Bush/Republicans Are Responsible For The Screwed Up Economy And Why Would You Want To Elect Them For A Second Stab At It?

Why would a logical person expect the Republicans to be able to or want to fix the economy? When the George W. Bush administration took over, the Clinton administration left them with a budget surplus that was due to wipe out the national debt by about 2010.

What did Bush do? He handed out tax breaks that benefited the richest people on the face of the earth. Instead of paying down the debt he handed out the budget surplus to the people who needed it the least. Bush claimed that the tax cuts were because the money belonged to the tax payers and not the government even though the country was trillions of dollars in debt. Bush could have used the excuse that he needed to cut taxes because of the busted internet bubble recession. Even if we give him that excuse he should have reinstated the taxes after the recession was over. Rescinding the tax cuts would not have caused another recession. The tax did not cause the recession. Taxes should have been raised back to where they were at the end of the Clinton presidency. The Bush tax cuts cost the country $$$$$3.5 trillion. Also it could be said that this extra money in the system helped lead to the “Housing Bubble”. The more money people had to spend the more the price of housing would be driven up.

The terror attacks on September 11, 2001 put a dent in the surplus as well. Surely that would have pushed back the projected national debt payoff date of 2010. What the problem is with the way Bush and the Republican majority congress handled it was that they went to war with not only Afghanistan but with Iraq. There is not much animosity about the attack on Afghanistan for obvious reasons but the unprovoked, unnecessary, ego driven attack on Iraq was a huge and unnecessary waste of money. Over a $3,000,000,000,000 (trillion) waste of money. If the Republicans and the Bush administration cared about the debt and the deficit (that they created out of the Clinton surplus) they should not have invaded Iraq.

Because of the unnecessary ego driven invasion of and war on Iraq, Bush took his eye off the Afghanistan ball. Al Qaeda was virtually non existent in Afghanistan and the Taliban were on the ropes and impotent by the time the fiasco in Iraq was under way. Instead of fighting two wars it was time to get out of Afghanistan and let them clean up the mess. They started it, they could clean it up. We should have just left and told the Taliban that if they were to try to come back and take over the country we would just “drone them.” If the Republicans and the Bush administration cared about the debt and the deficit (that they created out of the Clinton surplus) they should have exited Afghanistan when the getting was good and never started the ego trip war in Iraq.

If Bush and the Republicans cared about the debt they would not have created and voted for the prescription drug bill that was not paid for and cost the country $1.2 trillion. Sure it was nice to do this for seniors but it was not really needed and was it really necessary to give away $1,200,000,000,000 that was borrowed from China? It is just another example of how the Republicans do not care about the debt and deficit.

The Republican monetary policy led to more borrowing by consumers who could not afford it. The Republican monetary policy made it easier for consumers who could not afford it to borrow money. This led directly to the housing bubble and the economic collapse that has put the country (and world) into the position that it is in right now. The reason the Republicans liked this monetary policy is because it artificially stimulated the economy and made it seem like everybody was doing better than they were doing. It made people think they had more money to spend than they had. It let people borrow much more money than they could ever hope to pay back. It forced the price of housing to levels that were unsustainable. The monetary policies led directly to the housing bubble. If the Republicans cared about debt and deficit they would not have enacted the policies that drove the country into the economic disaster it is in right now.

So here we are. In an economic nightmare. Not much different than the Great Depression. We can learn a lot of things from the Great Depression. One thing that we can learn is the country should not try to reign in spending to early. Roosevelt did that in 1938 and caused another recession. We can also learn from the economic nightmare that the country exited the depression because of WWII. The country was forced to spend a ton of money to go to war. Of course the country had to borrow the money but it was all paid back because for years after the war the country was in good enough financial shape and grew. The country was taking in more money that it was spending and was able to pay the debt back. That is how we should be getting out of the economic nightmare we are in now. The country needs to spend like it did during WWII.

The Republicans will not allow that because they thing it is not good for their rich contributors. Their rich contributors tell them that they do not want to pay more taxes because they think it will make them richer if they get to keep their money. In the end that will be shown to not be true because the middle class will suffer with that kind of thinking. But so what? Their money is just sitting in an offshore account anyway. If we put it to work for the country then in the end they will make even more money.

The bottom line though, is why would we want to elect Republicans when all they want to do is take us back to the Bush years on steroids?

Obama, Economics, And Blame

The Republicans are so disingenuous. They like to say that Obama is the worst President ever (Trump) or that Obama has handled this economic catastrophe horribly or that Obama is screwing up the economy and any number of variations of these ideas. This is hiding your head in the sand or not telling the truth or not knowing the truth or ignorance.

