safety and work violations. Obviously regulation hasn’t stopped them from producing filthy food, so what is reducing funding for the nation’s food safety going to do? It will just make a failing system even worse; sickening and killing even more Americans than it does now. Will it cripple profits? Highly unlikely, there’s no stopping us from buying food.

Of course the EPA has to be de-funded, after all, pollution is good, it makes clean water scarce so then it becomes a commodity, then it becomes corporate controlled, and ‘profitable’.

Regulations do not prevent corporations from making mega profits, nor will freezing the elderly or feeding us poisoned food and water solve the deficit situation. Getting our money back from mega conglomerate global pharmaceutical corporations should be one of the first places we look to reduce the deficit.

But that’s never going to happen, we can cut social and consumer protection programs, but we can’t address the ‘problem programs’ of trillion dollar giveaways, as the political payoffs protect the corporations, instead of protecting the nation’s population.

Raiding Retirement Funds

Increasingly and with an alarming rate, pension plans are being blamed for the downfall of state budgets, which is not the whole truth. State pension plans invested heavily in the fraudulent subprime mortgages because of the high credit ratings those worthless bonds were given, and lost money as a result. In September 2010 an AP business article reported--“in 2008 Pennsylvania state employees retirement fund had investment losses of nearly 29%.”

The nationwide bank bail out and massive tax reductions on corporations are the drivers behind pension plan defaults. States don’t have the money like they used to, and rather than blame bank giveaways and corporations paying zero in taxes, they blame the people. Besides, it‘s easier to convince the masses it‘s public pensions driving the deficit, than to convince them it‘s the corporate/ bank people who created the country’s massive debts.

Interviewed on the NewsHour, Independent Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, stated, “this year, ExxonMobil, the most profitable corporation in the history of the world, is not paying a nickel in federal income taxes, despite having made $19 billion last year. In 2005, one-quarter of large corporations in America making a trillion in revenue didn't pay a nickel in taxes.” ”The deficit primarily has been caused by two wars unfunded, huge tax breaks to people who don't need it, an insurance-company-written Medicare Part D prescription drug program, and the bailout of Wall Street.”

The modern day double speak convinces us that we all need to share in the pain of debt reduction to take our focus off the real culprits; the bankers, the war machines, the insurance and pharmaceutical corporations who have caused this economic depression.

The great unwashed masses are expected to share the pain, just not jet setters like John Boehner. From the Washington Spectator “…(Boehner) maintains especially tight ties with a circle of lobbyists and aids representing some of the nation’s biggest businesses including Goldman Sachs, Google, Citigroup, R. J. Reynolds, MillerCoors and UPS,” the (NY) Times reported.” “They have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaigns, provided him with rides on their corporate jets, socialized with him at luxury golf resorts and water-front bashes…” The voters share the pain while the jet setters keep the gain. 　

Debt Hysteria

How can anyone take the debt reduction antics of our government seriously? It’s ludicrous to hear talk of the millions here and the millions there, when the Federal Reserve and our government has doled out trillions to banks, and the majority of citizens don’t even know it.

In her 2009 book “It Takes a Pillage”, Nomi Prins said “…the Fed…continued it’s transformation into a hedge fund of last resort, relaxing its collateral posting rules and lending trillions of dollars to the Street. Where banks once had to pony up secure assets such as Treasury bonds to get loans from the Fed, they could now post far more risky assets in return for very favorable loan conditions, and the Fed would keep a lid on who they were, and how much they got”.

William Greider writes in the January 2011 edition of the Nation magazine -”To get a rough glimpse of what the corporate state looks like, study the Federal Reserve’s list of banking, finance and business firms that received the $3.3 trillion the central bank dispensed in low-interest loans during the financial crisis (this valuable information in revealed only because reform legislators like Bernie Sanders fought for disclosure).”

Again from “It Takes a Pillage“---“Remember, Wall Street of the last ten years has been defined by an insane fixation on borrowing money wherever possible, even borrowing against wealth that didn’t even exist. So, lets just say that all of the banks borrowed up to ten times the amount those securities were once worth-a very conservative estimate, considering how hard banks worked to overturn the net capital rule in 2004, which enabled banks to borrow up to thirty times what they had in their (already illegal) wallets. …even with the conservative estimate, we’re looking at a possible system wide loss of $140 trillion. By that token, the $13 trillion of federal bailouts and loans, including the measly $700 billion in TARP money that the media likes to focus on, is a drop in a big scary bucket.”

Trillions have been given to the banks in secret, maybe this is why Rand Paul, newly elected Senator from Kentucky, is dazzling the masses by complaining that if re-elected and in 8 years this president will have spent close to $46 trillion, (which is not even close to the amount of debt banks piled up for us). 　

No wonder the government is cutting heating assistance to the elderly and food for the poor, this debt is out there and they know it.

Until they start talking about recouping some of the trillions we gave away to banks to cover their fraudulent actions, no one should be taking any of this debt hysteria seriously.

Who Regulates the Regulators?

John Boehner said the Republicans’ top priority was going to be the jobs issue. But what is the Speaker’s first order of business? Side tracking us with their bogus vote on repealing the health care bill. By focusing on repealing this bill they are doing us a great dis-service; we aren’t paying enough attention to the detrimental effects of too much consolidation of all industries in the US.

The merging mania we’ve seen in health insurance has been happening since President Reagan deregulated hospitals and insurance companies. Once allowed to become ‘for profit‘, insurance companies became monopolies able to fix prices and eliminate competition, part of the reason why this luke warm health insurance reform bill has become a political football.

The merging mania continues to this day; on Monday Feb 11 stocks were up on news of several mergers and the FCC has given GE permission to sell NBC to Comcast, already the nation’s largest cable provider, who will now become an even bigger media monopoly.

Bernie Sanders independent from Vermont said “Once we allow these companies to become this powerful, the FCC does not regulate them. They regulate the FCC.”

And it’s the same with the other huge conglomerates; Big Oil, Banks Too Big to Fail, along with the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. We don’t regulate them, they regulate us.

Republicans faithfully kept up the lament that it’s government regulations preventing companies from creating jobs. Shortly thereafter, the president ordered a review of all regulations to see which ones are prohibitive to job creation. Even Adam Smith who wrote the book on capitalism “Wealth of Nations”, said, there has to be regulation to keep the crooks from taking advantage of people.

This is certainly not what Thomas Paine had in mind when he said, “Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants; charters by annulling those rights, in the majority, leave the right by exclusion, in the hands of the few…(They) consequently are instruments of injustice.”

“But charters and corporations have a more extensive evil effect than what relates merely to elections. They are the source of endless contention in the places where they exist, and they lessen the common rights of national society…This species of feudality is kept up to aggrandise the corporations at the ruin of towns; and the effect is visible.”

His words are as true today as they were when they were first written. We’re seeing the ruination of towns, contention over health insurance, millions of Americans without jobs and millions of Americans losing their homes, all due to the evil effects of corporations who have become too big and too powerful to the detriment of us all.