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Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Republicans working for all Americans? For the working class? For middle- and lower-income Americans?
Here’s a list of just some of the bills that Republicans have blocked or attempted to block, since President Obama became President:
- Tax on Companies that ship jobs overseas- would have eliminated a tax break that companies get when they ship jobs overseas. (Unless you're owned by a corporation, how do you vote against that?)
- Political Ad disclosure bill- Would have required all donors to political campaigns to reveal themselves. Republicans blocked this, not once but twice.
- Subpoena Power for the Committee investigating the BP Oil Spill – Give subpoena power to the independent committee responsible for investigating BP’s roll in the oil spill.
- The Small Business Jobs Act -would give local, community banks access to billions of dollars to loan to small businesses. Republicans blocked this twice, then failed to block it a third time.
- The DREAM Act- Gives immigrant youth who were brought here as children a path to citizenship by earning a college degree or serving the military for 2 years. Republicans blocked this.
- Repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” - The filibuster against the DREAM Act and repeal of DADT also blocked other blocked provisions:
- No permanent military bases in Afghanistan.
- Protection of child custody arrangements for parents who are members of the Armed Forces
- Improvements to Department of Defense domestic violence programs.
- Enhancements to the Troops-to-Teachers Program.
- Fiscal year 2011 increase in military basic pay.
- Comprehensive policy on neurocognitive assessment by the military health care system.
- Funds to modify or construct facilities to house detainees transferred from GITMO
Anti-Rape Amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill
- Benefits for Homeless Veterans- and homeless veterans with children. Republicans blocked this.
- Affordable Health Care For America Act- Prevents insurance companies from discriminating against you on the basis of “pre-existing conditions”. Requires that insurance companies spend 85 cents of every dollar that you pay on your actual health care. Limits health insurance companies profit margins. Republicans blocked this for months before it finally passed and have vowed to repeal it if they are elected.
- Health Care for the 9/11 First Responders who got sick from being at Ground Zero- Would provide billions of dollars in health care to help the 9/11 First Responders who were at Ground Zero on 9/11 and are now sick because of it. Republicans blocked this.
- The Jobs Bill- Offsets the payroll tax for 1 year for companies that hire new employees, or people receiving unemployment insurance. Also gives other tax incentives to companies hiring new employees. Republicans attempted to block this.
- Wall Street Reform- Puts stricter regulations on the banks, preventing them from becoming “too big to fail”. Curbs reckless spending practices that caused the banking crisis. Republicans attempted to block this.
- American Recovery and Reinvestment Act- Pumped billions of dollars into state and local Governments to prevent us from sinking into a second Great Depression. Republicans opposed this but now want to take credit for the parts of it that we know are successful.
- Oil Spill Liability- Raises the liability on what companies can be made to pay to clean up after an oil spill. Republicans blocked this.
- Immigration Reform- Republican suggested comprehensive immigration reform until Obama supported it. Now they’re rabidly opposed to it and even voted against their own legislation.
- Unemployment extension bill HR-4213- Would provide additional aid to the millions of Americans still on unemployment who are just trying to support themselves and their families. Republicans blocked this bill for 8 weeks before it finally passed. Republicans blocked this for 8 weeks before it finally passed.
- Fair Pay Act of 2009- Also called the Lily Ledbetter bill. Requires that women receive equal compensation to men for doing the same work. Republicans attempted to block this.
Finally, they never once created, proposed or tried to pass a jobs/infrastructure bill since 2008 in spite of the fact that the nation and people have been suffering through the worst economic downturn and market in 80 years, since the Great Depression.
So, anyone think these people, the Republican Party, is for the people and not for corporate America and the wealthy of the country?
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5 comments:
Tax on Companies that ship jobs overseas
How is this not racist? Only Americans deserve a decent job? What about overseas headquartered companies (like the one I work for)that move functions around--once they bring a job to the US, it can never leave without penalty?