There is not anybody in the world who could have done a better job than what Obama has done. There is just nothing else that can be done. And almost everything the Republicans say he should do would make things worse. And for those who say or insinuate that Obama is a bad president or the worst president regarding the economy are missing a very important fact. If Obama is so bad then the president that got us into this mess has got to be worse. Of course you do not hear anything about that from the Republicans. What is worse is you do not hear anything about that from the Democrats. Do not lose sight of the fact that we were running a surplus when Bush took over. When Bush left the economy was in the worst shape it has been in since the Great Depression.

Everything that Obama is doing is what needs to be done to get us out of this mess. Changing a horrible economy is very very difficult. It takes a long time. It just does. To keep the economy from getting worse the government has got to spend money. The government has got to inject money into the economy to keep money flowing… to keep as many people working as is possible and feasible. The time to fix deficits and debt is when the economy is doing well. Like when Bush was president. But Bush did almost everything he could to ruin a growing economy. So the economy was ruined. It is much easier to ruin a good economy than fix a bad economy.

Another thing that is missing from most comments about what Obama has done and how we got here is that the Republicans want to go back and do the same things that got us here. Where are the Democrats on this? Why are they not telling everybody that the Republicans want to repeat what screwed up the economy in the first place?

The Republicans Have It Exactly Backwards

These people are out to stomp out the middle class. It is unimaginable but it is the only conclusion you can come to. Everything they are doing points to the elimination of the middle class.

When Bush took over there was a surplus and the debt was projected to be paid off by 2011. Bush and the Republican congress then gave tax breaks to the ridiculously rich. Is that what somebody would do if they were worried about the national debt? Then they gave prescription drugs away without paying for it. That cost was projected to be well over a trillion $$$ but they did not care. Bush started the war in Iraq because he did not like Saddam Hussein. That cost more trillions. What about the debt?

When they gave tax breaks they said it would bring more money in. Try that with your bank account. The reality of course was much different. After they gave tax cuts to the fabulously filthy rich the government took in less money. They took less money in relation to the GNP as well. It was not until the housing bubble was about ready to burst that they started bringing in more money from income taxes.

This is the time when they should have been taking in more money because the economy was doing well. Even if it was a bubble. Or especially because it was a bubble. The government should have been in surplus and paying off the debt. If they would have been paying off the debt when the bubble burst in 2008 then we would not be in the place we are in right now.

Now is when we should be spending in deficit because we need to get out of the hole we are in. The government needs to spend like Obama has been spending. What is wrong, what is backwards, what is the opposite of what should have been is what Bush and the Republicans in congress did during the Bush administration. When Paul Ryan was the most junior member of the Ways and Means Committee he should have been worrying about the debt.

We need to grow the economy to get out of this mess. We will not be able to grow it to where it was for some time but we need to get people back to work into jobs that pay a decent amount of money. Then the government will take in more money to get us out of deficit. By then the Republicans will probably get back in power and they will screw up the whole thing again because they are saying right now that they want to go back to the Bush policies.

Paul Ryan’s Budget Fix Proposal

We have seen Paul Ryan’s budget fix proposal. What a lot of people didn’t notice was that Ryan’s cuts are offset with TAX BREAKS FOR THE FABULOUSLY RICH! Ryan’s proposal cuts the budget by $5.8 trillion. He does it by cutting Medicare. But wait, he also give tax breaks worth $4 trillion.

If the government takes away $5.8 trillion from Medicare, people are going to die. Retired people who have little more than Social Security to depend on to pay their bills will not have enough money to pay for healthcare if Medicare is cut by $5.8 trillion. They will not be able to get healthcare. They will die from illness that they will not be able to afford to see a doctor for. They will die. The money they receive from Social Security will not pay for their healthcare let alone their food and heat and rent. People will die because of Paul Ryan’s plan.

A huge part of the problem with the budget can be solved by raising taxes on the Ultra rich. Raise taxes on people who make more than $1,000,000 A YEAR. The Right says we do not have a revenue problem we have a spending problem. Nonsense. We have a revenue problem because Bush screwed up the economy so bad we do not take in as much money as we would if the economy was just “alright”. Throw in a few tax cuts for the fabulously and a few wars and here we are. Raise taxes to Clinton era rates and most of the problem will be fixed.

Notice how these people are not talking about Social Security lately? Because Social Security is not a problem now. It won’t be a problem for more than 20 years.

