Dr. William Dewar III examines a patient in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, January 17, 2011. (Photo: Nicole Bengiveno / The New York Times)
Why only a single-payer system can solve America’s health-care mess.
America’s broken health-care system suffers from what appear to be two separate problems. From the right, a chorus warns of the dangers of rising costs; we on the left focus on the growing number of people going without health care because they lack adequate insurance. This division of labor allows the right to dismiss attempts to extend coverage while crying crocodile tears for the 40 million uninsured. But the division between problem of cost and the problem of coverage is misguided. It is founded on the assumption, common among neoclassical economists, that the current market system is efficient. Instead, however, the current system is inherently inefficient; it is the very source of the rising cost pressures. In fact, the only way we can control health-care costs and avoid fiscal and economic catastrophe is to establish a single-payer system with universal coverage.
The rising cost of health care threatens the U.S. economy. For decades, the cost of health insurance has been rising at over twice the general rate of inflation; the share of American income going to pay for health care has more than doubled since 1970 from 7% to 17%. By driving up costs for employees, retirees, the needy, the young, and the old, rising health-care costs have become a major problem for governments at every level. Health costs are squeezing public spending needed for education and infrastructure. Rising costs threaten all Americans by squeezing the income available for other activities. Indeed, if current trends continued, the entire economy would be absorbed by health care by the 2050s.
Conservatives argue that providing universal coverage would bring this fiscal Armageddon on even sooner by increasing the number of people receiving care. Following this logic, their policy has been to restrict access to health care by raising insurance deductibles, copayments, and cost sharing and by reducing access to insurance. Even before the Great Recession, growing numbers of American adults were uninsured or underinsured. Between 2003 and 2007, the share of non-elderly adults without adequate health insurance rose from 35% to 42%, reaching 75 million. This number has grown substantially since then, with the recession reducing employment and with the continued decline in employer-provided health insurance. Content to believe that our current health-care system is efficient, conservatives assume that costs would have risen more had these millions not lost access, and likewise believe that extending health-insurance coverage to tens of millions using a plan like the Affordable Care Act would drive up costs even further. Attacks on employee health insurance and on Medicare and Medicaid come from this same logic—the idea that the only way to control health-care costs is to reduce the number of people with access to health care. If we do not find a way to control costs by increasing access, there will be more proposals like that of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and the Republicans in the House of Representatives to slash Medicaid and abolish Medicare.
The Problem of Cost in a Private, For-Profit Health Insurance System
If health insurance were like other commodities, like shoes or bow ties, then reducing access might lower costs by reducing demands on suppliers for time and materials. But health care is different because so much of the cost of providing it is in the administration of the payment system rather than in the actual work of doctors, nurses, and other providers, and because coordination and cooperation among different providers is essential for effective and efficient health care. It is not cost pressures on providers that are driving up health-care costs; instead, costs are rising because of what economists call transaction costs, the rising cost of administering and coordinating a system that is designed to reduce access.
The health-insurance and health-care markets are different from most other markets because private companies selling insurance do not want to sell to everyone, but only to those unlikely to need care (and, therefore, most likely to drop coverage if prices rise). As much as 70% of the “losses” suffered by health-insurance providers—that is, the money they pay out in claims—goes to as few as 10% of their subscribers. This creates a powerful incentive for companies to screen subscribers, to identify those likely to submit claims, and to harass them so that they will drop their coverage and go elsewhere. The collection of insurance-related information has become a major source of waste in the American economy because it is not organized to improve patient care but to harass and to drive away needy subscribers and their health-care providers. Because driving away the sick is so profitable for health insurers, they are doing it more and more, creating the enormous bureaucratic waste that characterizes the process of billing and insurance handling. Rising by over 10% a year for the past 25 years, health insurers’ administrative costs are among the fastest-growing in the U.S. health-care sector. Doctors in private practice now spend as much as 25% of their revenue on administration, nearly $70,000 per physician for billing and insurance costs.
For-profit health insurance also creates waste by discouraging people from receiving preventive care and by driving the sick into more expensive care settings. Almost a third of Americans with “adequate” health insurance go without care every year due to costs, and the proportion going without care rises to over half of those with “inadequate” insurance and over two-thirds for those without insurance. Nearly half of the uninsured have no regular source of care, and a third did not fill a prescription in the past year because of cost. All of this unutilized care might appear to save the system money. But it doesn’t. Reducing access does not reduce health-care expenditures when it makes people sicker and pushes them into hospitals and emergency rooms, which are the most expensive settings for health care and are often the least efficient because care provided in these settings rarely has continuity or follow up.

Table 1: Sources of Savings and Added Costs for a Hypothetical Massachusetts Single-Payer Health System
” Obviously this chart didn’t make the trip from “Word” to here ,but was on the savings from the Massachusetts system, minus the extra cost and the conclusion was a 15.75% savings”

The great waste in our current private insurance system is an opportunity for policy because it makes it possible to economize on spending by replacing our current system with one providing universal access. I have estimated that in Massachusetts, a state with a relatively efficient health-insurance system, it would be possible to lower the cost of providing health care by nearly 16% even after providing coverage to everyone in the state currently without insurance (see Table 1). This could be done largely by reducing the cost of administering the private insurance system, with most of the savings coming within providers’ offices by reducing the costs of billing and processing insurance claims. This is a conservative estimate made for a state with a relatively efficient health-insurance system. In a report prepared for the state of Vermont, William Hsiao of the Harvard School of Public Health and MIT economist Jonathan Gruber estimate that shifting to a single-payer system could lead to savings of around 25% through reduced administrative cost and improved delivery of care. (They have also noted that administrative savings would be even larger if the entire country shifted to a single-payer system because this would save the cost of billing people with private, out-of-state insurance plans.) In Massachusetts, my conservative estimates suggests that as much as $10 billion a year could be saved by shifting to a single-payer system.

Table 2: Greater Increase in Cost for U.S. Health-Care System, 1971-2007
Single-Payer Systems Control Costs by Providing Better Care

“This was an updated Chart showing how we spend twice as much for Health Care for an inferior product, basically the same thing that we who stay informed on these things have seen numerous times. No surprise, it hasn’t gotten any better.”
Adoption of a single-payer health-insurance program with universal coverage could also save money and improve care by allowing better coordination of care among different providers and by providing a continuity of care that is not possible with competing insurance plans. A comparison of health care in the United States with health care in other countries shows how large these cost savings might be. When Canada first adopted its current health-care financing system in 1968, the health-care share of the national gross domestic product in the United States (7.1%) was nearly the same as in Canada (6.9%), and only a little higher than in other advanced economies. Since then, however, health care has become dramatically more expensive in the United States. In the United States, per capita health-care spending since 1971 has risen by over $6,900 compared with an increase of less than $3,600 in Canada and barely $3,200 elsewhere (see Table 2). Physician Steffie Woolhandler and others have shown how much of this discrepancy between the experience of the United States and Canada can be associated with the lower administrative costs of Canada’s single-payer system; she has found that administrative costs are nearly twice as high in the United States as in Canada—31% of costs versus 17%.
The United States is unique among advanced economies both for its reliance on private health insurance and for rapid inflation in health-care costs. Health-care costs have risen faster in the United States than in any other advanced economy: twice as fast as in Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, or the United Kingdom. We might accept higher and rapidly rising costs had Americans experienced better health outcomes. But using life expectancy at birth as a measure of general health, we have gone from a relatively healthy country to a relatively unhealthy one. Our gain in life expectancy since 1971 (5.4 years for women) is impressive except when put beside other advanced economies (where the average increase is 7.3 years).
The relatively slow increase in life expectancy in the United States highlights the gross inefficiency of our private health-care system. Had the United States increased life expectancy at the same dollar cost as in other countries, we would have saved nearly $4,500 per person. Or, put another way, had we increased life expectancy at the same rate as other countries, our spending increase since 1971 would have bought an extra 15 years of life expectancy, 10 years more than we have. The failure of American life expectancy to rise as fast as life expectancy elsewhere can be directly tied to the inequitable provision of health care through our private, for-profit health-insurance system. Increases in life expectancy since 1990 have been largely restricted to relatively affluent Americans with better health insurance. Since 1990, men in the top 50% of the income distribution have had a six-year increase in life expectancy at age 65 compared with an increase of only one year for men earning below the median.