Political Ad disclosure bill
A major freedom of speech, freedom of press issue. The bills I've seen attach huge penalties to 2 guys chipping in $20 eah to print up some yard signs if they don't register and aren't perfect in their paperwork. Would also make the job of Chris Christie's staff a lot easier, they'd know exactly which roads to close. Any bill like this that passes will make it harder for challengers to unseat incumbents, and will make it much harder for minor parties like Greens or Libertarians to get traction.
Don't ask, Don't tell was one of the places where Obama could have acted under his constitutional authority without congressional approval.
If an auto insurance company charged the same rates, but would cover accidents that happened before you bought a policy, would that company be able to stay in business? Is there something different where health insurance companies can afford things auto companies can't?
If the payroll tax is high enough that it is harming employment, shouldn't we lower it permanently?
Wall Street Reform--Puts the fox in charge of the henhouse, stifles innovation and nearly ensures that if one bank gets in trouble they all will.
Statistics show that the month more long term unemployed find a job is the month after their benefits run out, by an overwhelming margin. Increasing the length of benefits increases the time people are out of work.
The Fair Pay act wasn't about fair pay, it was about extending the statute of limitations by decades.
How is tax on companies that ship jobs overseas not racist?
Really,Sevesteen, of all the claims or questions you've evere made, this one is the one that is completely off base and not remotely applicable.
Taxing companies that ship jobs overseas isn't racist in any way. Companies aren't composed of only one race of people in nearly any group. This has nothing whatever to do with race. This has to do with companies offshoring manufacturing or production.
Actually, what should happen is that we should just do away with tax deductions for offshoring manufacturing and production and profits but every time a Democrat has proposed it, Republicans shot it down. Fact. So, since we can't get that, we should get this, instead.
You always call the "major freedom of speech issue" whenever it comes remotely close to touching campaign ads. This doesn't keep people from speaking their minds or voicing their opinions. It merely says, if they're going to pay people for their campaigns, they should report it so it's traceable, publicly. No one's speech is cut off in any way.
And Chris Christie closing roads? Dude, you have to work harder on your rebuttals. Christie is toast on this. And his other issues.
We need Wall Street reform so badly, so desperately, it's painful. If you/we learned nothing of the 2008 near-total financial collapse nationally and internationally, then we deserve the next collapse.
Show me the link to the unbiased research, showing where, if you lengthen unemployment benefits, it increases the amount of time people are off work.
The Fair Pay Act is ONLY, exclusively about fair pay. You're that much against fairness, equality and women? Seriously?
Racist. Our top 2 trading partners are the European Union and Canada, but it's Indians, Asians and Mexicans getting the blame for stealing our jobs. I've never heard a single complaint of Canada stealing a job.
Trade helps every country as a whole. It helps us a little--for every visible $30,000 job lost there's more than $30,000 in lower prices--but that's a few cents or dollars at a time. It really helps people a lot more desperate than us, where a "sweatshop" job making crap for Walmart may mean the difference between malnutrition and adequate food. Morally a foreigner who wants enough to eat is more important than an American who wants a television. The world would be a better place if foreign aid were replaced with commerce, even if that means 'sweatshops'. If people WANT jobs in sweatshops, the alternatives must be worse.
We need to tax consumption, not production. You want people to conserve? Tax consumption. You want jobs? Quit taxing production. Want to promote domestic purchases? Don't tax the American goods when they are made, tax all goods equally when they are sold, whether domestic or import, IN PLACE OF duties on specific imports. Don't tax income when it is earned, tax it when it is spent.
As far as I know, we have had two major government interventions in the economy in the last 100 years. Based on the administration's own dire predictions on the economic situation without more government intervention...the intervention made things worse than their predictions.
Christie should be toast, even if the lane closing scandal is the only problem. That sort of corrupt behavior should not be tolerated whether it was directed by Christie or he's merely incredibly incompetent at picking ethical staff. The point I'm making with Christie that disclosure of donations makes it too easy for corrupt politicians to target their revenge.
The "women make 77% of men" statistic is vastly misleading even according to the Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html. According to them the real difference is around 6 or 7 cents, and much of that is explained by different choices by the workers themselves.
