Repug Solution to Budget Crisis: Soak the Middle Class

It's not often that corporate-owned repugs come right out and admit that what they really want is income redistribution.

That is, redistribute the last pennies of the poor and middle class from them to the already too rich.

But some Kentucky repug lawmakers are out, loud and proud about their determination to re-create the feudal economy of the 13th century.

Amid the financial worries and talk of state shortfalls, some House Republicans are suggesting that now is the time to eliminate the state’s corporate and individual income taxes.

Not only that, but they’re also calling for dropping the sales tax from 6 cents to a nickel on every dollar of goods purchased.

So how will taking away all that revenue stabilize the shaky status of the state’s coffers?

The legislation drafted by Reps. Bill Farmer of Lexington and David Floyd of Bardstown would replace the income tax by spreading the sales tax to a host of services that are currently exempt, including plumbing, roofing and other contracting work, and some consulting work.

Brilliant! Absolutely fucking brilliant.

Because, of course, income and corporate taxes, minimal as they are, fall more heavily on the wealthy than the middle-class. And the sales tax, of course, takes a far greater percentage of income from the poor and middle-class than it does from the rich.

Vastly expanding the items subject to the sales tax while eliminating income and corporate taxes will create a giant vacuum cleaner, sucking money away from the middle-class and depositing it in the bank accounts of the rich.

Before you know it, everyone earning less than six figures will be economic sharecroppers, feudal serfs barely surviving on the crumbs that fall from the corporate lord's table.

While we're all weak from hunger, illness and despair, we won't even notice when the congressional servants of the plutocrats take away our rights to vote.

Congratulations, Rep. Farmer, on your plan. It's perfect!

Cross-posted at Blue in the Bluegrass.

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Why the Biggest Obstacle to Fixing the Economy is Religion

When the oh-so-"moderate" evangelicals whom President-elect Obama is working so hard to please turn on him and attack his efforts to repair and modernize the social safety net, don't be surprised.

Order this copy of Free Inquiry and read the print-only article by Gregory Paul: The Big Religion Questions Finally Solved.

In that article, Paul demonstrates why the relgious must oppose social advancements like progressive taxation, universal health care, strong unions and free public education or else face their own extinction.

Because in every industrialized nation on the planet, low levels of economic disparity, high middle-class economic security and a strong social safety net correlate strongly with widespread secularism.

In other words, the more dysfunctional a society is, the more religious it tends to be.

Analyzing numerous large surveys of world populations, Paul finds:

Among the first world's 19 prosperous democracies, all but the United States have adopted pragmatic, progressive and secular socioeconomic policies that maximize the financial security of the middle class (that is to say, the majority of citizens.)

In most first-world countries, it is hard to lose middle-class status - no western European or Australian goes bankrupt due to overwhelming medical bills. These high levels of financial security, lower levels of income disparity, and more modest rates of societal dysfunction reduce personal stress levels to the degree that middle-class majorities in western Europe, Canada and Australia feel secure and comfortable.

This security and comfort being achieved, the number of citizens who feel the need to seek the aid and protection of supernatural deities has sunken to historic lows and citizens abandon their former churches in droves.

In addition, comprehensive governmental social assistance programs displace much of the faith-based charitable complex that churches have historically used to extend their influence over the lay population.

Moreover, secular societies tend to favor other pragmatic social policies such as extensive sex-education and domestic violence intervention that further surpess societal dysfunctions.

The popular secularization these pragmatic policies induce is accidental, but nonetheless the effect is so powerful that is has occurred in every progressive first-world democracy. it has occurred despite the absence of a large-scale organized atheistic movement and has yet to be reversed in any country by a major religious revival.

Wonder why "religious leaders" so admantly oppose economic support programs that would help their own congregations? Because they know, at least subconciously, that the greatest threat to religion is a strong, successful, secure society.

To thrive, or even survive, religion needs a frightened, insecure population and a weak, incompetent government that drives people to seek succor in religion.

So when Rick "I have unlimited compassion for the poor and sick" Warren exhorts his congregation to fight Obama's economic stimulus plan and universal health care, read Paul's article and you'll understand why.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

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50 Wasted Years

Imagine how the last half-century would have been different if Allen Dulles had not freaked out on New Year's Day 1959.

If instead of isolating Cuba, Dwight Eisenhower had heard echoes of our own revolution in Fidel Castro's overthrow of the despicable dictator Batista.

If he had said, hey, instead of handing a gift to Krushchev, why don't we try to co-opt this Fidel fella for ourselves?

If in April 1961 JFK had told the Bay-of-Pigs CIA to go fuck itself and made lemonade by cancelling the embargo and making Cuba a trading partner.

If instead of ensuring Cuba became the last, humiliating reminder of our idiotic "Commies? Eeek!" policy we had made Cuba the first example of our "we support popular movements" policy.

Yeah, yeah, Cold War, Mafia, Goldwater, blah, blah, blah.

The truth is that for 50 years, the United States' policy toward Cuba has been that of a 14-year-old boy afraid to strip in the locker room.

Barack Obama won Florida, which should be all the evidence anyone needs that the fanatic anti-Castro old-timers in Miami have lost their political clout.

President-elect Obama can drop trou and cancel the embargo sure that it will goose the economy without political harm.

Sure, too, that finally acting rationally toward Cuba will be a quick, easy, cost-free way to show the world that real Change has come to America.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic.

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2008's Most Valuable Progressives

The Nation's John Nichols has an intriguing list of the Year's Most Valuable Progressives.

Progressives had more to celebrate in 2008 than in any year since the Supreme Court got into the business of stealing elections. The jubilant mood is dampened, of course, by the fact of a country is stuck in two military quagmires, ravaged by the most fearsome economic downturn in at least a half century and suffering from a serious case of Constitutional degeneration. Perhaps we have not yet reached an ideal champagne moment. But there is still good reason to toast the year's MVPs – Most Valuable Progressives.

A couple of obvious picks, but several surprises, including some I am ashamed to say I never heard of, and one personal favorite (can you guess which?)

Read the whole thing.

What/who are your choices for Most Valuable Progressives of 2008? Tell us in comments, and include some overlooked local valuable progressives.

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Cheney Not Merely Evil, He's A Confessed War Criminal

Now that Christmas is over, so is my brief spirit of holiday forgiveness. Some things are unforgivable. "Vice President" Dick Cheney is one of those things.

It's obscene that this man isn't in prison by now, let alone that he's still in office. It's not a mystery, though. The abilities of, and inclination for, investigation of the executive branch for high crimes and misdemeanors have been greatly diminished.

Cheney has essentially admitted that he lied the U.S. into the Iraq invasion, which resulted in over a million deaths. So he's now a confessed mass murderer.

Here's video of Keith Olbermann on this subject, plus the vicious beating of the shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist. (So much for nation-building.)



In this second video, also from Olbermann's Countdown on MSNBC, constitutional law Professor Jonathan Turley indicates that not only Cheney, but Il Doofus himself, could perhaps be vulnerable to prosecution for war crimes in their authorization of waterboarding. Cheney has just about flatly confessed:



I'll be blunt. I understand it's going to be hard to get a lot of people excited about bringing this rogues gallery to justice in coming years. Memories are short. Also, the vast majority of people who were victims of these policy decisions were brown-skinned and not Americans.

But, to quote Professor Turley, what has been undermined in the past eight years has to do with who we are, as Americans. The Obama administration should put prosecutions of this kind on a burner, even if it has to be a back one.

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