Figure 1: Increase in Health-Care Expenditures per Capita Associated with an Increase of One Year in Female Life Expectancy, 1971-2007
The international comparison also provides another perspective on any supposed trade-off between containing costs and expanding coverage. In countries other than the United States, almost all of the increase in health-care spending as a share of national income is due to better quality health care as measured by improvements in life expectancy (see Figure 2). The problem of rising health-care costs is almost unique to the United States, the only advanced industrialized country without universal coverage and without any effective national health plan.
In short, the question is not whether we can afford a single-payer health-insurance system that would provide adequate health care for all Americans. The real question is: can we afford anything else?
Sources: Cathy Shoen, “How Many Are Underinsured? Trends Among U.S. Adults, 2003 and 2007,” Health Affairs, June 10, 2008; “Insured but Poorly Protected: How Many Are Underinsured? U. S. Adults Trends, 2003 to 2007,” Commonwealth Fund, June 10, 2008 (commonwealthfund.org); David Cutler and Dan Ly, “The (Paper) Work of Medicine: Understanding International Medical Costs,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2011; Stephen M. Davidson, Still Broken: Understanding the U.S. Health Care System, Stanford Business Books, 2010; P Franks and C M Clancy, “Health insurance and mortality. Evidence from a national cohort,” The Journal of the American Medical Association, August 11, 1993; Allan Garber and Jonathan Skinner, “Is American Health Care Uniquely Inefficient?” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2008; Jonathan Gruber, “The Role of Consumer Co-payments for Health Care: Lessons from the RAND Health Insurance Experiment and Beyond,” Kaiser Family Foundation, October 2006 (kff.org); David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, “Administrative Waste in the U.S. Health Care System in 2003,” International Journal of Health Services, 2004; “The Uninsured: A Primer: Supplemental Data Tables,” Kaiser Family Foundation, December 2010; Karen Davis and Cathy Shoen, “Slowing the Growth of U.S. Health Care Expenditures: What are the Options?” Commonwealth Fund, January 2007 (commonwealthfund.org); “Accounting for the Cost of Health Care in the United States,” McKinsey Global Institute, January 2007 (mckinsey.com); “Investigation of Health Care Cost Trends and Cost Drivers,” Office of Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, January 29, 2010 (mass.gov); Trends in Mortality Differentials and Life Expectancy for Male Social Security-Covered Workers, by Average Relative Earnings by Hilary Waldron, Social Security Administration, October 2007; Richard G. Wilkinson, The Spirit Level, Bloomsbury Press, 2010; William Hsiao and Steven Kappel, “Act 128: Health System Reform Design. Achieving Affordable Universal Health Care in Vermont,” January 21, 2011 (leg.state.vt.us); Steffie Woolhandler and Terry Campbell, “Cost of Health Care Administration in the United States and Canada,” New England Journal of Medicine, 2003

The GOP has a blind spot in their thought process and it has been so for several years now.  Actually ever since the time of Dwight Eisenhower, the last responsible Republican president.  Since that time, and it accellerated during the Ronnie Reagan years, the GOP has moved farther and farther to the right and their mantra of federal government BAD, company corporatists/wealthy patrons GOOD has continued to become solidified into the main line of the Republican Party.  Rabid right wingers, tea party fundamentalists, and libertarian promoters have taken over the GOP and unless some miracle happens and the moderate conservatives take the ship back, it will become simply the CORPORATE FUNDAMENTALIST DICTATORSHIP OF AMERICA.

A for instance, yesterday, Thursday June 23, 2011, the majority leader of the House of Representatives walked out of a joint committee searching to find a way to create a budget agreement that would also allow the country’s credit limit to be increased in order that the United States Government does not DEFAULT on our financial obligations.  Eric Cantor (R) of Virginia (makes me so ashamed of my state), decided that the GOP had gotten all they were going to get and the Democrats were insisting on the elimination of tax giveaways to corporations and wealthy Americans (the GOP calls them tax increases LOL) and the Republicans were not going to allow such a travesty.   You see, this is the Republican idea of bipartisan negotiations.  “You give us what we want, and all is well, and no you can’t have anything of what you want”.  They can’t quite understand, perhaps no cognitive ability, that bipartisan means working together to accomplish a goal that both can feel good about.

Cantor is among the worst of the hypocrits now serving in the GOP controlled House of Represenatives.  Oh he is not alone, by far considering that most of the leadership and a goodly number of the rank and file are such hypocritical bastards it is an embarassment for our nation, when we are viewed by the rest of the world.   I personally am sickened by the majority of GOP representatives from my beautiful state.  Cantor is just the national face of our cretinous GOP political hacks

Cantor has stated that he walked out because the Democrats wanted to enact tax increases as part of the deal and the GOP will not consider tax increases at all.  When asked if the committee’s work was wasted, he made the typical arrogant GOP statement that IF the Democrats are willing to take tax increases off the table completely, he and the GOP will be happy to work with them.  IS HE REALLY THAT OBTUSE?  REALLY?  Yes, Virginia, he really is.

Claims now that Obama and Boehner must get involved to resolve the dilema and get a “deal” worked out.  Some deal?  Will we get the same hard negotiation that Obama did when the Bush TAX RATES were debated?  AS I recall, the average working American got royally screwed on that deal, but the rich folks made out like bandits (as usual).

Unless this president grows a spine and finally stands up to the GOP, the American people will get royally shafted once again.

IF Obama and the Democrats allow the Republicans to screw the American people with budgetary funding slashes and there are no elimination of corporate tax breaks for companies like EXXON, they will definately deserve to lose their political cushy jobs in the 2012 elections.

It is time for Obama to decide if he is a Democrat or a Republican.  Remember, he ran as a Democrat!!!    time for thos bush tax cuts to go, time for the ethanol subsidies to go, time for the energy tax credits to go, time for the GOP to go.

Think about this folks, name me one thing, EVER that the GOP has done that was to benefit the average American Citizen.  Not Bill Gates, but people like Bill and Suzy Smith who work two jobs just to keep their family fed, clothed and housed.

NONE, NEVER NOT A SINGLE TIME IN HISTORY.

