Text 2434, 157 rader
Skriven 2004-09-20 14:20:55 av John Hull (1:379/1.99)
Kommentar till en text av Alan Hess
Ärende: tearing down New Deal?
==============================
Tearing down the New Deal? It's about damn time!
19 Sep 04 17:24, Alan Hess wrote to all:
AH> Is that Bush's plan?
AH> ********
AH> Published on Friday, September 17, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
AH> The Real Republican Domestic Agenda: War on Roosevelt
AH> by Larry Beinhart
AH> If you watched the Republican Convention I'm sure you understand
AH> that we will conquer the world to protect ourselves from
AH> terrorists and to give the world the freedom it craves and
AH> deserves. And anyone who questions that is a girlie man.
You bet. If I have to choose between living like some third world peasant to
appease the Europeans and Arabs, and conquering the world, I'll take conquering
any day.
AH> But there is also a domestic agenda . It was expressed in one
AH> succinct sentence. George Bush said, "many of our most fundamental
AH> systems ? the tax code, health coverage, pension plans, worker
AH> training, were created for a world of yesterday, not tomorrow. We
AH> will transform these systems."
He's dead right on. This isn't 1932. What worked then definately won't work
today.
AH> This is fairly explicit. Yet sufficiently vague, that nobody, not
AH> our leading newspapers, not CNN, not CBS, not NPR, not even the
AH> internet lefties, jumped up and down and freaked out and said "He
AH> wants to do what?!"
AH> Granted, it's sort of in code. But the translation is easily
AH> available. The Rosetta Stone is the Texas Republican Party
AH> Platform. Think of the National Convention as the Playboy Magazine
AH> version and the Texas document as the Hustler on-line hardcore
AH> version of who wants to do what to whom.
AH> The Texas Republican Party Platform calls for abolishing the
AH> income tax, abolishing the IRS, abolishing the 16th Amendment,
AH> abolishing the inheritance tax ? which they are careful to call
AH> the death tax and abolishing corporate income taxes, payroll taxes
AH> and the capital gains tax.
AH> These are to be replaced with a national sales tax.
More properly called a consumption tax. What is wrong with everybody paying
for what they use? That's a hell of a lot more fair than taxing the crap out
of certain groups just because they have the brains to make a lot of money, or
because they get lucky and their daddy leaves them money. Plus it has the
potential to generate a lot more revenue for the government than the current
income tax structure.
AH> Now just in case you think this is paranoid ranting, the bill has
AH> already been introduced in the House. It has 55 co-sponsors and it
AH> has the support of House Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Majority
AH> Leader Tom Delay.
AH> They will also end social security. It will be privatized. They
AH> know we don't like that word. So there's a new word, it is "the
AH> ownership society." Instead of making payments to the social
AH> security system you can put your money in private funds and you
AH> own it.
By almost any measure, if people had their SS money to manage on their own,
they could realize far greater returns on it than the current system will ever
deliver.
AH> The sales pitch is based on the boundless optimism that in the
AH> long run, the market will always go up. Historically, that's true.
AH> Unless George W. Bush is president.
Now we get to the REAL reason for this article. More Bush bashing.
AH> The reality is that company pension funds, which were running a
AH> surplus when Bush came into office, are in so much trouble now,
AH> that they are threatening the survival of some companies and of
AH> the quasi-governmental agency that insures them. State pension
AH> funds, which rely in part on investments, now have to use extra
AH> tax dollars or borrow in order to pay their pensions.
Blame that on company mismanagement. What has Bush got to do with any of that?
AH> Imagine if you had given up your social security in order to
AH> invest in Halliburton, which was run by Dick Cheney, or Harkness
AH> Energy, when George Bush was on the Board of Directors. If you
AH> didn't have the insider information to sell some of your stock,
AH> like Cheney did, or all your stock in time, like Bush did, you
AH> would be pretty well broke now.
You just can't leave it alone, can you? Cheney SOLD ALL OF HIS HALLIBURTON
STOCK BEFORE HE TOOK OFFICE AS VICE PRESIDENT! And just because he happened to
be on the board doesn't prove he knew anything about any wrong doing, if there
was any. Lots of companies sign up famous and celebrity people to make their
corporate letterheads look more impressive. Most of those people never set
foot in a corporate boardroom, let alone realize any profit from those
companies.
AH> Bush mentioned health coverage in that crucial sentence. But there
AH> is no known Republican Plan for Health Coverage. So what's he
AH> talking about? What fundamental system was created for the world
AH> of yesterday, that works very well, just like social security and
AH> income tax do, that could be torn down and looted through
AH> privatization? Medicare.
It isn't the government's damn business whether or not I, or anyone else, has
health care, and its none of their damn business who I go to see for medical
advice or intervention. If they had kept their noses out of it, you wouldn't
be paying $10 for a Tylenol when you're in the hospital. Same thing goes for
the insurance companies. THAT is where the government can do some good in
health care - preventing the insurance companies from interfering with the
doctor-patient privilege and stop them from gouging people on premiums.
AH> The thing about job training baffled me. There is no big New Deal
AH> or New Frontier or Great Society job training program to destroy.
AH> What there is, is unemployment insurance. Here's the deal: if you
AH> lose your job, you will get a block grant for job training. Three
AH> thousand dollars is the number being floated. And if you get a new
AH> job in a week or two weeks, well, hell, you can keep the money as
AH> a "re-employment bonus." The job training will instead of
AH> unemployment insurance.
AH> These guys can't stand to see a pile of money around without being
AH> able to grab it and get rich. Even worse is money that just goes
AH> to people who work, goes right to them for retirement, or to pay
AH> their medical bills, or to carry them between jobs, without a
AH> brokerage firm, or an insurance company, or the private education
AH> industry, sucking the cream off the top.
AH> There's more. Lot's more. Including significant evangelical and
AH> anti-gay agendas. But those are the basics.
AH> George Bush has made it perfectly clear his plan for the next four
AH> years is to tear down the New Deal. It's not forward to the 21st
AH> Century It's back to the 19th.
There's a lot to be said for the old ways. Back then, the doctor came to your
house when you were sick, the milkman delivered the milk, a new car only cost
$2000. More importantly, it didn't take nearly six months to earn enough just
to pay your damn income tax.
Screw Roosevelt, screw the New Deal, and screw all the touchy-feely liberal
entitlements that have damn near ruined this country. Oh, yeah - SCREW JOHN
KERRY!
John
America: First, Last, and Always!
Go to www.madgorilla.us for all your Domain Name Services at the lowest rates.
--- Msged/386 TE 05
* Origin: We are the Watchmen of our own Liberty! (1:379/1.99)
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