Are Nuclear Power Plant Designers Stupid?

Supposedly the best minds have thought about what could go wrong with a nuclear power plant. These super minds were suppose to figure out how to keep a nuclear power plant safe in case of any problem. One of the biggest fears about nuclear power in California is earthquakes. I would guess the same is true in Japan. With earthquakes come tsunamis sometimes.

The main objective in keeping a nuclear power plant safe is to keep the rods cool so that they do not melt and release radioactive “stuff”*. To cool these rods cool they run cool water over them. Electric pumps pump the water. If there is an electrical failure then there are diesel powered generators that kick in to power the pumps. If the diesel generators fail there are batteries to run the pumps. These batteries only have enough power for a certain amount of time. Just like your flashlight.

If you have a reactor on the coast of an earthquake prone area (Japan California) you would think about how the reactor would survive the shaking. Would you not also think about what would happen if a tsunami hit???? A tsunami did hit Japan and wiped out the generators that generate electricity to run the water pumps to keep the rods cool at the Japanese nuclear power plant. That is all that happened in Japan. The reactors survived the earthquake. The generators supplying power to the pumps that pump water over the rods to keep them cool did not survive the tsunami. That is what caused the problem in Japan. I could have designed a tsunami safe generator setup. It is really very simple.

It is mind boggling that these experts could not have foreseen this happening. These are the same minds that want to build new nuclear power plants in the U.S.

*Official scientific term

Nuclear Socialism

The right wing constantly scream about Obama’s socialist healthcare (it isn’t socialist but that does not stop them). They say the government is taking over healthcare. That is bad. It is against the constitution (it isn’t) and it will ruin the country. They want “time tested commonsense market solutions” (Palin). Everybody at CNBC are very big on letting the market take care of everything. “Let the market fix it,” they say. We are a capitalist country. The government cannot afford to fix everything. We are not a nanny state etc etc etc. You have heard it over and over and over again. And then there is nuclear power.

The market does not want nuclear power. The market has not wanted nuclear power since Three Mile Island. For the market, nuclear power is too expensive. For the market, nuclear power is too dangerous. The market cannot make money on nuclear power because insurance is too expensive. General Electric, who makes nuclear power plants if they were allowed to build them, can only afford $12 billion worth of insurance because to buy more insurance would cost too much money. The problem with this is that $12 billion is not near enough insurance to cover a nuclear catastrophe. Not even close. General Electric says that if it were allowed to build a nuclear power plant then the government would have to insure the plant in case of a catastrophe. Would this be socialized electricity?

The right wing want to build more nuclear power plants. The Republicans want the government to self insure the nuclear power industry. In fact the government already insures nuclear power. The government (we the people) subsidizes the nuclear power. It is called the “Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act.” The right wing would call this nuclear socialism. The market cannot afford nuclear power. Just like the people cannot afford health care. Time tested commonsense market solutions will not work for nuclear power. Just like time tested commonsense market solutions will not work for health care. Where is Michele Bachman and Sarah Palin on this?

Just remember this when you hear the Republicans tell you that we need nuclear power. Just remember this when the Republicans tell you that Obama Care is socialism.

The Truth Will Turn Back the Money Machine Lies of the Right

It should not be difficult to counter the right wing corporate attack on the Left because the Left has the truth and righteousness on its side. Like when the Tea Party says they want to cut taxes and the corporate right is next to them… no, the corporate right is behind the movement. The Tea Party members do not understand that while it is a nice thought to not pay taxes, taxes need to be paid if we want roads in good condition, if we want traffic signals in working order, if we want fire departments for when there are fires and police to keep order or if they want Social Security when they turn 65 or Medicare when they get old enough and insurance companies will no longer insure them. We need taxes to pay for the administrators to make sure all the money and people are doing what we want them to do. All the Left has to do is get its truth out. Tell the truth. Say it again and again. The Left will inform or teach the people who don’t understand that taxes are no all bad. Just tell the truth. This is what organizations like David Brock’s new offshoot of Media Matters will be able to do.

When you don’t tell the truth, as the right wing corporate money machine does not, then after a period of time you lose credibility. Like when the Long Island tax cut backfired on the Tea Party. Surely the Tea party has lost credibility with the tax payers of Nassau County. Or maybe it’s not the Tea Party that has lost the credibility. Maybe it is the people behind the Tea Party (Koch brothers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove, Dick Armey and Rupert Murdoch, and contributors to phony corporations that fund the Tea Party movement.) that will lose credibility. It is obvious that the Tea Party is not taken seriously as an issue driven organization by the Republican Party. That is because they have no credibility as an organization that has the ability to think past sound bites. Sooner or later the right wing money machine will be seen as organizations that are out for themselves. It is not difficult to show example after example of how this is true. David Brock has the ability and the savvy and the know-how to expose and counter these right wing power brokers who are using the Tea Party’s ignorance.