State Legislators:

From Wisconsin to Ohio, from Michigan to Florida the new GOP tea party hacks elected to the governor’s chair and state legislative houses have been exercising their new found muscle and punching the American worker class right in the snot locker.  These people have been moving forward with a program established back in the 1970s when the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) organization came in to being and they are moving forward on that set of plans to turn this nation into a corporate owned, but “republic centered” oligarchy.  This organization, (ALEC) is simply a very dangerous group of conservative and libertarian advocates to eradicate the gains this nation has made in employee rights and protections, fair wages, decent working hours and safe conditions, and the ability to challenge their wrongs in a fair and impartial court of legal jurisdiction.  When ALEC’s job is complete (unless the American people stop them) the State Legislative organizations will supplant the Congress of the United States, there will be no labor protections, wages will be reduced to the lowest possible level that will prevent rioting in the streets and the potential harm to the wealthy owners of the country.

New GOP governors in these states, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Indiana, along with the fat tub of lard Christie in New Jersey have all shown themselves to be the perfect stooges of the folks who actually own the ALEC and the Americans for Prosperity front groups.  But fortunately, the people of Wisconsin for certain have stepped up to the plate and started pushing back against these egregious assaults on the ordinary American worker.  With recall petitions and the follow on elections the people of Wisconsin are saying we will not put up with this garbage and we didn’t vote for this type of dictatorial tyranny.

Federal Legislators:

The Congress of the United States has become a horrendous, dysfunctional group of do nothing elected officials.  The new congress was seated in January and they were elected on the premise that they would get this country moving again with jobs and addressing the economy.  They have done absolutely nothing along either of those two paths.   There has been nothing but bickering, sound bite attacks on the “other party”, and touting in a loud arrogant voice that the AMERICAN PEOPLE sent them a message.  Problem was, they were not listening to the message the American people were sending.   Which is painfully obvious, otherwise the direction of the congress would not be 180 out from what 70% of the US citizenry are saying they want to happen.

Let’s face it folks, the Congress of the United States (both houses), care not a single whit about the American People.  Their sole purpose is two-fold.  First and foremost, is to get re-elected.  They start their campaign for re-election the day after the polls close on the current election.   The second purpose is to ensure that their big donors are satisfied with their investments.  So, legislation that is harmful to their donor interests gets shelved or gutted so it becomes a laughing stock of legislation.  Horrors, let’s never mention the word REVENUE INCREASE for the government entities. Everyone with any intelligence knows that means TAX INCREASE and the GOP along with their pet PIT BULLS of the Tea Party hack mob, will scream and hold their ears until those words fade away.  Every two years a federal election is held to install duly elected People’s Representatives in the House of Representatives.  Every six years we do the same for the People’s Senators in the US Senate.  Problem is, these political persons, are NOT the representatives of the people.  They could care less about the folks who voted for them, EXCEPT at election time.

The Courts:

Corporate interests are served not only by the purchased senators and house representatives in the US Congress, but by the black robed charlatans who sit in the Supreme Court of the United States.  As for the bias of the Supreme Court, one merely has to look at the decisions that have come down from this supposedly august group of legal experts. 

Nothing that protects the ordinary citizen has been positively addressed by these nine lifetime appointed people.  Plenty of things that hurt the ordinary citizen, everything from declaring that a corporation is a person, to enabling a corporation with the same rights to free speech and political involvement as a human being.  To the latest insult where they threw out the lawsuit of women who were suing WalMart over  work assignment and human resources discrimination and sexual bias.  All things corporate are good, all things anti-corporate are bad.  That is the mantra of our conservative majority US Supreme Court.

So What Can Be Done?

Well with the Supreme Courts, nothing really.  They have lifetime jobs and we can only pray that the most conservative of these people will hurry up and either die, get very sick or some other reason to have them leave their permanent posts.

As for the State Legislators, State Governors and Federal Congress critters?  Demonstrations of voter anger is a pretty good bellwether for these people.  They don’t really care a lot about the marches so far down Constitution Avenue in Washington.  But  when those demonstrations are taking place in their own communities, the local press and television media are there to cover the situation. It is embarrassing for an elected politician to be shown to be a liar, a thief and a corrupt charlatan.  It is also embarrassing for them to be shown as not paying attention to their constituency, their actual constituency, those people who voted for them????

Whether a political legislator in state, municipal or federal governments, or the Governor of a state, when a mass demonstration of regular citizens, especially those senior citizens who vote religiously, start at their very doorsteps, they tend to pay more attention.  Kicking them out of office and pressing for legal action in appropriate cases, really gets attention. 

Don’t know about you, but I am going to help form and activate groups to express our Constitutionally guaranteed rights and let these political prostitutes know what the PEOPLE REALLY WANT!!!