Unless I misunderstood what I read, the law you cite doesn't change what employers are allowed to do, but it extends the clock for alleged misconduct for decades--someone passed over for a single promotion her first year of employment could sue over that 35 years later after she retires.
You are so deeply establishment, Right Wing, Republican, corporatist and pro-wealthy, it's stunning. I really can't understand what your background is. I've touched on this before. I don't think you were born to wealth, great wealth and yet you're all about not just supporting the status quo but you're all about supporting the wealthy, the already-wealthy, the uber wealthy, even and corporations. I cannot imagine where that comes from. Your latest response just points this all out, all the more. And you're not even ashamed or embarrassed, far from it. You're unabashedly for the wealthy and corporations. It's stunning.
So, no, trying to keep manufacturing jobs here in the US isn't racist. Since it has nothing whatever, at its base, to do with race--whatever, at all--and isn't meant to punish others because of who they are, where they were born or to whom. It's more, clearly and by far, only meant to reward companies that, again, keep manufacturing and jobs here in the US. It's not a punishment, it's a reward.
And you're against equal pay for women.
Wow.
That is stunning.
And again, yoo're not even remotely ashamed or embarrassed. You act as if it's the natural way of things and the way it naturally should be. I cannot even remotely imagine your background.
And there you go, yet again, on one of your rants. "Tax consumption, not production..." Sure, naturally. Tax consumption because, after all, that only further punishes the middle- and lower-classes, the working man and woman of the country, and helps the wealthy, greatly. You are incredible.
The two biggest "government interventions" were a) because businesses failed so miserably--the Great Depression and the 2008 US created financial collapse--and b) the only reasons the world continued to turn successfully and the reason we bailed ourselves out of those two huge messes.
I find your assumptions and conclusions and proposals for our future stunningly cold-hearted and wealth-supporting.
If you look at worldwide income, most Americans are in the Occupy movement's 1%. Do you really believe that a third world employee making shoes or whatever for the American market would be better off if that job could no longer be offered to him? You really think that raising an American's standard of living a small bit is more important than adequate food because someone was born in the wrong place? That is what we are talking about here--it isn't who gets the new TV, it is a new TV vs feeding a family of foreigners.
Stunning. Maybe xenophobic instead of racist, but certainly not moral.
Perfect is the enemy of the good. It would be great if we could instantly bring everyone up to a US standard of living, but we can't--instead globalization does it slowly. Japan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong have pretty much caught up in a couple generations. Former Warsaw Pact countries have done it faster, in almost direct proportion to their abandonment of socialism. Wages are improving enough that Chinese companies are opening factories in the US. An auto glass manufacturer is taking over about half the former GM plant where I used to work, I just saw on the news at work that a Chinese company is going to build flat panel TV's here. Japan went through the same process but 30 years sooner--now there are more Hondas exported from the US than imported. If you don't allow free trade, you don't allow a path for poor countries to become middle class. We can allow them a chance to improve without harming America.
From Wikipedia: The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009...amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The new act states that the 180-day statute of limitations for filing an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination resets with each new paycheck affected by that discriminatory action.
In other words, someone who claimed to be passed over for promotion in 1975 could sue over that in 2014, as long as they stayed with the company.
It is quite possible to tax consumption without harming poor people--give everyone a rebate equal to the taxes paid on some multiple of a poverty level income.
You apparently think that changing the tax rate of companies that move jobs overseas will affect their decisions...but lowering the corporate tax rate overall won't change corporate decisions on whether to manufacture in America. Stunning.
To clarify my beliefs on corporate vs individual taxes:
In a competitive market if government revenue is shifted from corporations to individuals, the cost of goods and services will go down by about the same as individual taxes go up, so short term there will be very little change in the standard of living. Long term, corporations will be encouraged to invest in the US, to bring jobs here and the overall standard of living will go up.
The Obama administration made dire claims about how bad the economy would be without federal intervention. It is unlikely in the extreme that they would deliberately underestimate the "no intervention" predictions. With intervention it was worse than their predictions. Which time were they wrong?
http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/that-moment-when-you-piss-off-a-conservative-and-a-leftie-at-the-same-time.jpg
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