Once people see the evidence and the truth it will not be too difficult to show it to them with example after example. Somebody like David Brock and MoveOn are able to do this. Their truths will withstand the onslaught of the right wing propaganda machine headed by Fox News and the money from organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Koch brothers and Dick Armey and Karl Rove and the plethora of other organizations that are able to round up huge amounts of cash. When people see that their towns and counties are going to be shut down, when people understand that they will not get Social Security when they retire and when these people are informed that they need Medicare because they will not be ably to afford medical insurance after they pass a certain age and when people see that the government cannot function and when people are informed that there are organizations out there who do not really care about them and only want to reduce it to the size where they can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub, then they will see that the Right are not on their side. They will see that they are being used. The truth will win in the end. No amount of money will be able to counter the truth. The Left only needs to tell the truth.

The Right Wing Do Not Care About Real People

I watched the Bill Maher Show when it aired on Friday. What is the deal with Stephen Moore? I have seen him before and was not impressed but now I think he is just a right wing manipulator or just stupid. That brings me to another question. How do these people get to be heard? Why do they get a soapbox? Everything Stephen Moore said was incredibly ignorant or false or serving the rich without regard to the rest of society or just stupid.

That brings me to another thought. How do we inform the 90% (or more) of society that the people like Stephen Moore and the other elite rich right wing 5% do not care about them? I understand that the right wing middle class want fiscal responsibility and care about security enough to let the right wing hierarchy scare them and lie to them. The question is how to inform them that these people do not care about them. The right wing hierarchy does not care about the Tea Baggers as far as the Tea Bagger’s general welfare is concerned.

There are others besides the Tea Baggers who seem to side with the right wing to the detriment of their own self interest. How to inform these others or teach them or get them to understand that they are rooting against themselves is the question. Why can’t these people understand that they are hurting themselves? Why can’t these people be informed that people like Stephen Moore and the multitudes of right wing hierarchy are not their friends? Why are they not being informed that what they are voting for is against their own self interest?

I think this is what the left should try to figure out and fix as soon as possible. Go out and inform the Tea Baggers that they are fighting against their own self interest. Figure out a way to inform Joe Sixpack and Nancy Winebox that Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee and Bill O’Reilly (I think they are getting the message that Glenn Beck is unbalanced) and Rush Limbaugh and all the rest of the right wing mouth-o-sphere and John Boehner and Mitch McConnell and the political right are not in their corner. Inform these middle Americans that people like Stephen Moore are lying to them like Rachel Maddow did on the Bill Maher Show.

There has to be a way to teach or inform the right wing middle class that they are rooting against their own self interest. Watching Stephen Moore on The Bill Maher Show showed me that the right wing will do and say anything. They will lie about anything. And they get away with it. Rachel Maddow showed me how easy it is to inform people that the right wing are liars.

Republicans Are Disingenuous About Repeal and Replace

To state the obvious, the Republicans are being disingenuous about their “repeal and replace” of the health care reform mantra. If they were really interested in replacing the health care reform bill then they would have done health care reform when they had control of the House of Representatives and the Senate for six years during the Bush administration. They would have offered up a bill when they had control of the House of Representatives and the Senate during six years of the Clinton administration. More telling of their disingenuousness is if they wanted to replace the new health care reform with a newer health care reform they would submit a new bill that would replace the old one or parts of the old new bill.

For example, surely there are parts of the health care reform bill that they like but if they don’t like the part of the bill that lets people under 27 years old be part of their parent’s health care insurance the Republicans could/should write a new bill that makes that part of the bill void and REPLACE it with their new bill. If the Republicans don’t like the part of the health care reform bill that stops the insurance companies from disqualifying a person from insurance that they already have because they get sick then the Republicans should write a NEW bill that says that insurance companies can void your insurance if you get sick and REPLACE that part with a NEW bill. If the Republicans want to change the part of the law that gives small businesses tax credits to pay for their employee’s health care insurance then the Republicans should write a law/bill that says that new tax credits for small businesses for their health care insurance for their employees is void and REPLACE it with a NEW bill. If the Republicans do not like the part of the health care reform bill that makes it possible for people with preexisting conditions to buy health care insurance then the Republicans should write a new bill to REPLACE the old one BEFORE they repeal the old health care reform bill.