by: Michael Pirsch, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis

President Barack Obama holds the door while talking to Chief of Staff Bill Daley inside his office in the West Wing of the White House, March 8, 2011. (Photo: Pete Souza / Official White House Photo)”There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” -Warren Buffett to The New York Times, November 26, 2006
There is overwhelming evidence that we are entering the final chapter of class warfare in the US. Today, in the “public arena,” it is forbidden to say class warfare, and many citizens do not regard themselves as working class. The assault on language comes compliments of the propaganda apparatus, which includes: public relations, marketing, corporate media and the entertainment industry, universities, think tanks and so on. Its purpose is to distract our attention from serious matters so we can focus on trivial matters – usually involving consuming. Edward Bernays, the founder of the modern propaganda industry, described the process:
Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government. We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of … in almost every act of our lives whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.[1]
In addition to inventing the propaganda model still in use today, Bernays’ model created support for World War I, first in England and then in the US, calling the war to save Morgan’s billions the war for “making the world safe for democracy.”
We have been overwhelmed by the propaganda apparatus to the point that it controls our thought processes, causing us to become relentless shoppers, even against our own interests. It controls our thinking in the public sphere so that we support the wealthy elite, even against our own interests. Far too many of us have been rendered thoughtless and clueless as to what it means to live in a democratic society. It is not democracy because the government says it is; it is democracy when the masses are informed and act through their delegates to develop policy that promotes the general welfare. Today there are two sovereign nations that exhibit more democratic tendencies than all others: Venezuela and Bolivia. Because of their efforts to build democracy, both sovereign nations have been under attack by the US. In Venezuela, the US sponsored a coup in 2002. In Bolivia, the US government has sponsored a secessionist movement made up of the wealthy elite, whose tactics includes murder of government supporters. The Bolivian government expelled the US ambassador for his role in the destabilization attempt. Both Venezuela and Bolivia have adopted new constitutions which were the result of a process that involved all citizens and especially both countries’ indigenous populations, who were previously completely excluded from any role in government. Both countries have improved access to their medical systems, increased literacy and established local spaces where democracy can be practiced. This shift causes the US empire considerable distress, because the empire fears the spread of real democracy more than anything else.
An essential element in a democracy is the development of a critical consciousness that allows us to resist succumbing to the siren call of the propaganda apparatus. Hugo Chavez, in a 2003 interview, spoke of the need to develop critical thinking:
It seems to be part of a larger social defect in the US – that’s a society that should really develop some kind of response to the intellectual battering that seems to take place daily. I sincerely hope that one day the US public will develop some kind of critical consciousness, that they will remove the veil from their eyes and see the media powers for what they are. No part of the human community can live entirely on its own planet with its own laws of motion and cut off from the rest of humanity. They must be critical, and make it their personal responsibility to humanity and morality to discover the truth.[2]
Eduardo Galeano, well-known Latin American author and critical thinker, continued in the same vein:
Never have so many been held incommunicado by so few. More and more have the right to hear and see, but fewer and fewer have the privilege of informing, giving their opinion and creating. The dictatorship of the single word and the single image, much more devastating than that of the single party, is imposing a life whose exemplary citizen is a docile consumer and passive spectator. Never before have so few fooled so many.[3]
What better time than now for the wealthy elite to crush any chance of developing any critical thought. A substantial majority in the US have been so overwhelmed by the consumer/celebrity culture that distracts from the real situation that they are now fearful of harboring a critical thought, let alone speaking critically about the surrender of democracy to the wealthy elite. No matter what outrage the wealthy elite throws at us all, every indicator suggests there would be little, if any, resistance to that outrage. In fact, now is the best time for the wealthy elite to finally win the war and put into action all the highly repressive measures passed by Congress this decade. The repression already authorized, if put into full effect, would make the US a recognizably totalitarian state.
The goal of winning the war is to control all of the wealth and all of the people in the US and in the rest of the world, including, of course, governments. This victory is being accomplished by the combination of the financial services and military-related industries, which, in addition to lobbying for the continuation of several wars in the Middle East (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Palestine, Iran, etcetera) is now also engaged in stealing government benefits from the citizens of Ireland, Spain, Greece, Latvia, England, France and the US. All governments are cooperating with the market (primarily Wall Street and London banks) by terminating long-running programs designed to promote the general welfare. The stolen money is being given by the governments to Wall Street and its felonious partners in European banks – however, large, passionate demonstrations and massive student and worker strikes mark the reaction in Europe.
Our time is coming. Soon, Congress will once again deliver more tax cuts to the wealthiest people on the planet, at a time when perhaps more than 60 percent of the American people is at severe economic risk. This time also marks the beginning of the process of ending Social Security and replacing it with mandated contributions to Wall Street, which – for a fee, and with no guaranteed return – manage individual workers’ retirement accounts. Wall Street’s management of what used to be Social Security will – through commissions and other fees that are not a cost in the present Social Security system – reap an obscene amount of money, maybe in the hundreds of billions annually.
In addition to depriving the federal budget of the income necessary to provide the most basic services by eliminating taxes for the wealthy elite, we have committed ourselves to conducting “endless war” wherever and whenever it suits the wealthy elite’s purpose. The combination of tax cuts and funding for the endless wars during a “jobless” recovery ensures we will have a citizenry best described as desperate and clueless. The “endless” war is one of the greatest frauds perpetrated upon the citizens of the US. A failed trillion dollar intelligence and defense system results in 9/11; then, lies are perpetrated by the president, the Congress, the military and the intelligence apparatus; those lies are, in turn, supported enthusiastically by the propaganda apparatus, and we commit international war crimes by invading Iraq and Afghanistan. The US’s empirical bullying has made the world much more dangerous, not safer. The more we terrorize people, the more terrorists we create. Our feeding of the financial services and military industries is sucking the spiritual, economic and physical life out of us – just as Dwight D. Eisenhower predicted.
During the summer of 2009, the Obama administration fired the first volley in the renewed battle led by the wealthy elite to eliminate Social Security. It announced a freeze in the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to Social Security recipients for the years 2010 and 2011. This was the first time in 30 years no COLA would be received. Never mind the cost increases in all necessities and the fact that no one was publicly calling for a freeze. The freeze was absolutely unnecessary and cruel. Social Security recipients are also required to pay more each month for basic Medicare coverage. Many elder workers are fired or laid off well in advance of their retirement age. It is cheaper to hire someone to work for less than the eliminated elder worker. The consequences of refusing increases to Social Security, raising the retirement age and lowering benefits is a recipe for eldercide.
Social Security is not a government-funded program. Employees’ deductions are matched 100 percent their employers. There is simply no other tax money involved with Social Security. Medicare is something else, although funded with part of the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax. Private insurers and the pharmaceutical industry were allowed to participate in Medicare and could be considered somewhat responsible for the miserable shape it is in.
Obama is setting up this system on behalf of the wealthy elite, who were among his earliest and largest financial backers in 2008. According to the Congressional Budget Office and the Social Security Administration, with no changes whatsoever, Social Security will remain solvent until 2037. That is 27 years from now. Even with unemployment projected to remain at 20 percent or higher – which means FICA receipts will remain low or decrease further – Social Security is not the problem it is made out to be, especially considering all the current crises, such as endless war, global climate change catastrophes, jobless recovery and so on. So, why did Obama propose a two percent cut in FICA for employees? If you earn $1,000 per paycheck, you will receive a $20 “bonus” each payday. However, if Obama’s proposal of a federal sales tax passes, that $20 will go right back to the US Treasury. That two-percent cut will definitely speed up the day when Social Security outgo exceeds income. At that time, the entire propaganda apparatus will be let loose to clear the way for Wall Street to take over Social Security. What a deal! You give me about $480 per year (unless there is a federal sales tax) and I give you several trillions of dollars to burn through. This is why critical thinking is so important. The wealthy elite dangle about $40 a month in front of debt-ridden, have-a-job-but-afraid-of-losing-it people, get hundreds of bought members of Congress to shill for it and, bingo, the door to steal Social Security is wide open.
On the other side of the coin, raising the dollar limit upon which FICA is taxable (right now, nothing above $106,000 is taxed) would keep Social Security solvent into the next century. A simple solution to a projected problem, but politically impossible because, although 70 to 80 percent of the population might support this, what counts is what the top one percent wants.
Why all this fuss over something that might pose a problem 27 years from now? The wealthy elite passionately hate Social Security because it represents a major victory by the rest of us during the classic battles of class warfare during the 1920′s to the 1940′s. It represents fruit from the tree of democracy. People who were in nearly the exact position we find ourselves today – except that they had no safety net at all – organized, agitated for and won a federal jobs program, a mortgage foreclosure moratorium, unemployment insurance, minimum wage and Social Security, among many other benefits they fought for and won. That era represents a major retreat for the wealthy elite in its relentlessly waged class war in the US. The wealthy elite hate democracy unless they can own it.
Another motive just might be the trillions of dollars Wall Street would like to get its hands on. Most private sector defined pension plans have been dumped on the federal pension guaranty corporation (which pays pennies to the dollar on what pensioners previously received). Public pension plans are also being targeted, feeding the insane position that goes something like this: “if I am down, I am going to drag down everybody like me.” How else to explain the media and political flacks droning on and on about spoiled, bloated public workers with fat pension plans? Obama’s cynical ploy of freezing federal employees’ pay is a bow to these tactics. It is amazing how often we hear of the great financial sacrifices made by presidential appointees and how much more they could earn in the private sector. Of course, the benefits accruing from their corrupt behavior while in public office are not factored in. The fate of 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts must not be discussed as Wall Street awaits its chance to steal from the poorest citizens of the US.
Other crises that seem to be forgotten include: the Savings and Loan rip-off following deregulation by Reagan (cost: over $500 billion); the stock market bubble of the Clinton-Bush years (401(k)s and IRAs wiped out); corporate manufacturing’s flight from about 1975 on (and the associated loss of middle-class jobs and status); and the most recent fraud visited upon us, the fraudulent mortgage-backed securities bubble made possible by Clinton administration deregulation (its related losses still unfolding).
Clinton’s current financial situation is suggestive. When he left office in 2001, reports had him owing $10-15 million in legal fees. Since then, thanks to speaking fees, a salary from his nonprofit foundation and investments, he can afford to blow $5 million or more on his daughter’s wedding. One is left to imagine Obama’s hidden retirement plan should he deliver Social Security (after George W. Bush’s failure to do so became the “greatest disappointment” of his presidency). All former members of Congress, the president, vice president and cabinet officials should be required to submit detailed financial reports for at least five years after they leave office. If it seems they have become unusually rich (like Clinton), they should be investigated and, if warranted, indicted.
The list of priorities that need to be addressed in the federal budget should not in any way, shape or form include Social Security, unless the real intent is to steal it. Once the deed is done, it is all over.
Tax cuts are vital to the wealthy elite. They hate the federal income tax and have opposed it since its enactment in 1916. Beginning in the Carter era, the wealthy elite have been blasting away at what remains of their meager tax rates (that is, the maximum marginal rate after custom-made individual deductions). Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and Obama all have participated in the endgame for progressive taxation. Obama has even gone so far as to reduce the estate tax, which only applies to about 2 percent of taxpayers. Ironically, reducing the estate tax has come to be very important to many who will never inherit an estate that would qualify to be taxed: the power of the propaganda apparatus again.
There was a time when the wealthy elite actually paid substantial taxes. The purpose of taxing the extraordinarily rich is to prevent an aristocracy from developing and to maintain a true democracy, a feat Aristotle recognized as impossible in the face of great income inequalities. Now, after over 35 years of cut, cut, cut for the rich, we have the most powerful aristocracy in history, and they are waging war against the rest of us. If you follow the results of studies that show the disparity of wealth in the US, you will see the flow of money from the bottom 90 percent to the top 1 percent over the 60 years between 1950 and 2010. The statistical evidence of the existence of class war is the direct result of the wealthy elite’s ownership of Congress, the executive branch and the courts.
Wealth is the value of everything you own minus debt.
Disparity of Wealth
In 1933, the wealthiest one percent of the population held 33.3 percent of the wealth. In 1974, the wealthiest one percent held 19.9 percent of the wealth.
In 2007, the wealthiest one percent held 65.4 percent of the wealth.
In 1933, the bottom 90 percent held 66.7 percent of the wealth.
In 1974, the bottom 90 percent held 80.1 percent of the wealth.
In 2007, the bottom 90 percent held 34.6 percent of the wealth.
Federal Tax Rates (after custom-made individual deductions)
1974 Capital gains tax rate: 35 percent
1950 Highest marginal tax rate: 90 percent
2005 Capital gains tax rate: 15 percent
2005 Highest marginal tax rate: 34 percent
Average Real Income Change 1973-2000
Average real income of bottom 90 percent: -7 percent
Average real income of top 1 percent: + 148 percent
Average real income of top 0.1 percent: + 343 percent
[4]