If the Republicans were being honest with the American people and they do not like the part of the new health care reform law that said that everybody has to buy insurance then the Republicans should write a NEW bill that says that people do not need to buy insurance if they don’t want to and figure out a way for everybody to be insured. Something like a universal health care reform bill that covers everybody like Canada, France, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands, and all the other countries that insure their people for health care have.

If the Republicans were being honest with the American people they would have something to REPLACE the Democratic health care reform bill with BEFORE they repealed it. But that would be being honest wouldn’t it. We know they are not going to do the REPLACE part of their “Repeal and Replace” mantra because they had a chance for twelve years to write their own health care reform bill and THEY DID NOT DO IT. There is not any reason to believe they will do it now so they should write the “REPLACE” part before the do the “repeal” part. It seems common sensible.

Do the Left Need to Tone Down the Rhetoric?

Today on NPR’s Morning Edition Cokie Roberts was asked if the attempted assassination of the popular congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords would stop the nasty bitter hostile tone of political rhetoric. Roberts asks if the people calling for more civility will be more civil as if it is the job of the people who have been calling for more civility from the right wing hate machine, as if it is the job for the people calling for more civility to become more civil.

The Left has been pointing out that the inflammatory speech of Sarah Palin is over the top for a long time. The Left has been telling Palin and the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and Michelle Bachmann and all the rest to tone it down for years. Congresswoman Giffords pointed out that words have consequences when Sarah Palin first put up her target with crosshairs stating that 20 congresspeople need to be eliminated (Congresswoman Giffords being one of the targeted congresspeople).

It was Palin’s map with gun sights on the various congressional districts that was condemned by many many on the left. It was condemned on the right as well. It was even condemned by Elizabeth Hasselbeck, who called Palin’s behavior “despicable.” Hasselbeck was a major campaigner for Paling when Palin was running for Vice President with John McCain. Rush Limbaugh is criticized almost daily for the endless hate speech and inflammatory rants. The criticism does not appear to have curtailed Palin’s or Limbaugh’s nonstop hate. Sean Hannity has said that the country would be better we got rid of liberals. What will Glenn Beck say today about the President of the United States? What inflammatory names will Beck call Obama today? Will he tell his listeners that Obama is a racist? Will Beck tell his listeners that Obama hates America? Will Michelle Bachmann tell her followers that there are Democrats in congress who are anti-American? Will Sean Hannity tell his listeners that liberal need to be eliminated? Will Bill O’Reilly tell his audience that the Left hate America? These examples go on and on.

Now Cokie Roberts wants the Left to tone it down. When Anthony Weiner points out the hate in these people’s language will Cokie Roberts ask Rep. Wiener if he will tone it down? We know it is the right who have been the cheerleaders of hate.

It is the right and the congresspeople on the right who rallied the Teabaggers during the Health Care Reform debate at town hall meetings during August and September of 2009 that were the centers of yelling and screaming and accusing without any civility. It was the right who encouraged this. Where was Cokie Roberts and her ilk at that time telling the Republican hate machine to tone it down? Why do the Left have to tone it down now that somebody has put a Democratic congresswoman in his crosshairs?

Cokie Roberts says it is the Left who are trying to “score political points” from the tragedy by blaming Teabaggers and Sarah Palin for the political environment that might have inflamed the shooter’s passions. As if the results of Palin’s and the Teabagger’s words is the Left’s fault. Roberts goes on to tell us the right say that the shooter is only a crazy person who has no fixed ideology as if the vitriol and hate repeated over and over by the likes of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and Michelle Bachmann and all the rest have no impact on anybody’s mind except if that mind is the mind of some crazy.

It is very easy to say that anybody who shoots a congresswoman is crazy but like Sheriff Dupnik from southern Arizona says; “When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on this country is getting to be outrageous and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.” Is this what Cokie Roberts what to stop?

How about we tell the likes of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and Michelle Bachmann and all the rest of these right wing ideologues to stop spewing their hate and inflammatory speech. Maybe if these haters stop pushing their hate on the rest of society we will not have to be worried about a congressperson holding a “meet and greet” at a strip mall in Tucson Arizona. Maybe if the Right listens to the Left when the Left asks them to tone it down we will live in a more civil society. Now is not the time to tell the Left to tone it down. Now is the time for the right to stop the hate. It is always the time to tell the Right to stop the hate.