Average Amount of Wealth Held by Persons: 2009 Census
Single Black Women: $100
Single Hispanic Women: $120
All White Men: $43,800
All White Women: $41,500
All Black Men: $7,900
Amount of Wealth Held by Families: 2009 Census
1986 Black Family Wealth: $2,000
2009 Black Family Wealth: $5,000
1986 White Family Wealth: $22,000
2009 White Family Wealth: $100,000
Full-Time Minimum Wage, Adjusted for Inflation
1968: $18,262
2004: $10,712
[5]
There is a common thread running through these statistics: the events that have eroded our quality and quantity of life have been controlled and orchestrated by the wealthy elite, and they are not finished yet. The picture is one dominated by racism, militarism and corporate control of government – three vital ingredients of fascism. Post-racism, indeed.
The story of class warfare would not be complete without a look at the behemoth military-security apparatus. A bipartisan Congress has passed draconian legislation during the past nine years that essentially leaves our Constitution with rights intact – at least, the right to own guns, and the unlimited corporate right to influence elections. All totalitarian repressive tactics such as unchecked surveillance, imprisonment without charge, summary execution, the right to a lawyer, the right to know the charges brought against you and confront your accuser, and so on, have been destroyed by legislation and presidential fiat. In addition, the military and military tactics and equipment have been inserted into local law enforcement, with the purpose of shutting off avenues of dissent and/or dealing with dissent by the use of overwhelming force (think Pittsburg G-20). We live inside a nation that has already built the legal and physical infrastructure (the latter partly contracted to Halliburton) so that hundreds of thousands can be pulled off the street in a single day, imprisoned without charge and denied access to contact with family and legal representation.
When Obama announced his creation of the deficit commission, he suggested all military and domestic security spending were off limits for discussion. If a candidate proposes serious reductions in military and domestic security spending, that candidate is toast. The pols whimper that it is political suicide to propose serious cuts in military and domestic security spending; not doing so guarantees the slaughter of millions – as we have seen in the Middle East and every other place our war-happy generals practice their craft.
The US empire has expanded to include over 800 overseas military facilities, ranging from city-sized bases to single building outposts in 63 countries – not counting the bases in Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.[6] The US empire military budget including cost of war (which is not included in the annual defense budget) is over $1 billion, slightly less than one-half (46.4 percent) of what all other countries on the planet combined spend.[7]
The power the US military wields is felt in every country on the planet. The US military is “supported,” with hardly any dissent, not only by the Democrat and Republican members of Congress, but also, presumably, by over 90 percent of the electorate, if you count total votes in each Democrat versus Republican race for House, Senate and president. This one-party/war-party system has produced unconditional love of war and expansion of empire. Thus, a vote for Democrats or Republicans is an endorsement of empire. There is no question that the one-party system has consistently supported military expansion across the globe. While many of the people who voted for Democrats may be offended by a claim that their votes endorsed empire, that is the result, if not the intent, of their votes. Meanwhile, polls show that more than half of those polled do not support an American empire. Count one more success for the propaganda apparatus.
Perhaps you might remember the $12 billion “lost” in Iraq in 2002.[8] The money was shipped from the US to the Green Zone in Baghdad. The money arrived shrink-wrapped on pallets and disappeared. No real investigation took place, but why investigate what was already known? The scandal didn’t get much play in the media either. A lack of media play creates a lack of concern by the masses. That $12 billion could certainly fill a lot of holes in a budget whose deficit is tirelessly evoked, alongside a “perception managed” campaign against Social Security, in one of the last gambits in the 160-year-long class war. But promoting the general welfare is not one of the wealthy elite’s concerns.
That the wealthy elite hate democracy is beyond question. The WikiLeaks of State Department cables exposed that hatred over and over again. All governments are expected to do the bidding of the US empire, especially when those demands are contrary to the actions and thoughts of that government’s own citizens. Specific examples of the hatred of democracy include: the 2000 vote in Florida; the kidnapping , during a US-backed coup in Venezuela, of President Chavez in 2002; the 1992 and 2004 kidnapping of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (Aristide won the 2002 election with over 92 percent of the vote); the allowing of the criminalization of Aristide’s political party, Famni Lavalas; the support for the ouster of Honduras President Manuel Zelaya and for the resultant coup government; the support for Israel’s policies of overturning the most democratic election in Arab history in Palestine by jailing victorious Hamas legislators and exacting severe collective punishments against the Palestinians in Gaza by blockade, and, later, by a massacre.
Another example of elite disgust with democracy was offered during September 2008, when Congress was ordered to bail out the wealthy elite’s bankers. Prior to the first vote, I called over 120 Congresspeople at their Washington offices. After the House rejected the bailout, I called about 20 Senators. The calls to the House revealed that each member’s office was receiving a torrent of phone calls. These calls were not part of an organized effort, but came out of genuine and passionate opposition. I was informed by the staff of various members that over 90 percent of the callers opposed the bailout. After a few phone calls to Senate members, it became apparent that the senators would not listen to the people and would follow the orders of the wealthy and bail out the banks.
Rep. Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California’s 27th District (comprising Sherman Oaks and Northridge) spoke on the House floor during the second attempt to pass the bailout. He revealed that more than one House member was told that martial law would be declared if the House failed to pass the bailout.[9] The obscene wealth of the elite was threatened by democratic activity of the nation’s citizens. The bailout and how it was executed remains one of many examples that our wealthy elite hates democracy.
We really have very little space in our lives to practice democracy as it is meant to be practiced. The union movement has engaged in sporadic dances with democracy, but those were finished with the creation of mega-size “local” unions. Nearly all of the successes by the rest of us in this class warfare have been due in no small part to the extent that democracy still exists in the unions. Now, there are still a few locals that practice real democracy internally, and they are the most successful unions today. Our greatest achievement in the class struggle took place during the staggering increase in union membership that took place between 1933 and 1947. Our long slide to the bottom began with the anti-solidarity Taft-Hartley legislation that severely limited freedom of association and expression for all citizens except the wealthy elite. It continued with the Red Scare, which drove some of the most dedicated, compassionate organizers in the US out of jobs and careers – a brilliant tactic by their adversaries because it also effectively disappeared from our knowledge the notion of organizing for positive social change. The legacy of the Red Scare continues today as dissidents are conflated with terrorists. Fear and more fear keeps us under control.
Union members did not reject democracy. Rather, following the New Deal and World War II, an all-out attack was waged against union activists, with the assistance of Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)-affiliated leaders. This turnabout involved a self-cleaning of the CIO on behalf of the wealthy elite. Unions were kicked out of the CIO for being deemed too radical, and some of the radical unions changed their philosophy to get along. Union democracy has been the main victim, since union members are more radical than their leaders and allowing democratic decisions to be made would disrupt the leaders’ cozy relationship with the wealthy elite.
So, today, we are left with no place to learn about and practice democracy except in our neighborhoods (the physical, not the virtual, ones). The rest of us cannot begin to compete with the wealthy elite for access to the media; we cannot compete with the wealthy elite in the ability to control the propaganda apparatus and the wealthy elite cannot compete with us in our neighborhoods.
A vital instrument in the propaganda apparatus’ control of our thinking and thought processes is the television. More than 80 percent of the funds spent in the 2010 election were spent in the realm of television. Imagine what would happen if we didn’t watch it. Billions of dollars would be wasted because the voters did their own research and, through discussions with their neighbors, decided on the candidate with the best program, not the best television ads. An achievable dream, as long as there is unfettered access to a neutral Internet?
Typically, in difficult times, it is neighbors who come to offer assistance. When floodwaters threaten your home and the military has come, not to help, but to provide “security.” Our Internet and other long-distance friends will not be able to help in the wonderful way of neighbors who cooperate to help each other. We can organize in our neighborhoods to deal with our common struggles, and, from that, democracy will grow and grow, until it engulfs the whole nation.
Becoming informed, educating each other, agitating on issues and organizing can create a sustainable economy through ideas such as Gardens Not Lawns, Food Not Bombs, community radio, free health clinics (many doctors would be happy to volunteer), free legal clinics, transportation cooperatives – the list is as boundless as our collective imagination. Beginning in our neighborhoods, it is possible to form an organic, progressive political movement to sweep the land.
The question remains: will we allow the story to be “Class Warfare: The Final Chapter,” or will we create the alternative by beginning the class struggle? The base of the wealthy elite has always been led by the House of Morgan (J. Pierpont Morgan) which lives as a corporate person in the forms of Morgan Stanley and Morgan Chase, preeminent leaders in the world’s financial markets. Yes, the very markets that are “nervous” and “jittery” (real human traits) about countries that owe them money. Plagued by nerves and jitters, the markets are busy raiding old-age pensions, family assistance programs and the like all over Europe – the same prescription followed for years in the so-called third world and in the US right now.
“Power concedes nothing without a demand – it never has and it never will….” These are still powerful words spoken by one of our greatest Americans, Frederick Douglass. The sad truth is that we have not made any demands since the Civil Rights struggle and the anti-Vietnam War struggle during the 1950-1970′s. We are at the fork in the road: to the right is class warfare – the final chapter – and to the left, the class struggle begins.
A grassroots-based movement, as opposed to the billionaire-controlled, top-down Tea Party, will be able to effect progressive rather than regressive programs. It is ironic that the wealthy elite recognize the value of neighborhood organizing while the left ignores this base. The Koch brothers-sponsored Tea Party was using tactics advocated by Saul Alinsky, one of our greatest radical neighborhood organizers. They used the tactics; what they did not do was hand out Alinsky’s book, “Reveille For Radicals.” If they had, the Tea Party could have transformed itself into a truly progressive force.
Finally, it is our right and our duty to replace the corrupted government with one that works for the public welfare, ensuring that the wealthy elite never again endanger all life on this planet or destroy our collective humanity. We are “endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights … among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” We must recognize our government has become destructive of those ends and reform it. The Declaration of Independence goes on to say, “mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuse and usurpations … reduce them under absolute despotism… ” we must then accomplish wholesale change. Have you suffered enough, or do you want more?
[1] Sandy Leon Vest: “Consumers Are Sleeping With the Enemy – and Paying For It,” Common Dreams, February 26, 2010.
[2] Mark Weisbrot: “Interviewing Chavez,” North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA); February 12, 2003.
[3] Media in the Americas; (date unknown); NACLA Report on the Americas, page 14; (Ibid).
[4] G. William Domhoff: “Who Rules America? Wealth, Income, and Power,” September 2005; (updated November 2010).
[5] Julie Hollar: “Wealth Gap Yawns and So Do Media: Little Interest in Study of Massive Race/Gender Disparities,” EXTRA!, a publication of Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR); February 6, 2010.
[6] Jules Dufour: “The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases: The Global Deployment of US Military Personnel,” January 7, 2007; Global Research.ca/Centre For Research on Globalization.
[7] http://globalissues.org/latitude/75/worldmilitaryspending
[8] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq
[9] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaG9d_4zij8

We have now seen behind the curtain a teensy bit, and the budget dollars are evidently no longer the sticking point. Now it is the GOP’s demand to gut the EPA’s regulatory authority to ensure that our coal mines are safe, our water and air are as breathable as we should have it and other regulatory things that protect us, but cause big business headaches and money. Go figure, huh?

Frankly, I blame both sides of the house in this budget fiasco. The democrats in 2010 had a majority in both houses. They played fast and loose with the budget and allowed the GOP to get ahead of the game with the Bush tax cut deal for the wealthy. They still dithered in September, October, November and December. Even when the House was a LAME DUCK for the Democrats, they still didn’t stand up and push the issue.
Now the House majority is with the GOP and the Tea Party hacks. Lord help us all, we will see the machete’s come out more and more often. The GOP has no concept about governing, they only know how to campaign and put out bull crap propaganda. So, now they have the House Majority and are slashing budgets for various federal agencies and programs with NO concern for what those agencies or programs do. They simply cut across the boards. As one smart ass congressional aide told me in a meeting “we all have to share the pain”. My response to him was, bull shit. When you all remove the tax credits for large business and the extremely wealthy, and get our tax revenue back in synch with those credits, then let’s talk about sharing the pain. The only people I see getting hurt in these GOP budget actions are the Poor, the children, the senior citizens and the working people. What I don’t see is any skin in the game for the top 5 percent of the population that holds more wealth than 85 percent of the rest of the American People. What I don’t see is the Exxons, GE, Halliburtons, BP, Shell, etc losing their multi billion dollar tax credits. What I don’t see are the large agricultural farming businesses losing those huge agriculture tax credits in the billions of dollars.

Now Ryan of Wisconsin has given us his “PATH TO PROSPERITY” budget program that he says will be instrumental in bringing the government back into a budgetary reality and that will bring about a huge increase in jobs (he claims more that 2 million). Bull feces. The republicans have pulled that crap before and we saw no improvement then either.
Now, also Ryan wants to attack the elderly of our nation with his budget as well as the poor and poor children with his draconian slashes with Medicare and Medicaid. Let’s look at the medicare thing, he says that we should shut down the current system and replace it with government provided VOUCHERS that seniors can use to BUY INSURANCE ON THE PRIVATE MARKET….. Even a great number of true Republicans recognize that this is a falsehood. First, the cost will expand far beyond the value of those vouchers and seniors will have to pay a lot more out of pocket, money that they don’t have for the majority of the seniors out there.

Secondly, Ryan and the GOP/Tea Party have either forgotten or are conveniently ignoring history. The Medicare program came into being because the for profit insurance companies did not want to cover seniors. They made it almost impossible for anyone over the age of 65 to be covered for health care. SO, the seniors demonstrated, threatened the congress and Medicare was finally born, against the efforts of the GOP. Now Ryan believes that with more than 40 years gone by, the American public have forgotten those days so it is safe to shaft the senior citizens again.

Simple fact? The GOP doesn’t want to compromise, it is their way or nothing and the Democrats have lost their balls for a knock down drag out fight.

So, while we can RECALL these people, let’s keep their actions and their words foremost in the collective memory of our nation’s people and in November of 2012, let’s show them to the door.

And it is a war, a war between the middle class of this country and the uber wealthy corporatists using their surrogates the political prostitutes.

What Walker and his thuggish band of Republican legislators have actually done is awakened a sleeping giant. The people of Wisconsin are up, aware, and they are angry.

The Republican legislators are in the gunsights now for recall, a conservative judge on the State Supreme Court’s re-election is in extreme doubt, because of his obvious right wing leaning and his predilection for always supporting the corporate interests over the citizens of the State.

Will all of this come to pass? Very possibly it will.

But the pople are going to have to really stick together. From all indications, that is exactly what is happening currently.

Too bad Virginia doesn’t have more people who are more inclined to support what is good for the state as a whole rather than their petty ideological claptrap. But that’s Virginia, it is sadly more right wing leaning lately than centrist or moderate.

Looks like Wisconsin is having a strong wake up call and from all appearances the people are up, aware and ready to kick butt.

I will be constantly monitoring the situation there and in the year term of Walker, I will be happy to contribute to any recall organization that wants to drive this lying sack of excrement out of the Governor’s office. Wisconsin had always been a state to look to for progressive ideas and bi-partisan politics.

Evidently, it appears that the republicans snuck in while the citizens were napping. But then that is what one can expect from the tea party contaminated republicans today.

This is simply proof that the change in the Congress has take the country in a backward movement.  But then what would one expect?  The Republicans have NEVER, EVER executed a positive leadership role. 

The Democrats are just as bad, because they are simply rolling over and sucking their thumbs in the corner, with lying cretins like John Boehner of Ohio, Eric Cantor of Virginia and the brand new Tea Bagger’s take a machete to the federal budget.  Cutting the budget is a reasonable thing to do, but the way these idiots are going about it simply shows they have nothing between their ears but ideological pap.  None are looking at the programs, these massive budget cuts are slashing across the federal budget as a whole.

Thousands of Seniors, millions of children and thousands of poor people will suffer the perfidy of this 112th Congress, but hey, their owners, the big corporations and the uber wealthy will make out just fine.

Should one actually look at the budget and note that we are giving out more in TAX CREDITS than we are taking in in TAX REVENUE, wouldn’t it make sense to START THERE?  But no, let’s whack the poor, the kids and the seniors.

Bastards, the lot of them.

Let’s look at a couple of the repugnant party’s shots against the American People.

1.  Senior Citizens – evidently the republicans simply cannot stand to see elderly people.  They simply wish them to either hide in dark places, or even better, to DIE!  Why else would they attack senior programs with such a vengance?

For instance, the cuts to the Senior Community Employment Program.  The repugnants have put forth a budget axe job on this valuable program of reductions in the neighborhood of 54 to 60 percent.  To put that more in perspective, reductions of over 400 million dollars for programs across the nation that help destitute seniors to obtain training and job placement assistance.  The program pays these seniors a small wage (minimum wage) during the training and then places them mostly with community organizations such as the Red Cross or similar groups.   Some even work for local government quasi public agencies.  In one organization along, there are over 16,000 seniors in the program currently.  IF the Republican party is successful in this budget fiasco, over 8,000 seniors will be tossed to the curb and be back on the streets homeless and hungry in most cases.  Now Multiply this by several hundred of these agencies across the nation, including such notables as the AARP.

2.  “Entitlements”, love this one.  Entitlement a great buzz word levied by the republican propaganda miesters to demonize those who are benefited by some of these programs.  For instance, they still continue to refer to the Social Security Program as an entitlement, never mind that the people who draw this money has paid into it for decades.  Entitlement, my ass.  Their plan right now is to reduce the benefit and to increase the eligibility age to 70 and above.

70 and above, anyone thought even for a nano second where the jobs for these 70 and above seniors are going to come from?  Makes you wonder if these pinheads have even two braincells.

Now here’s the real heartbreaker.  Most seniors aren’t even upset, because they haven’t a clue about the impact, or it will not impact them (RIGHT AWAY THAT IS).  When one tries to bring this republican danger to their attention, they regurgitate the old GOP/Oligarchy pap that some pain is necessary if we are to get our house in order.

3.  Okay, now the meat…. Our House in Financial Order???  Wonderful sentiment.  Problem is that the whole thing is a freaking lie.  They have no intention of getting the “house” in financial order.  IF they did, the first damn thing would be to recind all tax credits to major corporations like EXXON, GE, etc.  In point of fact, we give out more in tax credits than we bring in in tax revenue.  Any wonder why our financial house is not in order?

The polls say that over 60% of Americans actually want the government to spend more money, on critical things like infrastructure rebuilding, adding more jobs, bringing our industrial might back from the off shore locations and putting more Americans’ back to work.

Then let’s look at Social Security, by removing the deduction cap on income, some say to 500,000 dollars, but I say, remove it completely, and in doing so, you remove any problems with the Social Security funding streams for any remote foreseeable future, decades into the future in fact.

Why is it that the politicians always strike out at the seniors, the poor and the lower tier of the middle class?  Because we don’t have the wherewithal to strike back, EXCEPT through massive demonstrations in the streets of our nation’s capitol or the state houses across the country.  But in point of fact, back in the mid sixties, we did just that.  Seniors from all walks of life demonstrated up Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC and scared the GOP so damn bad that Medicare was passed within days of the march.

Will we do that again?  Who knows.  Maybe we just haven’t been hurt enough yet?  Perhaps when the assault on seniors becomes as overt as the assault on civil rights and liberties as in Wisconsin some of us might just wake up from our slumbers and put a stop to the violations.

Face it folks, the right wingers and their owners, the uber wealthy like the Koch Brothers, their propaganda arm like Fox News and Murdoch, and the huge corporations who stand to increase their already obscene profits by leaps and bounds, are out to drive the average Americans back to the depths this nation suffered during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Hopefully, I will be long dead before the nation that we all fought for suffers a death of freedom and rights.

Will the Democrats lose the majority in both the House and the Senate?  Hell who knows.  All these polls, the pontifications by the political hacks mean one thing in the long run, NOTHING.  The only poll and the only pundits that count and who will make things happen are those people who go to the voting boots on Tuesday, next week and exercise their right and responsibility as citizens to cast their ballots.

You, me, and all those brilliant opinion spewers have no idea what will happen.  Yes it is very likely that the democratic party will lose seats.  How many is still up in the air, but the facts are that people get angry at the incumbent governing party and they strike out, sometimes quite blindly at those people they believe are responsible for their misery, anger and dissatisfaction.

Has Obama blundered?  Oh my yes, a number of times.  His mistakes were in not reading the people of this country at several points in his first two years.  Has he done a decent job as president?  Yes and no.  He has produced several bills that he had committed to during the campaign.  He has started the withdrawal of troops from Iraq as he said. 

The Stimulous and Jobs

BUT his stimulous bill was either too small at the outset or was not appropriated directed.  Jobs creation has stagnated, even though jobs are being created, the level of jobs coming online is far too small to offset the number of people losing their jobs each month. As a result the employment picture appears stuck at 9.6 percent.  As we all know, that is a false figure and the actual jobless rate is quite a bit higher, because of the numbers of people who have dropped off the official rolls and are no longer counted.  Never have understood that piece of governmental stupidity, but is has been presented that way for decades, don’t think it will stop anytime soon.  The fact is the middle class are jammed up between a rock and a hard place.  The real income is dropping and business is continuing to move toward a lowering overall of wages and benefits.  This benefits the business world, but significantly harms the economy overall.  People who don’t make a decent wage, simply don’t spend on anything but absolute necessities.

So, Mr. Obama has dropped the ball on the jobs picture in this country. Is it his fault totally?  No, certainly not but his programs focused on far too many esoteric aspects and far too little on the details of putting people back to work.

The Health Care Plan

First of all, a point of clarification.  I was and still am, an ardent supporter of the single payer universal health care program, and in particular the HR-676 legislation that continues to sit in the House buried under indecision, a lack of interest in really and postively affecting the populace’s health in this nation, and a lack of cajones on the part of the politicians we send to congress to stand up to their big money bribers and support the constituents whose votes put them in office.

Single Payer is the method of health care delivery in the rest of the entire industrialized/developed nations, EXCEPT in our country. Even the worst of these programs is far and away better than our broken and corrupt system.  Each year, over 48,000 people die in this United States of America.  Supposedly the greatest nation on earth?  Yet our health care system produces results far below more than 37 other nations.

The abomination that was produced by the Senate and the House and pushed into law this past year was simply too much of nothing.  The GOP of course stood their ground with their stance as the party of NO.  They continue to rant about the government taking over health care.  Bull crap.  This new medical legislation is a sop to the Health Care Industry and the companies whose funds bought and paid for the law as it was written.  The GOP in their traditional stand, have been lying to the American people ever since the first inkling of the health care reform stuff began to filter out.  Of course they claim that the Democrats and the President SHUT THEM OUT and would not listen to their plan.  Hells bells, they had no plan, and still have no plan.  Oh wait, that’s not true.  Their plan is to continue the status quo, but to add in several programs that will be more beneficial to their owners, the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies and the for profit hospitals.

Yet the people have been brainwashed into believing that the legislation for health care put forth by the 111th Congress is a government grab for more control over our lives.  You see, if you tell a lie that is big enough, AND you tell it often, in different ways, the people will come to believe what you propound and fall in like a band of sheep.

There are a lot of other things that have happened over the past few months that have created the anger and distrust in the democrats.  Some is their fault but most is simply the big money interests stirring up the GOP pots and their tea party subsets.  It is going to be a really rough road this next week folks.   Fasten your seat belts and hang on for dear life.

Believe it, if the Republicans DO gain a majority in the House and Senate, you will see things that hurt the middle class, the poor and the upper middle class, but will BENEFIT the uber wealthy, the corporate magnates, and yes, the foreign interests.

Angry people do stupid things.  The American people are angry!  Most of their anger is solidly based, but is stirred by the big money rich folks, major companies, and some foreign interests.  The people need to get off their butts and hit the voting precinct locations to exercise their right, and their responsibility as citizens. 

VOTE folks, otherwise keep you mouth shut when the election is over!!!

Yesterday, in Richmond something happened that can either bring a ray of sunshine or a chill of apprehension regarding the Republican party. Cantor hosted with a Democrat, Representative Bobby Scott a “town hall meeting that wasn’t”. There was no talk of death panels, no illegal alien rants, and no NAZI emblems denigrating “libruls” and the President. Cantor and Scott were there to discuss health care. Health Care? Eric Cantor? He also had acording to the report, words for his Republican peers, “Stop the revivial stuff and let’s talk”. Many in his audience of about 250 people were not happy, they came expecting to be able to perform as they have in town hall meetings all across the nation. But no,,, Cantor and the moderator, the publisher of the Richmond Times Dispatch, all pretty much held the cat calls, shouts and rude overtalk to, get this, ZERO.

Folks, there were two things that crossed my mind while I was reading this article. The first was that some alien being had come to Earth and taken over Cantor’s body and mind. The second, and even more scary was that this was a big plan by the GOP to blunt the lousy impression they have made on the American people over the past several years, leading to their back to back losses in congressional elections and culminating with the loss of the White House as well. Chills ran up and down my spine as I took this thought to another level, that the GOP was putting on a blitz of “niceness” to convince folks that they had learned their lesson and should be given another chance at the reins of power.

Heaven Forfend!!! Simply look as what the GOP was able to accomplish in just two presidential terms. Taking the nation from one of prosperous, jobs building, 401(k) gaining economy to an economy and jobs picture that was one step away from the abyss of the Great Depression.

Do we really want to trust them to be repentful and deserving of another shot at destroying the nation and it’s people?

Well, Not this Cantankerous old Coot.

They all, as a great lady Helen Philpot says, need to sit down and shut up for a few more years.